Mughal Empire

Akbar Shah II (r. 1806-1837) was the penultimate Mughal emperor, holding a Delhi court that kept its ceremonial and literary life while the East India Company reduced its standing and revenue. He tried for thirty years to make Mirza Jahangir his heir instead of the future Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Akbar (r. 1556-1605) turned the Mughal foothold in India into an empire of fifteen provinces. He rebuilt the central government, created the mansabdari service and the dah-sala revenue settlement, abolished the jizya, and pursued a religious policy his contemporaries judged very differently.

Aurangzeb Alamgir (1618-1707 CE) was the sixth Mughal emperor, ruling nearly fifty years over the empire at its greatest extent. He commissioned the Fatawa-i Alamgiri, annexed Bijapur and Golconda, and spent his last decades campaigning in the Deccan.

Babur (1483-1530), a Timurid prince who lost his Central Asian homeland, conquered Kabul, and founded the Mughal Empire in India after his victory at Panipat in 1526 — equally renowned as a warrior, poet, and memoirist whose Baburnama is a masterpiece of world literature.

Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1837-1857) was the last Mughal emperor, a calligrapher and celebrated Urdu poet reigning over a Delhi court stripped of real power. Reluctantly made figurehead of the 1857 Uprising, he was tried and exiled to Rangoon, where he died in 1862, ending the Mughal dynasty.

Humayun (1508-1556), the second Mughal emperor, inherited Babur's unconsolidated conquests in 1530, lost them to Sher Shah Suri by 1540, spent some fifteen years in exile including refuge with the Safavids, and recovered Delhi in 1555 months before his death.

Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) succeeded Akbar as the fourth Mughal emperor. He issued twelve ordinances, hung a chain of justice at Agra, blinded and then had physicians treat his rebel son Khusrau, shared government with Nur Jahan, lost Kandahar to Iran, and kept a candid memoir of his reign.

Shah Jahan (1592-1666), fifth Mughal emperor, ruled from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. His reign brought Mughal architecture to its height and drained the treasury in failed campaigns for Balkh and Kandahar, ending in the succession war that raised Aurangzeb.

Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703-1762 CE), pioneering Indian Islamic scholar and reformer who revitalized Islamic thought through synthesis of Islamic sciences, emphasis on ijtihad, and efforts to bridge sectarian divisions.

The Taj Mahal (1632-1653 CE) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Located in Agra, India, this masterpiece blends Persian, Islamic, and Indian architectural traditions, representing the pinnacle of Mughal achievement.

The Mughal Empire (1526-1857) ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for three centuries, from Babur's victory at Panipat to the deposition of Bahadur Shah Zafar. At its height it was among the wealthiest and most populous states in the world.

The Timurid Empire (1370-1507 CE) was a vast Central Asian empire founded by Timur that became a major center of Islamic culture, art, and learning, bridging the medieval and early modern periods of Islamic civilization.