Mughal Empire
1526-1857 CE
9 articles: 7 persons, 1 building, 1 dynasty
A great empire of the Indian subcontinent, celebrated for architecture, arts, and religious diversity.
Akbar Shah II: A Mughal Emperor Without an Empire
Akbar Shah II (r. 1806-1837) was the penultimate Mughal emperor, ruling a Delhi court stripped of real power and increasingly hemmed in by the East India Company. He tried and failed to make his favourite son, Mirza Jahangir, heir apparent in place of his eldest son, the future Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Aurangzeb Alamgir: The Last Great Mughal Emperor
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: The Tiger of Hindustan
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: The Last Mughal Emperor
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: The Emperor Who Lost and Regained an Empire
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: The Fourth Mughal Emperor
Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) succeeded his father Akbar as the fourth Mughal emperor. His reign is remembered for the flourishing of Mughal painting, his marriage to Nur Jahan, the memoir he kept of his own reign, and the steady growth of European trading contact through the English East India Company.
Shah Jahan: The Builder Emperor and the Limits of Mughal Power
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.
Taj Mahal - Monument to Eternal Love
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: Three Centuries of Islamic Rule in the Indian Subcontinent
The Mughal Empire (1526-1857) ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for three centuries, creating a distinctive Indo-Islamic civilization with magnificent architecture, sophisticated administration, and lasting cultural achievements blending Persian, Central Asian, and Indian traditions.