The Mughals: Who Were They?

In what is now Northern India, in the year 1526, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, a prince from Central Asia, and Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi were preparing to engage in combat. The Sultan sends in his war elephants to fight in order to neutralize the danger.

However, it's been said that Babur's gun and musket booms scared the elephants, causing them to stomp the Sultan's own troops. Babur had long-held aspirations of founding his own dynasty. Even though he was descended from some of history's greatest conquerors, he had trouble standing out among Central Asia's numerous ambitious princes.

He then focused on India, where his ancestors continued to live and establish the Mughal Empire, one of the richest and most potent nations in early modernity and the home of almost a quarter of the world's population. Four years after that crucial war, Babur lost his life, but his ancestors' works and his own memoirs helped to vividly immortalize him. His daughter Gulbadan described how Babur, who had recently given up drinking, filled a newly built pool with lemonade rather than wine in her own biography.

One represented the founder of the empire galloping through his camp while drunk and fell over his horse. His grandson, Akbar, commissioned superb miniature paintings of Babur's stories. Akbar was responsible for establishing Mughal authority. He put in place peasant safeguards, which increased their output and increased tax revenue. He also launched military missions to increase the size of the Mughal empire. Princes who swore fealty to him were rewarded, but those who rebelled were brutally executed along with many of their subjects.

The Mughals were able to trade with Arab, Chinese, Ottoman, and European traders thanks to his conquests, which provided access to port cities on the Indian Ocean. Silver and new harvests from the Americas were among the immeasurable wealth they brought with them. By appointing members of the Hindu majority to high positions in his government, marrying a Hindu bride, and giving translated copies of the "Mahabharata," an old Indian epic poem, to his Muslim nobles, Akbar, the Muslim ruler of a diverse, multiethnic empire, worked to foster internal cohesion.

In addition, Akbar sponsored vigorous religious discussions between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, and the recently arrived Portuguese Jesuit missionaries all promoted the virtues of their respective faiths. Portuguese missionaries were upset by their failure to convert Akbar, however the majority of participants saw this as an intellectual exercise.

The Mughals created architectural marvels like the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort, a palace with 50,000 rooms that was three kilometers away and held the majestic Peacock Throne covered in gold and jewels. Construction of the throne alone took seven years. The fact that there were only six emperors in the first 180 years contributed to the stability of the Mughal empire. When the fourth emperor, Jahangir, battled alcoholism and drug addiction, his wife, Nur Jahan, assumed control as co-regent.

She arranged her husband's release after a treacherous general kidnapped him during a coup attempt and rallied the soldiers to put down the uprising. Her hunting party tracked down a tiger that was terrorizing a village. This inspired one poet to pen the following line: "Though Nur Jahan be in the shape of a woman/ In the ranks of men she's a tiger-slayer."

Seven emperors assumed the throne during the course of the following 21 years after the death of the sixth emperor, Aurangzeb, in 1707. These frequent changes of power were a reflection of the greater social, political, economic, and environmental issues that afflicted the empire for much of the 18th century. In response to this unrest, local authorities began to withhold taxes and rebel against Mughal rule.

In order to strengthen its political clout and eventually seize direct control of Bengal, one of India's richest provinces, the British East India Company provided military assistance to these local leaders. The East India Company possessed a sizable standing army that comprised Indian soldiers by the 19th century and wielded enormous political sway.

The British government interfered when these troops rose up in 1857, hoping to drive the British out and restore Mughal control. They replaced company administration with direct colonial rule and removed the last Mughal emperor, sending him into exile. The Mughal Empire was thus overthrown more than three centuries after its founding.