The Mughal

Empire
1526-1858 A.D.
By: Lauren Sibille,
Asia DaCosta
Marilyn Sanabria
2
nd
Period

The white area on the map is
where the Mughal Empire was
during most of its rule.
Background Information
The Mughal (or Mogul) Empire ruled most of India and Pakistan in the 16th
and 17th centuries.
It consolidated Islam in South Asia, and spread Muslim (and particularly
Persian) arts and culture as well as the faith.
The Mughals were Muslims who ruled a country with a large Hindu
majority.
However, for much of their empire they allowed Hindus to reach senior
government or military positions.
The foundation of the Mughal Empire was established around 1504 by Al-
Din Muhammad. Also known as Babur (The Tiger).
Muhammad was a Chagatai Turk who claimed descent from both Genghis
Khan and Tamerlane. He took control of Kabul (the largest city in
Afghanistan) and eastern regions of Khorasan, which included the fertile
Sindh region and lower valley of Indus River.
In 1526, the Muhammad defeated the last of the Turkic Delhi Sultans,
Ibrahim Sha Lodi, at the First Battle of Panipat to put the newly founded
Kingdom in motion.
Why was the Mughal Empire
important?
The Mughals brought many changes to India:
Centralized government which brought together
many smaller kingdoms
Delegated government with respect for human
rights
Persian art and culture
Persian language mixed with Arabic and Hindi to
create Urdu
Periods of great religious tolerance
A style of architecture (e.g. the Taj Mahal)
A system of education that took account of
pupils' needs and culture
Political Organization
The Empire Babur founded was a sophisticated
civilization based on religious toleration. It was a
mixture of Persian, Mongol, and Indian culture.
While Humayun, Baburs successor, was certainly
disastrous as a ruler, his love of poetry and
culture heavily influenced his son Akbar, and
helped to make the Mughal Empire an artistic
power as well as a military one.
Akbar established a form of delegated government
in which the provincial governors were personally
responsible to him for the quality of government
in their territory.
This is a Delhi tomb in India.
Emperors of the Mughal Empire
Babur, the first Mughal emperor, was
followed by his son Humayun who was a
bad emperor, a better poet, and a drug
addict.
The third Emperor, Abu Akbar, is regarded
as one of the great rulers of all time.
Akbar was followed by Jahangir, and then
his son Jahan. They both had major
religious and cultural influences in the
Mughal Empire.


Emperors (cont.)
Jahan's son, Aurangzeb, was to be the last great
Mughal Emperor.
He was a strong leader, whose conquests
expanded the Mughal Empire to its greatest size.
Under Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire reached the
peak of its military power, but the rule was unstable
mostly because the empire got too big to handle.
Aurangzeb's extremism caused Mughal territory to
dry up and the Empire went into decline. The last
Mughal Emperor was disposed of by the British in
1858.
You can see here
that only under the
emperors Jahan and
Aurangzeb did the
Mughal Empire ever
reach most of India.
Role of Religion
Under Babur, Hinduism was tolerated and new
Hindu temples were built with his permission.
Baburs first act after conquering Delhi was to
forbid the killing of cows because that was
offensive to Hindus.
He even wrote an autobiography, The Babur -
Namah. The autobiography is candid, honest, and
at times even poetic.
Akbar proclaimed an entirely new state religion of
'God-ism', a jumble of Islamic, Hindu, Christian and
Buddhist teaching with himself as deity. It never
spread beyond his court and died when he did.
Role of Religion (cont.)
Fatehpur Sikri was the new capital built by
Akbar.
Akbar believed that that a ruler's duty was
to treat all believers equally, all religions
should be tolerated, and, whatever their
belief.
Akbar's son, Emperor Jahangir, readopted
Islam as the state religion and continued
the policy of religious toleration.
His court included large numbers of Indian
Hindus, Persian Shi'a and Sufis and
members of local heterodox Islamic sects.


This is the famous Fatehpur Sikri
which was the new capital built
by Akbar, as a part of his attempt
to absorb other religions into
Islam.
Fatehpur Sikri is a synthesis of
Hindu and Islamic architecture.

Cultural Developments
Jahangir began building the magnificent
monuments and gardens by which the
Mughals are chiefly remembered today.
Jahangir's approach was typified by the
development of Urdu as the official language
of Empire.
Urdu uses an Arabic script, but Persian
vocabulary and Hindi grammatical structure.
Jahan, Jahangirs successor, commissioned
the Taj Mahal.
This is the world famous Taj Mahal
which was built by Emperor Jahan as a
symbol of the empires stability,
power, and confidence.
Social Aspects
Generally the Mughal Empire is thought of as a prosperous
time period.
Even though the Mughal Empire existed 300-500 years
ago, its influence still exists in current day India.
The social aspects of the Mughal Empire and India today
especially relate including family life, religion, art, music,
literature, and education.

During the Mughal Empire, women had a significant role in
family life.
Women received salaries, owned land, participated in
business transactions, and literary activities.
Aristocratic women painted, wrote poetry, and played music
because they received a higher education.




Social Aspects (cont.)
The Mughal Empire was run by Muslim emperors, however
India was and still is Hindu dominated.
Hindus, specifically of the upper class, adopted the Muslim
practice of isolating women, called purda.
The Hindu practice of cremation of widows, called suttee,
continued even though the Mughals tried to abolish it.
The Mughal rulers sometimes forced Islam upon the
Hindus, but many times the Hindus resisted.
Hindu men would marry Islam women and convert them to
Hinduism in order to keep their religion prominent.
Families looked down upon Hindus if one converted to
Islam.
Child marriage also remained common.
Depending on the emperor, there was religious acceptance
and tolerance, but religious segregation still existed.

Economic Developments
Productive agricultural economy was the base and
foundation to all of the Islamic empires.
They relied heavily on crops of wheat and rice.
The profit from agricultural trade and production
went mostly to finance armies and
bureaucracies.
The Columbian exchange brought change (though
not as dramatic as the change in Europe and
Asia) by introducing American food crops
such as maize, potatoes, and tomatoes.
Maize was used as feed for animals because it
was not popular for food use for the Islamic
people.
Economic Developments (cont.)
Tobacco and coffee traded by European merchants
became very popular in the 16th century.
Plantations specialized in the production of these
items in a similar way as sugar in America.
The interest in coffee and tobacco sparked a new
tradition of coffee and smoke houses where the
people could indulge in both of the addictive
substances.
In the mid sixteenth century, both the drink and
tobacco were outlawed because of their distraction
on moral teachings.
The rise in population in the Mughal empire was
attributed mainly to their success in agriculture
rather than trade. The people of the Mughal empire
also participated actively.
Bibliography
"History of the Mughals." SSCNet. 31 Jan.
2008
<http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/His
tory/ Mughals/mughals.html>. "History
of the Mughals." SSCNet. 31 Jan. 2008
<http://www.BBC.co.uk/religion/religions/is
lam/history/mughal empire_1.shtml>.
"Social Aspects of the Mughal Empire in
India." Menloschool. 31 Jan. 2008
<http://sun.menloschool.org/~sportman/we
sternstudies/first/1718/2000/cblock/mughal
/social.html>.