Humayun
Humayun lost the empire his father had won, spent fifteen years getting it back, and died six months later falling down his own library stairs. He inherited from Babur in 1530 an unconsolidated conquest rather than a state: territory taken in five years, held by an army of Central Asian nobles who expected to share it, and surrounded by Afghan power that had not been broken. He was cultured, generous, addicted to opium and, by every account including friendly ones, dilatory. He divided the inheritance with his brothers as Timurid custom required, which guaranteed that any crisis would find him fighting them as well as his enemies. Sher Shah Suri, an Afghan commander of real ability, beat him at Chausa in 1539 and again at Kannauj in 1540 and took the empire. Humayun fled through Sind into exile in Persia, where the Safavid shah sheltered him on the condition that he convert to Shia Islam. His son Akbar was born during that flight, at Umarkot, to a family with nothing. He returned with Persian troops, took Kabul, and reoccupied Delhi in 1555 when the Suri dynasty fell apart in its own succession war. In January 1556 he was carrying books down the stone staircase of his library when the call to prayer sounded, turned to kneel, caught his foot in his robe and fell. He died three days later. The empire passed to a thirteen-year-old, and what Akbar built on it is the reason his father is remembered mainly for the staircase.
- Lived: 1508 CE – 1556 CE
- Nationality: Mughal
- Roles: head_of_state
