Jahangir
Jahangir hung a chain of gold bells from his window so that any subject could pull it and reach him, and spent his last years too ill to govern while his wife ruled in his name. He was Akbar's eldest surviving son, born after his father had prayed for an heir at the shrine of a Sufi saint, and he rebelled against that father before inheriting from him. He took the name Jahangir, seizer of the world, and kept most of what Akbar had built: the revenue system, the tolerance of Hindu practice, the alliances with Rajput houses. The chain of justice was real and so was the theatre of it. He also wrote an unusually frank memoir, recording his addiction to wine and opium, his failures, and his observations of animals and plants in the detail of a naturalist. Painting reached its Mughal peak under him, in portraits and studies of birds made by artists he directed personally. In 1611 he married a Persian widow he named Nur Jahan, light of the world. She was the only Mughal woman to have coins struck in her name and her orders carried the imperial seal, and as his health failed she and her faction ran the empire. His son Khurram rebelled against that arrangement and later took the throne as Shah Jahan. The English arrived in his reign. Thomas Roe spent three years at his court from 1615 seeking a trading treaty, was received with courtesy and given permission to trade at Surat, and got no treaty. The empire had a revenue larger than any European state and no reason to think a company of merchants mattered.
- Lived: 1569 CE – 1627 CE
- Nationality: Mughal
- Roles: head_of_state, royalty
