Mughal Empire

An empire founded by a Central Asian prince who could not hold his own inheritance, which governed most of India for two centuries and set its aesthetic terms permanently. Babur, descended from Timur and Genghis Khan, lost Samarkand repeatedly, took Kabul instead, and destroyed the Delhi Sultanate at Panipat in 1526 with field artillery. Akbar built the actual state: a centralised revenue system based on measured land and assessed yield, a ranked service nobility open to Hindus and Muslims alike, abolition of the tax on non-Muslims, and a policy of universal peace that included marriage alliances with Rajput houses and debates between theologians of every religion he could summon. That settlement is why the empire held. Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his wife and moved the capital to Delhi. Aurangzeb reimposed the tax, extended the empire to its greatest size, and spent twenty-seven years failing to finish the Marathas - an effort that broke the treasury. After 1707 the empire fragmented while its emperors remained nominally sovereign until 1858. Urdu, Mughal painting and the north Indian architectural vocabulary all date from it. The empire ran from 1526 to 1857 and at its height covered nearly the whole subcontinent. Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore and Delhi all served as capitals. Persian was the language of administration. The Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri and the Red Fort are all World Heritage sites. The word mogul in English comes from the dynasty. Its rulers were Sunni Muslims governing a large Hindu majority, which is the fact every Mughal policy had to address.

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