Portal:Mughal Empire

Topics

Culture

Geography

Health

History

Mathematics

Nature

People

Philosophy

Religion

Society

Technology

The Mughal Empire (Urdu: مغلیہ سلطنت‎, Mug̱ẖliyah Salṭanat), self-designated as Gurkani (Persian: گورکانیان‎, Gūrkāniyān), was a Persianate empire extending over large parts of the Indian subcontinent and ruled by a dynasty of Mongol and Chagatai-Turkic origin.

In the early 16th century, northern India, being then under mainly Muslim rulers, fell to the superior mobility and firepower of the Mughals. The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local societies it came to rule, but rather balanced and pacified them through new administrative practices and diverse and inclusive ruling elites, leading to more systematic, centralized, and uniform rule. Eschewing tribal bonds and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar, the Mughals united their far-flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to an emperor who had near-divine status.

The beginning of the empire is conventionally dated to the founder Babur's victory over Ibrahim Lodi in the first Battle of Panipat (1526). It reached its peak extent under Aurangzeb, and declined rapidly after his death (in 1707) under a series of ineffective rulers as well as due to Aurangzeb's extremism. The empire's collapse followed heavy losses inflicted by the smaller army of the Maratha Empire in the Deccan Wars (1680–1707), which encouraged the Nawabs of Bengal, Bhopal, Oudh, Carnatic, Rampur, and the Nizam of Hyderabad to declare their independence from the Mughals. Following the Third Anglo-Maratha war in 1818, the Mughal emperor became a pensioner of the Raj, and the empire, its power now limited to Delhi, lingered on until 1857, when it was effectively dissolved after the fall of Delhi during the Indian Rebellion that same year.

The Mughal emperors were Central Asian Turko-Mongols from modern-day Uzbekistan, who claimed direct descent from both Genghis Khan (through his son Chagatai Khan) and Timur. At the height of their power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, they controlled much of the Indian subcontinent, extending from Bengal in the east to Kabul & Sindh in the west, Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri basin in the south. Its population at that time has been estimated as between 110 and 150 million (quarter of the world's population), over a territory of more than 3.2 million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles).

More about the Mughal Empire...

The Tomb of Jahangir (Urdu: مقبرہُ جہانگیر‎, Punjabi: جہانگير دا مقبرہ) is a mausoleum built for Jahangir, who ruled the Mughal Empire from 1605 to 1627. The mausoleum is located in Shahdara Bagh in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.

The entrance to the mausoleum is through two massive gateways of stone and masonry opposite each other (to the north and south) which lead to a square enclosure known as the Akbari Serai. This enclosure leads to another one, on the Western side, giving full view of the garden in front of the mausoleum, which is traversed by four bricked canals proceeding from the center, and in which many fountains were placed which are now ruined. The corridor around the mausoleum is adorned with a very elegant mosaic, representing flowers and verses from the Quran.

The mausoleum is a building with one floor. The ground floor has a square shape. Its structure consists of a platform with a tall, octagonal tower and a projecting entrance in the middle of each side. The exterior of the mausoleum, including the lowest stage of the towers, is clad with red sandstone facing with rich panel decoration inlaid with marble decorative motifs. The four corners of the tower, with the white marble cupolas, rise in five stages to a height of 100 feet (30m) with a zigzag inlay of white and yellow marble. The building is divided into a series of vaulted compartments. The interior is embellished with floral frescoes with delicate inlay work and marble of various colours.

Read more...

• What are portals?
• List of portals
• Featured portals