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Mughal Empire: A Visual History

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Visual history of an empire

Descendants of Timur and Genghis who ruled most of India for two centuries and built the Taj Mahal.

Existed
1526 to 1857
Duration
331 years
Existed
1526 to 1857
Peak area
About 4 million km2 (1690)
Peak population
About 150 million (1700)
Capitals
Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore, Delhi (Shahjahanabad)
Great Mughals
Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb

The Mughal Empire was founded by Babur, a Timurid prince from Fergana who took Delhi in 1526. Akbar (1556-1605) turned it into a stable, tolerant empire ruling most of North India; Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal; and Aurangzeb (1658-1707) extended it almost to the southern tip of the subcontinent while overstretching it. At its peak it had about 150 million people, a quarter of the world, and produced a similar share of world GDP. It fragmented after 1707, and the last emperor was exiled by the British after the 1857 rebellion.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Mughal Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

120013001400150016001700180019002000Mughal Empire (1526 to 1857)Open: Delhi SultanateDelhi Sultanate (1206 to 1526)Open: Timurid EmpireTimurid Empire (1370 to 1507)Open: First Portuguese EmpireFirst Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)Open: Safavid EmpireSafavid Empire (1501 to 1736)Open: Akbar's conquest of North IndiaAkbar's conquest of North India (1556 to 1605)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: Maratha EmpireMaratha Empire (1674 to 1818)Open: Deccan warsDeccan wars (1680 to 1707)Open: War of the Austrian SuccessionWar of the Austrian Succession (1740 to 1748)Open: Maratha invasions of BengalMaratha invasions of Bengal (1741 to 1751)Open: Seven Years' WarSeven Years' War (1756 to 1763)Open: Sikh EmpireSikh Empire (1799 to 1849)Open: Indian Rebellion of 1857Indian Rebellion of 1857 (1857 to 1858)

Mughal territory

012341526: 0.41556: 0.61605: 2.51650: 31690: 41720: 31760: 0.51803: 0.02155016001650170017501800million km2 (approximate)

Timeline of the Mughal Empire

  1. 1526
    First Battle of PanipatBabur takes Delhi.
  2. 1556
    Akbar becomes emperorSecond Battle of Panipat.
  3. 1571
    Fatehpur Sikri built
  4. 1632
    Taj Mahal begunCompleted about 1653.
  5. 1658
    Aurangzeb seizes the throne
  6. 1687
    Golconda fallsThe empire at its greatest extent.
  7. 1707
    Aurangzeb diesDecline begins.
  8. 1739
    Nadir Shah sacks DelhiThe Peacock Throne carried off to Persia.
  9. 1803
    British take DelhiThe emperor becomes a pensioner.
  10. 1857
    Bahadur Shah II exiledThe empire abolished.

Babur and Akbar

Babur, driven from Samarkand by the Uzbeks, took Kabul and in 1526 defeated the Delhi Sultan at Panipat with field guns and Central Asian tactics. His son Humayun lost the empire to Sher Shah Suri and won it back only in 1555. Akbar, succeeding at 13, conquered Rajputana, Gujarat, Bengal and Kashmir, abolished the tax on non-Muslims, married Rajput princesses, created the mansabdar ranking system for officials, and hosted debates between Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians and Jesuits at Fatehpur Sikri.

Jahangir and Shah Jahan

Jahangir's reign (1605-1627) was the age of miniature painting and the arrival of the English East India Company. Shah Jahan (1628-1658) built the Taj Mahal for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, the Red Fort and Jama Masjid of Delhi, and the Peacock Throne. Mughal India was the world's leading manufacturer of cotton textiles and its treasury dwarfed those of European monarchs.

Aurangzeb and decline

Aurangzeb imprisoned his father and killed his brothers to seize the throne in 1658. He conquered the Deccan sultanates and pushed the empire to its greatest extent, but reimposed the jizya, alienated Rajputs and Sikhs, and spent 25 years in the south fighting the Marathas. After his death in 1707 succession wars, Nadir Shah's sack of Delhi in 1739 and Maratha, Afghan and British expansion reduced the emperors to figureheads in the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah II was tried by the British after 1857 and died in exile in Rangoon.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

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8 surprising things about the Mughal Empire

  1. Babur wrote a candid memoir, the Baburnama, complaining among other things that India had no good melons.
  2. Akbar was illiterate but kept a library of 24,000 books and had them read aloud to him.
  3. The Taj Mahal took some 20,000 workers about 22 years, and its white marble came from Rajasthan 300 km away.
  4. The Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Peacock Throne were both taken from Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1739.
  5. In 1700 Mughal India's share of world manufacturing output was around 25 percent.
  6. Aurangzeb was so austere that he paid for his own burial by sewing caps and copying Qurans.
  7. The word 'mogul' for a powerful magnate comes from the dynasty.
  8. The last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was a noted Urdu poet; his grave in Rangoon was only rediscovered in 1991.

Sources

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