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Akbar’s Conquest of North India: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

A boy emperor's regent won Panipat in 1556; fifty years later Akbar ruled from Kabul to Bengal and the Deccan and had built the Mughal state.

Fought
1556 to 1605
Duration
49 years
Dates
1556 to 1605
Deaths
Unknown; the sack of Chittor in 1568 alone killed perhaps 30,000
Mughal side
Akbar; Bairam Khan, Man Singh, Todar Mal, Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan
Opponents
Hemu and the Surs; Malwa, Rajput kingdoms (Mewar), Gujarat, Bengal, Kashmir, Sind, Deccan sultanates, Uzbeks and Afghans
Result
Mughal Empire spans North India and the northern Deccan

Akbar's conquests (1556-1605) turned the shaky Mughal restoration of his father Humayun into an empire covering most of the subcontinent. Bairam Khan's victory over Hemu at Panipat in November 1556 secured Delhi; Akbar then took Malwa (1561), Gondwana (1564), the Rajput fortresses of Chittor (1568) and Ranthambore (1569), Gujarat (1573), Bengal (1576), Kabul (1585), Kashmir (1586), Sind (1591), Kandahar (1595) and Ahmadnagar and Khandesh in the Deccan (1600-1601). Marriage alliances with Rajput houses, abolition of the jizya and Rajput generals like Man Singh bound the conquered into the empire; the mansabdari system organised the army and bureaucracy.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Akbar's conquest of North India. 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.

12001300140015001600170018001900Akbar's conquest of North India (1556 to 1605)Open: Delhi SultanateDelhi Sultanate (1206 to 1526)Open: Bahmani-Vijayanagar warsBahmani-Vijayanagar wars (1362 to 1509)Open: First Portuguese EmpireFirst Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)Open: Safavid EmpireSafavid Empire (1501 to 1736)Open: Mughal EmpireMughal Empire (1526 to 1857)Open: First French colonial empireFirst French colonial empire (1534 to 1814)Open: Maratha EmpireMaratha Empire (1674 to 1818)Open: Deccan warsDeccan wars (1680 to 1707)

Mughal territory under Akbar

00.751.52.2531556: 0.31570: 11580: 1.81595: 2.51605: 31560156515701575158015851590159516001605million km2 (approximate)

Timeline of the Akbar's conquest of North India

  1. 1556
    Second Battle of Panipat
  2. 1560
    Akbar dismisses Bairam Khan
  3. 1562
    Amber alliance
  4. 1568
    Chittor falls
  5. 1573
    Gujarat conquered
  6. 1576
    Bengal conquered; Haldighati
  7. 1586
    Kashmir annexed
  8. 1595
    Kandahar taken
  9. 1601
    Asirgarh falls
  10. 1605
    Akbar dies

Panipat and the regency

Humayun regained Delhi in 1555 and died months later, leaving 13-year-old Akbar and the Turkoman general Bairam Khan. Hemu, the Hindu general of the Sur remnant, took Delhi and proclaimed himself Raja Vikramaditya; at Panipat on 5 November 1556 an arrow in the eye felled him and his elephant army broke. Bairam Khan ran the state until Akbar dismissed him in 1560 and, after a struggle with his foster-family, took power himself.

Rajputs, Gujarat and Bengal

Akbar married the daughter of the Kachhwaha raja of Amber in 1562, the first of many Rajput alliances. Chittor, capital of Mewar's Sisodias, fell after a four-month siege in 1568 with a massacre of the townspeople; Ranthambore surrendered in 1569, but Rana Pratap of Mewar fought on from the hills after Haldighati (1576). Gujarat's ports were taken in a lightning campaign in 1572-1573 (Akbar rode 600 miles in nine days to crush a revolt), and Bengal's Afghan sultanate fell in 1576. Todar Mal's revenue survey and the mansab ranking system followed.

The frontiers and the Deccan

Akbar moved his court to Lahore in 1585 to face the Uzbeks and secure the north-west, taking Kabul from his brother's heirs, Kashmir, Sind, Baluchistan and Kandahar. In the 1590s his armies pressed south: Ahmadnagar was stormed in 1600 after Chand Bibi's defence, and Khandesh's fortress of Asirgarh fell in 1601. Akbar died in 1605 ruling some 100 million people; his empire's institutions lasted until Aurangzeb's overreach a century later.

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8 surprising things about the Akbar's conquest of North India

  1. Akbar was illiterate but had books read to him daily and built a library of 24,000 volumes.
  2. He abolished the jizya tax on non-Muslims in 1564 and founded a debating hall where Jesuits, Jains, Hindus and Zoroastrians argued religion before him.
  3. The siege of Chittor used mines, sabat covered trenches and Akbar's own musket shot, which killed the fort's commander Jaimal.
  4. Rana Pratap's horse Chetak, who died carrying him from Haldighati, has a monument and features in Rajput ballads.
  5. Akbar's ride of about 600 miles from Fatehpur Sikri to Gujarat in nine days in 1573 is one of history's great forced marches.
  6. Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri as his capital and abandoned it after 14 years, probably for lack of water.
  7. His finance minister Todar Mal's revenue system was so effective the British used it as a model.
  8. The Deccan campaigns of the 1590s were commanded in part by his son Murad, who died of drink.

Sources

  • Akbar Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Akbar Wikipedia
  • Akbar the Great World History Encyclopedia
  • John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire (1993) Cambridge University Press

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