Mughal Empire

  General Description   The Mughal Empire was one of the largest centralized states in premodern world history. By the late 1600s, it covered most of the Indian subcontinent. The empire was founded by Babur (reigned 1526-1530 CE), who had invaded northern India from central Asia. He defeated the Delhi sultan at Panipat and occupied Delhi and Agra before moving on to Bengal. His grandson, Abu Akbar (’the Great’) consolidated Mughal rule in the north through a series of military campaigns, notable for their use of field artillery. Akbar was also a great administrator, establishing a system of salaried civil and military office holding, combined with efficient taxation. Revenue was collected on the basis of land assessments, administered by local tax farmers, and the system served to integrate both Hindu and Muslim elites into the state. This period saw a flourishing of Indo-Muslim culture, particularly in the fields of painting and architecture. Economically, India was the centre of mercantile activity within the Indian Ocean; its manufactured goods, especially cotton textiles, were in huge demand. The reign of Shah Jahan (1628-1658 CE) is seen as the high point of Mughal culture, represented above all by the construction of the Taj Mahal. His son Aurangzeb (reigned 1658-1707) was more aggressive military and eventually incorporated most of India into the empire, at least formally. The state was run on increasingly military lines and was more assertively Muslim. After Aurangzeb’s death the empire began to disintegrate, encouraged by infighting and corruption among elites. The Mughals had lost much of their territory and power by the mid-18th century. The Marathas, a dynasty of Hindu warriors, became the dominant force in India during the 1700s, followed by the British in the early 19th century. Delhi was taken by the armies of the East India Company in 1803, but the Mughals carried on as rulers of Delhi until 1857. Following the Indian Rebellion, the British exiled the last king, Bahadur Shah II, who had given the rebels his support. ^[1]
Population and political organization
The two main branches of the Mughal empire were dedicated to revenue and military affairs. The emperor, seen as a divinely inspired patriarch, supervised his revenue and military officials through frequent travelling, and curbed their political ambitions by transferring them frequently, requiring them to attend court regularly, and assigning them responsibilities that cross-cut those of other officials. ^[2]
At its peak, in the late 1600s, the Mughal Empire comprised between 100 and 150 million inhabitants. ^[3]

[1]: (Richards 1995, 1-5) John F. Richards. 1995. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2]: (Blake 1979) Stephen Blake. 1979. ’The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals’. The Journal of Asian Studies 39 (1): 77-94.

[3]: (Richards 1995, 1, 190) John F. Richards. 1995. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.