To punish Shah Jahan further, Jahangir spitefully repudiated his five-year-old vow against hunting (taken to ensure the recovery of Shah Jahan’s son from illness). More materially, Jahangir appointed Shahriyar to command the futile and abortive expedition to retake Qandahar. Additionally, Jahangir appointed Parvez to resume the Deccan command with mansab 40,000/30,000, thereby replacing and outranking Shah Jahan.
Despite Shah Jahan’s superior military reputation, once openly rebellious against the Emperor, he lost repeatedly against stronger imperial armies. Each time, his status as imperial prince and possible next emperor enabled him to gather more forces, only to be defeated again. He fled to Golkonda, Orissa, Bengal, Bihar, Allahabad, then temporarily received refuge from Malik Ambar in Ahmadnagar. Finally, Shah Jahan negotiated a submissive truce, sending his sons to Nur Jahan as hostages and agreeing to stay in the Deccan, away from the imperial court. So harried was Shah Jahan that, in 1626, he decided to seek shelter in Iran with the Safavid Shah (as had two of his ancestors). But the Mughal governor in Sind blocked his passage and the Iranian Shah offered no aid.54
Meanwhile, veteran general Mahabat Khan, who supported Parvez, emerged as another rival for control over the Emperor. This Afghan warrior had fought up the ranks, serving Jahangir from his Allahabad days onward, with much experience and success on the battlefield. By 1623, he had reached mansab 7,000/7,000 with the commanding titles Khan-i Khanan and Sipahsalar (‘Army Commander’). In March 1626, Mahabat Khan staged a coup, capturing Jahangir from Nur Jahan and Asaf Khan. Mahabat Khan kept anxious Jahangir in custody, successfully repulsing armed attempts to recapture the Emperor. Mahabat Khan could have executed Jahangir, and perhaps ended the Mughal dynasty, or he could have enthroned his own favored candidate, Parvez. Instead, as would happen repeatedly during the next century, Mahabat Khan respected the incumbent Emperor’s sovereignty; he escorted Jahangir to Kabul in a fruitless attempt to retake Qandahar and then back to the Punjab.
After a few months, Nur Jahan mobilized enough military force for a successful counter-coup. Her loyalists forced Mahabat Khan to relinquish custody of Jahangir. Mahabat Khan then joined his former opponent, Shah Jahan. Further, Parvez died from alcoholism, eliminating that claimant. The succession, however, remained uncertain.
Jahangir’s health continued to decline. After his final visit to Kashmir, he died back in Punjab in October 1627. This deprived Nur Jahan of her strongest claim to imperial authority: acting in Jahangir’s name. Asaf Khan ousted his sister and, to forestall an interregnum, enthroned Dawar Bakhsh (r. 1627–8), Khusrau’s eldest surviving son. Meanwhile, Asaf Khan summoned his real candidate (and son-in-law), Shah Jahan, from the distant Deccan. Asaf Khan and Shah Jahan defeated, imprisoned, blinded and then executed Shahriyar, along with his younger brother. Asaf Khan then executed the temporary emperor, Dawar Bakhsh, plus two sons of Daniyal (both converts to Catholicism), and many of their followers.
This bloody elimination of unsuccessful potential claimants to the throne became typical of Mughal successions henceforth, as the ideology of a single, imperial incumbent overlay the earlier Central Asian-based Mughal tradition of familial shared sovereignty (although the latter remained a potential model until the dynasty’s end).55 This ideology made succession struggles desperate affairs for each prince: accede to the throne or die. Many scholars regard these contested Mughal successions as an inherent weakness since they squandered lives and resources; others see the deadly struggles by princes for supremacy as rigorous testing of their abilities to mobilize constituencies, thus ultimately strengthening the imperial dynasty as a whole.56
Instead of execution, Nur Jahan was allowed by triumphant Shah Jahan to withdraw quietly from imperial politics. She completed her parents’ artistically innovative and expensive tomb near Agra. This had a white marble-clad exterior with particularly intricate stone carving. Much of the interior and exterior surfaces were decorated with flowers, cypresses, vases and wine jugs, all Iranian motifs in a technique Europeans call pietra dura (inlaid semi-precious stones). These features thereafter all became prominent in Mughal imperial architecture. Nur Jahan also constructed a more simple tomb for herself and her widowed daughter, Ladli, near Jahangir’s grave at Lahore.57
Tomb of I‘timad-ud-Daula and Asmat Begum and interior, commissioned by Nur Jahan58
When Shah Jahan reached Agra, Asaf Khan installed him as Emperor in 1628 with himself as chief minister holding mansab 8,000/8,000. Shah Jahan proceeded to reshape the imperial court over his three-decade-long rule. However, many of the tensions that marked Jahangir’s reign persisted even as Shah Jahan added to the splendor of the Mughal Empire.
8
EMPEROR SHAH JAHAN AND BUILDING UP THE MUGHAL EMPIRE, 1628–58/66
…many valuable gems had come into the Imperial jewel-house, each one of which might serve as an ear-drop for Venus or would adorn the girdle of the Sun. Upon the accession of the Emperor, it occurred to his mind that … the acquisition of such rare jewels … can only render one service, that of adorning the throne of empire … [so] that beholders might share in and benefit from their splendor, and that Majesty might shine with increased brilliance.
Shaikh ‘Abd-al-Hamid Lahori, court historian about Shah Jahan1
After six years fleeing imperial armies, Shah Jahan succeeded dramatically as emperor. He then commanded the production of manifestations of his imperial splendor, including the Peacock Throne, the Taj Mahal and his entirely new capital, Shahjahanabad. He fought for years to subdue residual opposition from mansabdars and regional rulers and to extend his Empire’s frontiers, especially south and north-west. To fund all these projects, he decreased the real income of mansabdars, even as their nominal ranks rose. But he exceeded the limits of imperial power and his own. After two decades, Shah Jahan had weakened politically and physically. His four sons fought a bloody civil war; the victor seized Shah Jahan’s throne, imprisoning him for eight years until his death.
ACCESSION AND THE DECCAN WARS, 1628–36
When 36-year-old Prince Shah Jahan reached Agra early in 1628, he was installed as Emperor by Asaf Khan, the most powerful mansabdar. Then, on an especially auspicious day in August, they repeated the coronation with even more pomp. Ritualized representations of imperial power remained essential to the new Emperor and his close supporters as they sought to contrast the new regime from the previous decade under increasingly enfeebled Jahangir.
Despite Jahangir’s draining of the imperial treasury, Shah Jahan nevertheless determined to lavishly display his own imperial glory. He soon commissioned the uniquely brilliant golden Peacock Throne: a raised 6.3-square-meter platform under a 4.6-meter-high canopy surmounted by ornamental peacocks, everything thickly gemencrusted. It took seven years, until 1635, to accumulate the vast amounts of bullion and precious stones (worth about ten million rupees) and to craft the throne that Shah Jahan considered worthy of his reign. From when he first occupied his Peacock Throne, over the next century, all who saw or heard of it were awed with Mughal magnificence (indicating the Empire’s security, this throne remained intact until 1739, even when emperors were long distant; it remains legendary today).
He retained the royal title, Shah Jahan, bestowed by his father. But he added others, including Sahib-i Qiran-i Sani, ‘Second Lord of the [Astrological] Conjunction,’ evoking his ancestor Timur (‘Lord of the Conjunction’) with status as millennial sovereign.2 From his youth, Shah Jahan wore a full beard, breaking with Akbar’s and Jahangir’s practice of shaving all but a mustache, but emulating Timur and also many religiously observant Sunnis.
Shah Jahan identified strongly with his Sunni Central Asian ancestors. His grandfather, Akbar, had entrusted his upbringing to his Turani grandmother, Ruqaiya Sultana Begum. Indeed, Shah Jahan always devoutly performed the required five daily prayers and Ramadan-month fast. He reinstated imperial sponsorship of Hajj pilgrims, sending nine missions to Mecca with generous donations. Although Jahangir had compelled him to start drinking a
lcohol at age 24, he repudiated this at 30 (distinguishing himself from his many alcoholic relatives). The proportion of Sunni Turanis among high mansabdars rose during his reign. He favored orthodox Sunni ‘ulama and generally enforced the Sharia more than his predecessors. Additionally, he associated with orthodox Sunni Naqshbandis.
Imperial Farman with Shah Jahan’s Handprint3
Shah Jahan also patronized the India-based Chishti and Shattari Sunni Sufi orders. Approaching his accession, Shah Jahan devotedly attended Mu‘in-ud-Din Chishti’s shrine at Ajmer. There, he constructed an impressive white marble mosque (completed 1637–8) plus an imperial palace; he would revisit thrice more (1636, 1643, 1654) often approaching on foot.4 He also respected the Shi‘ism of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, her father, Asaf Khan, and his numerous other Irani mansabdars.
Shah Jahan’s biological mother was a Hindu Rathor Rajput of Marwar. Among Rajputs, Shah Jahan favored Rathors. But he also employed other Rajputs extensively as warriors, including on several imperial expeditions into distant Central Asia. However, he gave Rajputs no high appointments in his central administration and only one governorship. Further, he strongly condemned marriages in which either spouse left Islam for Hinduism. While his armies destroyed the Hindu temples of defeated enemies and, in 1633, he forbade the construction of new Hindu temples, these were largely punitive political policies rather than religiously motivated ones.
Canopied Jharoka, Lahore
Overall, Shah Jahan made his court more gloriously stately. His demeanor remained grave, solemn and elevated (in contrast to Akbar’s sincere questioning of diverse visitors and to Jahangir’s quizzing them). Shah Jahan had his jharoka made into a raised, vaulted loggia, removing him spatially and symbolically from those assembled below. He replaced the temporary canopy over assembled courtiers (which allowed intrusive rain) with more formal pillared halls, first of wood then of stone.5 These halls were also used for the formal distribution of imperial charity. Shah Jahan ended the deep prostrations of sijdah (‘forehead to the ground’) and zamin-bos (‘kiss the ground’)—used for Akbar and Jahangir, who centered imperial cults on themselves—which some orthodox Muslims considered ungodly worship of the emperor. Instead, Shah Jahan directed that courtiers and others approaching him should use the more dignified but still respectful triple taslim (thrice raising from the ground the back of one’s right hand to touch palm to forehead).6 Thus, Shah Jahan sought to bind mansabdars to him not through discipleship but rather through formal court rituals and life-long loyal service (epitomized by khanazad mansabdars).
Shah Jahan also asserted control over his reign’s official histories. Unlike Babur and Jahangir who personally wrote their own memoirs, Shah Jahan instead closely supervised the series of historians he commissioned to compile his massive official regnal chronicle, the Padshahnama.7 Shah Jahan had drafts regularly read out for his correction or elaboration. After reigning ten years, Shah Jahan changed from solar to lunar dating (thus conforming to the Islamic calendar), requiring retroactive rewriting of the manuscript by the latest new author (and confusing revenue and other official record systems).
Similarly under Shah Jahan’s close supervision, his atelier reflected his formalistic taste for polished, static scenes elaborately displaying his imperial power.8 His commissioned portraits present him in majestic full profile with halo. Non-imperial paintings during his reign showed much innovation, but imperial artists emphasised the stability and gravity of events, even festivities like royal wedding celebrations. War scenes showed not Shah Jahan fighting but rather his generals enacting the ever-victorious orders of their distant but commanding emperor (closer to Jahangir’s style than Akbar’s). In court scenes, Shah Jahan had each man accurately painted as an individual in profile, but not interacting with each other. Rather, all courtiers appeared focused on him on the Peacock Throne. This reflected his court’s heightened decorum: courtiers stood for hours, not speaking or moving without permission—many carried elegant canes to lean on during these prolonged twice-daily formal audiences. Imperial artists also widely incorporated select European motifs and techniques, thereby suggesting his lofty power over Christian iconography.
Emperor Shah Jahan (detail), attributed to Bichitr, c. 1650. Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.78.9.15) www.LACMA.org
Also adorning his court were many diplomatic missions, from Safavid, Uzbek, Ottoman and other rulers. They presented and received rich presents in culturally significant ritual interactions, and gathered and disseminated much political information. Further, Shah Jahan’s court was also attended by various defeated or tributary Indian rajas and zamindars who came personally or sent sons or emissaries to submit and receive forgiveness (or, more rarely, punishment). Despite its grave decorum, his court was also the site of an assassination by one courtier of another, and even a frustrated attempt on Shah Jahan himself, suggesting tensions below the serene surface.
When Asaf Khan outmaneuvered Shah Jahan’s rivals and enthroned him, other high mansabdars remained discontented, particularly those whom Jahangir had favored or who had supported a defeated imperial claimant. Further, to save money, Shah Jahan did not lavishly raise the zat for most mansabdars as had his father, although he pragmatically did not reduce their sawar since martial force remained vital for the regime.9 Simultaneously, Shah Jahan shifted resources from mansabdars into his own treasury (nearly empty at his accession but after 20 years worth about 37 million rupees, even after his vast expenditures on the Peacock Throne, imperial buildings and wars).10
As the extended aftershock of Shah Jahan’s own princely rebellion (and also revealing resistance to his policies), various revolts marked his early reign. One arose in the central Indian forested shatter zone of small, semi-autonomous kingdoms, some quite wealthy. Maharaja Bir Singh Dev of Orchha had served Jahangir—from assassinating Abu-al-Fazl onward—reaching mansab 5,000/5,000. He died in 1627, late in Jahangir’s reign. Bir Singh’s son, Jujhar Singh, came to court for confirmation of his inheritance, receiving mansab 4,000/4,000 and the title Raja. But, doubting his prospects under the new emperor and hopeful he could repel imperial interventions into his densely forested kingdom, he soon fled, even before Shah Jahan’s formal coronation. Shah Jahan, rather than permit such a blatant early rejection of his authority, sent three strong imperial armies to subdue Jujhar Singh. As a further weapon, they brought a rival claimant for the Orchha throne. Shah Jahan regarded this test of his new regime so seriously that he left Agra for Gwalior to supervise the campaign. Fearing destruction, Jujhar Singh negotiated his resubmission: appealing for imperial forgiveness and paying a punitive tribute. He then rejoined Shah Jahan’s service, fighting for him in the Deccan and obtaining promotion after a year to his father’s rank 5,000/5,000.
Like many local rulers, however, Jujhar Singh also retained his own acquisitive ambitions. He seized the treasury, lands and family of a neighboring ruler and Mughal tributary. Jujhar Singh rejected Shah Jahan’s order to give his gains to the Empire as the price of again being forgiven. Retaliating, Shah Jahan sent yet another expedition, nominally under his young third son, Aurangzeb, which captured Jujhar Singh’s strongholds and drove him into the surrounding forests. There, his Gond and Bhil rivals killed him in 1635. The Mughal commanders recovered Jujhar Singh’s head and 10 million rupees from his treasury, both sent to Shah Jahan. They also punitively leveled Orchha’s main temple and reportedly converted Jujhar Singh’s grandsons to Islam. Shah Jahan personally visited Orchha to celebrate. As frequently occurred, however, once the overwhelming imperial forces left the recently subdued region, other local rulers and chieftains resumed resistance. Such rebellions along external and internal imperial frontiers punctuated Shah Jahan’s entire reign.
Additionally, Shah Jahan struggled for years against leading mansabdars who anticipated more self-advantage in rebellion than in serving him. One early challenger had been among Jahangir’s highest commanders, a Lodi-clan Indo-Afghan entitled Khan-i Jahan with man
sab 6,000/6,000 who commanded the imperial armies with the title Sipahsalar, and had held several sequential governorships. However, late in Jahangir’s reign, Khan-i Jahan as Deccan governor had transferred imperial territories to Ahmadnagar Sultanate, reportedly receiving a massive bribe. Then, during the succession wars, Khan-i Jahan had backed Shah Jahan’s rivals. To win his submission, Shah Jahan promoted him to 7,000/7,000 (7,000 2-3h). But the new emperor also transferred his office of Sipahsalar to Mahabat Khan (a proven supporter) and shifted Khan-i Jahan from the strategic Deccan to the lesser governorship of Malwa. Khan-i Jahan rebelled in 1629. Fighting desperately against pursuing imperial armies, he fled with his followers to the Ahmadnagar Sultan, while simultaneously asserting his own imperial pretensions.
During the Delhi Sultanate and then during the later period of Mughal decline, such strong military commanders occasionally split off successfully to create effectively independent dynasties. These differed from local uprisings because these rebel commanders had military force but no roots in the regions they seized. Further, although Khan-i Jahan rallied many fellow Afghans around him, not all Afghans joined him; indeed some fought against him, so this was not an ethnic movement. Nonetheless, Shah Jahan regarded this rebellion very seriously, personally moving south to Burhanpur to supervise the year-long campaign that finally defeated and executed Khan-i Jahan in 1631.
Shah Jahan (like other emperors) had to decide where and when to deploy his massive (but not infinite) military resources. During major campaigns elsewhere, some disobedience and provocation by subordinate rulers or communities was necessarily tolerated. But Shah Jahan deployed imperial forces to inflict exemplary punishment on particularly prominent local rebellions. For instance, the Portuguese had held a commercial and military base at Hugli since 1579. When they egregiously provoked the Bengal governor in 1631, he mobilized his soldiers, reinforced with imperial troops sent by Shah Jahan. In a relatively short but bloody land and riverine campaign, Mughal forces crushed the Portuguese and their Arakanese allies. Four hundred prisoners—European men and also men and women of mixed European-Asian biological or cultural ancestry—reached Shah Jahan’s court in 1633. He released those who converted to Islam but he imprisoned or distributed the rest as slaves to his courtiers.11 His actions, however, were apparently punishment for their resistance rather than anti-Christian.
A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B.Tauris Short Histories) Page 19
