A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B.Tauris Short Histories)

by Fisher, H, Michael

  As prince, Shah Jahan had spent much time fighting in the Deccan, so he knew that dangerous region well. As emperor, he determined as his first major military initiative to concentrate his forces and complete the subordination of the three remaining Sultanates: Ahmadnagar and then Bijapur and Golkonda. To supervise, Shah Jahan remained in Burhanpur for two years (1630–32). He entrusted actual command to his most proven mansabdars, Asaf Khan (1631–2) and then Mahabat Khan (1633), although he gave his second son, Shah Shuja‘, nominal charge. Mughal expeditions captured Ahmadnagar’s major fortified cities and also attempted—with less success—to co-opt opposing Maratha and other Deccani commanders and chiefs by offering high mansabs. For example, around 1630, Maratha commander Shahuji Bhonsle accepted mansab 5,000/5,000. But many newcomers were alienated by the condescension of the khanazad. Thus, after a year, Shahuji fled Shah Jahan’s court to resume fighting for autonomy.

  Gradually, the more powerful imperial armies won victories in the Deccan. They captured and imprisoned the Ahmadnagar Sultan in 1632, annexing much of his territory. In 1636, Shah Jahan returned to the Deccan to approve treaties of subordination by the Bijapur and Golkonda Sultans. Both agreed to cease their political relations with the Safavids, curtail Shi‘i practices in their courts, recognize Mughal sovereignty and pay substantial annual tribute. With Mughal concurrence, both Sultans then redirected their armies southward, away from the Mughals. This precarious peace lasted two decades, enabling Shah Jahan to concentrate his military resources elsewhere. He also used his accumulating wealth to make vast material assertions of his magnificence.

  MANIFESTING IMPERIAL POWER IN STONE AND IN CENTRAL ASIA, 1636–53

  Advancing Shah Jahan’s deep commitment to glorifying his reign, he personally supervised most major imperial building projects and periodically inspected their progress. A courtier noted:

  the superintendents of construction of royal buildings, in consultation with the wonder-working architects, lay before the critical royal eye designs of proposed edifices. The royal mind, which is illustrious like the sun, pays full attention to the planning and construction of these lofty and substantial buildings, which … for ages to come will serve as memorials of his abiding love of constructiveness, ornamentation, and beauty. The majority of the buildings he designs himself; and on the plans prepared by the skillful architects, after long consideration he makes appropriate alterations and emendations.12

  While Shah Jahan apparently did not design the mausoleum of Jahangir near Lahore (completed 1635), he deeply engaged himself in both the tomb in Agra of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and also his entirely new capital city in Delhi, named after himself.

  Shah Jahan had daughters by his first and third wives, and he gave these womenfolk honored places in his imperial harem. But he remained devoted to his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, from their marriage until her death, and after. When he acceded as Emperor, Mumtaz Mahal had already borne him 11 children—four sons and two daughters were still living. In 1631, only three years into his reign, Mumtaz Mahal died at age 38 while giving birth to her fourteenth child. She had joined him in Burhanpur for the Deccan campaign. Shah Jahan eventually sent her body the 800 km. to Agra for burial in the Rauza-i Munauwara (‘Illuminated Tomb’)—a personal tribute and also a stone manifestation of his imperial power. This tomb has been celebrated globally as the Taj Mahal.

  Selecting a site on the Jumna just downstream from Agra Fort, Shah Jahan ordered his builders to construct this most distinctive of all Mughal garden-tombs. Unlike many Mughal mausoleum-mosques, which centered the garden, this tomb stood at the north end, overlooking the river (as was customary in Agra). Many architectural elements designed by Nur Jahan for the tomb of her parents (Mumtaz Mahal’s grandparents) were developed five years later by Shah Jahan’s builders to their highest degree and on much vaster scale. Both used fully white marble exteriors (earlier generally reserved for holy men’s shrines) instead of red sandstone (hitherto customary in tombs for the Mughal family and high mansabdars). Both also expansively used inlaid semi-precious stones.

  Shah Jahan commissioned a far larger mausoleum on a quite different plan, with a dome and four detached minarets. He selected the Qur’anic verses inscribed extensively in elegant calligraphy on its interior and exterior walls. He supervised closely, attending most years during the decade of its construction to commemorate Mumtaz Mahal’s death anniversary and to inspect progress. By the time of its completion, this tomb-garden had cost about 5 million rupees (a vast amount, but only half the Peacock Throne’s cost). For nearly four centuries, the Taj Mahal has stood as an architectural masterpiece, famous world-wide for the technology of its construction, and, even more, for the quality of its workmanship and the exquisite balance and proportion of its forms.13

  The ‘Illuminated Tomb,’ known as the ‘Taj Mahal,’ today and transection14

  After this tomb’s construction, Shah Jahan ordered the skilled builders and workmen to migrate to Delhi in 1639, where he commissioned his imperial city, Shahjahanabad.15 In contrast with Akbar’s Fatehpur, this new capital had an imposing red-sandstone-walled citadel, the Qila-i Mu‘alla (‘Exalted Fort,’ popularly known as the Red Fort) costing six million rupees. Like the Agra Fort, this new fortress overlooked the Jumna River, designed for defense and also to enclose the imperial palace complex. Perfumed water canals extended through the complex and cascaded over illuminated falls. The separate structures for dwelling, administration and pleasure were mostly constructed with interior and exterior walls of white marble (or stucco burnished to appear marble), often with highly ornate, semi-precious stone inlays. Some glazed tiles depicted European-style images of jointly Qur’anic-Biblical people and angels. During Shah Jahan’s rebellion, he had observed the Bengali regional style of deeply curved sloping roofs which he thereafter occasionally used, sometimes with gilded metal coverings. He was also the first emperor to use extensively baluster columns (bulbous pillars emerging from a pot, perhaps inspired by European prints); these were generally reserved for imperial buildings. Near the Red Fort, and also of red sandstone, Shah Jahan constructed the Jami‘ Mosque (1650–56), the largest in India at that time, costing another million rupees. In 1653, he faced Shahjahanabad’s city walls (initially brick and mud) with red sandstone.

  Map 7: Plan of ‘Exalted Fort,’ known as ‘Red Fort’16

  Cascading perfumed water (left panel) and glazed tiles (right panel) adorned Shahjahanabad Palace complex

  Jami‘ mosque, Shahjahanabad, c. 189117

  Within the city walls, high mansabdars built mansions surrounded by their workshops and their attendants’ homes, forming a distinctive neighborhood. Courtiers and leading imperial women sponsored additional mosques and pleasure gardens within and without the city. The main market boulevard, Chandni Chawk, ran from the Red Fort west to the city’s Lahore gateway, with shops lining both sides and a canal running down its center. Throughout the citadel and city, imperial hydraulic engineers constructed elaborate and efficient water-supply and sewage systems. Plentiful potable water came from wells in each neighborhood or from the Jumna either raised by Persian water-wheels or channeled from upstream by canals. This system also provided for wet-carriage sewage into the Jumna downstream. Since most waste was organic and the city’s human population was only in the tens of thousands, the river healthfully absorbed it. Further, surrounding market gardens received human and animal dry-carriage sewage and produced vegetables for the city.

  In building Shahjahanabad, Shah Jahan sought to combine a newer model of an omnipotent monarch ruling from a stable capital with the Central Asian tradition of imperial mobility. During the next nine years following the Red Fort’s completion in 1648, he lived there a total of five-and-a-half years (during six visits). In between, he traveled: supervising his domain and military campaigns and visiting Lahore and thrice Kashmir (1634, 1645, 1651).18

  Meanwhile, the Empire faced challenges. Especially along the Empire’s external and internal fron
tiers, various local rulers and landholders only paid tribute or taxes under compulsion. Larger rebellions erupted when imperial armies were committed elsewhere. Prominent rebels were eventually punished by superior imperial force, but most who begged forgiveness were graciously pardoned and reinstated by Shah Jahan. This often produced moral hazard: a recurring pattern of revived rebellions alternating with repeated subjugations. For example, while a prince, Shah Jahan had gained prestige when his subordinates recaptured repeatedly rebellious Kangra in 1620. But as emperor, he had to order suppression of that Himalayan kingdom’s current ruler, Raja Jagat Singh. Jagat Singh had long served the Mughals, reaching mansab 3,000/2,000. However, seeking more autonomy, he rebelled (1640–42). Despite stubborn resistance, he was eventually defeated by imperial forces. He then humbly submitted in person to Shah Jahan, received generous forgiveness and restoration of his kingdom and mansab, and later died fighting for the Empire against Uzbeks in Central Asia.19 But his heirs only awaited the opportunity to renew their fight for autonomy.

  Shah Jahan oriented himself culturally and politically toward Central Asia. As emperor, he remained within his domain’s western half (although as prince he had fled throughout Bengal). Thus, after negotiating relative peace with Bijapur and Golkonda in 1636, Shah Jahan turned his attention to the north-west. While Central Asia’s economic value never justified the vast expense of his campaigns there, he was motivated by the potential prestige of defeating the Safavids and Uzbeks and recovering Timur’s homeland.

  From his accession onward, there had been conflicts around Kabul. The earliest came when Uzbeks, during the tumultuous succession struggle, captured Kabul, albeit briefly before Mughal reinforcements expelled them. Periodically thereafter, various Afghans asserted their autonomy, only to be sequentially suppressed. In 1636, Shah Jahan proposed to Ottoman Sultan Murad IV and the Uzbeks a triple attack on the Safavids, but nothing eventuated. Shah Jahan himself traveled to Kabul five times (1639, 1646, 1647, 1649, 1652), combining hunting trips with preparations for war.

  Strategic Qandahar caused repeated clashes between the Mughal and Safavid Empires. In 1638, Safavid governor Ali Mardan Khan defected and gave Qandahar to Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan welcomed him with mansab 5,000/5,000 and prominent appointments.20 Incensed, Safavid Shah Safi (r. 1629–42) launched an expedition to retake Qandahar in 1642. Shah Jahan sent his eldest and favorite son, Dara Shukoh, to reinforce Qandahar, but Shah Safi’s death halted this war.

  Simultaneously, Shah Jahan intervened to protect Muslims from alleged oppression by Uzbeks, with Naqshbandi pirs sometimes supporting him.21 In 1646, he sent substantial forces under his second son, Murad Bakhsh, capturing Badakhshan and Balkh, which Shah Jahan considered ‘properly his hereditary domains.’22 Shah Jahan improbably aspired to seize Samarkand, Timur’s capital. However, the harsh terrain and local population were uncongenial for this generation of Mughal soldiers, especially for the many Rajput and Hindustani troops among them. Abruptly, Murad insisted on withdrawing, angering Shah Jahan, who demoted him. Shah Jahan then entrusted command to his third son, Aurangzeb. He negotiated nominally honorable withdrawal in 1647, with Uzbek symbolic submission. These expeditions gained the Empire virtually nothing but cost a vast 40 million rupees, plus substantial loss of life and prestige.

  Further, resurgent Safavid forces retook Qandahar during the 1648–9 winter. Insistently, Shah Jahan sent futile expeditions to recover Qandahar: two under Aurangzeb (1649, 1652), then the largest under Dara (1653). These achieved nothing but expended 35 million rupees, many lives and much morale. Stubbornly, Shah Jahan planned (but could not implement) yet another recovery expedition (1656).

  These huge but unproductive campaigns intensified long-standing strains within the mansab-jagir system. These expeditions cost more than double Shah Jahan’s massive building projects (which totaled 29 million rupees).23 The gap between most mansabdars’ official jagir income and their actual expenses had widened, making many unable to support the military contingent specified by their sawar. The imperial administration thus could not strictly enforce the dagh system of inspection, and so permitted maintaining only a proportion of their sawar. In 1642, this deviation was institutionalized: e.g., mansabdars with jagirs in Hindustan only needed to provide one-third of their sawar number when serving there, only one-quarter when serving in other provinces, and only one-fifth when on the north-west campaigns.24 In addition, Shah Jahan also encouraged lower mansabdars dispatched to Central Asia by temporarily increasing their sawar and giving a substantial cash subsidy for each soldier actually there.

  By 1647, Shah Jahan’s total assessed revenue was 220 million rupees: a quarter more than Jahangir’s peak and more than double Akbar’s.25 This increase came from a combination of newly conquered territories in the Deccan and elsewhere, growth in the overall economy, but also inflation (especially from the continuing substantial influx of silver via European merchants). Simultaneously, the gap widened between the official assessed revenue and the actual amount collected. To recognize the mansabdars’ loss of purchasing power while not embarrassingly lowering their nominal income, each jagir’s official worth was recalculated on a sliding monthly scale (from eleven-twelfths of the nominal revenue down to four-twelfths, with most set between six- and eight-twelfths). Nonetheless, these stresses intensified, especially by persistent imperial commitments of resources to the Deccan, from the last phase of Shah Jahan’s reign onward.

  DECCAN AND SUCCESSION WARS, 1653–8

  For two decades following the 1636 treaties of submission by Bijapur and Golkonda, the Empire’s Deccan frontier remained relatively stabilized. Under diplomatic supervision by Shah Jahan’s governors of his Deccan provinces, these two remaining sultanates seized agriculturally and commercially rich territories further south and struggled against the expansive Marathas. Simultaneously, imperial governors enticed Deccani commanders and officials with mansabs.

  Most prominently, Golkonda’s powerful Irani-immigrant chief minister, entitled Mir Jumla, defected in 1655. Such was Mir Jumla’s reputation that Shah Jahan appointed him Diwan-i Kul (chief imperial revenue officer) with mansab 5,000/5,000 and additional honors. When Golkonda’s Sultan Qutb-al-Mulk punitively seized Mir Jumla’s property and son, the imperial viceroy in the Deccan, Aurangzeb, besieged Golkonda. Aurangzeb only partially relented after Golkonda’s Queen Mother personally begged for mercy and Qutb-al-Mulk gave his daughter as a bride to Aurangzeb’s son, paid 2 million rupees in indemnity, and promised substantial annual tribute.26

  In 1657, Aurangzeb pressed hard against Bijapur during a succession. He forced the new sultan to cede Bidar and other territories and pay 10 million rupees tribute. Aurangzeb’s triumphs in the Deccan considerably strengthened him militarily and in prestige, particularly contrasted with his three lackluster brothers.

  Shah Jahan, like his predecessors, wanted (but failed) to delay the succession struggle until after his own death, but also control his legacy. He tried to will the Empire intact to his eldest son, Dara, but also to protect his three other sons. While he occasionally deputed Dara as governor (Allahabad, Gujarat and Lahore) or as commander of especially substantial campaigns, Shah Jahan mostly kept him close at court. Shah Jahan awarded Dara escalating dignities: the title Buland Iqbal (‘High Fortune’) in 1642 and then Shah Buland Iqbal in 1655, and seated him adjacent to the imperial throne. Shah Jahan included among Dara’s jagirs Hissar Firoza, customarily assigned to the heir apparent. By 1658, Shah Jahan had raised Dara to the unprecedented mansab 60,000/40,000 (30,000 2-3h).27

  Shah Jahan also kept his eldest child and favorite daughter, Jahanara Begum, near him.28 At the death of her mother, Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan gave half her 10 million rupee estate to 17-year-old Jahanara (the other half divided among her siblings). Jahanara remained unmarried, led the harem and managed the imperial household, although Shah Jahan had two living wives. In 1644, Jahanara’s delicate, perfumed clothing accidently caught fire. Two of her maids died extinguishing the blaze
and Jahanara received life-threatening burns. Shah Jahan personally tended her and, upon her recovery, weighed her in gold that was then distributed in charity.29 With her own funds, she bestowed much patronage, commissioning gardens and mosques in Shahjahanabad and Kashmir. Combining her religious and literary commitments, she had herself initiated into the Qadri Sufi order and wrote an account of Qadri pir Shah Badakhshi, entitled Risala-i Sahabiyya, which included a dozen of her own verses. Similarly, she was deeply devoted to the Chishti order, writing a biography of Khwaja Mu‘in-ud-Din, entitled Mu‘nis-al-Arwah. Further, like Shah Jahan, she strongly supported Dara, her nearest younger full-brother, who shared many of her inclinations.

  Dara similarly had himself initiated into the Qadri order in 1640 by Shah Badakhshi and wrote five works on Sufism (1640–53). Dara sought the universal truth of Islam, including through esoteric Indic religions.30 He wrote a comparative study of Islamic and Indic esotericism, entitled Majma‘-al-Bahrayn (‘Meeting-place of the Oceans’). Further, he gathered fellow seekers into his household and supervised their translations into Persian of over 50 major Indic religious works, including the Bhagavad Gita and some Brahminic texts, collected as Sirr-i Akbar (‘The Greatest Mystery’). From this title and Dara’s sincere spiritual searching beyond the Islamic tradition alone, many commentators identify him with his great-grandfather, Akbar. But neither Shah Jahan nor Dara could secure his succession in the deadly competition against his brothers.