124. Karen Armstrongdeath, when there was no central authority in Iran until Aqa
Muhammad of the Turcoman Qajar tribe managed to seize
control in 1779 and founded the Qajar dynasty, the ulama
stepped into the power vacuum. The Usuli position became
mandatory, and events would show that the ulama could com-
mand the devotion and obedience of the Iranian people far
more effectively than any shah.
The Moghul Empire
The turmoil occasioned by Shah Ismail's Shii jihad against
Sunni Islam was, in part, responsible for the establishment of
the new Muslim Empire in India. Its founder, Babur (d. 1530),
had been an ally of Ismail, and had fled as a refugee to Kabul
in the Afghan mountains during the war between the Safavids
and the Uzbeks, where he had seized control of the remnants
of the state established there by Timur Lenk. Thence he
managed briefly to establish a power base in north India,
which he intended to run on the Mongol lines favoured by
Timur. His state did not last, and there was factional strife
among the Afghan amirs until 1555, when Humayun, the
ablest of Babur's descendants, secured the throne and, though
he died almost immediately, a dependable regent held the
"Mongol" (or "Moghul") power intact until Humayun's son
Akbar (1542-1605) attained his majority in 1560. Akbar was
able to establish an integrated state in north India, where he
was acknowledged as the undisputed ruler. He retained the
old Mongol habit of running the central government as an
army under the direct command of the sultan. He set up an
efficient bureaucracy and, with the aid of his firearms, the
Moghul Empire began to expand at the expense of the other
Muslim rulers, until he controlled Hindustan, the Punjab,
Malva and the Deccan.
Unlike Ismail, however, Akbar did not oppress or perse-
cute his subjects, nor did he attempt to convert them to his