THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREAkbar’s last years were embittered by the rebellion of his son Salim, the
later Great Mughal Jahangir. The fact that there was no clear line of
succession and that Akbar’s empire was such that its division would have
amounted to a sacrilege made his sons struggle for the throne even before
the ruler had died. Paradoxically, this dynastic Darwinism did not upset
the Mughal system so much as stabilise it. Nobody came to power merely
as a result of his being in the line of succession. The internecine struggles
for the throne were fatal for the princes, but not for their followers—the
victor would always be keen to reconcile the supporters of the vanquished
in order to stabilise his own rule. In this way the transition from Akbar to
Jahangir took place without any uprooting of the imperial elite. But a new
element was added to the system under Jahangir: his beautiful and
ambitious wife, Nur Jahan, came from Persia, and introduced Persian
culture and a Persian entourage at the Mughal court. Her father became
the chief minister of the empire.
Ever since the days of Baber, the Great Mughals had had a special
affinity with Persian culture. Its role in India could be compared with that
of French culture in Europe at that time. The Islamic states of the Deccan,
which even shared the Shia denomination with the Persians, were also
deeply influenced by that culture. The shah of Persia, Shah Abbas, made
good use of this: flattering Jahangir with many friendly messages, he took
sides with the sultans of the Deccan, and, thinking above all of his own
interest, plotted to recapture Kandahar which Akbar had gained and
preserved. Shah Abbas waited for a suitable moment, which came when
Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan rebelled against his father just as Jahangir had
rebelled against Akbar. Shah Jahan was the head of the Mughal army even
during his father’s lifetime. Jahangir had bestowed the honorific name
Shah Jahan (‘Ruler of the World’) on him after he had conquered the
sultanate of Ahmadnagar on the Deccan. Thus honoured, he soon strove to
oust his father but was defeated several times despite his superiority as a
warrior. Shah Jahan was forced to depend on the support of the sultan of
Golconda and of Shah Abbas, to whom he surrendered Kandahar—
probably in order to have a free hand in his struggle for the Mughal
throne.
When Shah Jahan ascended the throne in 1627 India was once more
ruled by a truly Great Mughal who matched Baber and Akbar both in
military valour and in cultural ambition. He was the greatest builder of
the empire in every sense of the word. He extended the sway of Mughal
rule in the south and he sponsored some of the most beautiful buildings
of the Mughal period: the Red Fort (Delhi) and, in Agra, the Taj Mahal,
tomb of his wife Mumtaz. Shah Jahan’s style was a wonderful blend of
Persian and Indian culture; just like the architecture of the imperial
Guptas in medieval times, it set the standard for all Indian princes in the
subsequent period.