Why mughals are called mughals

However, Barbur , the first Mughal emperor, could trace his blood line back to Chinggis Khan. The Muslims of Central Asia had good reason to hate the Mongols because they destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate when they sacked Baghdad in It was the Timur the Lame known in the Europe as Tamerlane , whose "descent from Chinggis Khan," as Jack Weatherford says, was based "flimsy evidence," [1] who gave the Mongols the bad reputation that has come down to us.

Virtually nothing good can be said of Timur's conquests, and this fact has obscured the contributions of the Mongol Empire. While Timur tortured unmercifully and sacked cities indiscriminately, Chinggis Khan abolished torture and formed alliances with people who did not resist him. As an orthodox Muslim, Timur thought that the Delhi Sultans had been very lax in enforcing Islamic law against Hindus and other non-Muslims. Just before his devastating attack on Delhi in , he ordered that Muslim and Hindu prisoners be separated and then declared that "every man who had infidel prisoners was to put them to death.

In addition to proposing the first concept of secular international law, the Mongols generally allowed complete religious freedom in the first hundred years. Followers of Ong Khan, the adopted father of Chinggis Khan, were Nestorian Christians, and these Kereyid Mongols easily assimilated Jesus as healer and shaman into their traditional beliefs.

Chinggis' four sons married Kereyid Christian women and there were many Christians among their descendents. Even with this preference for Christianity, Ogodei Khan, Chinggis' son, allowed Daoist and Buddhist temples, mosques, as well as churches to be built at his capital at Karakorum.

Weatherford contends that Karakorum, only one stone turtle is left after Ming troops destroyed the city in , "was probably the most religiously open and tolerant city in the world at that time. Chinggis Khan's own religion was shamanic with a focus on the worship of the sky, and this ritual is reflected in the choice of blue, rather than the Tibetan white, for the Mongolian Buddhist hospitality scarf. He communed with this sky god before going into battle and before negotiating treaties, but at no time did he or any Mongol leader force this belief on others.

For centuries armies have gone to war with the blessings of their respective deities; indeed, opposing sides sometimes asked for victory from the same deity. The focus of this paper, however, is the violence committed for the purpose of converting the enemy to the conqueror's religion, systematically oppressing those who resist conversion, and destroying their temples and religious artifacts in the process. Religious persecution did occur during the short reigns of Buddhist and Nestorian Mongol rulers of the early Ilkhanate in Central Asia, but the tables were turned with the conversion of the Mongol Ghazan to Islam in Ghazan destroyed Buddhist temples and tried to force conversion to Islam on his subjects.

Chinggis' grandson Hulegu Khan was the founder of the Ilkhanate and his goal was to take Baghdad, the center of Islamic learning and culture and seat of the Abbasid Caliphate. Hulegu's mother and two wives were Christians and this helped him forge an alliance with Christian leaders in Georgia and Armenia against the Muslims in Iraq. As Baghdad fell in , Hulegu ordered that the city be evacuated before the looting began.

He sent in Christian troops to secure churches and their congregants' life and property, but many Muslim residents chose to remain. Weatherford describes the destruction that followed the fall of Baghdad: "The Christians inside Baghdad joined their fellow believers to loot the city and slaughter the Muslims, from whom they felt their salvation had finally come. Centuries of hatred and anger spilled out as they defiled and destroyed mosques, and turned many of them into churches.

As far as I can tell, Weatherford is the only scholar who emphasizes the fact that it was Christian troops seeking revenge who sacked the city. Other accounts also report that Hulegu's troops slaughtered the people who did attempt to leave the city. Contrary to widespread belief, most Muslims in India and Indonesia were not converted by the sword.

Some forced conversions did happen in India, but census data prove that most of these converts must have lapsed. The most famous examples of reconversion were the brothers Harihara and Bukka, founders of the great Hindu empire Vijayanagar , who were forced to convert to Islam by Muhammad Tughluq in The most striking example of mass reconversion happened in Mysore, where Tipu Sultan required that all his citizens convert to Islam.

Today only 5 percent of the people in the Mysore area is Muslim, while the adjoining Malabar Coast has 30 percent Muslims, [5] primarily because they settled this area as peaceful traders in the 8 th Century. With regard to voluntary conversion, one would expect a direct correlation between areas controlled by the Delhi Sultans and the Mughal emperors and highest Muslim population, but census data does not support this reasoning either.

The only correlation that holds is the discovery of higher Muslim populations wherever Sufis traveled on these missions. This explains the otherwise curious fact that East Bengal, far from the centers of Islamic power, is now the Muslim country of Bangladesh. Sufi missionaries were also key to the peaceful spread of Islam in Indonesia and Mayalsia. Assimilation and accommodation, rather than destruction and displacement, are the terms most appropriate to describe the way in which Aryan warriors established their rule among India's indigenous tribes.

This became the political model for Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms not only in India, but those transplanted in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The great advantage of such governance was the cultural and religious tolerance that it produced. It also virtually eliminated the necessary of military occupation and other oppressive measures.

This lack of loyalty to central authority would prove highly detrimental when Hindu India was subjected to repeated Muslim invasions. In the wake of military conquest, Hindu kings typically formed political and religious alliances with tribal chiefs and priests.

The result was rule by religious syncretism rather than the religious exclusivism typical of Christian and Muslim governments. It was primarily tribal goddesses who were appropriated into a Vedic religion that heretofore did not feature any dominant female deities.

A very respectful division of religious labor evolved in which the tribal priests were in charge of all rituals at the original idol, a formless round stone, but the king's priests would perform puja at a mobile Durga statue, which symbolized the Hindu appropriation of the indigenous deity's power.

The statue of Durga sometimes Camunda was placed near the indigenous idol, but always as a complement, never as a replacement. Over time, while indigenous cults drew kings to the countryside for worship, villagers were soon making pilgrimages to royal temples such as the one dedicated to Jagannath in Puri, which became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Eastern India. Kings such as Anangabhima III early 13 th Century gained considerable fame and legitimation by sponsoring the annual cart festival that involved the direct participation of all the villages in the realm.

As we shall see later, both Hindus and Muslims fought over control of the revenues of this sacred site. Royal power was further enhanced by the practice of granting provincial land to brahmin families who then established Hindu temples in the countryside and also introduced caste hierarchy there.

Occasionally, a print of the kind brought by the Third Mission led by Father Jerome Xavier in was copied precisely. Other paintings were created for copies of the translation into Persian of the Life of Christ that had been requested by Akbar, and were written by Xavier in collaboration with a scholar at the Mughal court. The same mingling of widely differing artistic traditions in the art of the book during Akbar's reign was certainly found in objects, though comparatively few have survived.

A jewelled gold spoon exemplifies the uniquely Hindustani goldsmith's technique of kundan which is still widely practised today across the subcontinent to set stones in gold. It is mentioned by Abu'l Fazl in the Ain-e Akbari , but has antecedents that predate the arrival of the Mughuls by centuries. The design of the jewelled decoration is purely Iranian, and relates to contemporary illuminated designs in the art of the book.

The shape is Indian, but the decoration within cusped cartouches an ornate framing motif is based on Iranian designs of the period of Shah Tahmasp reigned — The chiselled details of a tiger attacking an elephant whose rider, or mahout, tries to fight it off on one side of the blade; and the combat between a horse and an elephant directed by their respective riders on the other, relate to similar scenes in paintings done at the end of Akbar's reign. By this time, specialist craftsmen in the provinces of the empire supplied the court, and exported their wares to Europe.

Gujarat was famous for its inlaid wooden boxes and cabinets, and for its artefacts made out of thin pieces of mother of pearl. Their intended market determined the design of the finished piece, and often its form. Therefore, items made for the huge market in Portuguese Goa might include European-style ewers and salvers that, from there, often travelled westwards and were sometimes given European silver or gilt silver mounts.

The rare surviving altar frontal was probably also intended for a Goan patron, but the Mughal-influenced motifs surrounding its central panel of Christian imagery are similar to those on cabinets that were made for the domestic market and must have been produced in quantity.

The designs on the altar frontal also have parallels in Mughal painting from that period, showing how far the influence of court art had spread. By Akbar's death in , Mughal art had brought together disparate influences from Hindustan, Iran and Europe. New industries such as carpet weaving were firmly established, while existing crafts with antecedents long predating the Mughals thrived by having access to much larger markets and new patrons.

Akbar was succeeded by his son Salim, who took the title Jahangir 'World Seizer'. He inherited a stable and immensely wealthy empire, with an efficient administration that ensured cash flowed from every province into the twelve separate treasuries of the royal household. One treasury was for precious stones, of which there was a vast store, and another held jewelled artefacts including wine cups made of single precious stones and gold thrones.

It also held the jewellery that was worn in considerable quantity by the emperor and his family and was exchanged as gifts during the major festivals of the court. Jahangir already had several wives before he married the beautiful and intelligent Mehr un-Nissa in She came from an aristocratic Iranian family, and both her father and brother reached the highest positions in the Mughal hierarchy after the family came to court. Jahangir gave her the title Nur Jahan Light of the World , and became devoted to the highly educated and dynamic woman who effectively ruled with him.

She was the only Mughal queen to have coins issued in her name. Both were patrons of architecture, though the greatest artistic achievements of the time were to be found in the art of the book, Jahangir's great passion, and in the innovations in some of the materials and techniques used to create objects.

Like his great-grandfather Babur, Jahangir wrote his memoirs which were entitled the Jahangirnama or Tuzuk-e Jahangir. In between accounts of the rituals of court life, political events and family matters like births, marriages and deaths, they reveal that Jahangir inherited a similar fascination for the natural world. Unlike Babur, Jahangir commissioned his leading artists to paint some of the events, people, birds and animals that he described. He mentions multiple copies being made of the Jahangirnama in but no illustrated intact volume exists.

Nevertheless, at least part of one was definitely finished — a folio depicting the submission of the Rana of Mewar to Jahangir's son Khurram in has a catchword in the lower left of the painting, used in manuscripts to link the painting to the text that follows on the next page. Another painting was certainly intended for a copy of the Jahangirnama , but ended up in an album created for his son when he became emperor.

It demonstrates Jahangir's close interest in the natural world and also provides information not given in his memoirs. In a delegation came to court and presented the emperor with rare and exotic birds and animals.

One was an African zebra, an animal Jahangir had never seen before and which seemed like a horse painted with stripes. He wrote, "One might say the painter of fate, with a strange brush, had left it on the page of the world". He intended it to be sent to Shah 'Abbas of Iran, with whom he regularly exchanged valuable or rare presents, but there is no mention of the name of the artist to whom he gave an order to record the animal's appearance.

However, on the right of the painting, the emperor himself has written in his distinctive spidery hand that it was the work of one his two leading artists, Mansur, and includes details of how and when the zebra came to court.

The life of Jahangir and his court was nomadic, with long absences from the major capital cities of Agra and Lahore. Formal transfers between these two cities involved travelling with a vast tented city to accommodate the women's quarters, the nobility, the servants and camp followers. Two sets of tents were needed so that one could be set up ahead, at the next halting place. A reduced camp travelled across long distances, sometimes being absent from the capitals for years at a time.

Jahangir's memoirs make it clear that many artists and craftsmen travelled with him, even if their names or activities are rarely mentioned. Therefore, when Jahangir left Agra for the city of Ajmer in Rajasthan in , and remained there for almost three years, signed and dated paintings depicting the emperor must have been done in the city.

His son also had his own small entourage of artists accompanying him, even when he undertook military campaigns, as Nanha's depiction of the submission of the redoubtable Rana of Mewar reveals, the artist has included himself at work in the painting.

These prolonged absences from the major cities may explain the apparent reduction in the number of artists in royal service — the House of Books that included the huge imperial library must have remained in the palace at Agra, but the leading artists and calligraphers accompanied Jahangir on his travels.

In , when he mentions copies of the Jahangirnama being made, and the artist Abu'l Hasan painting a splendid frontispiece for the royal copy, the court was in Ahmadabad, the capital of Gujarat. This was also the only opportunity that another artist, Bishndas, had to study two minor rulers of Gujarat, Rao Bharah and Jassa Jam, who never travelled out of the province.

Portraiture reached an unprecedented level of naturalism under Jahangir, a phenomenon that is usually attributed to the royal artists' exposure to European portraits.

Famously, the English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe, who visited Jahangir in Ajmer and then travelled with the court for a time, showed the emperor a miniature by Isaac Oliver. This was such a treasured possession that Roe was unwilling to give it to Jahangir, but allowed him to borrow it. One of the leading court artists was ordered to make a copy of it, and when Roe was shown the original, accompanied by five identical versions, he had some difficulty in recognising his own.

The practice of taking likenesses of individuals at court had begun under Akbar but reached unprecedented levels of accuracy in Jahangir's reign. Single portraits were clearly used as templates to transfer the image to scenes of court assemblies. A portrait of Mirza Ghazi, with its plain pale green background is reproduced at exactly the same size in a group scene of Jahangir and his courtiers in a garden.

Different colours have been used to fill in the outline of the group portrait than were used on the single portrait. The portrait has beautifully painted gold flowering plants on indigo-dyed paper, and decorative borders of great inventiveness were added to paintings and calligraphic specimens that were preserved in the albums of Jahangir, now all dispersed. Sometimes the panels of calligraphy, often dating to much earlier times and treasured as the work of a great master, were themselves decorated with small panels depicting animals, or with shimmering golden illumination and flowers.

The flowers were derived from European engravings, probably seen by Mughal artists in the borders of Netherlandish prints of Biblical scenes owned by the Jesuits and often brought out by them in court gatherings. Jahangir mentions in his memoirs an Iranian poet who had been given the title Bibadal Khan, 'the Peerless One'.

His name was Sa'ida and he probably arrived at the Mughal court early in Jahangir's reign. His skills were many and varied — in addition to being a poet, he was a calligrapher, a lapidary cutter, polisher or engraver of gem stones , and one of several specialists who was able to inscribe in minute lettering the title of Jahangir on his personal possessions made of precious stones, jade or imported Chinese porcelain.

He was also a goldsmith who was given the position of head of the goldsmiths department. His ability to work hardstones perhaps explains the appearance, during Jahangir's reign, of objects made of nephrite jade that were inscribed with the emperor's titles.

One of these is a wine cup inscribed with Persian verses, the hijri date , and the regnal year 8 corresponding to the first half of The raw material, imported from Khotan, was probably already in the royal treasury when Jahangir became emperor, but no finished artefacts can be reliably dated before his reign. The techniques used to fashion nephrite jade, which cannot be carved but has to be abraded or incised using diamond drills and small lap wheels, are the same as those used to shape objects of rock crystal, a material commonly found in the subcontinent and already used for hundreds of years.

Nephrite jade was probably still a rare commodity in the empire at this period, its availability was dependant upon whether or not the narrow trade routes from Khotan, across Tibet and through Kashmir to Lahore, were open. However, the material quickly began to be used in typically innovative fashion by the royal master craftsmen. Wine cups of increasingly complex form were made, and jade artefacts were also inlaid with precious stones.

A jade pendant in our collections , set with rubies and emeralds of very high quality in gold, was very probably made in the imperial workshops. Textiles of Jahangir's reign are particularly rare, but a unique and extremely splendid satin coat embroidered all over with birds and animals in a flower-strewn rocky landscape must have been made for a leading individual at court.

Many details, including some of the animals and plant forms are replicated in the borders of contemporary paintings and on metalwork, underlining a fundamental difference between artistic production in the Mughal empire and in Europe — as in Iran, Central Asia and the rest of the subcontinent, no distinction is made between so-called 'fine' and 'decorative' art.

The building is a mausoleum built by Jahan for his wife Mumtaz and it has come to symbolise the love between two people. Jahan's selection of white marble and the overall concept and design of the mausoleum give the building great power and majesty. Jahan brought together fresh ideas in the creation of the Taj.

Many of the skilled craftsmen involved in the construction were drawn from the empire. Many also came from other parts of the Islamic world - calligraphers from Shiraz, finial makers from Samrkand, and stone and flower cutters from Bukhara. As if to confirm it, Jahan had these lines inscribed there: "If there is Paradise on earth, it is here, it is here. Paradise it may have been, but it was a pricey paradise.

The money Jahan spent on buildings and on various military projects emptied his treasury and he was forced to raise taxes, which aggravated the people of the empire. Aurangzeb ruled for nearly 50 years. He came to the throne after imprisoning his father and having his older brother killed. Aurangzeb was a very observant and religious Muslim who ended the policy of religious tolerance followed by earlier emperors. He no longer allowed the Hindu community to live under their own laws and customs, but imposed Sharia law Islamic law over the whole empire.

Thousands of Hindu temples and shrines were torn down and a punitive tax on Hindu subjects was re-imposed. In the last decades of the seventeenth century Aurangzeb invaded the Hindu kingdoms in central and southern India, conquering much territory and taking many slaves. Under Aurangzeb, the Mughal empire reached the peak of its military power, but the rule was unstable.

This was partly because of the hostility that Aurangazeb's intolerance and taxation inspired in the population, but also because the empire had simply become to big to be successfully governed. The Muslim Governer of Hydrabad in southern India rebelled and established a separate Shi'a state; he also reintroduced religious toleration. The Hindu kingdoms also fought back, often supported by the French and the British, who used them to tighten their grip on the sub-continent.

The great Mughal city of Calcutta came under the control of the east India company in and in the decades that followed Europeans and European - backed by Hindu princes conquered most of the Mughal territory. Aurangzeb's extremism caused Mughal territory and creativity to dry up and the Empire went into decline. The last Mughal Emperor was deposed by the British in Search term:. Read more.

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Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Mughal Empire s, s Last updated The Mughals brought many changes to India: Centralised government that brought together many smaller kingdoms Delegated government with respect for human rights Persian art and culture Persian language mixed with Arabic and Hindi to create Urdu Periods of great religious tolerance A style of architecture e.

A later Muslim invasion in devastated the city of Delhi.