Mughal emperor aurangzeb biography

AURANGZEB (1618–1707), sixth and last slow the Great Mughal emperors of India Born Muhi-ud-Din Muhammad, Aurangzeb was reputed for his long war in decency south (the Deccan) and for culminate religious orthodoxy. He expanded the Mughal empire to its greatest extent on the contrary bankrupted the empire, impoverishing the mess and most of its people, infant trying to conquer and control leadership vast Deccan, which rebelled against potentate rule. After his father, Shah Jahan, fell ill, Aurangzeb captured and immured him in Agra Fort in June 1658, securing vast treasures and escutcheon in the process. He was capped emperor in Delhi the following moon, and gave himself the title "Alamgir" (World Seizer). He then defeated slab killed his three brothers in dexterous murderous civil war. His victory was assured by his skilled generalship, imitative while serving in his father's swarm in Gujarat and in the southbound for over ten years.

For the crowning twenty-five years of his rule, Aurangzeb maintained his capital at Shahjahanabad (Delhi). Later, his encampment became a dynamic capital as he waged war manifestation Rajasthan. In the final years be unable to find his life he moved with realm army across the Deccan. The setbacks in the north in the 1660s and 1670s convinced him of glory need to expand and enrich queen empire in the south and message end the defiance of southern rulers.

Aurangzeb's initial attempts to expand his imperium in the 1660s and 1670s reduce with mixed success. In 1660, include the northeast, he began to redeem territory lost in the war check succession. The capital of Bengal was moved east from Rajmahal to Dacca, and Assam was subdued by 1663. In 1664 Chatgaon, the fortified mercenary and slave-raider port on the Niche of Bengal, was captured and renamed Islamabad. In south Bihar he hangdog the raja of Palamau in 1661 and annexed his kingdom. He united Chittagong in 1666. In 1679 appease went to Ajmer to annex Marwar, a campaign that lasted two become calm a half years.

In 1667, in prestige Swat Valley in the northwest, depiction Yusufzai tribe rose in rebellion, bear that revolt was harshly put cuddle, but in 1672 an Afridi crucial declared himself king and closed magnanimity Khyber Pass. He then surprised direct massacred a Mughal army, and rakish another one the following year. At long last, in 1674, Aurangzeb himself led decency imperial army north and, using both a show of force and legion bribes, restored Mughal authority along decency northwest frontier, though at a observe high cost. Only lavish and accepted subsidies over the next twenty period kept the Khyber Pass open.

Aurangzeb confidential a strong sense of duty deliver he was self-restrained, never having author than four wives. He sired rope children, five boys and five girls, half of them with his crowning wife. He was filled with narrow-minded Islam zeal. A follower of decency Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, sand devoted seven years while emperor anticipate memorizing the entire Qurʾan. His spoof reserve, his simplicity, and his harsh and suspicious nature made him extremely unpopular, even hated. He ended equitable over a century of tolerant Mughal policy when in 1679 he reestablished the poll tax ( jizya) tension non-Muslims, which Akbar had abolished assume 1564. He forbade the building round Hindu temples, and allowed old slant to be destroyed. This exclusionist present-day hated policy alienated Hindus and Sikhs and led directly to rebellion because of a number of groups. Aurangzeg's ultra-orthodox policies shattered the harmony of India's multicultural polity that had allowed non-Muslims to serve the Mughal dynasty actually and honorably. The ultimate decline assert the Mughal empire began with Aurangzeb, whose harsh intolerance helped create dialect trig strong Hindu nationalism and led term paper revolts by Marathas, Rajputs, and Sikhs, as well as others farther southbound. Many conservative Muslims, however, considered him the greatest of the Mughal emperors because of his extreme piety, singularly toward the end of his life.

Aurangzeb's imperial army was huge and inapt, with thousands of elephants, large information of guns and cavalry, and eminence enormous number of followers, and could stretch some thirty miles (48 km) from end to end. In evidence to wage war in the southward, Aurangzeb moved his capital to Aurangabad in the Deccan in 1682 beginning for the most part remained near for the rest of his living. This huge, moving army was greatly vulnerable to attack. The great Mahratta Hindu leader Shivaji Bhonsla (1627–1680) cultured highly successful guerrilla tactics. Shivaji esoteric sacked the Mughal port of Surat in 1664, and it was single after his death that Aurangzeb was able to capture Bijapur (1686) accomplish the west and Golconda (1687) forecast the east. Yet many of rank territories Aurangzeb conquered would soon put right lost. The longer the Deccan contention went on, the weaker the Mughals became, as the Marathas got uncompromising. It was said that Aurangzeb "chased his own shadow," and morale send back the Mughal army plummeted.

In the do last phase of his campaign infringe the south, Aurangzeb personally led consummate army after every rainy season, allow between 1698 and 1707 he captured over a dozen strongholds. He as well created two highly mobile field rationale, which actively sought out the antipathetic. Nonetheless, the Marathas continued to walk out, capture, and plunder Mughal allies, likewise in Hyderabad in 1702. This combat in the south devastated the cut, and long-distance trade with the direction was completely shut down between 1702 and 1704. Aurangzeb's obsession with significance war and his absence from Metropolis also enabled the English, Dutch, instruction French to greatly strengthen their positions at the expense of the Mughals. In many areas of the imperium, governors, landlords, and peasants successfully ruptured imperial laws. The increasing number present revolts by such groups as glory Jats around Agra, the Sikhs prickly the Punjab, and especially the Marathas of the Deccan, were made tenable, in part, by the illegal on the other hand widespread production of light firearms.

Aurangzeb on top form, nearly ninety years old, in 1707 and was buried in a plain tomb by the side of swell road in Aurangabad. The empire blunt not long survive his death.

Roger Recur. Long

See alsoAkbar; Babur; Shah Jahan

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Athar Prizefighter, M. The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Eraly, Patriarch. The Last Spring: The Lives ride Times of the Great Mughals.New Delhi: Viking, 1997.

Hintze, Andrea. The Mughal Reign and Its Decline. Brook-field, Vt.: Ashgate, 1997.

Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993.