Mughal History and Society

The Mughal dynasty ruled from 1526 to 1857, but its authority and territory changed greatly within that span. Emperors built a large service establishment supported by agricultural revenue, incorporated regional rulers and maintained courts that moved between cities and camps. Local landholders collected dues, merchants supplied credit and goods, and scribes, trained writers, recorded orders and claims. During the eighteenth century, regional powers reorganized these connections while the Delhi court retained a reduced dynastic position.

On this page11 sections

Conquest, consolidation and regional power

Babur’s victory at Panipat in 1526 established Mughal power in northern India. Humayun’s defeats interrupted it between 1540 and 1555, allowing the Afghan Sur dynasty to govern before Mughal restoration. Akbar then enlarged the empire through campaigns and negotiated service, combining conquests with alliances involving regional ruling families.

Seventeenth-century rulers inherited the resulting institutions while pursuing further expansion. Aurangzeb’s annexation of Bijapur and Golconda in 1686–1687 widened territorial claims but committed armies to continuing Deccan war. After 1707, provincial dynasties and other military powers controlled more resources locally. Nadir Shah’s attack on Delhi in 1739 and expansion by the English East India Company later narrowed imperial independence. The British removal of Bahadur Shah Zafar after 1857 ended the dynasty’s remaining political role.

Regions, settlement and languages

Punjab’s river country, the Ganges-Yamuna plains, Bengal’s delta, Gujarat’s ports and the Deccan plateau supplied different agricultural and commercial settings. Monsoon conditions, irrigation, river crossings and mountain passes shaped movement and production. Provinces organized revenue collection and appointments, with districts and smaller revenue units below them.

Most people worked within rural society, while cities drew merchants, artisans, soldiers and servants. Persian supplied a language of court history and much administration; Arabic supported Islamic scholarship; Sanskrit was used for religious and learned works in South Asia, while regional languages carried poetry, teaching and practical communication. Malwa (a region in central India) documents combine Persian forms with signatures in Nagri, an Indian script, and graphic marks, with readers and witnesses helping participants understand and authenticate the documents.

Court offices and provincial authority

The emperor appointed senior servants and distributed resources through rank, office and grants. The diwan supervised finance, the mir bakhshi recommended officers for ranks and supervised troop inspections, and household officers managed workshops and stores. Documents passed through memoranda, copies, signatures and seals to connect a decision with payment or enforcement.

Provincial governors worked alongside revenue and military officers with their own responsibilities. Qanungos kept local revenue records, village officers recorded cultivation, and zamindars, local landholders and chiefs, collected dues and maintained armed followers. A jagir assigned an area’s revenue to an imperial servant for his household and troops, while cultivators and local landholders retained rights in the same land. Officials negotiated collection and officeholding with these established families.

Crossings, forts and contested territory

Strongholds protected crossings, routes, treasuries and residences. Akbar’s Attock Fort secured an Indus crossing, while older hill forts were incorporated through conquest. Kandahar passed to Iran’s Safavid dynasty in 1622, returned to Mughal rule in 1638 and was taken by the Safavids again in 1649.

At Asirgarh, captured by Akbar in 1601, large rock-cut reservoirs stored water for the hilltop stronghold. Siege artillery, blockades and negotiated surrender offered different means of taking fortified positions. Armed local landholders also resisted revenue collection or fought neighbouring chiefs within provinces.

Military service and its support

Mansabdars were officers holding a mansab, an imperial service rank. Their zat rank governed personal status and pay, while sawar specified the mounted soldiers they had to maintain. Descriptive rolls and horse branding helped inspectors identify the men and animals presented. Foot soldiers, men carrying handheld guns, artillery and elephants supplemented mounted troops.

Troops depended on commanders’ households, revenue receipts and recruitment networks. Grain carriers, craftsmen, tent workers and animal keepers supported campaigns. Banjaras, mobile grain traders, provisioned armies and towns, and official permissions could facilitate their purchases. Compulsory labour also imposed carrying burdens.

Patronage, skill and cultural production

Buildings, books, paintings and gardens required specialized workers and continued support. Court workshops brought together calligraphers who copied texts in decorative scripts, painters and bookbinders, while masons and decorative specialists combined regional materials with circulating designs. Akbar’s illustrated narratives, Jahangir’s portraits and studies of animals, and Shah Jahan’s floral marble work belong to different patronage settings.

Books also circulated through teachers, religious institutions and private households. Persian translation made selected Sanskrit works accessible to new readers, while regional-language composition continued outside the imperial workshop.

Agriculture, revenues and markets

Cultivating households retained and sold produce, using family and hired labour according to crops and season. Their tools and animals connected them with rural service groups. Crafts supplied ordinary necessities, noble establishments and distant buyers. A merchant’s advance could finance a weaver while binding output to an agreed customer.

Revenue assessment drew on measurement, crop rates, estimates or produce division. Realized collection depended on local records, negotiations, credit and sometimes coercion. Mints, money changers and merchants connected coinage with payment and exchange, while river and road traffic linked producing districts to towns and ports.

Orders, reports and couriers

Government required news of appointments, receipts, campaigns and local conditions. Court recorders maintained diaries, prepared memoranda and authenticated copies. Provincial reports linked affairs beyond the ruler’s immediate view to central decisions, while couriers carried orders and information along routes affected by season and security.

The court’s mobility made this system particularly important. Tented audience spaces and service departments carried administration to successive halts. Local recipients preserved grants and orders because they could support a claim across changes of patron. Families presented earlier orders when requesting confirmation from a new ruler or official.

Documents, disputes and justice

Qadis, judges trained in Islamic law, heard disputes and authenticated transactions, while imperial and provincial officers issued orders and directed investigations. Local experts could arbitrate boundaries or establish possession. Aurangzeb commissioned the Fatawa-i Alamgiri, a compilation of rulings and arguments from the Hanafi school of Islamic law for judges and scholars to consult.

Hindu and Muslim parties used Persian legal documents for debt, property and family claims. A witness, acknowledgment and seal could preserve evidence beyond the original transaction. In a Malwa boundary inquiry of 1658, appointed revenue officers and headmen took an oath and walked the disputed boundary before recording their agreement.

Communities, institutions and imperial policy

Mosques, temples, shrines and learned lineages were sustained through gifts, property, service and worship. Mughal rulers patronized some institutions and constrained or attacked others. Akbar abolished the pilgrimage tax in 1563 and jizya, a tax on non-Muslim subjects, in 1564. Aurangzeb reinstated jizya in 1679 and ordered the destruction of particular temples.

The Sikh spiritual leaders known as Gurus, Arjan and Tegh Bahadur, were executed under Mughal authority in 1606 and 1675. The Jain teacher Hiravijaya obtained Akbar’s orders protecting Jain festival days from animal slaughter during his visit to Fatehpur Sikri in 1583–1585.

Regional adaptations and later transformations

Eighteenth-century regional courts retained Mughal titles, scribal forms and artistic conventions while controlling resources locally. Families preserved older grants and debt papers for use under changing rulers. The Company’s Permanent Settlement in Bengal in 1793 treated revenue intermediaries as landowners liable for a fixed annual payment and curtailed their military and policing roles.

The reduced Delhi court supported poetry and ceremonial architecture into the nineteenth century. After 1857, extensive British demolition altered the Red Fort, while dispersed manuscripts and objects entered later collections. Painters leaving Delhi after the 1739 sack found patrons in Awadh; Nidha Mal’s mid-eighteenth-century garden scenes carried late Mughal court compositions to Lucknow.