India History

India History - The Muslim Kings

India history records that the Muslim kings from Turkey ruled from the 12th century until 1397 when the great wave of Mongols swept down and ravaged the entire region.

They moved with lightning speed and slaughtered all before them. India history has recorded that the brutal devastation led to a period of complete chaos.

In 1527 when the Mughal monarch Babur came to power; he conquered the Punjab and took Delhi.

Babur was a complicated, enlightened ruler from Kabul who loved poetry, gardening, and books. He wrote cultural treatises on the Hindus he conquered, and took notes on local flora and fauna.

This was the foundation of the Mughal dynasty, whose six emperors would comprise the most influential of all the Muslim dynasties in India. Babur died in 1530, leaving behind a weak ineffective son Humayuns.

India History - Akbar The Great

His grandson, Akbar, however, would be the greatest Mughal ruler of all. Unlike his grandfather, Akbar was more warrior than scholar, and he extended the empire as far south as the Krishna River.

Akbar was an astute man and a good ruler. He decided to marry a Hindu princess thus establishing a tradition of cultural acceptance and union between the two religions.

This changed the path of India history and laid the foundations for modern India culture and the success of the Mughal rule. He was succeeded by his son Jahangir, who in turn passed the expanding empire to his own son Shah Jahan

India History - Shah Jahan - Creator of The Taj Mahal

in 1627. Shah Jahan was responsible for most of the colossal monuments of the Mughal Empire, including the Pearl Mosque, the Royal Mosque, and the Red Fort. His greatest achievement and a high point of India culture was the Taj Majal that he built as a monument to his favourite wife.

Jahan's campaigns in the south and his flair for extravagant architecture necessitated increased taxes, and under this scenario his son Aurungzebe finally imprisoned him and grabbed power for himself.

Jahan spent his final days a prisoner in the Red Fort from where he could look down on the beautiful white marble monument that he had created. India history records Aurungzebe as a tyrannical ruler. He worked to eradicate indigenous traditions, and his intolerance prompted fierce local resistance.

He expanded the empire to include almost the entire subcontinent but he could never totally subdue the Mahrattas of the Deccan, who resisted him until his death in 1707.

Out of the Mahrattas' doggedness arose the legendary figure of Shivagi, a symbol of Hindu resistance and nationalism. Aurungzebe's three sons were in fierce conflict over the succession.

India history shows that this seriously weakened the Mughal Empire and from this point it started to decline, just as the Europeans were beginning to flex their imperialistic muscles.

2,500 BC to 1193>
India History - 1610 to post Independence>