A Mughal dagger and scabbard from the reign of Jahangir
Dagger with Scabbard, 1605–27
Marked Agra

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Mughal empire

Babur founded the Mughal empire at Panipat in 1526. At its height under Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, it ruled most of South Asia and was one of the richest states on Earth. Its last emperor was exiled by the British in 1858.

Place
Agra · Fatehpur Sikri · Delhi · LahoreAsia
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IBabur and his memoirs
  2. IIAkbar and the faiths
  3. IIIPainting at court
  4. IVThe Taj Mahal
  5. VAurangzeb
  6. VIDecline and the East India Company

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Babur
  • Akbar
  • Nur Jahan
  • Shah Jahan
  • Mumtaz Mahal
  • Aurangzeb

Objects

  • The Taj Mahal
  • The Baburnama
  • Mughal miniatures

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1526 to 1857. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?