India. A word which is uttered, played, replayed, lived and desecrated infinite times. But when does one stop to wonder and consider it. Sons of Babur is a play within a play which cleverly explores the meaning of nationhood. It traces the birth of a nation with the aid of a questioning and determined college student, Rudra, and his college friends who are fresh with idealism and purpose. Rudra goes back in time to the first Mughal, Babur, with an indisposed Bahadur Shah Zafar as his guide. Bahadur Shah Zafar takes Rudra through the blood-stained chambers of history to unravel its workings, intrigues and sacrifices. The play is replete with ideas and suggestions which are crucial in fragile times like ours.
What can war tell us about empire? In Climate of Conquest, Pratyay Nath seeks to answer this question by focusing on the Mughals. He goes beyond the traditional way of studying war in terms of battles and technologies. Instead, he unravels the deep connections that the processes of war-making shared with the society, culture, environment, and politics of early modern South Asia. Climate of Conquest closely studies the dynamics of the military campaigns that helped the Mughals conquer North India and project their power beyond it. The author argues that the diverse natural environment of South Asia deeply shaped Mughal military techniques and the course of imperial expansion. He also sheds light on the world of military logistics, labour, animals, and the organization of war; the process of the formation of imperial frontiers; and the empire’s legitimization of war and conquest. What emerges is a fresh interpretation of Mughal empire-building as a highly adaptive, flexible, and accommodative process.
Annemarie Schimmel has written extensively on India, Islam and poetry. In this comprehensive study she presents an overview of the cultural, economic, militaristic and artistic attributes of the great Mughal Empire from 1526 to 1857.
This Is The Book Where History Meets The Bride Of Fiction. In This Loveless Union, Both Striving For The Kernels Of Truth. Sixteenth Century Is The Time Period In Which This Saga Unfolds. The Scenario Opens At Kabul In Afghanistan, Down The Slope Of One Small Hill, Called Gulkhaneh. This Hill Lies Against The Majestic Range Of The Himalayas, Where The Biblical Cain Is Believed To Be Buried. Babur Is A Poet, A Mystic, And A Scholar. He Is Dauntless To A Verge Of Recklessness, Loving His Moun¬Tain-Brides, And Indulging In Pleasures Even Amidst The Extremities Of Wars. The Plot And The Characters Follow The Bride¬Groom Of History Like The Phantoms Of The Fate. Yet, The Bride Of Fiction Feeds The Very Lips Of The Words With Exotic Dialogues. The Scenic Splendors Along The Way Shun The Dull Bridegroom Of History, And Welcome The Bride Of Fiction On A Swift, Pleasant Journey Toward The Stairway To India. Babur Is The True Heir Of Tamerlane Sixth In Line From Him As His Paternal Ancestor, And From Genghis Khan As His Maternal Ancestor. After Thirty-Six Years Of Turbulent Rule (Only Five Years In India), When Babur Died At Agra, At The Age Of Forty-Eight, His Empire Extended Eastward From Badakhshan And Kabul Through The Punjab To The Borders Of Bengal. He Died As He Lived ! Like A True Mystic, Espousing Gaiety And Laughter. And Living In The Warmth And Sunshine Of His Great, Great Loves. And Welcoming Death Without Fear ! Rather, Immolating His Life, To Save The Life Of His Beloved Son, Humayun. Thus, Dying In Conformity With His Belief To Live Joyfully And To Die Happily. Farzana Moon Is A Native Of Pakistan. She Is A Teacher And A Writer. Her Poetry And Prose Have Appeared In Literary Journals In The United States. She Is A Citizen Of The United States, And Is Residing In Ohio With Her Husband And Daughter. Her Literary Pursuits Range From Religion To Philosophy, From Politics To History. Her Plays, Includ¬Ing The One Based On The Mahabharata, Are Being Considered By Us And Canadian Publishers. She Plans To Write Six Moghul Sagas, Three Of Which Are Complete. Her Third Moghul Saga, Divine Akbar And Holy India, Is Being Considered By Us And Foreign Publishers.
The definitive biography of the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, whose death at the hands of his younger brother Aurangzeb changed the course of South Asian history. Dara Shukoh was the eldest son of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, best known for commissioning the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. Although the Mughals did not practice primogeniture, Dara, a Sufi who studied Hindu thought, was the presumed heir to the throne and prepared himself to be India’s next ruler. In this exquisite narrative biography, the most comprehensive ever written, Supriya Gandhi draws on archival sources to tell the story of the four brothers—Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb—who with their older sister Jahanara Begum clashed during a war of succession. Emerging victorious, Aurangzeb executed his brothers, jailed his father, and became the sixth and last great Mughal. After Aurangzeb’s reign, the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate. Endless battles with rival rulers depleted the royal coffers, until by the end of the seventeenth century Europeans would start gaining a foothold along the edges of the subcontinent. Historians have long wondered whether the Mughal Empire would have crumbled when it did, allowing European traders to seize control of India, if Dara Shukoh had ascended the throne. To many in South Asia, Aurangzeb is the scholastic bigot who imposed a strict form of Islam and alienated his non-Muslim subjects. Dara, by contrast, is mythologized as a poet and mystic. Gandhi’s nuanced biography gives us a more complex and revealing portrait of this Mughal prince than we have ever had.
"Offers readers a compelling picture of Babur's Central Asian world, one which is little appreciated by most individuals who are either natives or students of South Asia studies"--Provided by publisher.
WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER MEMORIAL PRIZE | LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 'Indispensable reading on both India and the Empire' Daily Telegraph 'Brims with life, colour and complexity . . . outstanding' Evening Standard 'A compulsively readable masterpiece' Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of Books A stunning and bloody history of nineteenth-century India and the reign of the Last Mughal. In May 1857 India's flourishing capital became the centre of the bloodiest rebellion the British Empire had ever faced. Once a city of cultural brilliance and learning, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and its ruler – Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last of the Great Mughals – was thrown into exile. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad: a fight to the death between two powers, neither of whom could retreat. The Last Mughal tells the story of the doomed Mughal capital, its tragic destruction, and the individuals caught up in one of the most terrible upheavals in history, as an army mutiny was transformed into the largest anti-colonial uprising to take place anywhere in the world in the entire course of the nineteenth century.
Both an official chronicle and the highly personal memoir of the emperor Babur (1483–1530), The Baburnama presents a vivid and extraordinarily detailed picture of life in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India during the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. Babur’s honest and intimate chronicle is the first autobiography in Islamic literature, written at a time when there was no historical precedent for a personal narrative—now in a sparkling new translation by Islamic scholar Wheeler Thackston. This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes notes, indices, maps, and illustrations. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Jahangir was the fourth of the six “Great Mughals,” the oldest son of Akbar the Great, who extended the Mughal Empire across the Indian Subcontinent, and the father of Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal. Although an alcoholic and opium addict, his reputation marred by rebellion against his father, once enthroned the Emperor Jahangir proved to be an adept politician. He was also a thoughtful and reflective memoirist and a generous patron of the arts, responsible for an innovative golden age in Mughal painting. Through a close study of the seventeenth century Mughal court chronicles, The Emperor Jahangir sheds new light on this remarkable historical figure, exploring Jahangir's struggle for power and defense of kingship, his addictions and insecurities, his relationship with his favourite wife, the Empress Nur Jahan, and with his sons, whose own failed rebellions bookended his reign.
