The Great Mughals and their India
The Great Mughals and their India

Author: Dirk Collier

Publisher: Hay House, Inc

Published: 2016-03-01

Total Pages: 517

ISBN-13: 9384544981

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A definitive, comprehensive and engrossing chronicle of one of the greatest dynasties of the world – the Mughal – from its founder Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the clan. The magnificent Mughal legacy – the world-famous Taj Mahal being the most prominent among countless other examples – is an inexhaustible source of inspiration to historians, writers, moviemakers, artists and ordinary mortals alike. Mughal history abounds with all the ingredients of classical drama: ambition and frustration, hope and despair, grandeur and decline, love and hate, and loyalty and betrayal. In other words: it is great to read and offers ample food for thought on the human condition. Much more importantly, Mughal history deserves to be widely read and reflected upon, because of its lasting cultural and socio-political relevance to today’s world in general and the Indian subcontinent in particular. The Mughals have left us with a legacy that cannot be erased. With regard to the eventful reigns of Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and their successors, crucial questions arise: Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And more importantly, what should we learn from their triumphs and failures? The author believes that history books should be accurate, informative and entertaining. In The Great Mughals and Their India, he has kept these objectives in mind in an attempt to narrate Mughal history from their perspective. At the same time, he does not shy away from dealing with controversial issues. Here is a fascinating and riveting saga that brings alive a spectacular bygone era – authentically and convincingly.

The Empire of the Great Mughals
The Empire of the Great Mughals

Author: Annemarie Schimmel

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9781861891853

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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.

Allahu Akbar
Allahu Akbar

Author: Manimugdha Sharma

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 9386950545

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That he was a medieval king who, with a progressive bent of mind, dared to look ahead to find that common ground for all his people to stand together. That he was a medieval king who is today tempting us to look back into the past to see our future through his eyes. Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government came to power in 2014 with Narendra Modi as the prime minister, an organised campaign began to vilify Emperor Akbar and the Mughals. While there were always voices that tried to project the Mughals as just another 'Islamic empire', ignoring the civilisational impact they had on India, even for them Akbar was a shining light in an otherwise era of darkness. Those talking in terms of easy binaries always found a 'good Muslim' in Akbar and a 'bad Muslim' in Aurangzeb. Academics and other liberals who could have countered this incorrect portrayal did not do it, dismissing such claims as mere screeches by the fringe that do not deserve any attention. But with the Hindu Right assuming political power, the fringe today has become the mainstream. And Akbar is no longer the 'good Muslim'. Why is there such hatred for Akbar, once the most loved king in India? What was the journey like, from being great to not-so-great? And how is this India different from Akbar's Hindustan? Has he become irrelevant in an India where growing Hindu nationalism threatens to alter the nature of the Indian state from a secular republic to a theocracy? Or is Akbar even more relevant today given the backdrop of hate that we all find ourselves in? Allahu Akbar seeks to find answers to these questions while providing a profile sketch of the emperor, his empire and his times.

Last Spring
Last Spring

Author: Abraham Eraly

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2000-10-14

Total Pages: 1368

ISBN-13: 9351181286

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In December 1525, Zahir-Ud-Din Babur, Descended From Chengiz Khan And Timur Lenk, Crossed The Indus River Into The Punjab With A Modest Army And Some Cannon. At Panipat, Five Months Later He Fought The Most Important Battle Of His Life And Routed The Mammoth Army Of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, The Afghan Ruler Of Hindustan. Mughal Rule In India Had Begun. It Was To Continue For Over Three Centuries, Shaping India For All Time. In This Monumental And Definitive Biography Of The Great Mughals, Abraham Eraly Reclaims The Right To Set Down History As A Chronicle Of Flesh-And-Blood People. Bringing To His Task The Objectivity Of A Master Scholar And The High Imagination Of A Master Story-Teller, He Recreates The Lives Of Babur, The Intrepid Pioneer; The Dreamer Humayun; Akbar, The Greatest And Most Enigmatic Of The Mughal Emperors; Jehangir And Shah Jahan, The Aesthetes; And The Dour And Determined Aurangzeb. Because Of Their Charisma And Leadership The Mughal Empire Survived And Grew Despite The Chaos And Contradictions It Carried Within Itself-The Tumult Of Unending Wars, The Baffling Opulence Of The Ruling Elite And The Desperate Misery Of The Masses, The Brutal Feuds In The Royal Families, As Also The Flowering Of Art And Culture. Without Ever Sacrificing Authenticity And Academic Accuracy, Eraly Has Written A Stirring And Vivid Account Of One Of The World S Greatest Empires That Will Be Savoured By The General Reader And The Serious Scholar Alike For Years To Come.

The Great Moghuls
The Great Moghuls

Author: Bamber Gascoigne

Publisher: Constable Limited

Published: 1971

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780094787506

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This book will appeal to the increasing numb er of people travelling to India each year, detailing perhap s the most interesting period of Indian history, the time of the Great Moghuls. '

Discoveries: India and the Mughal Dynasty
Discoveries: India and the Mughal Dynasty

Author: Valerie Berinstain

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Published: 1998-03-01

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9780810928565

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In the 16th century the Mughal emperors of India were among the greatest and most magnificent rulers of the East. Their arts of painting and architecture were peerless, their wealth fabulous, their courts renowned for culture and refinement, their jewels incomparable. This book follows the rise of Mughal dynasty in the 16th century, its heyday in the 17th, and its decline in the 19th. Fabled India: here we meet the legendary emperors Babur and Akbar the Great; we enter splendid courts and discover their political schemes and ambitions, ytheir marvelous artists, their lavish ceremonies, their high learning. The Mughal kingdoms comprised both Muslim and Hindu lands and ranged from Kashmir to Afghanistan to Samarkand, Art, science, craftmanship0, political policy, and military strategy: all are here, echoing in the vast spaces of the Taj Mahal and the scented gardens of Shalimar.--book cover.

The Emperor Who Never Was
The Emperor Who Never Was

Author: Supriya Gandhi

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2020-01-07

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0674243919

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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.

The Emperors' Album
The Emperors' Album

Author: Stuart Cary Welch

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0870994999

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Fifty leaves that form the sumptuous Kevorkian Album, one of the world's greatest assemblages of Mughal art. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

The Mughals of India
The Mughals of India

Author: Harbans Mukhia

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0470758155

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This innovative book explores of the grandest and longest lastingempire in Indian history. Examines the history of the Mughal presence in India from 1526to the mid-eighteenth century Creates a new framework for understanding the Mughal empire byaddressing themes that have not been explored before. Subtly traces the legacy of the Mughals’ world intoday’s India.

The Last Mughal
The Last Mughal

Author: William Dalrymple

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2009-08-17

Total Pages: 819

ISBN-13: 1408806886

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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.