Mughal Empire: The whole chapter

Nadir Shah invaded India in 1738-39 and routed the Mughal army at Karnal in February 1739. In Delhi a rumour of his death led to attacks on his soldiers, and he ordered a massacre of the inhabitants. He left with an enormous treasure, including Shah Jahan's Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-noor, and the territories west of the Indus were ceded to him. The emperor was Muhammad Shah (1719-48), whose authority never recovered.

Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah (Chin Qilich Khan), a leading noble who had helped overthrow the Sayyid brothers and briefly served as wazir, left Delhi in disgust and defeated the Mughal governor Mubariz Khan at Shakar Kheda in 1724. He then ruled the Deccan from Hyderabad, never formally breaking with the emperor but acting independently. Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan were rulers of Bengal, and Saadat Khan founded the autonomous state of Awadh.

The Sayyid brothers backed Farrukhsiyar against Jahandar Shah in 1713 and held the real power as wazir and mir bakhshi. When Farrukhsiyar plotted against them, they deposed and killed him in 1719, set up two short-lived puppet emperors, and then placed Muhammad Shah on the throne. In 1720 a group of nobles led by Nizam-ul-Mulk turned against them; Husain Ali Khan was murdered and Abdullah Khan defeated, and Muhammad Shah ruled until 1748.

Abdul Qadir Badauni, an orthodox scholar who worked in Akbar's translation bureau, wrote the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh in secret. It attacks the influence of Abul Fazl and Faizi, the Ibadat Khana debates and the drift from orthodoxy, and gives a view of the court very different from the official Akbarnama. Nizamuddin Ahmad wrote the Tabaqat-i-Akbari, a more neutral general history.

The Tauhid-i-Ilahi (about 1582), usually called the Din-i-Ilahi, was a discipleship of select nobles who pledged devotion to the emperor; it had no scripture, no priests and no places of worship. Membership was voluntary and small: Abul Fazl, Faizi and Birbal joined, while Raja Man Singh politely declined, and Akbar did not press him. Most historians treat it as an order of personal loyalty rather than a new religion, and it faded away after Akbar's death.

The Akbarnama of Abul Fazl has three volumes; the first two are a chronicle, and the third is the Ain-i-Akbari, an account of the institutions and resources of the empire. NCERT notes that it was completed in 1598, the forty-second regnal year, after five revisions. It was written in Persian. Far from being only about the court, its books cover the imperial household, the army and officials, the fiscal data of the provinces (mulk-abadi), and the religious, literary and cultural traditions of the people. NCERT uses it as the main source for agrarian history.

Three influential explanations are often contrasted. Jadunath Sarkar blamed Aurangzeb's religious policy and his distrust of others, which alienated Rajputs, Sikhs, Jats and Marathas. Satish Chandra argued for a jagirdari crisis: as the number of mansabdars grew, especially with the Deccani and Maratha nobles, good jagirs ran short (be-jagiri), and factional struggle followed. Irfan Habib stressed the agrarian crisis: jagirdars squeezed the peasants, who fled or rebelled under zamindar leadership. Later historians add regional explanations, seeing the eighteenth century as a time of new regional powers.

NCERT (Theme 9) records that jharokha darshan was introduced by Akbar, who appeared at a balcony facing east at sunrise to widen the acceptance of imperial authority as part of popular faith. Forms of salutation marked rank; the highest was sijda (prostration), which drew orthodox objection, and under Shah Jahan it was replaced by the chahar taslim and zaminbos (kissing the ground). Aurangzeb, who regarded the practice as un-Islamic, stopped jharokha darshan early in his reign.