Alamgir, Conqueror of the World | 1659CE - 1707CE | Al Muqaddimah

The year is 1659 of the Common Era. A majority of the Indian subcontinent is ruled by the Mughal Empire which just came out of a war of succession triggered while the previous emperor was still alive. The four sons of Emperor Shah Jahan picked up the sword for their claim to the Peacock throne. When the dust settled, only one of the sons remained, Prince Aurangzeb. With his father locked up and his brothers dead or exiled, Aurangzeb took over the great Mughal Empire as Shah Shah Aurangzeb Alamgir, the conqueror of the world. This video is sponsored by Magellan TV. Magellan TV is a streaming service that hosts over 3000 documentaries and shows in various genres, from history to science as well as travel and art. They're adding new shows all the time which you can enjoy on all sorts of devices. Also, there are no ads and an increasing percentage of shows is available in 4K with no additional cost. They were kind enough to offer Al Muqaddimah viewers an extended free month-long trial. You can go to try.magellantv.com to take advantage of that. This week, I watched Putto, Politics in the Blood which is the fascinating story of one of the most prominent political dynasties from my home country of Pakistan. This dynasty along with other forces wrote the fate of modern Pakistan on par with what the Kennedys and the Gandhis did for their respective countries. So, I would highly recommend you watch it. Secondly, I watched Nero's Golden House which tells the story of the Domus Aurea which became a symbol of decadence and perversion as well as art in ancient Rome. Again, you can take advantage of a month-long free trial by clicking the link in the description. It would also help support the channel. Back to the video. Before watching this video, be sure to on the rise of Prince Aurangzeb and the Mughal War of Succession. Assuming you've watched that and are all caught up, let's continue. Even though Aurangzeb has a reputation as kind of a jerk, he didn't act that way after the War of Succession. Where his father had killed his brothers, cousins and nephews after becoming emperor, Aurangzeb pardoned almost everyone other than his brothers. He even married two of his daughters to He kept some of his father's ministers too. Everyone was so happy with him that in the third year of his reign, he fell seriously ill and no one tried to overthrow him or restore Shahjahan who was still alive. He also distributed a lot of gold among his subjects. He opened charity kitchens and ended the road toll collected from grain merchants. He also spent a lot of time in It was a source of a lot of pride for him that he spent so much time with his subjects. He sent some money as a gift to the custodians of the Holy Mosque at Mecca and Medina. However, the Sharif of Mecca didn't accept it saying that Aurangzeb was not the rightful sovereign as long as Shahjahan was alive. Aurangzeb sent gifts almost every year but they were refused. When Shahjahan died, Aurangzeb sent gifts again and this time they were accepted. Even fellow monarchs didn't think of him as a legitimate ruler. The Safavid Shah wrote a letter to Aurangzeb telling him that instead of the world conqueror, he should have picked the title the father conqueror which just sounds dirty in English. Aurangzeb's reply to all this was denial. He kept insisting that Shahjahan had chosen retirement and was not forced. Aurangzeb would be haunted by the fact that he had overthrown his father for the rest of his life and this fact probably guided a lot of his actions especially in regards to him becoming more pious. Being a warrior, Aurangzeb quickly got to the business of expansion of the empire. Bengal had already been under Mughal control so Aurangzeb tried to expand into Assam. He made his loyal Mir Jumla governor of Bengal and sent him there but due to various reasons, not the was brilliant Assamese resistance, he wasn't able to conquer it. On the other side of the empire, the Pashtun tribes became a problem for Aurangzeb. In 1667, the Yusufzai tribe revolted and then in 1672, the Afridi tribe revolted. Kabul, being the region's central city, was told to raise an army and fight but the army was ambushed near Khyber Pass. This went on for at least two more years before Aurangzeb himself arrived in Peshawar. He struck deals with the tribesmen using carrots where necessary and employing sticks where needed. He gave them land grants and money to defend the vital trading route that went from Central Asia to India. This secured the north-western border. In 1671, he commissioned the Badshahi Masjid in Lahore. It took around two years to complete and remained the largest mosque in the world for almost three centuries. Where he was making new allies, he was also losing old ones. The Rajput were long-standing allies of the Mughals who had stood with them through thick and thin. The Mughal emperor, by law, had the right to regulate Rajput succession. Although, by tradition, that regulation was guided by Rajput opinion. Basically, the emperor could appoint a new head of the tribe upon the death of the old one but the successor had to be popular among the tribe. What happens if the tribe is divided among itself over who should succeed? The Rathore tribe of the Rajput had such a crisis. When the ruling Raja died, the two candidates were his young grandson and his alleged son who was born after his death. Aurangzeb didn't want to put that tribe under regency and so chose the adult grandson over the infant son. This led to a crisis and then a rebellion which was soon joined by another tribe, the Sisodias, who had been the last Rajput tribe to submit to Mughal authority. While Aurangzeb was able to restore peace, some rogue elements of the tribes remained in guerrilla warfare for two decades until that infant grew up and was installed as Raja. During this rebellion, in the 1680s, Aurangzeb gave command of his army to his favourite son, Prince Akbar. Prince Akbar, like his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather, decided to try to overthrow his father. I mean seriously, this family was messed up. Zeus, Kratos and Atreus had nothing on this family. Akbar allied with the rebellious Rajput and marched to face his father. Aurangzeb used spies to spread a rumour that they were marching into a trap and the Rajput Akbar was left alone as Aurangzeb had vanquished an army without shooting a single arrow. Akbar, knowing how much the people of South India hated Aurangzeb, fled there but what he didn't know was that this was exactly what Aurangzeb wanted. Right before the war of succession between Aurangzeb and his brothers, Aurangzeb was in the middle of conquering territory in the Deccan. After becoming emperor, he saw this as an unfinished project and was itching to complete it. Now that they were housing a rebel, Aurangzeb had a reason to revisit his passion project of conquering all of India from the mountains to the ocean. This project would occupy the last 25 years of his life. By 1636, long before Aurangzeb's war of succession, the powerful Nizam Shahi Sultanate of Ahmednagar had fallen. Its territory was divided between the Mughals and Adil Shahi Sultanate of Bijapur. Bijapur too had declined over time. This western plateau of South India was occupied by the Marathi-speaking people who weren't exactly united by a sense of anything other than a common language. They were divided into Parganas which was a loose confederation of twenty to a hundred villages united under a Deshmukh, literally the face of the country, who, in return for taxes, provided security. His loyalty was only to his villages and being part of anything bigger than that depended on nothing but his own will. If he wanted, he could serve one empire or the other, be it a Muslim empire or a Hindu one. Out of these many local chieftains of the Marathas, one rose up to become powerful in the region. His name was Shivaji Posle. His grandfather had been the right-hand man of Malik Ambar in his resistance against the Mughals. His father, Shahji Posle, had tried to fill Malik Ambar's role as the puppet master of Ahmednagar but that proved to be futile so he briefly joined the Mughal Empire as Mansabdar before defecting to Bijapur. He was a capable general so he served the Sultan of Bijapur and moved around a lot. But he sent his wife and young son Shivaji to his ancestral lands near Pune. Shivaji wasn't happy with his people serving the Bijapur overlords and started to come into his own as a charismatic and politically gifted leader, not unlike Aurangzeb himself. From 1647 to 1657, he had amassed a decent number of soldiers and forts with his capital at the impregnable fort of Raigarh. This is when his first interaction with Aurangzeb happened, who was, at the time, the governor of the Deccan. He offered his military service to the Mughals if they recognised his claim over that of his enemies. Aurangzeb agreed to almost all his conditions except a few forts which were still under the control of Bijapur. Then the Mughal war of succession happened and Aurangzeb became emperor. After his ascension to the throne, Aurangzeb sent his uncle, Shahista Khan to govern the Deccan but during a daring night time raid by Shivaji, Shahista Khan was injured and his son was killed. So, Aurangzeb called him back. Confident by this victory, Shivaji reached all the way to Gujarat and attacked the major Mughal port of Surat. This was an offence that couldn't be tolerated. In 1665, Aurangzeb gave command of his army to Jai Singh, the Raja of the Kachwaha clan of the Rajput and sent him against Shivaji. Jai Singh was able to corner Shivaji and forced him to ask for terms. He was told to surrender 23 of his 35 forts to the Mughals. He was also to enroll his son, Sambhaji into the Mughal army. Finally, Shivaji and Sambhaji had to appear in Delhi at Aurangzeb's court. There, at the court in the year 1666, Shivaji was asked to stand with some men whom he considered below his station even though he didn't hold any Mughal rank himself. He made a huge scene there after which Aurangzeb had him put under house arrest. He escaped, probably by bribing the guards and disguising himself. He and his son made the long way back to the Deccan on foot, dodging Mughal patrols. In 1674, due to the decline of Bijapur, Shivaji declared himself an independent ruler as Chhatrapati, the umbrella or universal ruler and also the protector of all Hindus because of course. His coronation ceremony was so lavish that it cost 5 million rupees, around the same as what the Taj Mahal had cost. Chhatrapati Shivaji then expanded his empire further and died in 1680, leaving the small Maratha empire to his son, Sambhaji. This was the South India that Aurangzeb was now returning to in 1682, some 24 years after leaving it to claim his throne. At first, Aurangzeb tried to rile up the Muslim Sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda against the Marathas but that failed because they were weak and preferred the Marathas over the Mughals. So, Aurangzeb turned his gun on them. Bijapur was conquered in 1686 and Golconda in 1687. Then, the full force of the mighty Mughal empire was turned on the Marathas. Sambhaji, the Chhatrapati was captured, taken to Delhi, humiliated, seriously tortured by having his eyes clawed out and executed. The Marathas crowned Shivaji's second son, Rajaram but he too was pushed and Raigarh itself fell. Sambhaji's nine-year-old son, Shahu was captured. However, he was treated well by Aurangzeb. He was raised in a Persianate court, fully versed in Mughal tradition but he wasn't converted to Islam. That might've been because converting him would've invalidated his claim to the Maratha throne and he would've become pretty useless to Aurangzeb. By 1689, Aurangzeb had gained victory over victory. This could've been a good point to stop. History could've recorded that Shahenshah Aurangzeb Alamgir returned to the capital after 10 years of first leaving. He had destroyed two Sultanates. He had almost destroyed the young Maratha empire. He could've just returned with the treasures of the Golconda and the throne of Shivaji. He could've restructured the empire and installed new administrative policies. He could've destroyed what little remained of the Maratha by simply buying their supporters. He could've sent his sons to govern the Deccan and other regions so they'd be fit for succession. He could've handed a rich and powerful empire down to his successors. His empire could've fought the invaders and maybe even the Europeans. All could've been well but, well, that's not what happened. Aurangzeb, the great conqueror that he was, was determined to keep going. He didn't want to return to the boring day-to-day administration of the empire. He wanted to be where the swords and the blood were. After 7 years of entering the Deccan to capture his son, who, by the way, had actually escaped to Iran long ago, Aurangzeb was determined to conquer everything from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. From 1689 to 1698, Aurangzeb was camped out in huge tent cities that he used as temporary bases in an attempt to first capture the fortress of Jinji where the Maratha Chhatrapati Rajaram was holding out and then to capture the entirety of Karnataka and the Tamil country. The challenge of capturing Jinji was given to his trusted general Zulfiqar Khan who had previously captured the impregnable Raigarh. From 1690 to 1693, various attempts were made but the terrain always played for an advantage of the Marathas. In 1693, the 75-year-old emperor fell ill and his sons picked up their swords just as Aurangzeb and his brothers had once done, although Aurangzeb was able to bring things under control. Speaking of bringing things under control, Jinji never fell to Aurangzeb. From 1689 to 1698, for 9 whole years, he couldn't capture a single fortress. But his ego clouded his judgement. The empire's coffers ran dry, its generals grew tired, its soldiers deserted but the emperor kept pushing. By 1698, the Mughals began to withdraw and Rajaram moved to the city of Satara and began reviving the Maratha empire. He was doing quite well until he died in 1700 when his wife, Tarabai declared her four-year-old son, Shivaji II as the next Chhatrapati. It's said that Aurangzeb actually celebrated the fact that a woman and a baby were now in charge of the The 25-year-old Tarabai was incredibly talented at her job. By all sources, including Mughal ones, she comes off as a better ruler than her husband was. Not only was Tarabai able to fend off Mughal attacks but she was also able to expand the empire. She even sent raiding missions into North India as far as Malwa and Gujarat. Aurangzeb, on the other side, was suffering from success. His tenth city was huge and measured around 50 kilometers in circumference. His artillery was heavy and his supply lines were long. This wasn't a mobile army. While Tarabai's Marathas were well aware of the mountainous terrain and were able to deliver swift attacks, so Aurangzeb had a disadvantage. For every one fort he captured, he lost two. He was old beyond his years and his generals had started dying. Most of his trusted companions were gone. Newer generations were having their own political struggles. As princes had to build their own support, Aurangzeb's sons were already working against each other and all the notable members of the court were pulled into various factions and were hence unable to work together. Another interesting aspect of this war was that both the Mughals and the Marathas were trying to allies. Aurangzeb promised them land and a rank while the Marathas promised them, along with land and rank, a Swaraj, the idea of self-governance. This is why the Maratha Empire is often called the Maratha Confederacy because of how much autonomy the vassals had. Though, Aurangzeb simply didn't have enough land to distribute among everyone he was subjugating. In the last 25 years of his reign, the Maratha Mansabdars at the Mughal court actually controlled more land than the Rajput did. The increasing cost of the war also forced him to turn land from distributable jagir to crown land, that is, turning it from land that could be given to a vassal to land that was directly under the emperor's control and hence gave him the full revenue. On top of that, it seems that he was a bit paranoid and frustrated by his commanders. From 1699 to 1706, he actually led sieges himself. He refused to rest during these years. Though, still, he wasn't able to achieve much. He collapsed while leading such a siege in 1706 and was put in a palanquin and taken to the fort of Ahmednagar. He declared this to be his journey's end. On March 3rd, 1707, Shahanshah Muhayuddin Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir passed away at Ahmednagar. In a somewhat ironic twist, he was buried around a kilometre away from where Malik Anbar, the old enemy of the Mughals, was buried. See you next time. Don't forget to subscribe and press the bell icon. On the screen right now, you can see the names and the tiers of the patrons. You can join them by pledging a $1 or more to support the channel. Thank you for watching.