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Emperors of the Mughal Empire

  • AkbarAkbar was fourteen years old when Bairam Khan enthroned him on a newly built platform at Kalanaur in Punjab and proclaimed him Shahanshah, the Persian title…
  • Rafi ud-DarajatRafi ud-Darajat sat on the Mughal throne for exactly three months and six days. He was nineteen years old when he was placed there, and he would never leave…
  • Jahandar ShahJahandar Shah died on the 11th of February 1713, his body paraded through the streets of Delhi in pieces, hanging upside down from two elephants.
  • Shah Jahan IIShah Jahan II ruled the Mughal Empire for exactly one hundred and three days in 1719. His birth name was Mirza Rafi-ud-Daulah, and he was the second son of a…
  • Shah Jahan IIIShah Jahan III sat on the Mughal throne for just over a year, from December 1759 to 1760, making his reign one of the briefest in the dynasty's long history.
  • AurangzebAurangzeb, born on the 3rd of November 1618 in Dahod, ruled the Mughal Empire for nearly half a century and died still fighting at the age of 88.
  • Shah JahanShah Jahan, the fifth Mughal Emperor, was born in Lahore on the 5th of January 1592, and died a prisoner in the very fortress where he had crowned himself…
  • JahangirJahangir, the fourth emperor of the Mughal Empire, built his legacy on a paradox: a ruler who could tell at a glance which court painter had applied a single…
  • FarrukhsiyarFarrukhsiyar was born on the 20th of August 1683 in Aurangabad, on the Deccan Plateau, the grandson of one Mughal emperor and great-grandson of another.
  • BaburBabur was born on the 14th of February 1483 in Andijan, a city in the Fergana Valley of what is now Uzbekistan. His given name was Zahir ud-Din Muhammad…
  • HumayunHumayun was descending the stone staircase from his library, the Sher Mandal, with his arms full of books. It was the 24th of January 1556.
  • Alamgir IIAlamgir II ruled the Mughal Empire from 1754 to 1759, a reign of only five years that ended with a knife in a courtyard.
  • Ahmad Shah BahadurAhmad Shah Bahadur was born on the 23rd of December 1725, the son of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah, and he would grow up to become the fourteenth ruler of…
  • Akbar IIAkbar II reigned as the nineteenth Mughal emperor from 1806 to 1837, at a moment when holding that ancient title guaranteed increasingly little.
  • Bahadur Shah IBahadur Shah I was born Muhammad Mu'azzam on the 14th of October 1643 in Burhanpur, the second son of a prince who would become the most powerful ruler in…
  • Shah Alam IIShah Alam II was born Ali Gohar on the 25th of June 1728, inside the Red Fort in Delhi, in the semi-captivity quarters reserved for princes of the royal…
  • Muhammad ShahOn the 9th of October 1720, Syed Hussain Ali Khan Barha stood in his encampment at Todabhim when a group of assassins struck.
  • Bahadur Shah ZafarBahadur Shah Zafar died at five in the morning on the 7th of November 1862, in a colonial outpost far from the city he had ruled.