Foreign relations of the Mughal Empire

• 1. Introduction

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  Foreign relations of the Mughal Empire rested on a single geographical conviction: the Khyber Pass was the key to India. Running along the Kabul-Qandahar route, this mountain corridor was the natural barrier between the subcontinent and any force from the northwest. Successive Mughal rulers treated securing it as the first duty of statecraft. The effort to hold it pulled the Mughals into alliances with Persians and confrontations with Uzbek armies. It also meant tense negotiations with European trading companies arriving at Indian ports. At the same time, the Mughals maintained religious and commercial ties that stretched from the Red Sea to Southeast Asia. What drove Mughal emperors into a century-long contest over a single Persian fort? And what explains an empire's simultaneous reach toward trading companies, holy cities, and distant kingdoms?

• 2. Holy Obligations

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  Mariam-uz-Zamani, wife of Emperor Akbar, commissioned a massive trading ship at the Khizri Darwaza on the Ravi River. Named the Rahimi, it was homeported at Surat but regularly made the voyage to Jeddah on the Red Sea. There it carried merchandise for the vendors of the holy city and transported pilgrims along sections of their Hajj journey. Aurangzeb, the successor of Shah Jahan, owned an even larger vessel called the Ganj-i-Sawai. It was built primarily to carry pilgrims from India to Hejaz on the annual Hajj.

  In 1577, a Mughal emperor created an official title, Mir Haj, for the Shariff of Mecca. The appointment came with 500,000 rupees and 10,000 Khil'lat. The Mughals also distributed gifts to the peoples of Mecca and Medina, collectively known as al-Haramayn, the two holiest cities in Islam. Among the non-monetary offerings was a candlestick studded with diamonds, estimated at 100 carats by some historians. The Shariff of Mecca reciprocated by sending Arabian horses, high-quality swords, and sacred relics to the Mughal court.

  The Mughal chronicler Muhammad Saqi Musta'id Khan recorded these exchanges in his work, Ma'asir-i-Alamgiri. Aurangzeb had personally transcribed two Quran manuscripts and shipped them to Medina as gifts. The scholar Rishad Choudhury has interpreted a phrase from that same chronicle to suggest something remarkable. Aurangzeb's patronage of the Hajj through financial support, Quranic offerings, and salaried delegates was considered spiritually equivalent to performing the pilgrimage in person. The Khizri Darwaza on the Ravi River, where the Rahimi was first built, was later renamed Sheranwala Darwaza by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

• 3. The Qandhar Dispute

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  Before 1507, the fort of Qandhar was in Timurid hands. When the Uzbeks ousted those princes that year, Qandhar entered a zone of perpetual contest between the Mughals and Safavid Persia. Well supplied with water, the fort controlled the approach to Kabul and allowed oversight of the Afghan and Baluch tribes in the surrounding territory. It was the best natural check against invasion from the northwest. For the Persians, Qandhar was useful but not vital. For the Mughals, losing it meant exposing both Kabul and the northwest frontier. Babur captured it in 1522 after Uzbek disruptions in Khurasan created an opening. Akbar, determined to hold a defensible frontier after conquering Sindh and Baluchistan, recaptured Qandhar in 1595. He remained at Lahore until 1598, leaving for Agra only after the death of Abdullah Khan Uzbeg.

  During the reign of Jahangir, Nur Jahan, who had Persian connections, served as a bridge between the two courts. That kept relations cordial for a time. But in 1620, Shah Abbas I of Persia sent Jahangir a request to return Qandhar. He had already begun preparations for a military expedition to press the claim. Jahangir dispatched Prince Khurram to lead the response. The prince was caught in a political struggle between Nur Jahan and her rival Asaf Khan, Prince Khurram's father-in-law. He placed impossible demands on the mission and refused to advance. Qandhar passed into Persian hands by 1622. Shah Abbas I then sent lavish embassies and costly gifts to ease the bitterness that followed at Jahangir's court.

  Following the death of Shah Abbas I in 1629, Shah Jahan moved to recover the lost ground. He brought the Persian governor Ali Mardan Khan to his side and formally recovered Qandhar in 1638. The recovery lasted little more than a decade. After a Mughal setback at Balkh in 1647, the Persians attacked and conquered Qandhar in 1649. Shah Jahan dispatched Aurangzeb with an army of 50,000 to retake it. Aurangzeb defeated the Persian forces in battle but could not take the fort. In total, the Mughals mounted three attempts to retake Qandhar. Two were led by Aurangzeb; one by Dara Shukoh, the elder son of Shah Jahan. Determined Persian commanders defeated all three. After ascending the throne, Aurangzeb chose not to pursue Qandhar further. A new Persian ruler insulted the Mughal envoy in 1668, and Aurangzeb prepared to respond. But that ruler died before the conflict could escalate, and the danger to India faded. It would not return until Nadir Shah ascended the Persian throne.

• 4. European Traders at the Gate

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  On the 24th of August 1608, William Hawkins, captain of the Hector, dropped anchor at Surat. He had come to negotiate a trading presence with the most powerful court in Asia. Hawkins traveled inland to Agra and secured an audience with Emperor Jahangir in 1609. He gained the emperor's confidence so thoroughly that Jahangir appointed him Mansabdar, or military governor of Mughal territories. In his personal records, Hawkins documented 41 Mansabdar officers, each commanding between 3,000 and 5,000 horsemen, known as Zat. Thomas Roe arrived at Agra separately, sent as a royal envoy by King James. Roe resided at the Agra court for three years. He allegedly gained personal favor with Jahangir and may have become his drinking companion. Roe arrived at court carrying many crates of red wine. That friendship proved costly. A report of Roe's drinking reached Jahangir, who strongly forbade wine at his court, and Roe fell from favor.

  In the thirty years following 1603, the English trading factory at Machilipatnam, established in 1611, reported its affairs to English Bantam. That commercial presence developed against a backdrop of chronic friction. Local Mughal officials habitually pressured the East India Company. The Company responded by harassing Mughal vessels at sea. The Mughals, holding dominant military power on land, usually replied with threats that forced the Company back to neutral ground.

  In 1602, the Dutch government chartered a single company and granted it a monopoly over all of Asia's trade. Known as the VOC, it eventually monopolized nutmeg, mace, and cloves. Those spices sold to European kingdoms and the Mughal court at 14-17 times their cost in Indonesia. Jahangir issued the first known firman directed toward the VOC in Gujarat. A letter dated the 12th of March 1618, written by P.G. van Ravesteyn and A.W. Goeree to Jan Pieterszoon Coen, records the firman's terms. It granted the Dutch freedom to trade at any Mughal port and the autonomy to govern their own affairs. They could also profess their religion openly, and customs duties applied at a rate believed to stand at 2.5 percent during Jahangir's reign. A VOC representative named Van Adrichem received gifts at the Mughal court that ranged from the practical to the extraordinary. Among them were Arabian horses, red and green cloth, a lacquered palanquin, Japanese boxes, a Venetian mirror, two Japanese shields, and birds-of-paradise. The first Dutch factory on Indian soil was established at Surat by Pieter van den Broecke.

  In 1667, the French East India Company sent ambassadors Le Gouz and Bebert to the Mughal court. They carried a letter from Louis XIV of France urging Aurangzeb to protect French merchants from rebel forces in the Deccan. In response, Aurangzeb issued a firman permitting the French to open a factory at Surat. François Caron founded French outposts at Surat around 1668 and at Masulipatam around 1669, accompanied by a Persian associate named Marcara. Louis XIV acknowledged those successes by awarding Caron the Order of St. Michael.

• 5. The Balkh Gamble

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  After the death of Abdullah Khan Uzbeg in 1598, the Uzbek threat to Mughal positions in the northwest went quiet for a generation. But a new Uzbek ruler, Nazr Muhammad, eventually seized Balkh and Bokhara. When his son Abdul Aziz rebelled against him, Nazr Muhammad lost control of everything but Balkh and turned to Shah Jahan for help. Shah Jahan ordered Prince Murad Baksh to march toward Balkh and support Nazr Muhammad. The mission also carried an ambition to help Nazr Muhammad eventually reclaim Samarqand and Bokhara.

  Prince Murad moved quickly but made a critical error. Without waiting for Nazr Muhammad's orders, he rushed the fort of Balkh. He then sent his army into the citadel, where Nazr Muhammad had been sheltering. Alarmed by the prince's intentions, Nazr Muhammad fled. The Mughals occupied Balkh but now faced its population alone. Abdul Aziz gathered an army of 120,000, crossed the Oxus River, and launched a counterattack. Prince Murad was replaced by Prince Aurangzeb, who led the Mughals to victory over Abdul Aziz near Balkh in 1647. After the victory, the supporters of Abdul Aziz abandoned him. Nazr Muhammad, in exile in Persia, began negotiating with Shah Jahan to reclaim his empire.

  Aurangzeb demanded that Nazr Muhammad appear before him in person and formally apologize. The historian Satish Chandra called this a mistake. The proud Uzbek ruler was unlikely to demean himself that way, and he knew the Mughals could not hold Balkh for long. An unfriendly local population, a brutal winter, and scarce supplies forced the Mughals out. They abandoned Balkh in 1647, the same year they had taken it. Satish Chandra's conclusion is that Shah Jahan's real achievement was modest. The campaign kept the Uzbeks divided and prevented a united Uzbek state from threatening Mughal control at Kabul. The claim that the campaign aimed to recover the Mughal homeland of Samarqand and Fargana, Chandra argues, does not hold. The Oxus was hardly a defensible frontier, and no serious effort was made toward either city.

• 6. The Ottoman Device

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  Babur's first encounter with the Ottomans was not one of friendship. Selim I, the Ottoman sultan, provided Babur's Uzbek rival Ubaydullah Khan with powerful matchlocks and cannons. When Babur was ordered in 1507 to accept Selim I as his rightful suzerain, he refused. He gathered Qizilbash troops to counter Ubaydullah Khan at the Battle of Ghazdewan in 1512.

  The reversal came in 1513. Selim I, concerned that Babur might ally with the Safavids, reached out to reconcile. He dispatched Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa Rumi, along with other Ottoman Turks, to assist Babur's campaigns. From them, Babur learned a tactic that would prove decisive in India. Matchlocks and cannon, previously used mainly in sieges, could be deployed against an army in open field battle. Babur called this the 'Ottoman device,' naming it after the Ottomans' earlier use of field artillery at the Battle of Chaldiran. In 1527, Ottoman support extended to the Battle of Khanwa, reinforcing the military foundation on which Babur's empire was built.

  In 1626, Emperor Jahangir contemplated a grander diplomatic gambit. He envisioned a three-way alliance among the Mughals, the Ottoman Empire, and the Khanate of Bukhara. The target was the Safavid empire, which had defeated the Mughals at Kandahar. Jahangir wrote personally to the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV to propose the arrangement. His death in 1627 ended the negotiation before it could begin.

• 7. Distant Partners

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  For decades, the Malabari Mappila Muslims had represented the Mughal empire in trade with the Sultanate of Aceh. Aurangzeb and his brother Dara Shikoh both participated directly in this commerce. In 1641, Aurangzeb exchanged presents with the Sultan of Aceh, and the daughter of Iskandar Muda, Sultanah Safiatuddin, sent him eight elephants.

  When the VOC moved to disrupt trade through Aceh, Aurangzeb threatened Dutch interests in Gujarat with retaliation. The company had recognized that Muslim trading networks were damaging to its business and sought to protect its own routes through Malaka. The VOC backed down. A firman issued by Aurangzeb then guaranteed Indian sailors free passage through the waters of Aceh, Perak, and Kedah.

  In 1664-65, Ethiopian Emperor Fasilides dispatched an embassy to India to congratulate Aurangzeb on his accession to the Mughal throne. Not every distant approach produced a result. In the 1660s, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar I of the Maldives sought help from the Faujdar of Balasore, Aurangzeb's representative in the region. The Sultan feared that Dutch and English trading ships would disrupt the Maldivian economy and wanted Mughal backing against them. Aurangzeb had no navy capable of challenging either company at sea and no interest in the conflict. The request came to nothing. The firman that Aurangzeb had issued for Aceh, Perak, and Kedah stands as the furthest geographic reach of Mughal diplomatic authority. It was carried not by armies but by the threat of closing Indian ports to Dutch trade.