State Building:
Changes
Continuity
- The Mughal empire was run by an emperor. His word was law.
- Akbar, the third emperor, allowed Hindus to hold positions in government and follow their own laws
- Akbar made himself a deity in his new state religion, translated as the Divine Faith (see Culture for more information)
- Akbar created the mansabdari system. It was similar to the feudal system. Mansabdars were military officers that received land from the emperor. Under this system, the empire was split into provinces (subas) led by governors. Provinces were further divided into parganas, defined as "unions of several villages". Each of these parganas had a magistrate and two officials.
- When Emperor Shah Jahan became sick, a civil war broke out among his sons over the throne. Once Shah Jahan recovered, he was not allowed to resume his position, and was under house arrest until his death.
- One of Shah Jahan's sons, Alamgir, took the throne and made the empire a Muslim state, and the religious tolerance ended.
- In the late 1600s, other people in the area such as the Jats, Sikhs, Rajputs, and the Deccan revolted
- The Sikhs rebelled again, but was squashed once their leader and hundreds of followers were executed.
- The Mughals lost lots of land in the 1750s to the Marathas.
- The British controlled the Mughals towards the end of the eighteenth century. The emperors followed British orders until the last Mughal emperor participated in a rebellion and was exiled.
Continuity
- "The beginnings of Mughal rule followed a familiar pattern: an adventurous chieftain in the mountainous areas to the northwest, attracted by possibilities of wealth and power during a period of internal weakness in India."