Establishment of Mughal Empire
Reign of Babur
In the early sixteenth century, descendants of
the Mongol, Turkic, Persian, and Afghan invaders of Southwest Asia—theMughals—invaded the India under the leadership of Zahir-ud-din Mohammad
Babur. Babur was the great-grandson of Timur Lenk (Timur the Lame,
from which the Western name Tamerlane is derived), who had invaded India and
plundered Delhi in 1398 and then led a short-lived empire based in
Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan) that united Persian-based Mongols
(Babur's maternal ancestors) and other West Asian peoples. Babur was driven
from Samarkand and initially established his rule in Kabul in 1504; he later
became the first Mughal ruler (1526–30). His determination was to expand
eastward into Punjab, where he had made a number of forays including an attack
on the Gakhar stronghold of Pharwala. Then an invitation from an opportunistic
Afghan chief in Punjab brought him to the very heart of the Delhi
Sultanate, ruled by Ibrahim Lodi (1517-26). Lodi's own uncle invited Babur to
invade, because the Sultan was weak and corrupt.
Babur, a seasoned military commander, entered India
in 1526 with his well-trained veteran army of twelve thousand to meet the
sultan's huge but unwieldy and disunited force of more than 100,000 men. Babur
defeated the Lodi sultan decisively at Panipat (in modern-day Haryana, about 90
kilometers north of Delhi). Employing gun carts, movable artillery, and
superior cavalry tactics, Babur achieved a resounding victory. A year later, he
decisively defeated a Rajput confederacy led by Rana Sangha. In 1529 Babur routed
the joint forces of Afghans and the sultan of Bengal but died in 1530 before he
could consolidate his military gains. He left behind as legacies his memoirs
(Baburnama), several beautiful gardens in Kabul and Lahore, and descendants who
would fulfill his dream of establishing an empire in the Indian Subcontinent.
Reign of Humayun
When Babur died, his son Humayun (1530–56)
inherited a difficult task. He was pressed from all sides by a reassertion of
Afghan claims to the Delhi throne, by disputes over his own succession, and by
the Afghan-Rajput march into Delhi in 1540. He fled to Persia, where he spent
nearly ten years as an embarrassed guest at the Safavid court of
Tahmasp I. During Sher Shah's reign, an imperial unification and administrative
framework were established, but would be further developed by Akbar later in
the century. In 1545 Humayun gained a foothold in Kabul with Safavid assistance
and reasserted his Indian claim, a task made easier by the weakening of Afghan
power in the area after the death of Sher Shah Suri in May 1545, and took
control of Delhi in 1555. However, he was not in power a few years before he
took a fatal fall down his library's stairs.
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