The Mughal Empire – Book Recommendations

Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim, Amnon Rashid I will be talking about mobile history today, who were the mobiles moguls were a central agent clan who came to dominate the Indian political landscape for nearly three centuries. During the Mughal period, India became the most powerful country militarily, socially, economically, culturally. You name it. The Mongols had all these achievements moguls are the people who built Taj Mahal Mongols were the people who built the famous badshahi Mosque, which was the largest mosque in the world for a very long time. moguls are the people who built the Red Fort of daily also moguls built the Grand Mosque of Delhi. So why were the moguls in India in the

first place? And who were the moguls? To get the answers, you will have to look in to the books I will be recommending today. Some of these books are very, very powerful, and they are amazing books. They are relatively objective. Not perfect. I wouldn't say all these books are perfect, but they do

a lot of good work for the Marvel history. So the history to start with before I show you the mogul history, I would like to recommend the basic history of Islam in India. So before you understand as to why Mongols came to power, and what role the Mongols played in India, and to understand that role in the larger context of the Indian history of Islam, then you must start with some basic history of Islam in India. This particular book, titled Islam in South Asia is a must read for any serious student of Islam in the Indian subcontinent. And it is authored by Jamal Malik is a very good job. He starts from the very early period from the invasion of Mohammed bin across him in the seventh

century. And he goes all the way up to the decline of the Mongols, and the end, basically off the dominance, the political dominance of Islam in India. So this is a very, very good read. He talks about the culture of Islam, the political geometry of Islam, and how the Muslims contributed immensely to the Indian political landscape. Also, another book I strongly recommend is by great scholar from the US, Richard and Eaton, Richard M. Eaton has has penned this particular book, India in the persianate, age 1000 to 1765. So it is a history of Islam in India for nearly seven centuries. I must read, he also does a great job in telling the story of Islam in the Indian

subcontinent now to the Mughals. Okay. The first Mughal emperor was none other than the herodian Mohammed barber who came to power in 1526. And you can read a very good book on him and before I talk about that particular book, I will

I will quickly share some general histories of the Mughal Empire. Okay, this book is titled the Mughal Empire, it is by john f. Richards is a very good introduction to the Mongol Empire the history of the Mughal Empire in India, it's a very very good introduction, you must look into it also, another

history of Imperial Mughal system is Imperial identity, okay. This is also a very, very good book, you must look into it Imperial identity in the Mughal Empire is a general history of the Mughal Empire and when it comes to Imperial identity, also a collection of essays on the Mughal history is the Mughal state. The book is titled Mughal state the Mughal state from 1526 to 1750. Right and this book is Edited by mudfur alum and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Right. So these are the two scholars who have edited this particular collection of essays fascinating works now to the herodian Mohammed Barber, the first emperor of the Mughal Empire. If you want to read about the man from his own memoirs, then

this is his memoir, titled Baba nama. It was originally written in the Turkish language because the Mughals spoke Turkish at home, right? the Mughals were Turkish Turkic people, they came from Central Asia, and the language was Turkish. So at home, the Mughal elite, the royal family spoke Turkic or Turkish. In the court, this book Persian and the language of the masses was Hindi and what became later on All right, so if you want to read about Barber, the first Mughal Emperor came to power in 1526 and died in 20 1530, governed only for four years as the emperor of India. He wrote this memoir, a very, very interesting memoir, where he talks about his personal feelings about India, how

he liked India and how he struggled as a young man to come to power and all those things.

Very, very fascinating book to read from if you want to look into the mind of a mogul Prince if you want to read a secondary source on Mohammed Baba, the herodian Mohammed Baba, then this is a highly recommend. This is a highly recommended book, Steven Frederick Dale. Okay. It's titled Barber, the temporary Prince and Mughal Emperor 1483 to 1530 when he died write a very, very important book you must read, titled barber by Steven Frederick Dale. Okay. Now, moving on to some, some of the aspects of the Mughal Empire, which we can discuss very quickly before I do that, I will talk about alternative another very important King within the Mughal Empire was orangette RMB. He has become

highly controversial recently due to the BJP government in India, and the BJP government has its own narrative of history. And this narrative mainly comes from the 19th century British colonial narrative on history. Right. And modern historians have rejected that narrative and modern stories. modern historians see history as it is. So orange zip is a very good introduction by old red trash. Older trash has

compiled his book recently, not very long ago in 2017. It's a good introduction to the history of origins of alchemy, who has become an extremely controversial figure in India since the BJP government took power. Right. And another book on orange a to show that he was not a religious bigot, it is published by the Oxford University Press. It's an academic work by the way, it's not by an apologist or something like that. The Mughal nobility under Orings A. So utterly, utterly statistically shows that orange zip alum gay had Hindu generals serving under him far from being a religious bigot, someone who was out to demolish Hindu temples and remove Hindus from power or to

convert Hindus on mass rather than that, he was actually a very tolerant and very, you know,

a very open King, you know, he was open to Hindus for serving in the state and all that. So he shows statistically and utterly, that Hindus served under orans A within the mobile state, right 30% I repeat 30% of the mo the mobile dignitaries, or the months of Darfur, or the generals or position holders for Hindus 30%. That was a huge number more than all the Mughal emperors put together before oranga Balangay, so he was not a religious bigot, as some would claim. Also, those claims that Hinduism suffered under the Mughals to counter that particular claim or the trust

or the trust, her book is highly recommended cultures of encounter culture of encounters culture of encounters by all the trash. She's done a brilliant job in showing that the Sanskrit culture flourished throughout the period of jianyi

Sharjah Han and audnzd. So Sanskrit language and went through a renaissance in this particular period. So far from being bigots and persecutors of Hinduism, rather, the language of the Hindus, the religious language, Sanskrit flourished under the Mughal domain.

Also a very good book on Indian princes, anyone who wants to read about mobile princes in India, then this is a highly recommended book, again, published by Cambridge University Press. By the way, the book books I'm recommending are mostly academic books published by academics or academic institutions. So I don't believe in

books written by apologists or books written unless they have information we cannot find elsewhere. Right? I try my best to read from academic institutions because these scholars, they they have to be peer reviewed. And they have to be careful about what they say in the box. Right. So this is a very important book, The princes of the Mughal Empire. Okay. And the author is Manistee Farooqi. When he's de Farooqi. He talks about how Mughal princes lived throughout the Mughal Empire and the period he discusses is 50 or four to 60 to 7019. The period he discusses chronologically is 15 or four to 1719. Now, if you want to understand why the Mughals declined, then there is a very powerful work we

must look into. Is this for volume history of the moral decline? Okay, the fall the fall of the Mughal Empire by juggernaut Sarkar. So God was not a modern scholar in the strict sense of the word. He was writing the early 20th century.

took a lot of his inspiration from the 19th century colonial colonial narrative on the Mughal Empire. So he was quite hostile to organization and others, right. But this is an excellent collection of information, if you want to understand the moral decline in the 18th century, in particular, because he addresses the 18th century in these four volumes, so the 18th century was the century of decline as far as the Mughals were concerned. So what happened after the moral decline? The East India Company came to power and how that company, our corporate company, our trading company that came to trade in India, how did that company come to power? And how did the rule of

that company become an imperial state is a very good question which is addressed by William Dalrymple, beautifully in this book, title The anarchic he talks about the rise of the Indian East India Company, or sorry, the British East India Company, which came to power in the mid 18th century. Fascinating work, I strongly recommend this as a short history of the rise of the East India Company. So this was a summary of book recommendations on the Mughal Empire, the Mughal history, anyone who's interested to read on the Mughals, you need to go back to these books and start reading and you will see the magnificence of the moguls and the achievements and what they had

achieved in India politically economically, in fact, during the reign of Aurangzeb,

when moguls have governed more territory than ever before in India, India became the most powerful country in terms of GDP 24% of the global GDP was in India during the time of orange in other words, India, India became the richest country in the world. And hopefully more more will be coming in the future. I will be doing more book recommendations on other topics of history. Until then, I say bye bye to you. Thank you so much for listening and please keep us in your doors. Somebody come