Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire was founded in 1526 when Babur, a Timurid prince from Central Asia, defeated the Delhi Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat. At its territorial peak under Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), it controlled most of the Indian subcontinent, from Kabul in the northwest to Bengal in the east and the Deccan in the south, making it one of the wealthiest polities of the early modern world.

Key rulers shaped its institutional character:

• Akbar (r. 1556–1605) consolidated the empire, abolished the jizya tax on non-Muslims, integrated Rajput nobles into the mansabdari ranked-officer system, and promoted a syncretic court culture including the short-lived Din-i Ilahi.
• Jahangir (r. 1605–1627) and Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) presided over the empire's artistic zenith; the Taj Mahal at Agra was commissioned by Shah Jahan around 1632.
• Aurangzeb expanded the empire militarily but reinstated the jizya in 1679 and faced prolonged Deccan wars against the Marathas under Shivaji and his successors.

Administratively, the Mughals ran a centralized revenue system (the zabt assessment developed by Akbar's minister Todar Mal), a cash-salaried nobility, and a Persianate court language. The economy was monetized through silver rupiya coinage and integrated into Indian Ocean trade networks that drew Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French merchants.

Decline accelerated after Aurangzeb's death in 1707, with succession struggles, the 1739 sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah of Persia, and the rise of regional successor states (Hyderabad, Awadh, Bengal, the Maratha Confederacy). The British East India Company's victory at Plassey in 1757 and Buxar in 1764 reduced later emperors to pensioners. The empire was formally abolished by the British after the 1857 Indian Rebellion, when the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II, was exiled to Rangoon.

For IR and MUN delegates, the Mughal legacy informs debates on Indian sovereignty, partition narratives, restitution claims (e.g., the Koh-i-Noor diamond), and Indo-Pakistani historiographical disputes.