Person1618 – 1707

Aurangzeb

Also called: Alamgir, Muhi-ud-din Muhammad Aurangzeb

Sixth Mughal emperor (r. 1658–1707), who extended the empire to its greatest size but whose strict Islamic policies provoked Hindus and Sikhs

The third son of Shah Jahan, he gained military experience as governor of the Deccan in his youth. After winning the war of succession he had his elder brother Dara Shikoh executed as a heretic. He shunned wine and music and was so austere that he is said to have lived on money from sewing caps and copying the Quran, and he had Islamic jurists compile the law code Fatawa-e-Alamgiri. He lived to nearly ninety and, at his wish, was buried in a simple open-air grave at Khuldabad in the Deccan.

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1658 – 1707Aurangzeb and the Decline of the Mughal Empiremonarch
Aurangzeb took the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent, but his strict Islamic policies, including the revival of the jizya, provoked Hindus and Sikhs. After his death the empire quickly fell apart.

People who appear alongside

Shivaji1630 – 1680
Founder of the Maratha kingdom in the Deccan (r. 1674–1680), who raised a Hindu state against the Mughal Empire

Themes this person appears in

Islamic Empires and the Atlantic World1500 – 1800
Three centuries in which the Ottomans of Suleiman I, the Mughals of Akbar and the Safavids of Abbas I flourished and then faltered, while across the Atlantic the slave trade and colonies transformed the Americas, leading to American independence