Shah Jahan

b. 1592; d. 1666

Fifth of the Mogul emperors of India, in whose reign Mogul power reached its height; he lost Kandahar in 1653, but added part of the Deccan in 1636 and 1655. Although able and artistic, Shah Jahan was ruthless; he executed all his male collaterals during the wars of succession. At his instigation Portuguese traders who settled at Hughli were massacred on account of the cruelties of their slave trade and, a zealous Muslim, he persecuted Hindus in the early part of his reign.

Prodigal court expenditure created terrible famines for his people. His age was the golden period for Muslim architecture in India; he built the Taj Mahal in Agra as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahall; the palace and Great Mosque at Delhi; and the celebrated Peacock Throne. He founded the modern city of Delhi between 1639 and 1648. In 1657, while Shah Jahan lay dangerously ill, civil war broke out between his four sons. Aurangzeb, the victor, confined his father in the citadel of Agra, where he died in December 1666.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com