The Last Mughal: The Fall of Delhi, 1857

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The jagirdar (local tax collector) was another kind of official approached, especially for high-stakes cases. One way he did this was by bestowing many more madad-i-ma'ash (tax-free personal land revenue grants given to religiously learned or spiritually worthy individuals) than Akbar had. His ghazals about life and love are famous and often sung or read out in Yangon's mushairas, gatherings at which Urdu poetry is recited. a b c Robinson, Francis (2009), "Mughal Empire", The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, Oxford University Press, doi: 10.

The British East India Company took control of the former Mughal province of Bengal-Bihar in 1793 after it abolished local rule (Nizamat) that lasted until 1858, marking the beginning of British colonial era over the Indian subcontinent. Though his rule could not compare with that of illustrious ancestors like Akbar or Aurangzeb, he became the rallying point for the failed "Indian uprising" of 1857, when soldiers from undivided India rose against the British East India Company. After a crushed rebellion which he nominally led in 1857–58, the last Baburid, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was deposed by the British, who then assumed formal control of a large part of the former empire, [9] marking the start of the British Raj.

The historian Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1621) reported that, under Akbar's reign, there were 120 large cities and 3200 townships. From Bengal, saltpeter was also shipped to Europe, opium was sold in Indonesia, raw silk was exported to Japan and the Netherlands, and cotton and silk textiles were exported to Europe, Indonesia and Japan. The last emperor was also known to his familiars as Zafar - the pen name he used when writing poetry - a word which means "victory" and which could scarcely have been less appropriate, given that it was attached to one of history's great losers.

The emperor lost authority, as the widely scattered imperial officers lost confidence in the central authorities, and made their own deals with local men of influence. Within days, as the British residents of Delhi fled for their lives, Zafar gave his protection to 40-odd of those who had been captured when they tried to escape. Akbar allowed freedom of religion at his court and attempted to resolve socio-political and cultural differences in his empire by establishing a new religion, Din-i-Ilahi, with strong characteristics of a ruler cult. Although Shah Jahan fully recovered from his illness, Aurangzeb kept Shah Jahan imprisoned until his death in 1666.The Mughal Empire's legal system was context-specific and evolved over the course of the empire's rule.

In Mughal India, there was a generally tolerant attitude towards manual labourers, with some religious cults in northern India proudly asserting a high status for manual labour.The Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II (1759–1806) made futile attempts to reverse the Mughal decline but ultimately had to seek the protection of the Emir of Afghanistan, Ahmed Shah Abdali, which led to the Third Battle of Panipat between the Maratha Empire and the Afghans (led by Abdali) in 1761.