HUMAYUN

Humayun born in 1508 was the successor of the founder of the mughal dynasty in india "BABUR".

Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun (full title: Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram, Jam-i-Sultanat-i-haqiqi wa Majazi, Sayyid al-Salatin, Abu'l Muzaffar Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun Padshah Ghazi, Zillu'llah ) (Persian: نصيرالدين همايون) (March 17, 1508– March 4, 1556) was the second Mughal Emperor who ruled present dayAfghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of northern India from 1530–1540 and again from 1555–1556. Like his father, Babur, he lost his kingdom early, but with Persian aid, he eventually regained an even larger one. On the eve of his death in 1556, the Mughal empire spanned almost one million square kilometers.

He originally ascended the throne at the age of 22 and was somewhat inexperienced when he came to power.

Humayun was portrayed in the biography "Humāyūn-nāma" written by his sister Gulbadan Begum, as being extraordinarily lenient, constantly forgiving acts which were deliberately aimed at angering him. In one instance the biography records that his youngest brother Hindal killed Humayun's most trusted advisor, an old Sheikh, and then marched an army out of Agra. Humayun, rather than seek retribution, went straight to his mother's home where Gulbadan Begbear no grudge against his younger brother, and insisted he return home. His many documented acts of mercy may have stemmed largely from weakness, but he does seem to have been a gentle and humane man by the standards of the day. He lacked his father’s craftiness and athleticism.

• He was also deeply superstitious, and fascinated by Astrology and the Occult.
• His servant, Jauhar, records in the Tadhkirat al-Waqiat that he was known to shoot arrows to the sky marked with either his own name, or that of the Shah of Persia and, depending on how they landed, interpreted this as an indication of which of them would grow more powerful.
• He was a heavy drinker, and also took pellets of Opium, after which he was known to recite poetry.
• He was, however, not enamoured of warfare, and after winning a battle would spend months at a time indulging himself within the walls of a captured city even as a larger war was taking place outside.

Reign:- 1530-1556

Successor:-Akbar

Wives:-

Hamida Banu Begum

Bega Begum
Bigeh Begum
Haji Begum
Mah-chuchak
Miveh Jan

Shahzadi Khanum

Hamida Banu begum gave birth to the next successor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar.

Humayun failed in asserting a strong monarchical authority. He inherited a freshly won empire with a host of troubles; the Afghan nobles, the Rajputs and worst of all, his three treacherous brothers. They caused numerous problems for him. Following his father's advice, Humayun treated his brothers kindly and appointed them to high positions. Kamran was appointed as the Governor of Kabul, Kandhar and later even Punjab. Askari was the Governor of Sambhal, and Hindal the Governor of Alwar. In return, his brothers hindered him at every step and betrayed him in his hour of need. All of them coveted the throne. This was a curse that each successful Mughal king had to deal with. Humayun almost lost the empire his father had fought so hard to bequeath him. In the first ten years of his rule, he faced so many challenges not only from his younger brothers but also from the Afghan General Sher Shah Suri who had served under Babur. Sher Shah Suri defeated Humayun in the battles of Chausa and Kanauj in 1540. This defeat was the first setback to the infant Mughal Empire. He lived the next 15 years of his life, from 1540 to 1555, self-exiled in Persia. Later on, with the help of the King of Persia, he captured Kabul and Kandhar. He was finally able to re-ascend the throne at Delhi and Agra after defeating Sikandar Suri. After recovering his throne, Humayun devoted himself to the affairs of the kingdom and towards improving the system of government. He laid the foundation of the Mughal style of painting. Later on, during the reign of Akbar, a fusion of Persian and Indian style of painting took place.

Death

On March 4, 1556, Humayun, his arms full of books, was descending the staircase from his library when the muezzin announced the Adhan (the call to prayer), reportedly after smoking a pipefull of opium. It was his habit, wherever he heard the summons, to bow his knee in holy reverence. Kneeling, he caught his foot in his robe, tumbled down several steps of the building DIN PANAH and hit his temple on a rugged stone edge. He died three days later, and was succeeded by the 13 year old Akbar.

Humayun's Architectural Legacy:
Jamali Kamali Mosque and Tomb, Delhi (1528-36)
Imam Zamin's Tomb, Delhi (1537)
Hasan Khan's Tomb, Sasaram (c. 1535)
Sher Shah's Tomb, Sasaram (c. 1540)
Purana Qila, Delhi (c. 1530-45)
Qala-i-Kuhna Masjid, Delhi (1541)
Sher Mandal, Delhi (c. 1541)
Gate of Sher Shah's Wall, Delhi (1540s)
Salimgarh, Delhi (1546)
Isa Khan's Mosque and Tomb, Delhi (1547)
Sabz Burj, Nila Gumbad, Delhi
Bu Halima's Garden, Delhi

HUMAYUN's TOMB

The ultimate model for Humayun's tomb is the Gur-e Amir in Samarkand, and it is best-known as a precursor to the Taj Mahal in style.

It was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent, and is located in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, India, close to the Dina-panah citadel also known as Purana Qila, that Humayun founded in 1533. It was also the first structure to use red sandstone at such a scale.

BABUR

TITLE:- al-ṣultānu 'l-ʿazam wa 'l-ḫāqān al-mukkarram pādshāh-e ghāzī), is more commonly known by his nickname, Bābur (بابر).

Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babur (February 23 [O.S. February 14] 1483 — January 5) was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Andijan who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of India. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother. Babur identified his lineage as Timurid and Chaghatay-Turkic, while his origin, milieu, training, and culture were steeped in Persian culture and so he was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results.

Reign:- 1526-1530.

Succeded by his son:- Humayun

Wives:-

ʿĀʾisha Ṣultān Begum

Bībī Mubārika Yuṣufzay
Dildār Begum
Gulnār Āghācha
Gulrukh Begum
Maham Begum.
Ma'suma Begum
Nargul Āghācha
Sayyida Afaq

Maham Begum gave birth to the next successor Humayun.

His position in Central Asia was precarious at best. In order to consolidate his rule, he invaded India five times, crossing the River Indus each time. The fifth expedition resulted in his encounter with Ibrahim Lodhi in the first battle of Panipat in April 1526. Babur's army was better equipped than Lodhi's; he had guns while the sultan relied on elephants. The most successful of Babur's innovations was the introduction of gunpowder, which had never been used before in the Sub-continent. This combined with Babur's newer tactics gave him a greater advantage. Babur's strategy won the war and Ibrahim Lodhi died fighting.

Panipat was merely the beginning of the Mughal rule. Akbar laid its real foundation in 1556.

In 1528, he captured Chanderi from the Rajput chief Medini Rao, and a year later he defeated the Afghan chiefs under Mahmud Lodhi in the battle of Ghagra at Bihar. These conquests made Babur the "Master of Hindustan". He was not destined to enjoy the fruits of his conquests as he died shortly afterwards in Agra on December 26, 1530. He was buried at Kabul in accordance with his wish.

The name Babur is derived from the Persian word babr, meaning "tiger", a word that repeatedly appears in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma and had also been borrowed by the Turkic languages of Central Asia

BiographyThe main source for Babur's biography is a written account of his life, written by Babur himself. His memoirs are known as the Baburnama and are considered the first true autobiography in Islamic literature.

He wrote the Bāburnāma in Chaghatai Turkic, his mother-tongue, though his prose was highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology, and vocabulary. The work gives a valuable impression of Babur's surrounding environment.

He died at the age of 47 on January 5 [O.S. 26 December 1530] 1531, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Humayun. Though he wished to be buried in his favourite garden in Kabul, a city he had always loved, he was first buried in a Mausoleum in the capital city of Agra. Roughly nine years later his wishes were fulfilled by Sher Shah Suri and Babur was buried in a beautiful garden Bagh-e Babur in Kabul, now in Afghanistan. The inscription on his tomb reads:-

Tomb in Kabul.

If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this!

"Agar ferdows dar jahan ast..

hamin ast o hamin ast o hamin ast..."

It is believed that in some religious ceremony babur sacrificed his life for his son humayun who was seriously ill..

and after few days of that religious ceremony Humayun started reganing health and Babur's health started degrading.

Start of Mughal Empire

Babur in Kabul: AD 1504-1525

Babur, founder of the Moghul dynasty in India, is one of history's more endearing conquerors. In his youth he was one among many impoverished princes, all descended fromTimur, who fought among themselves for possession of some small part of the great man's fragmented empire. Babur even captured Samarkand itself on three separate occasions, each for only a few months. The first time he achieved this he was only fourteen.
What distinguished Babur from other brawling princes is that he was a keen oberver of life and kept a diary. In it he vividly described his triumphs and sorrows, whether riding out at night to attack a walled village or mooning around for unrequited love of a beautiful girl.








Babur's 'throneless times', as he later describes these early years, came to an end in 1504 when he captured Kabul. Here, at the age of twenty-one, he was able to establish a settled court and to enjoy the delights of gardening, art and architecture in the Timurid tradition of his family.
With a powerful new Persian dynasty to the west (underIsmail I) and an aggressive Uzbek presence to the north (underShaibani Khan), Babur's Kabul becomes the main surviving centre of theTimurid tradition. But these same pressures mean that his only chance of expanding is eastwards - into India.







Babur felt that he had an inherited claim upon northern India, deriving from Timur's capture of Delhi in 1398, and he made several profitable raids through the mountain passes into the Punjab. But his first serious expedition was launched in October 1525.
Some forty years later (but not sooner than that) it is evident that Babur's descendants are a new and established dynasty in northern India. Babur considered himself as a Turk, but he was descended fromGenghis Khan as well as from Timur. The Persians refer to his dynasty as mughal, meaning Mongol. And it is as the Moghul emperors of India that they become known to history.







Babur in India: AD 1526-1530

By the early 16th century the Muslim sultans of Delhi (an Afghan dynasty known as Lodi) were much weakened by threats from rebel Muslim principalities and from a Hindu coalition ofRajput rulers. When Babur led an army through the mountain passes, from his stronghold atKabul, he at first meets little opposition in the plains of north India.

The decisive battle against Ibrahim, the Lodi sultan, came on the plain of Panipat in April 1526. Babur was heavily outnumbered (with perhaps 25,000 troops in the field against 100,000 men and 1000 elephants), but his tactics won the day.







Babur dug into a prepared position, copied (he says) from the Turks - from whom the use ofguns had spread to the Persians and then to Babur. As yet the Indians of Delhi had no artillery or muskets. Babur had only a few, but he used them to great advantage. He collected 700 carts to form a barricade (a device pioneered by the Hussitesof Bohemia a century earlier).
Sheltered behind the carts, Babur's gunners could go through the laborious business of firing their matchlocks- but only at an enemy charging their position. It took Babur some days to tempt the Indians into doing this. When they did so, they succumbed to slow gunfire from the front and to a hail of arrows from Babur's cavalry charging on each flank.







Victory at Panipat brought Babur the cities of Delhi and Agra, with much booty in treasure and jewels. But he faced a stronger challenge from the confederation of Rajputs who had themselves been on the verge of attacking Ibrahim Lodi.
The armies met at Khanua in March 1527 and again, using similar tactics, Babur won. For the next three years Babur roamed around with his army, extending his territory to cover most of north India - and all the while recording in his diary his fascination with this exotic world which he had conquered.