- [Instructor] As we've
talked about in other videos, by the time we get into the 15th century, Timur's Persia and central
Asia has been fragmented. You have many of Timur's
descendants with their own kingdoms, especially in central Asia. In 1483, in the central
Asian city of Andijan, now part of eastern Uzbekistan,
you have one of Timur's grandson's great-grandson's born Babur and at the age of 12, Babur
takes the throne of Fergana after the death of his father. Now over the next few decades,
he tries to consolidate control, he tries to take
control of Samarkand, loses control and then of Fergana, keeps repeatedly losing control. Early in the 16th century,
he is able to take Kabul and then decides to focus on
India instead of central Asia. In 1526, famously with the use of cannons, which had not been used
in a significant way in the Indian subcontinent
until that time, Babur was able to defeat Ibraham
Lodi of the Delhi sultanate and come to power in northern
India and you can see in this blue gray color, this
is the territory that Babur was able to rule over
until his death in 1530. Moghul is the Persian word for Mongol. Remember, Babur is a descendant of Timur, who is a Turko-Mongolian conqueror. On his mother's side,
he claims descendancy from Gengis Khan, but Persian
is the language of his court and so it significantly
increases the Persian influence in North Indian culture. After his death, his son
Humayun comes to power. Humayun has difficult retaining power. He has various family
rivalries to contend with and eventually he is dethroned
by the Pashtun Suri dynasty. He goes to the Safavids
and with their help, is able to retake control but
then trips on stairs and dies and then his son Akbar comes to power. Now Akbar is perhaps most famous of all of the Moghul rulers. As you can see, he is able to
rule over India for some time. As just mentioned, Humayan
essentially had to reconquer, retake the throne and his hold
on power was relatively weak. But now Akbar is able
to expand the territory that you see in this
light purple mauve color. He's able to increase the central
authority and perhaps most importantly, he tries to
unify India culturally. The Moghuls are Muslim and
are relatively tolerant up through Akbar and to
some degree, Jahangir, of other religions, but Akbar takes a very pluralistic approach. He's famous for holding
court with religious scholars throughout the empire
and even trying to merge the religions, creating
what some would consider a religion of his own
that would later be called Din-i-Illahi, the religion of god. Many Jain and Hindu
principles appealed to him. He becomes a vegetarian, he
bans the slaughtering of cows. At his death in 1605, his
son Jahangir comes to power. Historians consider Jahangir
to be relatively tolerant like Akbar and to continue
the interest in the sciences and the arts that you saw in
the Moghul court under Akbar but he's a little bit more controversial. As we talked about in the Sikhism video, he famously tortures
and executes Guru Arjan. Some would say it was because Guru Arjan was siding with Jahangir's
son, who was trying to rebel. Others would say that it
was because Guru Arjan was getting a following in
Punjab and that Jahangir was insecure of his own hold on power and decided to execute Guru Arjan. But he is succeeded by
his son, Shah Jahan, who becomes decisively less tolerant. His reign, however, is
known as the golden age of Moghul architecture, with
the crowning achievement, arguably, the Taj Mahal,
which is a mausoleum that he commissions in the 1630s to
house the body of his dead wife. As you can see here, it's housed in Agra and Agra and Delhi at various points during the Moghul empire are the capital, there's a few moments
when it is at Lahore. He is eventually imprisoned
by his son, Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb is considered a very strong and authoritarian ruler. You can see here that he is
able to expand the territory of the Moghul empire
well into South India. At its maximum extent, the
Moghul empire is now rivaling the amount of territory
that was controlled by the Moria empire, roughly
2000 years before this time. Despite being the last
truly strong Moghul emperor, he's also known as the least
tolerant of the emperors. After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, he's succeeded by weaker
and weaker Moghul rulers. The 18th century, you
see a significant decline in the power of the Moghuls,
the territory they have. Delhi is famously sacked by Nadir Shah, the Persian conqueror. As we get into the second
half of the 18th century, the British are able to chip
away more and more and more territory, not just from the Moghuls, but from other Indian rulers as well, which we will see in future videos.