Muhi al-Din Muhammad, commonly known as Aurangzeb, was the sixth Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707. His regnal name is Alamgir I, which derived from his title, Abu al-Muzaffar Muhi-ad-Din Muhammad Bahadur Alamgir Aurangzeb Badshah al-Ghazi. Under his emperorship, the Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent with territory spanning nearly the entirety of the Indian subcontinent.
The Hanafi school or Hanafism is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was established by the 8th-century scholar, jurist, and theologian Abu Hanifa, a follower whose legal views were primarily preserved by his two disciples Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani. As the oldest and most-followed of the four major Sunni schools, it is also called the "school of the people of opinion". Many Hanafis also follow the Maturidi school of theology.
Awadh, known in British historical texts as Avadh or Oudh, is a historical region in northern India, now constituting the northeastern portion of Uttar Pradesh. It is roughly synonymous with the ancient Kosala region of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain scriptures.
The Qutb Shahi dynasty was a Persianate Shia Islamic dynasty of Turkoman origin that ruled the Sultanate of Golkonda in southern India. After the collapse of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Qutb Shahi dynasty was established in 1512 AD by Sultan-Quli Qutb-ul-Mulk, better known though less correctly referred to in English as "Quli Qutb Shah".
Indo-Persian culture refers to a cultural synthesis present on the Indian subcontinent. It is characterised by the absorption or integration of Persian aspects into the various cultures of modern-day republics of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. The earliest introduction of Persian influence and culture to the subcontinent was by various Muslim Turko-Persian rulers, such as the 11th-century Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, rapidly pushed for the heavy Persianization of conquered territories in northwestern Indian subcontinent, where Islamic influence was also firmly established. This socio-cultural synthesis arose steadily through the Delhi Sultanate from the 13th to 16th centuries, and the Mughal Empire from then onwards until the 19th century. Various Muslim dynasties of Turkic, local Indian and Afghan origin patronized the Persian language and contributed to the development of a Persian culture in India. The Delhi Sultanate developed their own cultural and political identity which built upon Persian and Indic languages, literature and arts, which formed the basis of an Indo-Muslim civilization.
Mughal architecture is the type of Indo-Islamic architecture developed by the Mughals in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries throughout the ever-changing extent of their empire in the Indian subcontinent. It developed from the architectural styles of earlier Muslim dynasties in India and from Iranian and Central Asian architectural traditions, particularly Timurid architecture. It also further incorporated and syncretized influences from wider Indian architecture, especially during the reign of Akbar. Mughal buildings have a uniform pattern of structure and character, including large bulbous domes, slender minarets at the corners, massive halls, large vaulted gateways, and delicate ornamentation; examples of the style can be found in modern-day Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
Fatawa 'Alamgiri, also known as Al-Fatawa al-'Alamgiriyya or Al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya, is a 17th-century sharia based compilation on statecraft, general ethics, military strategy, economic policy, justice and punishment, that served as the law and principal regulating body of the Mughal Empire, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Muhiuddin Aurangzeb Alamgir. It subsequently went on to become the reference legal text to enforce sharia in colonial South Asia in the 18th century through early 20th century, and has been heralded as "the greatest digest of Muslim law during the Mughal India".
A Subah was the term for a province (state) in the Mughal Empire. The term was also used by other polities of the Indian subcontinent. The word is derived from Arabic and Persian. The governor/ruler of a Subah was known as a subahdar, which later became subedar to refer to an officer in the Indian Army and Pakistan Army. The subahs were established by badshah (emperor) Akbar during his administrative reforms of the years 1572–1580; initially, they numbered 12, but his conquests expanded the number of subahs to 15 by the end of his reign. Subahs were divided into Sarkars, or districts. Sarkars were further divided into Parganas or Mahals. His successors, most notably Aurangzeb, expanded the number of subahs further through their conquests. As the empire began to dissolve in the early 18th century, many subahs became effectively independent or were conquered by the Marathas or the British.
Murshid Quli Khan, also known as Mohammad Hadi and born as Surya Narayan Mishra, was the first Nawab of Bengal, serving from 1717 to 1727.
The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India.
The Anglo-Mughal war, also known as Child's war, was the first Anglo-Indian war on the Indian subcontinent.
Mian Muhammad Amin Khan Turani , was a Mughal noble of Central Asian origin. He served as sadr-us-sudur during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, and briefly occupied the post of wazir during the reign of Muhammad Shah. He was the uncle of Chin Qilich Khan, the first Nizam of Hyderabad.
Persian people were one of the major ethnic groups, who accompanied the ethnic Turco-Mongol ruling elite of the Mughal Empire after its invasion of the Indian subcontinent. Throughout the Mughal Empire, a number of ethnic Persian technocrats, bureaucrats, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, poets, artists, theologians and Sufis migrated and settled in different parts of the Indian Subcontinent.
The Army of the Mughal Empire was the force by which the Mughal emperors established their empire in the 16th century and expanded it to its greatest extent at the beginning of the 18th century. Although its origins, like the Mughals themselves, were in the cavalry-based armies of central Asia, its essential form and structure was established by the empire's third emperor, Akbar. The regular forces mainly recruited and fielded by Mansabdar officers.
Şemseddin Ahmed (1469–1534), better known by his pen name Ibn Kemal or Kemalpaşazâde, was an Ottoman historian, Shaykh al-Islām, jurist and poet.
Al-Ḫaṣṣāf was a Hanafite law scholar at the court of the 14th Abbasid Caliph al-Muhtadi.
Al-Jaṣṣās was a Hanafite scholar, mostly known as the commentator of Al-Ḫaṣṣāf's work on Qādī (jurisprudence). According to Tillier (2009:281), the original work and its commentary can now "hardly be separated: al-Khaṣṣāf's original text is included in al-Jaṣṣāṣ's commentary". Al-Jaṣṣās is also the author of a work on tafsir, Aḥkām al-Qur'ān.
Hyderabad Subah, also known as Golconda Subah, was a province of the Mughal Empire encompassing the eastern Deccan region of the Indian subcontinent. It was created in 1687, during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, by the annexation of the Golconda Sultanate. It later began to secede in the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined and became fully independent as part of the Nizam-administered Deccan.
The Bakhshi in the Mughal Empire denoted a number of hierarchical government officials, typically involved with military administration and intelligence. The offices were introduced during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar. Bakhshis were found in both the central and provincial administration; the most notable kind of bakhshi was the mir bakhshi, one of the empire's four ministers, broadly in charge of administering the mansabdari system. Along with the wazir, the mir bakhshi was one of the leading officials of the empire.
Anglo-Muhammadan law was a legal system used in the British Empire which combined British and Islamic law.
