| Siege of Kandahar (1605–1606) | |||||||||
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| Part of Mughal-Persian Wars | |||||||||
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 Persia |  Mughal India | ||||||||
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| Abbas the Great Husayn Khan | Jahangir Šāh Beg Khan | ||||||||
The siege of Kandahar lasted from November 1605 to January 1606 and was led by the Persians to capture the Mughal frontier city of Kandahar. [1] After two months of constant assaults, the relief army forced the Persians to retreat. Thus, resulted in a decisive victory for the Mughal Empire.
The Mughals had obtained the city of Kandahar in 1595, after the Mughal army advanced to the city's governor, Moẓaffar-Ḥosayn Mirzā, and negotiated with him a surrender. [2] The Safavid ruler, Shah Abbas, was shocked by the loss of the important fortress but as main Iranian concerns lay with the equally powerful Ottomans at their westernmost territories, he abstained from military action, preferring to negotiate a settlement.
When Emperor Akbar died on October 27, 1605, the Safavid governor of Herat, Hosayn Khan, moved to recapture the city on behalf of the Safavids by the order of Shah Abbas while the Indians were distracted with other matters. [2] The city, defended by governor Šāh Beg Khan, held out against the Safavid siege until the next year when the new emperor, Jahangir, sent an army that lifted the siege. [3]
Kandahar was surrendered to the Mughals. [4] [5] Abbas repudiated Hosayn's actions in a letter to Jahangir, and both sides reestablished normal relations, [2] though Kandahar would remain a controversial affair between both parties. [2]
A series of conflicts between the Safavid and Mughal Empires fought over possession of the strategic city-fortress of Kandahar in Afghanistan. In 1595 two Safavid princes defected to the Mughal court, surrendering the fortress to Emperor Akbar (1542-1605).
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Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim, known by his imperial name Jahangir, was Emperor of Hindustan from 1605 until his death in 1627, and the fourth Mughal Emperor.
Mirza Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram, commonly called Shah Jahan I, also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the zenith of Mughal architectural and cultural achievements.
Abbas I, commonly known as Abbas the Great, was the fifth Safavid shah of Iran from 1588 to 1629. The third son of Shah Mohammad Khodabanda, he is generally considered one of the most important rulers in Iranian history and the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty.
Mirza Ghiyas Beg, also known by his title of I'timad-ud-Daulah, was an important official in the Mughal Empire, whose children served as wives, mothers, and generals of the Mughal emperors.
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Abbas II was the seventh Shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1642 to 1666. As the eldest son of Safi and his Circassian wife, Anna Khanum, he inherited the throne when he was nine, and had to rely on a regency led by Saru Taqi, the erstwhile grand vizier of his father, to govern in his place. During the regency, Abbas received formal kingly education that, until then, he had been denied. In 1645, at age fifteen, he was able to remove Saru Taqi from power, and after purging the bureaucracy ranks, asserted his authority over his court and began his absolute rule.
Ali Mardan Khan was a Kurdish military leader and administrator, serving under the Safavid kings Shah Abbas I and Shah Safi, and later the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan. He was the son of Ganj Ali Khan. After surrendering the city of Qandahar, part of the easternmost territories of the Safavids to the Mughals in 1638, he served with distinction in the Mughal administration, earning the highest honors of the Mughal court.
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, popularly known as Akbar the Great, and also as Akbar I, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expand and consolidate Mughal domains in the Indian subcontinent. He is generally considered one of the greatest emperors in Indian history and led a successful campaign to unify the various kingdoms of Hindūstān or India proper.
The Mughal Empire had a number of imperial flags and standards. The principal imperial standard of the Mughals was known as the alam. It was primarily moss green. It displayed a lion and sun facing the hoist of the flag. The Mughals traced their use of the alam back to Timur.
The Mughal–Safavid war of 1649–1653 was fought between the Mughal and Safavid empires in the territory of modern Afghanistan. While the Mughals were at war with the Janid Uzbeks, the Safavid army captured the fortress city of Kandahar and other strategic cities that controlled the region. The Mughals attempted to regain the city, but their efforts were proven unsuccessful.
The Mughal–Safavid war of 1622–1623 was fought over the important fortress city of Kandahar, in Afghanistan, between the Safavid Empire and the Mughal Empire.
The Mughal–Persian wars were a series of wars fought in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries between the Safavid and Afsharid Empires of Persia, and the Mughal Empire of India, over what is now Afghanistan. The Mughals consolidated their control of what is today India and Pakistan in the 16th century, and gradually came into conflict with the powerful Safavids and Afsharids, led by Abbas the Great and Nader Shah respectively. Aside from Nader Shah's invasion of the Mughal Empire, most of the conflict between the two powers were limited to battles for control over Kandahar. From a Safavid point of view, the Mughal army counted as "far less formidable" than that of their arch rivals the Ottomans.
Kandahari Begum was the first wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and the mother of his first child, Princess Parhez Banu Begum.
Bahram Mirza Safavi was a Safavid prince, governor and military commander in 16th-century Iran. He was the youngest son of Shah Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid dynasty.
The Subah of Multan was one of the three subahs (provinces) of the Mughal Empire in the Punjab region, alongside Lahore and Delhi subahs. It was also amongst the original twelve Mughal provinces, encompassing southern parts of Punjab, stretching towards parts of the regions of Pashtunistan and Balochistan, bordering Kandahar Province and the Persian Safavid Empire. It was one of the largest and most important provinces of the Mughal Empire. The province was annexed by Durrani Empire in 1752, with Ali Mohammad Khakwani as its first Durrani governor.
The foreign relations of the Mughal Empire were characterized by competition with the Persian Empire to the west, the Marathas and others to the south, and the British to the east. Steps were taken by successive Mughal rulers to secure the western frontiers of India. The Khyber Pass along the Kabul- Qandahar route was the natural defence for India, and their foreign policy revolved around securing these outposts, as also balancing the rise of powerful empires in the region.
Mughal–Persian war (1637–1638) is a conflict which took place in 1638, A conflict between Safavid Empire of Persia and Mughal Empire of Hindustan which took place over a city in present day Afghanistan named Kandahar The war resulted in a decisive victory for the Mughals when Ali mardan Khan surrendered the keys of Kandahar to the Mughals.
Soltan Hosayn Mirza Safavi was a prince of the Safavid dynasty of Iran who ruled as the governor of Kandahar from 1558 until his death in 1577. He was a son of Bahram Mirza and a grandson of Ismail I. His descendants formed a cadet branch of the Safavid dynasty in the Mughal India that survived there for two centuries and became one of the most prominent families in the Mughal court.
Mozaffar-Hosayn Mirza was an Iranian nobleman from the Safavid dynasty that held the governorship of Kandahar from 1578 until his defection to India in 1595. His rule was characterized by his constant conflict with his younger brother, Rustam Mirza, and his regent, Kur Hamza Beg. In 1593, he killed Hamza Beg and captured Rustam's lands. He was then faced with raids from the Uzbek of Bukhara and the Mughal emperor Akbar wanting to conquer Kandahar. Unable to drive the Uzbeks away, he surrendered Kandahar to Akbar and defected to India. He was honoured greatly by Akbar and his daughter, Kandahari Begum, was married to Akbar's son, the future Shah Jahan. His son and grandson became high-ranking officials in the Mughal bureaucracy.
Shah Tahmasp of Persia tried to exploit the inexperience of the young Mughal Emperor Akbar, then an adolescent. He sent an army to lay siege to Kandahar, a vital southern Afghan city held by Shah Muhammad, a governor appointed by the Mughal regent Bairam Khan. With no way to offer military assistance, Akbar was compelled to surrender Kandahar to the Persians. The Persians held the city on and off for almost four decades before the Mughals recovered it.
