A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B.Tauris Short Histories)

by Fisher, H, Michael

  HUMAYUN’S EARLY MILITARY SUCCESSES

  Immediately on his accession, Humayun determined to conquer much of South Asia, despite the many powerful rulers and warlords pressing against him and despite his limited knowledge of his new domain. Threatening Humayun from the central and lower Ganges plain were shifting coalitions of Indo-Afghans and the Sultan of Bengal, supported by local landholders and cultivators. Continuing Babur’s military momentum, Humayun’s imperial forces under his direct command gained some initial victories. But another threat impinged from the south-west: Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat (r. 1526–35, 1536–7).

  Earlier, as a refugee prince fleeing his father and then his succeeding elder brother, Bahadur Shah had fruitlessly sought Babur’s aid. Nonetheless, Bahadur Shah eventually seized the throne, prompting Babur’s assessment: ‘a bloodthirsty and audacious young man.’7 Bahadur Shah’s coastal domain was wealthy, controlling major ports for India’s trade across the Indian Ocean. He thus had access to benefits, and was exposed to dangers, from the contending Ottomans and Portuguese. He used his wealth to purchase the loyalties of various other regional rulers, to hire extensively from the Indian military labor market, and to collect expensive artillery—commanded by Rumi Khan (one of many artillery commanders bearing that title). Twice (1533, 1534) Bahadur Shah besieged Chittor, a fortress controlling strategic access to Hindustan.

  Map 4: Humayun’s World during His Indian Reigns

  Belatedly responding to Bahadur Shah’s challenge, Humayun abandoned his inconclusive eastern expedition and marched to defend Chittor. Arriving too late to save that fortress, Humayun decided in 1535 to conquer Gujarat instead. When the two armies met in Malwa, Sultan Bahadur followed Rumi Khan’s advice to entrench his army behind cannon-reinforced walls. However, Humayun’s more mobile forces surrounded and starved them until they fled. Thereafter, Rumi Khan shifted to Humayun’s service as his artillery commander. The escaping Bahadur Shah sought refuge in a series of his cities, each time driven out by Humayun’s pursuing forces. Finally, Bahadur Shah turned for aid to Portuguese Viceroy Nuno da Cuna (r. 1528–38), at the fortified island of Diu, which Bahadur Shah had earlier ceded to the Portuguese in exchange for military support. However, as fleeing Bahadur Shah negotiated with the Viceroy in Diu harbor in 1537, a clash erupted; Bahadur Shah drowned (either assassinated by the Portuguese or accidentally killed while fleeing them).8

  Humayun’s plan to continue subduing prosperous but turbulent Gujarat met opposition from his major Central Asian commanders, who insisted Mughal forces return to Hindustan where rebels had arisen in his absence. When Humayun hesitated, these generals supported his half-brother, Askari, who rode to Agra and proclaimed himself sovereign. Humayun then perforce followed to subdue and forgive his brother and recover his throne. Their cousin explained ‘because of discord among the amirs [Humayun] abandoned Gujarat without achieving anything and returned empty-handed at the height of his power. This resulted in a falling off in his fortune, and the awe he had inspired in the hearts of the people suffered a diminution.’9 Seeking to restore his regime’s confidence and his ability to reward his supporters with looted treasuries, Humayun led his main forces down the Ganges again toward Bengal.

  Eastern India still largely remained in the hands of hostile Indo-Afghans who had rallied under the dynamic leadership of Sher Khan, an Indian-settled Afghan of the Sur clan. Humayun’s first major battle was to capture the massive and strategically located fortress of Chunar, held by Sher Khan’s son. Chunar’s walls were defended by cannon (showing the dissemination of gunpowder technology over the previous decade). Nonetheless, Humayun’s artillery was more extensive and powerful. Further, Rumi Khan (now in his service) innovatively mounted cannon on riverboats to batter the fortress into a negotiated surrender. This also forced Sher Khan’s nominal submission.

  Showing Humayun’s appreciation of the rising significance of artillery and Rumi Khan’s special technical expertise, Humayun rewarded him with command over the captured fortress and its captive garrison, empowered to do ‘whatever he thought best.’10 Rumi Khan reportedly ordered the three hundred imprisoned artillerymen to have their hands amputated (or executed, according to some accounts), evidently thus retaining his own exclusive control over this military science. But Humayun had earlier granted them pardon through an act of imperial grace (and incentive to surrender). Hence, ‘The Padishah was pained by this act of Rumi Khan’s and said, “Since these men were under amnesty, it was not appropriate to cut their hands off”.’11 Further, technician Rumi Khan clearly stood outside of the cultural circle of Humayun’s major Central Asian commanders, who reportedly assassinated him with poison while in imperial disfavor.

  Soon, however, other artillery commanders, also conventionally bearing the title Rumi Khan, replaced him and Humayun continued to pour money into his artillery park. At its peak, Humayun commanded

  seven hundred caissons, each drawn by four pair of oxen. On every caisson was a small Anatolian cannon that shot a ball weighing [2.25 kg] … [plus] eight mortars, each drawn by seven pairs of oxen. Stone balls could not be used in these because they would be pulverized. They shot [seven-metal-alloy] balls weighing [22.5 kg] .… With these they could hit anything visible within a league.12

  While impressive, Humayun’s developing arsenal inevitably entailed increasing logistical support and expense.

  Humayun, ‘hoping that he could repair the damage to his reputation’ and seize enemy treasuries to pay for his mounting costs for men and equipment, continued eastward to conquer the wealthy Sultanate of Bengal.13 Although his army achieved some victories, many of his Central Asian supporters felt uncomfortable in humid, riverine Bengal. On his part, Humayun reportedly withdrew from active leadership, shutting himself off with his wives in a pleasure palace, indulging in opium.

  As the political and military situation back in Hindustan deteriorated, Hindal claimed his own sovereignty in Agra. As explained by Humayun’s grandson:

  When [Humayun] conquered … Bengal, he took up his abode there for some time. Mīrzā Hindāl, by his order, had remained at Agra. A body of avaricious servants … working upon his base nature (shaking the chain of his vile heart), led the Mīrzā on the road of rebellion and ingratitude …. The thoughtless Mīrzā had the khutba recited in his own name … and openly raised the standard of rebellion and strife.14

  Abruptly, Humayun decided to move his army up the Ganges, unwisely too late to avoid the monsoon that made roads virtually impassable. An increasingly powerful Sher Khan, supported by growing numbers of other Indo-Afghan commanders who had abandoned Humayun, blocked his way.

  HUMAYUN LOSES HIS EMPIRE

  Throughout his reign, Humayun did not effectively incorporate non-Central Asians into his court and administration, most notably Sher Khan. During Babur’s reign, Sher Khan had come to join his service. But more polished Central Asian courtiers ridiculed him for his rustic manners. A relative of Sher Khan recalled hearing him recount his experiences: ‘… it happened that they placed before [Sher Khan] a solid dish, which he did not know the customary mode of eating. So he cut it into small pieces with his dagger, and putting them into his spoon easily disposed of them.’15 Babur also recalled this incident as revealing Sher Khan’s innovative boldness, so Babur ordered surveillance over him.

  Alienated, Sher Khan fled Babur’s court. Thereafter, Sher Khan pursued his own independent rule, opportunistically opposing and negotiating with Humayun. Following Sher Khan’s loss of Chunar, he had agreed to rule Chunar and Bihar province under Mughal sovereignty, but soon repudiated his submission. Based on his direct knowledge of Babur, Humayun, and their regimes, Sher Khan later claimed that he had rightly predicted:

  I will shortly expel the Mughals from Hind, for the Mughals are not superior to the Afghans in battle or single combat; but the Afghans have let the empire of Hind slip from their hands, on account of their internal dissentions. Since I have been among the Mughals, … I see that they have no order or
discipline, and that their kings, from pride of birth and station, do not personally superintend the government, but leave all the affairs and business of the State to their nobles and ministers …. These grandees act on corrupt motives in every case …. Whoever has money, whether loyal or disloyal, can get his business settled as he likes by paying for it …16

  In June 1539, as Humayun’s weakened forces marched westward from Bengal, they met Sher Khan’s more effective army at Chausa. Humayun’s sodden, dispirited and out-maneuvered Mughal army lost badly, with many of his commanders and one wife killed and another captured (Sher Khan gallantly returned this surviving wife, Hajji Begum). Fleeing with his scattered army, Humayun nearly drowned struggling across the Ganges, only rescued by a poor water carrier named Nizam.

  Fleeing to Agra, Humayun ineffectively regrouped his disheartened and much diminished forces. Alienating many commanders and courtiers even further, Humayun dramatically rewarded Nizam by making him emperor for a day. For many leading courtiers, this raised fundamental questions about Humayun’s conception of sovereignty: if he could transfer sovereignty at will (especially to a man of low birth), was it really inherent in his own person either as the unique embodiment of divine authority or as a Timurid? Further, Humayun’s military disaster, loss of territories with which to his reward followers, challenges by his half-brothers, and periodic opium-induced withdrawals from active rule all spread doubts about his reign’s future among his supporters and Hindustanis generally.

  Seeking to recover his lost territories and prestige, Humayun marched against Sher Khan again, losing even more decisively at Kanauj in May 1540. His demoralized imperial army scattered even before serious combat began. Again, Humayun barely escaped, being rescued by an Afghan soldier, Shams-ud-Din. To the further dismay of his few remaining commanders, Humayun later insisted on lavishly rewarding Shams-ud-Din and inducting him into the imperial household (eventually as foster-father to Humanyun’s first surviving son). Driven out of Hindustan by Sher Khan (who acceded in Delhi as Sultan Sher Shah), Humayun fled west to the Punjab, losing supporters at each stage.

  Still nominally Padshah, Humayun deliberated where to find refuge and then reconquer a realm. Mirza Kamran held Kabul and blocked Humayun from the family’s Central Asian homeland. Humayun considered invading the trans-mountainous region of Kashmir, but his remaining commanders rejected that. He even contemplated renouncing the world to become a qalandar (wandering holy man) or making the pilgrimage to Mecca. Finally, he moved with his ever-shrinking entourage across the Rajasthan desert into Sind. The Central Asian commanders who had supported Babur and then Humayun, but lacked bonds to Hindustan, had virtually all left. So thin was the layer of imperial administration over Hindustan that, after Humayun’s departure, few traces of his regime remained. The Mughal Empire virtually ended, just 14 years after it commenced with Babur’s invasion.

  Even as a refugee, Humayun still had some jewels. But his main remaining asset was continued recognition by some key people of his imperial status, despite his much diminished prospect for providing any rewards. Most notable among the handful still attending on him was Bairam Khan, a Shi‘i Turcoman (Persianized Turkish) warrior, whose family had long served Babur and Humayun. As Humayun wandered the wastelands of Sind, Bairam Khan and his personal followers joined Humayun’s camp.17 Some local rulers and landholders drove his small band away, but others supplied him with food, willingly or perforce.

  In Mirza Hindal’s entourage was a Persian-speaking family with a daughter, Hamida Banu. Like Humayun, she was distantly descended from Sufi Shaikh Ahmad ‘Zinda-fil.’ According to Humayun’s half-sister, he was attracted to Hamida, then in her early teens, and proposed to her family and patron, Hindal. But Hindal objected that Humayun was too poor to marry. Hamida also asserted her personal objections and refused Humayun for weeks, despite the urgings of Humayun’s womenfolk. Hamida reportedly thought his social status too high: ‘I shall marry someone … whose collar my hand can touch, and not one whose skirt it does not reach.’18 Humayun, however, persisted until she finally wed him in desert exile.

  Within a year, in October 1542, Hamida Begum bore Humayun his first surviving son (and fourth child), Akbar. But only months later, Askari, who held Qandahar under Kamran’s overlordship, nearly captured Humayun’s entire band. Humayun, Hamida and about 30 followers hurriedly escaped, abandoning unweaned Akbar. Askari kept his nephew as a royal hostage for a year before passing him on to Kamran, then ruling in Kabul. Askari also ordered the local Baluch chieftains to seize Humayun.

  Reduced to eating horsemeat parboiled in a battle helmet, Humayun and his small band crossed the Safavid frontier unannounced in 1544, hoping for honorable treatment. Humayun’s personally hand-written and submissive note to Emperor Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–76) impressed the Safavid court:

  Although I have never enrolled myself formally among your Majesty’s servants, nevertheless strong ties of love and devotion have always drawn me to you. Now, through the caprice of fate, my realm has been reduced from the broad lands of India to the narrow confines of Sind …. I trust that, when we meet, I may be able to explain my situation to you.19

  Continuing his humble tone and alluding to Shah Tahmasp’s ancestor, Shi‘i Imam Ali, Humayun later again requested an imperial audience. A Safavid historian noted Humayun’s request was ‘accompanied by a number of verses alluding to the story of the miraculous rescue of Salman by Ali from the grip of the lion, and the aptness of this allusion will not be lost upon intelligent persons.’20

  After negotiations, Shah Tahmasp provided an imperial welcome to his ‘younger brother’ (although Humayun was eight years older); a deferential visiting emperor (even a deposed one) added luster to the Safavid court. To repay this gracious hospitality, Humayun presented to Tahmasp 250 rubies, his last remaining treasure.21 Further, Humayun accepted the Shi‘i Safavid monarch as his pir, just as Babur had done for Tahmasp’s father (these dual submissions to Safavid sovereignty and Shi‘i pirship would rankle subsequent Mughal emperors). While in exile, Humayun visited Iran’s major Sufi shrines. He also learned to appreciate Safavid aesthetics (he would later extensively recruit Iranian courtiers, artists and historians).

  HUMAYUN CAMPAIGNS TO RECREATE THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

  In 1545, after Humayun had spent about a year in Iran, Shah Tahmasp sent a qizilbash army of 12,000 to assist Humayun by successfully recapturing Qandahar from Askari. However, Humayun then took Qandahar from the Safavids (the two emperors eventually compromised that Bairam Khan would govern under their joint sovereignty). Later that year, Humayun recaptured Kabul from Kamran, recovering his imprisoned son, Akbar, as well.

  For the next decade, Humayun lived largely as his father had done for 20 years—as Kabul’s insecure ruler, launching predatory raids in order to attract and reward warriors with loot. Humayun considered reconquering Hindustan on several occasions but prioritized recovering Balkh and other parts of the family’s homeland in Mawarannahr from the Uzbeks. Instead, Humayun twice temporarily lost Kabul (and custody of Akbar) to Kamran. In 1551, a raid by Kamran killed Hindal, currently supporting Humayun. But Humayun repeatedly forgave the recurrently rebellious Kamran and Askari until, finally, even Humayun’s grace exhausted, he reluctantly had Askari exiled and Kamran blinded and exiled by 1554. Only after Humayun’s three half-brothers had all been eliminated, and he had recruited Iranians and a younger generation of Central Asian warriors, did he actually invade Hindustan in 1555—when Sher Shah Suri’s successors were particularly divided and weak.

  Having driven Humayun from India 15 years earlier and killed or exiled most of his supporters, including Indian Muslims, Sher Shah had constructed a more effective state. During his five-year reign, he developed a more efficient administrative apparatus, including more accurately assessed land revenues, stabilized currency, and enhanced transportation and communications infrastructures. All these fostered the economy and enabled him to extract and control more income, which he used to recruit e
xtensively from the north Indian military labor market. This freed him from dependence on other Indo-Afghan chieftains, whom he subordinated to his royal authority. Improving the efficacy of his core cavalry, he instituted a system of inspection and branding of warhorses to ensure their serviceability. His strengthened military won him victories and captured royal treasuries in the surrounding territories. Before his death in 1545 (by accident, while besieging a Rajput fortress), Sher Shah developed many institutions and procedures later central to the Mughal Empire.22

  But, over the next decade, Sher Shah’s successors fell into disarray. At the time of Humayun’s invasion, Muhammad ‘Adil Suri, the nominal Sultan, held little loyalty from contending Indo-Afghan governors or commanders. Hence, despite 15 years of exile, Humayun easily captured Lahore in February 1555. In July, Humayun’s diverse forces defeated the main Indo-Afghan army at Sirhind and seized Delhi.

  Hindustan’s society and economy were deeply disordered. Remnants of the Suri forces quickly regrouped and many other Indo-Afghan and Rajput rulers and warlords remained unvanquished. Rising Mahdist and other Islamic millennial movements in Hindustan and Afghanistan challenged the established religious, political and social orders. Further, extreme drought, famine and plague had been recurring for years.

  During the remaining months until his accidental death in 1556, Humayun sought to re-establish his rule over Hindustan. He innovatively reached out to Indian Muslims. He welcomed Suhrawardi Sufi leader Shaikh Gadai Kamboh (a Punjabi whose ancestors had converted to Islam), whom Sher Shah had driven into exile for Mughal sympathies. Similarly, Humayun created a political alliance with the powerful Indian Muslim clan based in Mewat (a region strategically near Delhi) by marrying a daughter of their chief (as his last of many wives).