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Showing posts with the label Aurangzeb

Did Aurangzeb ban Music?

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An 18th-century miniature in gouache and gold leaf of Aurangzeb seated on a throne   Photo: Bridgeman Art Library  The sixth and last great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb banned music in the tenth year of his reign, i.e. 1668, even though he personally enjoyed it. The contemporary Italian historian Niccolao Manucci writes about Aurangzeb's order to an official to stop all music: "If in any house or elsewhere he heard the sound of singing and instruments, he should forthwith hasten there and arrest as many as he could, breaking the instruments. Thus was caused a great destruction of musical instruments. Finding themselves in this difficulty, their large earnings likely to cease, without there being any other mode of seeking a livelihood, the musicians took counsel together and tried to appease the king in the following way. About one thousand of them assembled on a Friday when Aurangzeb was going to the mosque. They came out with more than 20 highly ornamented biers, as i

Shah Jahan the Fifth Mughal Emperor

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Accession to the Throne  Shah Jahan (1628-58) was in Deccan when his father Jahangir died in the month of October in 1627. At Lahore, Nur Jahan , one of the wives of Jahangir, proclaimed her son-in-law Shahryar as the emperor, while Asaf Khan , father of Mumtaz Mahal (Shah Jahan’s wife in whose memory Taj Mahal was built) put Dawar Baksh , son of Khusrav (brother of Shah Jahan), on the throne as a stop-gap emperor till the return of Shah Jahan to Agra from Deccan. When Shah Jahan arrived at Agra in February 1628, Dawar Baksh , the “sacrificial lamb’ was deposed and sent in exile to Persia. Asaf Khan defeated, captured and blinded Shahryar . Now decks were clear for Shah Jahan who ascended the Mughal throne at Agra in February 1628. However, Shah Jahan was paid back in his own coin when during his last days when two of his own sons were executed.  Military Conquests of Shah Jahan   The first three years of Shah Jahan’s reign were marked by the rebellions of the Bundela Chief Juhar Si