State · 1556–1605
Akbar and the Mughal high point
Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra (India)
The Mughal Empire was founded in 1526, when Babur, a Timurid prince from Central Asia, defeated Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi at the First Battle of Panipat. Babur's grandson Akbar, emperor from 1556 to 1605, extended it over much of the Indian subcontinent, built a centralised administration, won the support of non-Muslim subjects by abolishing the sectarian jizya tax, and drew scholars, poets and holy men of many faiths to his courts, including his new capital at Fatehpur Sikri (1571–1585).
Why it mattered
Mughal India was one of the world's great manufacturing economies, producing about a quarter of world industrial output until 1750, and its architecture culminated in the Taj Mahal under Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan.
Elsewhere
The empire reached its greatest extent under Aurangzeb (d. 1707), then broke up, and was formally dissolved by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
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