Overview

Having monopolized Central Asian politics and culture for over a century, the Timurid ruling elite was forced from its ancestral homeland in Transoxiana at the turn of the sixteenth century by an invading Uzbek tribal confederation. The Timurids travelled south: establishing themselves as the new rulers of a region roughly comprising modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India, and founding what would become the Mughal Empire (1526-1857). The last survivors of the House of Timur, the Mughals drew invaluable political capital from their lineage, which was recognized for its charismatic genealogy and court culture - the features of which are examined here. By identifying Mughal loyalty to Turco-Mongol institutions and traditions, Lisa Balabanlilar here positions the Mughal dynasty at the centre of the early modern Islamic world as the direct successors of a powerful political and religious tradition.

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9781784531287

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Reviews

Clearly articulated ... Provides a lucid summary of the political ethos of the Mughals and integrates it into the wider world of Muslim `Gunpowder Empires'. Her text corroborates and complements the insights provided by other scholars. * Muslim World Book Review *

'Professor Lisa Balabanlilar's fluently written book on Mughal India represents a major contribution to the history of Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent and to the study of Muslim imperial rule in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires. Her work, based on Chaghatai Turkish and Persian sources, ought to profoundly influence the future historiography of South Asia, whose scholars, with a few important exceptions, have overlooked the tenacious Turco-Mongol ligatures that tied the Mughals to their Central Asian and more particularly, Timurid inheritance. The book should also help to integrate Mughal, or Timurid-Mughal history into the broader study of the three contemporary Muslim empires, which were the legatees of Turco-Mongol and Perso-Islamic social, cultural and political traditions.' Professor Stephen F. Dale, Department of History, Ohio State University

Author Information

Lisa Balabanlilar is Assistant Professor of South and Central Asian History at Rice University, Texas.

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