2020/10/19 by Tilmann Kulke · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Asian Studies and History #Islamic Studies and History #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
paper · doi:10.4324/9780429054853-14
openalex publication_date 2020/10/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
Aurangzeb Alamgir (gov. 1658–1707) was one of the most powerful and dazzling rulers of the early modern period. After almost 50 years of rule, the Mughal Empire was twice as big as Europe, and the tax revenues were gigantic. And despite Aurangzeb’s numerous reform efforts and the empire’s enormous territorial growth, Aurangzeb’s rule—with only a very few exceptions—still gets characterized as backward looking, ultra-orthodox and even fanatic. But what if we break away from this traditional one-dimensional approach to Aurangzeb’s rule, which only sees religious fundamentalism as the crucial basis for his legitimization of rule? In this chapter, I argue that Aurangzeb deliberately staged his power and government on values and virtues such as discipline, renunciation, solicitude and militarism in order to clearly distance himself from his praiseworthy and lavish predecessors. In some places, I will present a brief comparison with Aurangzeb’s contemporaries in Europe and classify the emperor’s often-controversial decisions into a broader context; by doing so, we will find some very strange parallels.