Sher Shah Suri's rule falls:

As an interregnum between Humayun's two reigns

Nadir Shah's 1739 sack of Delhi, which carried off the Peacock Throne, belongs to the period of:

Disintegration under the later Mughals

The jagirdari crisis, a key cause of Mughal decline, refers to:

An overextended Mansabdari system unable to reward a swelling nobility from a finite revenue base

A naval blockade by the Portuguese

Which of the following are correctly identified as causes of Mughal decline, per the syllabus's multi-causal framing?

Financial and military drain of the Deccan wars

Shah Jahan's reign ended when:

Aurangzeb imprisoned him at Agra Fort after a war of succession

He died at the Battle of Panipat

He abdicated to found Din-i Ilahi

The Mughal Empire: Foundation, Expansion and Decline

The second political chapter of Unit IV covers the Mughals from Babur's 1526 founding through Akbar-to-Aurangzeb expansion to the empire's eighteenth-century collapse — the single longest continuous political narrative anywhere in this syllabus, and NET tests each reign's own distinguishing achievement rather than treating 'the Mughals' as one undifferentiated span.

1. Foundation: Babur, Humayun and the Suris

Babur, a Timurid prince pushed out of Central Asia, established the Mughal empire by defeating Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat (1526) and, decisively, the Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga at Khanwa (1527) — victories owing much to Babur's disciplined use of field artillery and the tulughma flanking-cavalry tactic against numerically larger but less coordinated opposing forces; his son Humayun, however, was driven out of India entirely by the Afghan noble Sher Shah Suri (1540), spending fifteen years in Persian exile before reconquering Delhi in 1555, only to die within a year from a fall down his library stairs.

🎯 The Suri interregnum is not a Mughal reign

Sher Shah Suri's brief but consequential rule (1540-1545) is an interregnum between Humayun's two reigns, not part of Mughal history proper — but NET tests it heavily anyway because his administrative reforms (a rationalised land-revenue system, the Rupiya coin standard, the Grand Trunk Road with sarais at intervals) directly shaped the Mughal administration that followed, a fact this unit's next chapter on administration develops at length.

2. Expansion and Consolidation: Akbar to Aurangzeb

The four great Mughals after Humayun
Emperor	Defining achievement
Akbar (r. 1556-1605)	Wins Panipat II against Hemu (1556) as a minor under Bairam Khan's regency; consolidates Rajput alliances (marriage, not just conquest); introduces Sulah-i-kul (universal peace/tolerance) and the Mansabdari-Jagirdari system; abolishes jaziya.
Jahangir (r. 1605-1627)	Continues Akbar's broad framework with less direct innovation; noted for Mughal painting's flourishing and the chain of justice legend; Nur Jahan's rising political influence in the later years of the reign.
Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658)	The empire's architectural peak — the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and Jama Masjid — funded by a fiscally strained treasury; a war of succession among his sons ends his reign, with Aurangzeb imprisoning him at Agra Fort.
Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707)	The empire's greatest territorial extent (the long, costly Deccan campaigns against Bijapur, Golkonda and the Marathas) is reached even as reversal of Akbar's tolerance policy (jaziya reimposed) and the Deccan wars' unsustainable cost sow the seeds of decline this unit's own next section names directly.

ℹ️ Sulah-i-kul, tested precisely

The concepts list's Sulah-i-kul (universal peace/reconciliation) is Akbar's own stated policy of religious tolerance and accommodation across faiths, and is distinct from — though related to — Din-i Ilahi, his separate, largely court-confined eclectic faith; NET has asked candidates to distinguish the general POLICY (Sulah-i-kul) from the specific, much narrower religious ORDER (Din-i Ilahi) Akbar founded.

3. Decline of the Mughal Empire and Later Mughals

The syllabus explicitly separates 'Decline of the Mughal Empire' from 'Later Mughals and Disintegration' as two distinct sub-items, and the distinction matters: decline names the structural causes set in motion chiefly under Aurangzeb — the ruinous financial and military drain of the endless Deccan wars, the alienation of the Marathas and Rajputs through renewed religious rigour, and an overextended Mansabdari system unable to reward its swelling nobility from a finite land-revenue base (the jagirdari crisis) — while disintegration names what actually happened afterward: a rapid, nearly farcical succession of weak later Mughals (Bahadur Shah I onward) who became figureheads controlled by powerful nobles and, later, by outside invaders and regional powers, while Nadir Shah's 1739 sack of Delhi (carrying off the Peacock Throne) and Ahmad Shah Abdali's repeated invasions delivered the coup de grâce to any remaining real central authority.

Multiple, converging causes, not one — NET expects weak successors, financial exhaustion, religious alienation of key military allies, provincial governors turning autonomous (Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad), and external invasion to be named TOGETHER, since no single cause fully explains the collapse.
Watan, again, in Mughal vocabulary — the tension over hereditary versus transferable revenue rights recurs here as the jagirdari system's own internal strain, the same structural problem Unit IV's Sultanate chapter already flagged under a different administrative vocabulary.

4. Reading the Mughal Century Correctly

⚠️ Aurangzeb's reign is peak AND turning point at once

A common exam-trap is to treat 'greatest territorial extent' and 'beginning of decline' as contradictory facts about Aurangzeb's reign that cannot both be true — they are not contradictory at all: NET explicitly wants the candidate to hold both, since the very Deccan campaigns that maximised the empire's territory are also identified as the direct cause of the fiscal and military strain that begins its collapse.

Held together, this chapter's arc — Babur's founding through the four great Mughals to Aurangzeb's paradoxical peak-and-turning-point, and then the later Mughals' rapid disintegration — is the syllabus's single most tested continuous political narrative, and NET rewards a candidate who can place any given event (a battle, a policy, an invasion) correctly on this timeline rather than recall it in isolation.

Key takeaways

Babur founded the Mughal empire at Panipat (1526) and Khanwa (1527); Humayun's fifteen-year exile followed Sher Shah Suri's interregnum (1540-1545, land revenue and Rupiya reforms), before his 1555 reconquest.
Akbar (Sulah-i-kul, Mansabdari-Jagirdari, jaziya abolition), Jahangir (painting), Shah Jahan (Taj Mahal) and Aurangzeb (greatest extent via Deccan wars, jaziya reimposed) are the four great Mughals, each with a distinguishing achievement.
Decline (structural causes under Aurangzeb — Deccan-war drain, Maratha/Rajput alienation, jagirdari crisis) is distinct from disintegration (weak later Mughals, Nadir Shah's 1739 sack, Abdali's invasions).
Sulah-i-kul (Akbar's general tolerance policy) is distinct from Din-i Ilahi (his separate, court-confined eclectic faith) — a distinction NET has tested directly.
Aurangzeb's reign is simultaneously the empire's territorial peak and the beginning of its decline — not a contradiction, since the same Deccan campaigns caused both.

Practice questions (9)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Babur's decisive 1527 victory over the Rajput confederacy under Rana Sanga was fought at:
1. Khanwa
2. Panipat
3. Haldighati
4. Talikota
Show answer
Answer: A — Khanwa
Khanwa (1527) was Babur's decisive victory over Rana Sanga's Rajput confederacy, following his 1526 Panipat victory over Ibrahim Lodi; Haldighati and Talikota belong to later, separate conflicts.
Sher Shah Suri's rule falls:
1. As an interregnum between Humayun's two reigns
2. After Aurangzeb's death
3. Before Babur's invasion
4. During Akbar's minority
Show answer
Answer: A — As an interregnum between Humayun's two reigns
Sher Shah Suri drove Humayun out of India in 1540 and ruled until 1545, an interregnum ending when Humayun reconquered Delhi in 1555.
Akbar's policy of religious tolerance and accommodation across faiths is called:
1. Sulah-i-kul
2. Din-i Ilahi
3. Jaziya
4. Zakat
Show answer
Answer: A — Sulah-i-kul
Sulah-i-kul is Akbar's general tolerance policy, distinct from Din-i Ilahi (his separate, court-confined faith); jaziya and zakat are unrelated taxes.
The Mughal empire's greatest territorial extent was reached under:
1. Aurangzeb
2. Akbar
3. Shah Jahan
4. Jahangir
Show answer
Answer: A — Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb's long Deccan campaigns against Bijapur, Golkonda and the Marathas brought the empire to its greatest extent, even as the same campaigns began its decline.
Nadir Shah's 1739 sack of Delhi, which carried off the Peacock Throne, belongs to the period of:
1. Disintegration under the later Mughals
2. Akbar's consolidation
3. Babur's foundation
4. Sher Shah Suri's interregnum
Show answer
Answer: A — Disintegration under the later Mughals
Nadir Shah's invasion and Delhi sack occurred well after Aurangzeb's death, during the rapid disintegration of the empire under weak later Mughals.
The jagirdari crisis, a key cause of Mughal decline, refers to:
1. An overextended Mansabdari system unable to reward a swelling nobility from a finite revenue base
2. A shortage of gold currency
3. A famine in Bengal
4. A naval blockade by the Portuguese
Show answer
Answer: A — An overextended Mansabdari system unable to reward a swelling nobility from a finite revenue base
The jagirdari crisis names the structural problem of too many mansabdars competing for too little assignable revenue, part of the multiple converging causes of decline.
Which of the following are correctly identified as causes of Mughal decline, per the syllabus's multi-causal framing?
1. Financial and military drain of the Deccan wars
2. Alienation of the Marathas and Rajputs
3. The jagirdari crisis
4. The First Battle of Panipat
Show answer
Answer: A — Financial and military drain of the Deccan wars; B — Alienation of the Marathas and Rajputs; C — The jagirdari crisis
The Deccan-war drain, Maratha/Rajput alienation and the jagirdari crisis are the converging structural causes; the First Battle of Panipat (1526) is the empire's founding event, not a cause of its decline.
Shah Jahan's reign ended when:
1. Aurangzeb imprisoned him at Agra Fort after a war of succession
2. He was defeated by Nadir Shah
3. He died at the Battle of Panipat
4. He abdicated to found Din-i Ilahi
Show answer
Answer: A — Aurangzeb imprisoned him at Agra Fort after a war of succession
A war of succession among Shah Jahan's sons ended with Aurangzeb's victory and Shah Jahan's imprisonment at Agra Fort until his death.
Name the Afghan invader whose repeated 18th-century invasions, alongside Nadir Shah's, delivered further blows to the disintegrating Mughal empire.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: Ahmad Shah Abdali
Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani), an Afghan ruler, repeatedly invaded north India in the mid-18th century, delivering further blows to Mughal central authority alongside Nadir Shah's earlier 1739 sack.