Aurangzeb (1658-1707 AD) [Based on NCERT]

Aurangzeb (1658-1707 AD)

Aurangzeb (1658-1707 AD): Aurangzeb was born on November 3, 1618, at a place called Dohan, located near  Ujjain. Aurangzeb was also known as ' Zinda Pir '. Aurangzeb's father's name was Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan had four sons and three daughters, due to Shah Jahan's illness, a struggle started among all his successors to become the ruler of the Mughal Empire. Which came to be known as the ' War of Succession ', in which Aurangzeb defeated everyone and captured the throne of the Mughal Empire on July 21, 1658, and sent his father Shah Jahan to the Shahburj in the Agra Fort. I was imprisoned. Aurangzeb's coronation took place twice, the first coronation took place on July 31, 1658, and the second coronation took place on June 15, 1659. Both these coronations took place in Delhi. Aurangzeb assumed the title of ' Alamgir ' as soon as he was crowned the Mughal Empire.

Aurangzeb was a strict ruler and a staunch orthodox Sunni Muslim, that is why he was intolerant towards Hindus. Aurangzeb had also imposed a tax on Hindus doing ' pilgrimage ' in 1663 AD and tax was also collected from Hindu merchants. It also banned the practice of Sati. In 1668 AD, festivals and religious rituals celebrated by Hindus were also banned. In 1669, Aurangzeb demolished the Vishwanath temple of Kashi, the Somnath temple of Gujarat, and the Keshavaraya temple of Mathura.

In 1679 AD, Aurangzeb re-introduced the ' Jizya ' ^{[1] tax on Hindus.} Which was closed by Aurangzeb's great-grandfather  Akbar during his reign. At the same time, Aurangzeb had also issued an order not to celebrate the Nauroj ^[2] Festival. Apart from this, there was a complete ban on gambling and intoxication, the construction of temples, doing anti-Quranic work, and also on writing Kalma on coins.

Due to these fanatical policies of Aurangzeb, many rebellions also took place during his reign, including the revolt of the Afghans between  1667-72, the Jats of Mathura from 1669 to 1881, the Satnami rebellion in 1672, the British rebellion in 1686, the rebellion of 1679-1709. The revolt of the Central  Rajputs and the revolt of the Sikhs of Punjab between  1675 and 1707 were prominent.

The first rebellion was led by the Jats of Mathura led by Gokul, the Jats suffered a defeat during the Tilpat War, in which Gokul was captured and executed by the Mughals. After this Rajaram and Ramchera led the Jats. Aurangzeb sent his grandson Bidar Bakht and Raja Bishan Singh of Amer to end the revolt of Jats, Rajaram died in this campaign. Thereafter, Rajaram's nephew Chudaman led the Jats till the death of Aurangzeb.

Aurangzeb also had to face the rebellion of the Satnamis. Satnami people used to call God ' Satnam '. Due to this, he came to be called Satnami. These people used to live in the nearby areas of Mewat and Narnaul. Satnami's rebellion broke out due to the death of a Satnami farmer by a person who collected taxes for the Mughals.

The seeds of rebellion in the minds of the Sikhs began to arise from the time of the  Mughal ruler Jahangir when Jahangir executed the fifth Guru of the Sikhs, Arjun Dev. In this sequence, Jahangir's son Shah Jahan had a war with Hargobind,  the sixth guru of the Sikhs. And then Aurangzeb took the ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur of the Sikh captive in 1675 AD and tortured him to convert to Islam, but when Guru Tegh Bahadur refused to accept Islam, he was hanged. Guru Gobind Singh, son of Guru Tegh Bahadur To avenge the death of his father, organized the Sikhs in the form of a fierce force in the name of ' Khalsa '. Guru Gobind Singh had four sons, out of which two sons were elected in the wall by the Faujdar of Sirhind in 1705. After some time, Guru Gobind Singh was assassinated by an Afghan in 1708 AD. After this, Guru Gobind Singh's disciple and his successor  Banda Bahadur Singh led the Sikhs against the Mughals, but he too was killed after some time.

Aurangzeb also had to face the Marathas during his reign, Mughal and Maratha were enemies for a long time, from time to time there were many wars between them. Therefore Aurangzeb wanted to eliminate his enemy and powerful Maratha ruler Shivaji. To do this, Aurangzeb sent Rajput Raja Jai ​​Singh of Amber in  1665 AD to suppress Shivaji. Jai Singh defeated Shivaji and forced him to do the ' Treaty of Purandar  ' in June 1665 AD. According to this treaty, Shivaji had to hand over 23 of his forts to the Mughals. as well as BijapurHe also had to promise to help the Mughals Even after all this, Aurangzeb wanted to eliminate Shiva, so Aurangzeb conspire with the Rajput king Jai Singh of Amber and called Shivaji to his court and took him captive, but Shivaji managed to escape from there with his cleverness. In 1674 AD, Shivaji declared himself an independent king.

After the death of Shivaji in 1680 AD, his son Shambhaji took over the command of Maratha's rule, but in 1689 AD, Shambhaji was hanged by Aurangzeb. After Sambhaji, his brother Rajaram took over the reins of the Marathas. He also faced the Mughals fiercely, which in Maratha history has been termed as ' Freedom Struggle '.

Aurangzeb attacked under the leadership of Subedar Diler Khan in 1676 AD to capture Bijapur. Due to continuous invasions, the then ruler of Bijapur, Sikandar Adil Shah, surrendered in 1686 AD and the Mughal Empire occupied Bijapur. In 1687, Aurangzeb invaded Golconda and annexed it to the Mughal Empire.

After ruling for nearly 50 years, Aurangzeb died on  March 3, 1707, at the age of 88, Aurangzeb's body was buried in Daulatabad ^{[3] a city in Maharashtra.} 

After this, the decline of the Mughal dynasty started. _ The British power strengthened its power. _

All the Mughal rulers who came after Aurangzeb were incompetent and weak. This is not important from the point of view of competitive exams, so all of them can be understood from the table given below –

name	reign  period	important events
Bahadur Shah	1707-1712
jahadar shah	1712-1713
Farouxhire	1713-1719
Mohammad Shah	1719-1748	On 16 February 1739,  Nadir Shah attacked Delhi.  Nadir Shah was the ruler of Persia.  He is called "Napoleon of Iran".
ahmed shah	1748-1754
Alamgir -2	1754-1759	British occupation of Bengal  and Battle of Plassey.
Shah Alam -2	1760-1806	the third battle of Panipat
Akbar -2	1806-1839
Bahadur Shah -2 ( Bahadur  Shah Zafar )	1837-1857	last Mughal ruler

[1] Jizya Tax  – People who do not believe in Islam or say that this tax was imposed on non-Muslim people.
[2]  Nowroz - is a festival celebrated by the Parsi and Iranian people.
[3] Daulatabad - Its ancient name was Devgiri. Which was settled by a king named Bhilam around the 11th century.

 

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