Alamgirnama: A Mughal Timeline

[Madhukar_Shah]

The growth of mercenaries is a very interesting development, I never thought of anything like that happening before. I imagine with the high-quality and quantity of troops, they would be hired all over the Indian ocean basin, in Africa and the Middle East and ever SE Asia like you mentioned. Was there any OTL precedent for this? Also, are the nobility represented largely within these merc companies, or would they prefer the prestige of state military? And if need be, it would seem that the hiring the Indian merc companies to fight for the Mughals could get quite expensive if they are needed on a large scale.

Money is rarely an object for the Mughal state- Shah Jahan spent 24 times the cost of the Taj Mahal in the Qandahar expeditions and 21 times the cost of building Shahjahanabad. The Great Mughal has deep pockets.

Most mercenary campaigns abroad are restricted to the months of October to May, as the mercenaries will need to come back and farm their land. As such there’s a limit to how far they can go- still they can go anywhere around the Indian Ocean, the Middle East and Central Asia, battle for two or three months and then be back in time. Longer campaigns would be limited to east Africa or Southeast Asia. Quality of mercenary troops varies, as you never know if their training is as good as the state military, but quite a few groups are very good, and there’s certainly a lot of them so they can take advantage of economies of scale. Quantity has a quality all of its own.

The state military has a great salary, and is in general more prestigious than mercenary companies, but mercenary companies can win much more glory abroad, so lower level officers gravitate towards them. We must remember, the vast majority of mansabdars (more than 95 percent) have mansabs lower than 1000, and there are more than 70,000 mansabdars- the entirety of that lower nobility is looking to distinguish themselves.

 

[haider najib]

So how does someone become a general in the Mughal miliary?

Also what is the relationship between the Rajputs and Mughals, the mughals use them fore everything. the Punjabi's and Hindustanis have the better states and cities, Punjab has Lahore, Amritsar and the indus, Hindustani have Delhi and massive cultural dominance yet in modern otl yet Rajputs seem to be go to for the mughals.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

So how does someone become a general in the Mughal miliary?

Also what is the relationship between the Rajputs and Mughals, the mughals use them fore everything. the Punjabi's and Hindustanis have the better states and cities, Punjab has Lahore, Amritsar and the indus, Hindustani have Delhi and massive cultural dominance yet in modern otl yet Rajputs seem to be go to for the mughals.

A combination of: Friends in high places that personally recommend you to the emperor, distinguishing yourself as a commander in lower positions or in mercenary groups, having passed through the curriculum of a military academy with especially high grades, establishing yourself as a talented diplomat, historian, poet and philosopher, demonstrating ability in other branches of government such as tax collection or public works, and most important of all, having a good working relationship with the emperor.

The Mughal relationship with Rajputs is very close- while there may be fewer Rajputs holding mansabs than Iranians, or Marathas, they have a much higher average mansab. There are more Rajput mansabdars with a mansab higher than 1000 than indian muslims, Turks, or afghans. Thé Mughals integrated themselves into Indian society as Muslim Rajputs, favouring them for marriage alliances and military postings for a host of reasons that made a lot more sense when they were establishing themselves in Hindustan than in the age of subcontinental hegemony but now Rajput culture is so integrated into Mughal culture that it’s essentially inextricable. Nevertheless, it has remained a core part of state ideology that anyone can reach the highest positions in the government if they show talent, and Jahanzeb Shah especially in integrating the south made sure to lavish high and prestigious positions on southerners to make them feel part of the state, including recognising current heads of the adil shahi and Qutb shahi dynasties, in much the same way as the Qing had the Marquis if Extended Grace.

Mughal civilian and military organisations are linked very strongly, so there’s a good chance being a good bureaucrat can lead to military command, and bureaucrats are recruited from across the empires literate classes, especially the Punjab and the Gangetic Plain. Also Hindustan includes the Rajputana, so thé Rajputs are hindustanis.

 

[haider najib]

The conflict foreshadowing china and India will be interesting. What do mughals call their armies? Qing call them banners and green standard armies.

Do the factors that caused sikhs to become loyal elite british soldiers exist here for the mughals.

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

The conflict foreshadowing china and India will be interesting. What do mughals call their armies? Qing call them banners and green standard armies.

Do the factors that caused sikhs to become loyal elite british soldiers exist here for the mughals.

sawar for cavalry, and for infantry -
sipaahee
same for a regiment - sipahsalar or Gut which also uses for the officer,

 

[Rajveer Naha]

I must suggest that an update must cover the butterflies it had in the rest of world history upto this point.

 

[Israel_Dan the Man]

Would you mind showing a comparison between the size of the economies, populations, and armies of the Qing and Mughals?

 

[Ismaili777]

I wonder how rich modern day India will be in this timeline...it is appalling how much britain stole from india actually seeing as they controlled much of world trade. Granted not all INDIANS were wealthy but the same can be said about a european peasant during the times of colonialism. I think India might be a "developed" country by the modern day in this timeline.

 

[Gust]

I wonder how rich modern day India will be in this timeline...it is appalling how much britain stole from india actually seeing as they controlled much of world trade. Granted not all INDIANS were wealthy but the same can be said about a european peasant during the times of colonialism. I think India might be a "developed" country by the modern day in this timeline.

The view of my history teacher is that India would've stayed on a European level of development if not for the British conquering it.

 

[Talus I of Dixie]

@Madhav Deval One question, how the mughals surviving affected the religious demographics of India? I think that Sikhism will be substantially smaller, and the muslim population bigger in all-around India (maybe an 60-75% majority in the gangetic plain?) and better consolidated/spread as well, Southern India will probably have some 20-30% muslims, considering that places like the Malabar Coast already had an big community of muslims. Tough i wanted to know from you about the demographics (the tl is yours after all )

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

@Madhav Deval One question, how the mughals surviving affected the religious demographics of India? I think that Sikhism will be substantially smaller, and the muslim population bigger in all-around India (maybe an 60-75% majority in the gangetic plain?) and better consolidated/spread as well, Southern India will probably have some 20-30% muslims, considering that places like the Malabar Coast already had an big community of muslims. Tough i wanted to know from you about the demographics (the tl is yours after all )

Yeah- I kind of doubt that. For starters, all of the regions otl where there are substantial Muslim populations had never really been integrated into the Sanskritic Hindu civilisational complex and the core areas of all large Indian sultanates never really saw mass conversion- this suggests that conversion to Islam has nothing to do with government action for the most part and is mainly down to what religion offered local leaders the chance to integrate themselves into a written cosmopolis and most effectively justify their own authority first. As such I don’t really expect the proportion of Muslims in the subcontinent to be radically different to otl- staying at pretty much a third overall. I do expect Sikhism to be a fair bit larger and more widely spread but that’s for political reasons to be divulged later- anyway who says you will be able to neatly divide people into a Sikh, or a Muslim or a Hindu anyway; they’re all different philosophies and individuals interaction with each of these philosophies will be highly... individual with their own additional practices and beliefs.

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

Yeah- I kind of doubt that. For starters, all of the regions otl where there are substantial Muslim populations had never really been integrated into the Sanskritic Hindu civilisational complex and the core areas of all large Indian sultanates never really saw mass conversion- this suggests that conversion to Islam has nothing to do with government action for the most part and is mainly down to what religion offered local leaders the chance to integrate themselves into a written cosmopolis and most effectively justify their own authority first. As such I don’t really expect the proportion of Muslims in the subcontinent to be radically different to otl- staying at pretty much a third overall. I do expect Sikhism to be a fair bit larger and more widely spread but that’s for political reasons to be divulged later- anyway who says you will be able to neatly divide people into a Sikh, or a Muslim or a Hindu anyway; they’re all different philosophies and individuals interaction with each of these philosophies will be highly... individual with their own additional practices and beliefs.

@Talus_I_of_Dixie I think in the north Gangetic plane their Muslim are mainly migrant of Afghanistan and central Asia who come to India for better life that why there more Muslim around the capital city like Delhi and regional Muslim Nawab capital, Hindu never in history really mass convert to Muslim religion they mass migrate to place to place to be safe from Muslim invaders, In Babarnama Babar wrote Indian(Hindu) empty city in one day and can make a new city one day at other places , this whole mass migration come with many safety feature . You can see due to this migration from Central Asia to Punjab (Pakistan) from their Delhi happen.
this migration of city and village altogether can break the economy of the state that's why mughal or any other Islamic king in India wanted to maintain status-quo and increasing his power by importing Muslim officer and soldier from Persia and Central India.
and migration from Persia to India stop altogether in the region of Jahangir and I think we can accept migration from Central India will also be stopped after the conquest of central Asia by Mughal which creates a sense of peace in the region and economic prosperity.

 

[Sriyam Swastik]

Yeah- I kind of doubt that. For starters, all of the regions otl where there are substantial Muslim populations had never really been integrated into the Sanskritic Hindu civilisational complex and the core areas of all large Indian sultanates never really saw mass conversion- this suggests that conversion to Islam has nothing to do with government action for the most part and is mainly down to what religion offered local leaders the chance to integrate themselves into a written cosmopolis and most effectively justify their own authority first. As such I don’t really expect the proportion of Muslims in the subcontinent to be radically different to otl- staying at pretty much a third overall. I do expect Sikhism to be a fair bit larger and more widely spread but that’s for political reasons to be divulged later- anyway who says you will be able to neatly divide people into a Sikh, or a Muslim or a Hindu anyway; they’re all different philosophies and individuals interaction with each of these philosophies will be highly... individual with their own additional practices and beliefs.

Are you saying that Punjab (the origin of many Hindu concepts, the "Kurukshetra", Lahore(Luv-Kush epic), etc.) and Sindh weren't integrated into Hindu civilization? Perhaps Bengal works because of the various tribal religious and political allegiances that were prevalent in eastern Bengal and only loosely allied to Hinduism, but Southern Indian sultanates ruled firmly Hindu areas and converted them to Islam.

 

[Beacon]

I really enjoyed going through this timeline. I liked that you covered how Mughal emperors overcame the problem of pretenders to their thrones by effectively exiling them.

I am curious about what happens to Australia in this TL. Is it integrated into hindu cosmology ala the californian native indian states?

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Are you saying that Punjab (the origin of many Hindu concepts, the "Kurukshetra", Lahore(Luv-Kush epic), etc.) and Sindh weren't integrated into Hindu civilization? Perhaps Bengal works because of the various tribal religious and political allegiances that were prevalent in eastern Bengal and only loosely allied to Hinduism, but Southern Indian sultanates ruled firmly Hindu areas and converted them to Islam.

That’s exactly what I’m saying- Aryan civilisation has been centred around the Punjab area during the early epic era, around the time that the events the Mahabharata was based on happened, but later moved eastwards, and certainly by the time of the Mahajanapadas, Punjab has become peripheral, with no important kingdoms. After this point, it was largely outside the pale of proper Hindu civilisation. Even by the time if the Baudhayana Dharmasutra, a late Vedic text of the 5th century bce, aryavarta is divided into three concentric circles with the purest in the middle and the last circle, which contains Punjab, is seen as so far outside the pale of civilisation that penances are required for people who have visited the area. Additionally the Punjab was dominated by tribes such as the sauviras, arattas and later the jats- the absence of a state with a Classical Hindu social system meant that the Punjab was much more weakly exposed to the Sanskrit civilisational complex and so more receptive to the Persianate one.

Also southern Indian sultanates were even worse at conversion than North Indian sultanates, so the last part is just incorrect.

 

[Talus I of Dixie]

Also southern Indian sultanates were even worse at conversion than North Indian sultanates, so the last part is just incorrect.

Something i learned from TTL: Damn, the indian islamic states were horrible at conversion

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Something i learned from TTL: Damn, the indian islamic states were horrible at conversion

I mean they were great at converting people to following an ethical and cultural framework that conformed to their background, it’s just religion wasn’t a massive part of that.

 

[LostInNewDelhi]

You could say the sultanates were adept at changing everything (languages, fashion, diplomacy, hiring choices, land use/districting, administration) BUT religion :,^)

With the Deccani sultanates there's thr additional disadvantage of short lifespans and powerful Hindu actors like the Marathas still about. Plus the rather thin-on-the-ground nature of the Muslim pop (most were transplants from the north sent to set up provincial admins for Delhi but instead went their own way) and sectarian division among them (the Bahmani were Shii, and their successors's bureaucracies had proportions of both sects in their bureaucracies. I think in Golconda this turned into a little civil conflict?).

 

[Sriyam Swastik]

Also southern Indian sultanates were even worse at conversion than North Indian sultanates, so the last part is just incorrect.

Hmm... you seem to be correct. There are about 5 million tamil muslims, but many of them aren't native conversions.
However, if your theory is correct, then nepal would have been teeming with muslims. But it is not, because the ruler was hindu.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Hmm... you seem to be correct. There are about 5 million tamil muslims, but many of them aren't native conversions.
However, if your theory is correct, then nepal would have been teeming with muslims. But it is not, because the ruler was hindu.

Népal had been thoroughly Sanskritised and also immersed into the Tibetan Buddhist tradition from the middle of the first millenium, and both of these traditions had syncretised to the extent they did not weaken each other. The Licchavis had seen extensive intermarriage with both the Guptas and the Tibetan empire. Large cosmopolitan traditions had diffuser to most sectors of society, and if they hadn’t you’d have seen a Kashmir, where a Hindu or Buddhist ruler rules over an increasing Muslim population until conversion becomes necessary.