GEOG 3RW3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah
5 May 2017
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Department
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Professor
Geography 3RW3 – Dr. Basik – Page 1
Lecture 14 – Tuesday February 3
Historical Geography: The Mughal Empire, Europeans & The Road to Independence
Introduction
• Taj Mahal
o Located in India
o Built for his wife (man in first picture)
o Historic facts surrounding this building
o Ordered servant’s hands to be cut off upon completion of the building
o Made from marble
o Greatly associated with India – important cultural hub of the country
o Historical geography
1. The Mughal Empire
• Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur The Tiger (1483-1530)
o The founder of the Mughal dynasty
o Uzbek Turk Timurid: mother – descended from Genghis Khan, his father –
descended from Timur
o Famous historical person
o Babur was a great conqueror in history
o The Middle Eastern Mongol invaders had converted to Islam long before
o They also absorbed Persian culture
o The Persian word for Mongol is Mughal later – English term mogul
meaning tycoon
o Babur seized Afghanistan and in 1526 defeated the Sultan of Delhi
o Died in 1530: conquered all of Hindustan and controlled an empire from the
Deccan to Central Asia
• Akbar (1556-1605) – grandson of Babur – 49 year reign
o Established the first modern era Indian territorial state
o Controlled the land from the Himalaya Mountains to the Godavari River in
central India and from Kashmir to the Ganges Delta
o Aurangzeb (1658-1707): executed his brother and had himself crowned
emperor
o Expanded the Moghul Empire south to Marathas in the Western Deccan
o Extremely brutal policy for Non-Muslims
o Second part of the 17th century – future geopolitical problems in this area
today probably rooted in this period of time
o Linguistic division (Urdu – elite, Arabic – Islamic scholars, Hindi – general
public)
o Synthesis of Indian and Persian styles in architecture
o Collapse: fiscal crisis, wars, rebellions, powerful regional maharajas –
disintegration of empire in 18 century
• The Indian Ocean Trade increased before 1500: stimulated by the prosperity of
Latin Europe, Asian and African states and by the collapse of the overland trade
routes (Ottoman Empire)
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