1. The dynasty called itself Timuri, owing to its descent from Timur-i Lang (“Timur the Lame,” or Tamerlane, d. 1405). Since the Mughals were the branch of the Timurids that rose to power in India, they should properly be called Indo-Timurids. See Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 3: 62–63, n. 2. [BACK]

2. Iqtidar Husain Siddiqui, Mughal Relations with the Indian Ruling Elite (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1983), 78–86. [BACK]

3. Ibid., 88–89. Numismatic evidence indicates that Sher Khan first styled himself Sher Shah in 1535. Ibid., 83–84. [BACK]

4. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, ed. Abdur Rahim (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1873–87), 1: 151–53. Translated by Henry Beveridge under the title The Akbar Nama of Abu-l-Fazl (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1897–1921; reprint, New Delhi: Ess Ess Publications, 1979), 1: 332–35. [BACK]

5. An Afghan chieftain belonging to the Kakar clan made the following plea to Sultan Taj Khan Karrani: “At our backs are Mughal armies that capture and enslave members of the Afghan race. You also are an Afghan. Therefore it is necessary that we come under your protection.” Khwajah Ni‘mat Allah, Tārīkh-i-Khān Jahānī wa makhzan-i-Afghānī, ed. S. M. Imam al-Din (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan Publication No. 4, 1960), 1: 411. [BACK]

6. Ibid., 413. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 2: 338; text, 2: 219. [BACK]

7. According to the historian Ni‘mat Allah, who wrote some forty years after the event, Sulaiman ordered that an elaborately decorated image of the god Krishna made of gold and rubies be smashed and pitched into a cesspool. His soldiers also carried away with them seven hundred other images dedicated to various deities. Ni‘mat Allah, Tārīkh, 413–15. [BACK]

8. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 2: 381–82, 480; text, 2: 254–55, 327. [BACK]

9. A. Eschmann, H. Kulke, and G. C. Tripathi, eds., The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa (New Delhi: Manohar, 1978), 200–208. [BACK]

10. See Richard H. Davis, “Indian Art Objects as Loot,” Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 1 (February, 1993): 22–48. [BACK]

11. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 5–6, 57; text, 3: 4, 40. [BACK]

12. Ibid., trans., 3: 96; text, 3: 70. [BACK]

13. Recognizing that Gaur’s unhealthy climate had rendered that ancient city unsuitable for large populations, Sulaiman Karrani had transferred the seat of government to nearby Tanda. Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyāzu-s-Salātīn, 152. [BACK]

14. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 153; text, 3: 109. [BACK]

15. Soon after the Mughal victory at Tukaroi (March 1575), wrote Abu’l-fazl, “vagabonds of the country” gathered round Jahan Khan Lodi, who was Daud Khan’s governor of Orissa and leading confederate. These were probably Bengali landholders who, familiar with the former order of things under the sultans and apprehensive of what might happen to them under Mughal dominion, initially threw in their lot with the Afghans. Ibid., trans., 183; text, 129. [BACK]

16. Ibid., trans., 143, 169, 376; text, 102, 118, 259. [BACK]

17. Ibid., trans., 169; text, 118–19. [BACK]

18. Ibid., trans., 180; text, 127. [BACK]

19. “By the daily-increasing favour of God,” wrote Abu’l-fazl concerning Todar Mal’s campaign in central Bengal, “the dust of disturbance was laid” (“gubār-i fitna firo-nishast”). In dealing with one group of Afghans, Todar Mal recommended to Mun‘im Khan that “the method to restrain the faction was to send money by one who was loyal and smooth-tongued.” The author was pleased to observe that this policy had successfully “quieted the slaves to gold.” Ibid., trans., 170, 173; text, 120, 121. André Wink has argued that the policy of sowing and then exploiting internal dissensions (fitna) among the enemy constituted a key dynamic in the expansion of Mughal power in India. See André Wink, Land and Sovereignty: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarājya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). [BACK]

20. When a Portuguese diplomat was presented to the court of Sultan Nasir al-Din Nusrat Shah in 1521, the sultan, in the words of the foreigner, “turned to me and ordered that I be given a robe that he had worn.” Voyage dans les deltas du Gange, 333. [BACK]

21. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 185; text, 3: 130–31. [BACK]

22. According to Abu’l-fazl the change was made because it put the seat of Mughal power somewhat closer to Ghoraghat, where turbulent Afghans were still active, and because Mun‘im Khan admired Gaur’s noble fort and magnificent buildings. It is also likely, however, that the new Mughal regime wished to associate itself with a city having much older associations with legitimate authority than the upstart Tanda. Gaur had been associated, not only with centuries of Indo-Turkish rule, but before that, as ancient Lakhnauti, with Sena rule as well. Ibid., trans., 226; text, 160. [BACK]

23. Ibid., trans., 227–28; text, 160–61. So thorough was the devastation that just sixty-five years later a foreign visitor would describe what had become by then the ruins of a totally abandoned metropolis. Manrique, Travels 2: 124–28. [BACK]

24. See Rafiuddin Ahmed, Bengal Muslims, 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), 8–17, 22–24, 124, 184. [BACK]

25. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 252–56; text, 3: 180–83. [BACK]

26. Ibid., trans., 95; text, 69. [BACK]

27. Ibid., trans., 442–51; text, 299–305. [BACK]

28. Ibid., trans., 469, 475; text, 320, 324. [BACK]

29. Ibid., trans., 567, 589–93; text, 384, 398–401. [BACK]

30. More precisely, Bhati was called a wilāyat (“region”), and Bengal a mulk (“kingdom”). “āftāb bar āyad wilāyatīst Bhātī nām, az īn mulk shumāra kunand. ” Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, ā’īn-i Akbarī (Lucknow ed.), 2: 73; trans., 2: 130. [BACK]

31. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 645–47; text, 3: 432. Here Abu’l-fazl mistakenly reckons Bengal’s cardinal directions 90 degrees clockwise; if one rotates his cardinal directions 90 degrees counterclockwise, all the reference points fall into proper place: the Bay of Bengal and the “Habsha” country would border Bhati to the south, Tanda would lie to the west, the hill country to the north, and the termination of the Himalayan range to the east. This correction of Abu’l-fazl’s geography is suggested by Irfan Habib in his An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), 104. [BACK]

32. A problem arises with identifying Abu’l-fazl’s “Habsha,” a place name that means Ethiopia and is therefore quite impossible. However, although both the Calcutta and the Lucknow editions of the text give this place as “Habsha,” at least one manuscript—India Office Library, Persian MS. 236—renders it “Jasor,” which in the sixteenth century referred, not to modern Jessore town, but to a settlement further south, identified with present-day Iśwaripur in southwestern Khulna District. See Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 646, n. 2; Habib, Atlas, 104 and 45. James Westland observes that the name Jessore was applied to successive seats of the Jessore zamīndārī, and that in the sixteenth century the seat waslocated in southwestern Khulna. See Westland, Report on the District of Jessore(Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat, 1871), 24; List of Ancient Monuments in Bengal (Calcutta: Government of Bengal, 1896), 148. [BACK]

33. Federici, “Extracts,” 184. [BACK]

34. Hosten, “Jesuit Letters,” 53–54. The date of this report, December 1, 1600, indicates a lag in communications between Jesuit missions in Bengal and Goa; for ‘Isa Khan, who appears to have been alive when this report was written, had already died in September 1599. [BACK]

35. The Jesuit mission report did not, however, specify the identity of the twelve chieftains, beyond noting that three were Hindus—i.e., those of Bakla (Bakarganj), Sripur (southeastern Dhaka), and Chandecan (Jessore)—and the rest Muslims. Some years ago N. K. Bhattasali attempted to identify the “twelve chieftains” and the territories they controlled, among them: ‘Uthman Khan, of Bokainagar (Mymensingh town); Ma‘sum Khan Kabuli of Chatmohar in Pabna; Madhu Ray, of Khalsi, near Jafarganj in western Dhaka; Raja Ray, of Shahzadpur, in eastern Pabna; Nabud (or “Madan”) Ray, of Chandpratap in Manikganj subdivision of Dhaka; Bahadur Ghazi, Sona Ghazi, and Anwar Ghazi of Bhowal, Dhaka; Pahlawan of Matang in southwestern Sylhet; Ram Chandra, of Bakla in southeastern Bakarganj; and Majlis Kutab, of Fatehabad, modern Faridpur. ‘Isa Khan himself controlled present-day Comilla, half of Dhaka, western Mymensingh, and perhaps portions of Rangpur, Bogra, and Pabna. See N. K. Bhattasali, “Bengal Chiefs’ Struggle for Independence in the Reigns of Akbar and Jahangir,” Bengal Past and Present 35 (January-June 1928): 30–36. [BACK]

36. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 659; text, 3: 439. [BACK]

37. In 1585 ‘Isa Khan even promised the Mughals that he would dispatch Ma‘sum Khan Kabuli, the renegade Mughal, on a compulsory pilgrimage to Mecca—a typical form of political banishment in Indo-Muslim history—and although he did not carry out the promise, he did manage to restrain the rebel. Ibid., trans., 696–97; text, 461. [BACK]

38. Ibid., trans., 721–22; text, 479. [BACK]

39. Ibid., trans., 1031; text, 672. [BACK]

40. Ibid., trans., 1042–43; text, 696. [BACK]

41. Ibid., trans., 1059, 1068; text, 711, 716. [BACK]

42. Ibid., trans., 1093; text, 733. [BACK]

43. ‘Isa Khan’s career has been variously interpreted. Observing that he was neither a tribal head nor the descendant of any ancient family, the historian Jadunath Sarkar dismissed him as a “bloated zamīndār” and a “standing menace to the peace of the province.” But such an assessment capitulates to the Mughal imperial perspective and adopts the Mughal definition of “peace.” In fact, by Sarkar’s standards, any great king of humble origins—for example, Sher Shah or ‘Ala al-Din Husain Shah—should have to be similarly dismissed. Even the contemporary observer Abu’l-fazl would have disagreed with Sarkar’s judgment. In calling ‘Isa Khan “a great landholder” and in declaring that with his death “the thornbush of commotion was extirpated,” the official Mughal chonicler was paying a backhanded compliment to this stalwart adversary of imperial expansion, acknowledging his de facto authority in eastern Bengal. This suggests that ‘Isa Khan was perceived even in his own day in rather the same light in which subsequent folklore came to see him: as a symbol of native Bengali resistance to Mughal power. See Jadunath Sarkar, ed., History of Bengal, 213, 226. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 1140; text, 3: 763. Dinesh Chandra Sen, ed. and trans., Eastern Bengal Ballads, Mymensing (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1923–28), 2: 301–75. [BACK]

44. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 1214–15; text, 3: 809. [BACK]

45. In 1456–57, during the reign of Sultan Nasir al-Din Mahmud Shah I (1433–59), a certain “Musammāt Bakht Bīnat, daughter of Marhamat” patronized the construction of a mosque in what is now the city’s oldest quarter. Several years later, in 1459, the sultan himself renovated a gate, possibly to another mosque. Although nothing now remains of this gate, the statement that it was repaired in 1459 points to the sultanate’s presence in Dhaka before that date. Shamsud-Din Ahmed, ed. and trans., Inscriptions, 4: 57–58, 62–63. [BACK]

46. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 19b; trans., 1: 57. [BACK]

47. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 659; text, 3: 439. [BACK]

48. Ibid., trans., 1215, 1235–36; text, 809, 824. [BACK]

49. Jahangir, Tūzuk, 1: 142–43, 208. [BACK]

50. “Islam Khan,” wrote the emperor in his memoirs, “is a brave and well-dispositioned youth, and is distinguished in every way above his family. Till now he has never drunk intoxicating drinks, and his sincerity towards me is such that I have honoured him with the title of son.” Ibid., 32. [BACK]

51. He ordered, for example, that no one should enter or leave Bengal without his personal permission. His vigor in enforcing regulations of this type is seen in an incident involving a certain Shaikh Husain, who was in Rajmahal and wished to proceed directly to Delhi. The shaikh, who had grown up with the governor from childhood “in close intimacy and brotherly love,” became extremely irritated when informed that the governor intended to apply this regulation even to him. In order to elicit obedience from the shaikh, the governor on the occasion of their interview in Dhaka instructed his aides with the words, “When the Shaykh would proceed to embrace me, you force him to bend his neck and throw him down on my feet.” Islam Khan then grabbed the man’s beard and, forcefully pulling him to his feet, gave him severe blows to his shoulder. In perhaps the most humiliating gesture of all, the governor ordered his men to place the shaikh’s beard under his feet; in this fashion he was beaten again. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 53a-b; trans., 1: 132–33. [BACK]

52. Hodgson, Venture of Islam, 3: 17–18. William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 95–98. [BACK]

53. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 230a; trans., 2: 508; “az ‘adāwat-i ātishbāzī-yi Hindūstān ast.” [BACK]

54. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 97; text, 3: 70. [BACK]

55. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 216b; trans., 2: 468. [BACK]

56. Iqtidar Alam Khan, “Early Use of Cannon and Musket in India: A.D. 1442–1526,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 24, no. 2 (1981), 146–64. [BACK]

57. The seventeenth-century French traveler François Bernier noted that Mughal mounted archers could deliver six arrows before a musketeer could fire twice. See Douglas Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 53. [BACK]

58. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fols. 20b, 40b, 49b, 53a, 64a, 162b, 163b, 192b, 231a; trans., 1: 60, 97, 121, 131, 163, 316, 319, 405; 2: 510. [BACK]

59. Simon Digby has argued that the key to the Delhi sultanate’s power lay in its monopoly of reliable supplies of elephants and war-horses. The elephants comprised the key arm of the military, with the size of the state reflected in that of its elephant stables. Digby, War Horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate (Oxford: Oxford University Monographs, 1971), 23–82. [BACK]

60. Voyage dans les deltas du Gange, 326. [BACK]

61. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 176; text, 3: 123. [BACK]

62. Ibid., trans., 3: 659, 1214; text, 438, 809. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fols. 67a, 72b; trans., 1: 174, 189. [BACK]

63. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 9a; trans., 1: 28. [BACK]

64. ‘Isa Khan and his allies sometimes plundered Mughal supplies for firearms, or employed Portuguese mercenaries, who hired out their services to Mughal and anti-Mughal forces alike. In 1583 some three thousand artillerymen, apparently renegade Portuguese, were in the employ of anti-Mughal forces in East Bengal. See Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 228, 620; text, 3: 161, 417; Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 280b; trans., 2: 656. See also Maria Augusta Lima Cruz, “Exiles and Renegades in Early-Sixteenth-Century Portuguese India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 23, no. 3 (July 1986), 259. [BACK]

65. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 152a, 163a; trans., 1: 289, 317. [BACK]

66. Ibid., text, fol. 177a; trans., 1: 359. [BACK]

67. Ibid., text, fol. 6a; trans., 1: 18. [BACK]

68. After initially resisting Mughal pressure, Raja Satrajit made peace with Islam Khan and joined numerous Mughal expeditions against other chieftains of eastern Bengal. [BACK]

69. Ibid., text, fol. 9a; trans., 1: 27. [BACK]

70. Ibid., text, fol. 9a; trans., 1: 28. [BACK]

71. Ibid., text, fols. 49b, 54b, 57b; trans., 1: 121, 134–38, 143. [BACK]

72. Ibid., text, fol. 57b; trans., 1: 144. [BACK]

73. “Khwaja Muhammad Tahir, who was sent to Jessore to assess its revenues,” wrote Mirza Nathan, “returned to Islam Khan with the register of revenues of that territory which was prepared to the satisfaction of the ryots [i.e., cultivators] and to the advantage of the imperial treasury. It was presented to Islam Khan with the signatures of the Chowdhuries and Qanungus [i.e., intermediate landholders and their clerks]; it was then handed over to the accountants of [the province’s chief financial officer] Mu‘taqid Khan in order to enforce these regulations on the ryots and the Jagirdars.” Ibid., text, fol. 61b; trans., 1: 156. Emphasis mine. [BACK]

74. Ibid., text, fols. 5a, 19b, 21a; trans., 1: 15, 56–57, 62. [BACK]

75. Ibid., text, fol. 41b; trans., 1: 100. [BACK]

76. Ibid., text, fols. 228b-229a; trans., 2: 503–4. [BACK]

77. Ibid., text, fols. 231a, 271a; trans., 2: 511, 628. [BACK]

78. Ibid., text, fol. 273b; trans., 2: 636. [BACK]

79. Manrique, Travels, 1: 45. [BACK]

80. Ibid., 44. [BACK]

81. Abdul Karim, Dacca, the Mughal Capital (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 1964), 70. [BACK]

82. Dhaka’s attraction of both military men and merchants did not escape Manrique’s notice. Some of its population, he wrote, “came on mercantile business in order to take advantage of the great facilities offered by the place; others, followers of Mars [i.e., soldiers], attracted by the high mainas, that is monthly pay and allowance which are given on those frontiers.” Manrique, Travels, 1: 45. [BACK]

83. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 276a-b; trans., 2: 644. We do not know what Nathan’s revenue assignment was at the time of the loan, but both before and after the loan, Jahangir raised his assignment by an additional 150 horse, and early in Shah Jahan’s reign it was further raised to 1,500 horse. Ibid., text, fols. 272b, 284a, 305a; trans., 2: 632, 666, 723. [BACK]

84. Ibid., text, fol. 264a-b; trans., 2: 607. [BACK]

85. For a discussion of the ties between Hindu bankers and government officials in late Mughal Bengal, see Sushil Chaudhury, “Merchants, Companies and Rulers in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 31 (February 1988): 90–109. [BACK]

86. Manrique, Travels, 1: 53. [BACK]

87. “We the peasants of pargana Khorla,” read their petition, “state that we were being ruined due to the oppressions of Pashupati. Therefore, quite willingly and totally on our own accord we accept (the appointment of) Bulchand for which Suraj Chand qanungo has furnished surety (hazir-zamini) on his behalf. We undertake that when he obtains the sanad of chaudhurī, we will pay the revenues as before.” S. Z.H. Jafri, “Rural Bureaucracy in Cooch Behar and Assam under the Mughals: Archival Evidence,” Indian History Congress, Proceedings, 49th session, Karnataka University, 1988 (Delhi, 1989), 280. [BACK]

88. Ibid. [BACK]