Jahangir

Title & tenure

4th Mughal Emperor (1605–1627)

In office: 1605 – 1627

Predecessor:

Akbar

Successor:

Shah Jahan

Biography

Born Prince Salim, Jahangir succeeded his father Akbar without serious opposition, and largely continued Akbar's administrative system while devoting himself more to art, nature and the pleasures of court life than to expansion or reform.

Achievements

• Continued and refined Akbar's policies of religious tolerance and administrative stability
• Presided over a golden age of Mughal miniature painting, personally a connoisseur and patron of naturalistic art
• Maintained diplomatic relations with the English East India Company, granting it early trading rights in India

Key events

• Suppressed a rebellion by his own son, Prince Khusrau, early in his reign
• His powerful wife, Empress Nur Jahan, effectively co-ruled with him in his later years as his health declined

Legacy

Jahangir is remembered less for conquest than for presiding over a refined, artistically rich court, and for his memoir, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, a candid and detailed account of his reign.

How it ended

Died of natural causes in 1627 while travelling from Kashmir to Lahore; succeeded, after a brief succession struggle, by his son Shah Jahan.