Humāyūn

Emperor

• Born: 1508
• Birthplace: Kabul, Mughal Empire (now in Afghanistan)
• Died: January 1, 1556
• Place of death: Delhi, Mughal Empire (now in India)

Mughal emperor of India (r. 1530-1540, 1555-1556)

Humāyūn, faced with numerous trials and tribulations and with unrest in his realm, regained and solidified the Mughal Empire’s control of North India.

Area of Achievement Government and politics, warfare and conquest, military

Early Life

Humāyūn (hoo-MAH-yoon) was the eldest son of Bābur, the first Mughal emperor of India. By all accounts, Humāyūn was also his father’s favorite son. Although of Mughal descent, Humāyūn was born in Afghanistan and was influenced more by Afghan-Turk culture than by the Mughal nomadic culture of Asia.

At a young age, Humāyūn played significant roles in his father’s victories over the Lodī sultans at the Battle of Panipat in 1526 and in his father’s defeat of the Hindu Rajputs at Khauna in 1527, battles that established the Mughal Empire in North India. After these victories, Bābur sent Humāyūn back to Afghanistan with the goal of planning the conquest of Samarqand in Central Asia. After learning that Bābur had become seriously ill, Humāyūn returned to India in 1529. Bābur died in 1530 and Humāyūn became the second Mughal emperor at the age of twenty-two.

Life’s Work

Although Humāyūn’s reign as emperor of northern India began in 1530, he ruled the region successfully for just ten out of twenty-six years, through the year of his death. He showed considerable military talent like his father, but, unlike Bābur, Humāyūn was less disciplined, less driven, and more dedicated to a life of pleasure, including his possible use of opium. His several setbacks as ruler, however, did not come entirely from his own supposed weaknesses.

One of Humāyūn’s earliest and most fateful decisions was to give power and responsibility to Bābur’s other sons and to Humāyūn’s three brothers. One brother was designated the ruler of Kabul in Afghanistan, but he also seized the Punjab area of North India, a crucial region of Bābur’s legacy. When Humāyūn passively accepted the loss of the Punjab, the other two brothers believed that they, too, could defy the new emperor at will.

Humāyūn faced challenges from outside his family as well. Bābur had defeated the Lodī sultans of Delhi at Panipat, but there were other Afghan nobles eager to establish their own kingdoms in the region, notably Shēr Khan Sur from near Varanasi. Preparing to attack Shēr Khan Sur’s fortress stronghold of Chunar, Humāyūn turned to the west instead to meet a challenge from the sultan of Gujarāt.

In the two years following 1534, Humāyūn defeated his opponents in the west successfully and brilliantly, leaving one of his brothers in charge. Instead of solidifying his rule, however, Humāyūn returned toĀgra and to a life of indulgence and pleasure. His victories became essentially meaningless when, predictably, his brother launched an aborted attempt to seize the Mughal Empire’s throne.

More of a threat to Humāyūn was Shēr Khan Sur. In 1537, the emperor put his opium pipe aside and launched another campaign against Shēr Khan Sur, but in the interim Shēr Khan Sur had expanded his territory farther east into Bengal, and unlike Humāyūn, Shēr Khan Sur had consolidated his reign brilliantly. The crucial contest occurred in 1539, east of Varanasi at Chausa, where Humāyūn suffered a disastrous defeat and barely escaped with his life. The two opponents faced each again the following year near Kannauj, south of Delhi nearĀgra. Even with an advantage in numbers and in the use of gunpowder, Humāyūn and his forces were overwhelmed by Shēr Khan Sur’s cavalry. Once again, Humāyūn escaped death, but his brothers refused to come to his aid and he was forced to flee to the protection of ShāhṬahmāsp I of Iran’s Ṣafavid Dynasty.

With Humāyūn in exile, Shēr Khan Sur became the dominant figure in North India, taking the title (and name) Shēr Shāh. Shēr Shāh was a Muslim like Bābur and Humāyūn, but he was less tolerant of India’s Hindus and he attempted to eradicate Hinduism in regions under his control. He also instituted numerous governmental reforms in his dominions, and later Mughal emperors emulated his policy of greater centralization. After reigning for just five years (1540-1545), Shēr Shāh died in battle during a siege of the fortress of Kalinjar.

When Humāyūn fled into exile in Persia, he also managed to take with him a large diamond that had been given to him by the family of the raja of Gwalior in the aftermath of Bābur’s victory over the Delhi sultan at the Battle of Panipat. The weight of the diamond was 191 carats, and it became known as the Koh-i-noor diamond (mountain of light). Humāyūn took the diamond with him when he sought refuge at the court of Iran’s ShāhṬahmāsp in 1542.

In northwest Iran in 1544, ShāhṬahmāsp and Humāyūn met and exchanged gifts. Humāyūn gave the Koh-i-noor diamond to the shah in exchange for the Ṣafavid Dynasty’s support of Humāyūn when he was in exile there and for the military support of the Ṣafavids, which would allow the Mughals to regain their Indian throne.

In 1545, with twelve thousand Persian troops, Humāyūn leftṢafavid Persia for Afghanistan, the original lands of the Mughals (Bābur was originally king of Kabul before his conquest of India). Shēr Shāh died about the time Humāyūn entered Afghanistan. His son and successor was Islam Shāh Sur, who was less able and less competent than his father. After Islam Shāh Sur’s death in 1553, factional disputes erupted among members of the Sur family.

Humāyūn crossed into northwest India from his Afghanistan sanctuary in 1555, with only three thousand warriors, according to one report. Others soon joined his army in the wake of Humāyūn’s early victories. At Sirhind in the Punjab, Humāyūn’s forces defeated the rebel Afghan governor Sikander Sur. Opposition faded, Humāyūn regained the throne in July, and he was once again in control of Delhi. During the next several months, Humāyūn consolidated his rule, extended his control in North India, and began to adopt some of the governmental policies developed by his old opponent, Shēr Shāh.

Humāyūn’s reign and life ended in January, 1556, after he stumbled and fell down the steps of the observatory in his Delhi palace. In an often-quoted memorable comment, the emperor “stumbled out of life as he had stumbled through it.”

Significance

Among the Mughal emperors, Humāyūn is often overlooked, reigning as he did between Bābur, the founder of the dynasty, and Humāyūn’s son, Akbar, perhaps the greatest Indian ruler. Humāyūn’s accomplishments and significance, however, have been underestimated.

Although Humāyūn spent a good part of his reign in exile, he did regain India for the Mughals. After his father’s death, Mughal rule had to establish itself fully, and any ruler would have been challenged by this. On Humāyūn’s death, thirteen-year-old Akbar, though faced with opposition, was able to succeed to the Mughal throne.

Humāyūn’s tomb in Delhi is one of the great architectural masterpieces in India and was the inspiration for the Tāj Mahal, built by Shāh Jahān, Humāyūn’s great grandson.

Bibliography

Burn, Sir Richard. The Cambridge History of India. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1922-1937. One of the major multivolume histories of India. Vol. 4 explores the Mughal period and Humāyūn’s reign.

Eraly, Abraham. The Last Spring: The Lives and Times of the Great Mughals. New Delhi, India: Viking Press, 1997. A long narrative of the lives and times of India’s Mughal emperors, including Humāyūn.

Erskine, William. A History of India Under the First Two Sovereigns of the House of Taimur, Bāber, and Humāyūn. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1972. This classic work, first published in 1854, examines the reigns of Humāyūn and Bābur.

Streusand, Douglas E. The Formation of the Mughal Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. An important study of the early decades of the Mughal Empire, including the years of Humāyūn’s rule.

Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This readily accessible and well-written text examines Mughal India and Humāyūn’s accomplishments.

Related article in Great Events from History: The Renaissance & Early Modern Era

April 21, 1526: First Battle of Panipat; December 30, 1530: Humāyūn Inherits the Throne in India; 1540-1545: Shēr Shāh Sūr Becomes Emperor of Delhi.