Although repeatedly dismayed with his behaviour, in the end Babur favoured Humayun over his younger sons to manage the newly won kingdom. On one occasion, when Humayun lay seriously ill, he even vowed to offer his own life for that of his ailing son. Upon praying while thrice circumambulating Humayun’s bed, he sensed that Humayun’s illness had passed. He was right about that, but soon thereafter Babur himself was stricken by a severe illness to which he succumbed in December 1530. According to his wishes, he was buried in a magnificent garden he had earlier laid out on a Kabul hillside.
In what were reportedly his last words, Babur admonished Humayun to do nothing against his brothers, even though they might deserve it.9 Humayun steadfastly followed this advice, despite being betrayed time and again by his half-brothers Kamran, ‘Askari and Hindal – especially Kamran. One reason for his brothers’ frequent deceits lay in the Turko-Mongol tradition of collective sovereignty that Babur had inherited. In this theory, territorial sovereignty was shared collectively by a clan’s male members, meaning that a ruler’s nearest male relations had equal claims on succeeding to supreme rulership on his death. This explains why, when Babur was a youth in Ferghana and Samarqand, his closest relatives had also been his foremost political rivals. And it explains why, even though most of his successors on the Mughal throne preferred to be succeeded by their eldest son, younger sons fiercely challenged that idea; and why, from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, succession disputes were often bloody, fratricidal affairs. The idea of collective sovereignty also accounts for the practice of distributing large tracts of sovereign territory to royal princes to be governed on a semi-independent and semi-permanent basis. Accordingly, Babur had assigned to each of his sons separate territories to govern as semi-independent rulers – Humayun in Badakhshan, Kamran in Kandahar and Kabul, and ‘Askari in Multan.10 As soon as Humayun assumed sovereign authority, his brothers began plotting to take over the kingdom. Kamran, in particular, occupied Punjab from his base in Kabul, where he began drawing to his service officers formerly loyal to his father.
Meanwhile, Humayun marched eastwards to confront rebellious Afghans who had been driven down the Gangetic plain in the course of Babur’s initial conquest. Near Lakhnau he engaged and defeated Ibrahim Lodi’s brother Mahmud, who had declared himself sultan after Ibrahim’s defeat at Panipat. Then he heard that the powerful ruler of Gujarat, Sultan Bahadur, was planning to invade Mughal territories with the aid of the Portuguese, who had recently established a number of trading posts along India’s western shores. So in 1535 he turned to the south-west and confronted the Gujarat ruler. Although he managed to capture the strategic fort of Champaner, Humayun failed to pursue the fleeing Bahadur, much less advance further and annex the whole province. Instead, he abandoned his Gujarat campaign in order to resume his drive against Afghans, whose numbers continued to grow in the eastern Gangetic region, and who had allied themselves with remnants of the defeated Lodis.
Many of these soldiers regrouped around one of the most brilliant warriors of the age, the Afghan chieftain Sher Khan Sur. In point of military talent, he and Humayun differed profoundly. Whereas the former was strategically gifted and bold, the latter was inept and excessively cautious. Whereas the Afghan chieftain was self-disciplined, Humayun indulged in protracted bouts with wine or drugs. Sher Khan’s career also suggests how Afghans had become rooted in the north Indian countryside since the mid fifteenth century. Born as Farid Khan in 1486 in present-day Haryana, he was known in his youth as Sher Khan owing to his reputation for courage, for shir is Persian for lion (or tiger). But because he belonged to the Sur clan, a marginal Afghan lineage unrelated to the politically dominant Lodis, he lacked ready access to upper India’s rich agrarian resources. At some point between 1501 and 1511 he became a freelance soldier in the Jaunpur region. But it was further down the Gangetic plain, in western Bihar, that he built up a political base. There he recruited Afghans who had formerly served the Lodis before their defeat by Babur, and also local villagers who, when agricultural labour was in low demand, constituted the region’s pool of available military labour. Through non-Afghan middlemen, whose friendship and confidence he cultivated, Sher Khan was able to acquire local manpower to which he would otherwise have had no access. He then commanded these men with a combination of generosity and strict discipline: soldiers received regular monthly salaries but were subjected to systematic military drills.
The key to tapping into India’s military labour market, in Bihar as elsewhere, was access to cash. To this end, Sher Khan shrewdly gave refuge to a wealthy and respectable widow who belonged to one of the most powerful clans in the former Lodi regime. From her wealth he bulked up the number of troops under his command while placating the Mughal governor of Jaunpur to his west with tribute. This enabled him to mount a bold invasion eastwards. Skirting the defences of Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud Shah (r. 1532–38) of Bengal, he dashed straight to the latter’s capital of Gaur. Overwhelmed, the sultan was forced to concede all territories west of Rajmahal and to pay Sher Khan an annual tribute of 900,000 tankas, cash that enabled the Afghan warlord to augment his armies still further. In 1537, when the sultan failed to pay his annual tribute, Sher Khan sent his generals into the delta and toppled his regime. After capturing the Bengal sultanate’s considerable treasure, Sher Khan commanded 40,000 cavalry, 1,500 war-elephants, 300 boats and 200,000 infantry. This gave him the confidence to crown himself sultan, adopt the sovereign title of Sher Shah Sur, and undertake the ultimate goal of overthrowing the new Mughal dynasty.11
Meanwhile, Humayun continued to pursue rebellious Afghans across upper India, marching from Bihar to Bengal. In response, Sher Shah merely melted into Bihar’s interior, allowing the Mughal sovereign to occupy Bengal’s capital of Gaur in 1538. But just then, Humayun’s younger half-brother Hindal audaciously stormed the Mughal capital of Agra and declared himself king. Such treachery did not stop there. With Humayun still in distant Bengal and the whole of upper India in turmoil, Kamran marched down from the Punjab, ostensibly to assist Humayun in his struggles with Afghans, but actually to cut a deal with Hindal to divide up the new kingdom and rid them both of their elder brother. In 1539, when Humayun heard this news he hastily moved towards upper India, even though that year’s monsoon rains had already submerged much of the Bengal delta. His luck then passed from bad to worse. At Chausa, by the Ganges in western Bihar, Sher Shah seized the moment to pounce upon Humayun, thoroughly outmanoeuvring and decimating his army. The Mughal monarch barely managed to escape with his life, swimming across the river with the help of an air-filled animal skin.12
The hapless Humayun then returned to Agra and, perhaps recalling his father’s dying admonition, generously pardoned his brothers for their treasonous behaviour. Yet even as news arrived of Sher Shah’s steady advance up the Gangetic plain towards Agra, the brothers could not agree on a common strategy. Ultimately, Kamran withdrew to Lahore, where he again raised an independent army. In May 1540, Humayun confronted Sher Shah at Kanauj, but owing to strategic military blunders he was again defeated and forced to retreat to Lahore. Sensing total victory, and with none of Babur’s sons able to challenge him, Sher Shah rejected Humayun’s offer to let him rule all Hindustan except the Punjab. The Afghan then drove the Mughals out of Lahore. Kamran and ‘Askari still governed in Afghanistan, but Humayun and his youngest half-brother Hindal were left with no sovereign domain at all.
The Mughals having vacated the entire Indo-Gangetic plain, Sher Shah now set himself up in Delhi as Hindustan’s sole sovereign and founder of a new ruling house, the Sur dynasty (1540–56). For five years, until his untimely death in 1545, he governed a realm renowned for its stability, prosperity and orderly government. As king, he brought to the art of governance the same discipline that as warlord he had brought to recruiting, training and commanding his army. To ensure a predictable flow of revenue to the royal centre, he systemized the measurement of agricultural lands, something that had been introduced only sporadically by previous rulers of the Delhi sultanate, notably ‘Ala al-Din Khalaji. He also stabilized his regime’s economy by establishing a trimetallic currency based on the silver rupiya, which he issued at a standard weight of 178 grains, complemented by the gold mohur and the copper dam. This standardized silver coin anticipated the modern rupee, found in states of South and South-east Asia today. Well aware of India’s strategic need for commerce with Central Asia, especially for importing war-horses, he renovated and extended one of the most famous roads in Asia – the Grand Trunk Road linking Sonargaon in eastern Bengal with Peshawar in western Punjab, with further extensions to Kabul. Because so many of his governing traditions have survived into modern times, the Republic of India issued a postage stamp in his honour in 1970, as did Pakistan in 1991.
Sher Shah’s most visible legacy lies in his architectural projects. In Delhi, he made considerable alterations and additions to the Purana Qila, the palace–citadel complex that Humayun had begun building in 1533. There he patronized the construction of an elaborately decorated mosque, whose façade of articulated entrance archway and alternating red sandstone and white marble recalls the entranceway of the Alai Darwaza in Delhi’s Qutb Minar complex, suggesting Sher Shah’s intention to link himself visually to Sultan ‘Ala al-Din Khalji, the mightiest of Delhi’s sultans. He also built a pair of imposing forts: Rohtas in western Punjab near the city of Jhelum, and Rohtasgarh in the Son valley, south-western Bihar. Finally, in Sasaram, his original political base 115 kilometres east of Benares, he built for himself a large three-storeyed domed octagonal mausoleum. Standing in the middle of an artificial lake, this massive structure rises to forty-six metres, surpassing in size the tomb of any previous Indian ruler. Nearby, his son and successor, Islam Shah Sur (r. 1545–54), began an even larger octagonal tomb for himself, but it was never completed. The scale of these tombs probably motivated subsequent Mughal rulers to build ever more monumental tomb complexes for themselves – most spectacularly, the Taj Mahal – by outperforming their former Afghan adversaries.13
For the fourteen years when Sher Shah and his son enjoyed north India’s political limelight, Humayun was driven off the stage entirely. During the first period of Sher Shah’s reign, the fugitive Mughal roamed across Sind and Rajasthan seeking allies and troops with which to reclaim his lost kingdom. But Sher Shah had pressured Humayun’s potential Rajput allies into refusing his overtures. Meanwhile, his brothers had become politically divided: Kamran and ‘Askari remained in Afghanistan, aloof and still opposed to their older brother, while Hindal, formerly so disloyal, joined the royal camp. In 1541 Humayun even married the daughter of Hindal’s tutor. The next year he and his party crossed the scorching Thar Desert en route to Sind under extremely stressful circumstances. When the horse his pregnant wife was riding died, Humayun gave her his own horse and rode a camel. Matters improved later that year when the party reached Umarkot, in Sind. The amir of that province, one of Humayun’s appointees who had earlier served Babur, helped his guest gather horses and arms. It was also there that Humayun’s wife Hamida gave birth to the king’s first son, the future emperor Akbar. The next year, they crossed the Indus and headed north-west towards Kandahar where Humayun, ever sanguine about his siblings’ loyalty, planned to rally his brothers in a bid to recover his throne from Sher Shah. But Hindal, already sent ahead to Kandahar, was arrested by Kamran for refusing to have the Friday prayers read in the latter’s name. Kamran also sent ‘Askari from Kabul with an army to confront the advancing Humayun. Under these circumstances, and with no better options in sight, the fugitive monarch avoided all his brothers and marched westwards toward Iran, where he hoped to secure help from the Safavid monarch. Since it was December and travel would be difficult in the snow and bitter cold, the infant Akbar was left in Kandahar in the care of ‘Askari’s wife. With Hamida and just forty men, Humayun undertook the arduous trip across western Afghanistan. In one snowy night they were so weakened from hunger that Humayun ordered a horse to be killed, and the party was reduced to eating boiled horsemeat in their helmets – another of Humayun’s many low points.
After a month they finally reached Herat, where their Iranian hosts gave them a warm welcome. The city had succeeded Samarqand as the Timurid capital soon after Timur’s death in 1405, and it was still ruled by a Timurid prince when Babur visited it a century later. When Humayun and his party arrived, it was held by Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–76), the second ruler of Iran’s Safavid dynasty. Under both Timurid and Safavid rule, Herat had flourished as a major centre of Persianate culture, with its magnificent Timurid monuments and the studio of the brilliant miniature artist, Behzad, who had died nearly a decade earlier. When shown that artist’s work, Humayun made it known that, should he regain his Indian kingdom, he would patronize Behzad’s pupils. In July 1544 Humayun reached the Safavid capital of Qazvin, where he had his first audience with Shah Tahmasp. The Iranian monarch, however, pressured his fugitive guest to convert to Islam’s Shi‘i sect, which Shah Isma‘il had recently imposed across the Iranian plateau. Aware that he stood little chance of acquiring material assistance without acceding to his host’s demands, Humayun went through the formalities of showing his Shi‘i allegiance, just as his father had done when in similar straits. Swallowing his pride, he also agreed to hand over the city of Kandahar, in return for which Shah Tahmasp provided him with 10,000 cavalrymen for recovering his Indian kingdom.
In the spring of 1545 a combined Mughal–Safavid force marched into Afghanistan, taking first Kandahar from ‘Askari and then Kabul from Kamran, although both brothers evaded capture. Humayun’s next steps would both re-establish Mughal rule and define Mughal culture. First, in the course of the Afghan campaigns the infant Akbar was joyfully reunited with his parents, guaranteeing the continuance of the Mughal dynasty. Second, by reconfirming the tax-free land holdings of Naqshbandi shaikhs, the Sufi order traditionally favoured by Timurid princes, Humayun consolidated his grip on Kabul. What had been his father’s base for conquering Hindustan would now be his own for reconquering it. And third, he acted on his resolve, sworn while in Behzad’s studio in Herat, to promote Persian culture by recruiting and patronizing the brightest artistic and literary luminaries he could find. Some of them accompanied Humayun on his return to India; others migrated after he had regained his kingdom.
Humayun’s return to power, however, would take time. Although his old nemesis, Sher Shah, had been killed in a cannon accident in May 1545, the Afghan ruler’s son Islam Shah quickly consolidated his grip over Hindustan, while Kamran and ‘Askari continued to challenge their elder brother for dominance of eastern Afghanistan. In 1548 Humayun defeated Kamran in battle, after which he hosted a grand feast of reconciliation for all his brothers. But Kamran and ‘Askari again took up arms against him. Several years later he managed to capture ‘Askari, whom he exiled, but his younger brother Hindal – of late such a loyal ally – was killed by Kamran’s forces. In 1553 Humayun for a last time captured Kamran, yet he could not bring himself to have his troublesome brother executed. Instead, he had him blinded and sent off to Mecca. The next year, with the issue of his brothers finally settled, Humayun began to reoccupy territory in the Punjab, assisted by the expert military leadership of Bairam Khan, a former servant of Babur who had joined the royal camp during Humayun’s long period of wandering. Also favouring his cause was the political chaos then gripping Delhi, as five successive rulers of Sher Shah Sur’s dynasty rose to power during the year following Islam Shah’s death in 1554. The sudden collapse of the Sur house appears to have energized Humayun and concentrated his focus in ways seldom seen earlier in his career. In July 1555 he and his troops triumphantly entered Delhi.
Restored at last to his throne, Humayun acted vigorously to reestablish his authority after a fifteen-year absence. He also redefined the nature of Mughal kingship in ways that departed from his father’s ‘first-among-equals’ style of governance. Acting within the Timurid tradition, Babur had given his sons separate, semi-independent regions to govern. But Humayun’s long and painful experience with his brothers set a precedent for how subsequent Mughals, having attained the throne, would deal with their own brothers. Notwithstanding his mild temperament and his father’s admonitions to show kindness to his brothers, Humayun’s actions marked a crucial step in making succession to the Mughal throne a bloody fraternal struggle.
Humayun’s problems with his brothers also led him to embrace a more centralized notion of royal authority, which was elaborately enacted in courtly rituals derived from his fascination with astrology and cosmology.14 These rituals were set under a tent and on a carpet bearing a geocentric model of the universe, with concentric circles corresponding to the planets, the sun and the moon, each assigned a distinctive colour, with different classes of courtiers seated within spaces associated with particular planets. The tent above the carpet resembled a round horoscope, with the twelve zodiac signs and stars indicated by holes in the tent’s inner cover. Since the carpet and tent could be easily folded and carried around, the scheme was ideally suited for a court that was itself mobile – a practice reflecting the Mughals’ pastoral–nomadic origins. These rituals were carried over to Humayun’s royal palace in Delhi’s Purana Qila, which was said to have had seven rooms, each dedicated to a planet. Every day of the week, the king would hold court in the room corresponding to that day’s planetary ruler, wearing robes in colours corresponding to that planet.15
Central to Humayun’s courtly style was his identification with the sun, which was coloured gold on his courtly carpet and placed in the middle of the planetary spheres. He also greeted the rising sun every morning, showing his face to the public just as the sun showed itself to the king. The custom corresponded to a traditional Indian rite whereby a king would appear each morning for viewing by his subjects, seated icon-like in a small, raised pavilion called a jharokha, which projected from a royal palace’s exterior walls. Whereas the entire rite would be carried over by Akbar, complete with the jharokha, we already perceive its antecedents in Humayun’s daily ritual, suggesting an early stage in the progressive Indianization of the Mughals’ political culture. This is also seen in the king’s marriage to the daughter of an Indian Muslim landholder rather than to a Central Asian Timurid, and his encouraging his nobles to do the same. Finally, Humayun confirmed, rather than rescinded, key administrative initiatives undertaken by his bitter rival, Sher Shah. These included the Afghan king’s trimetallic currency system based on a standardized silver rupiya and his division of the kingdom’s administration into fixed territorial units, or sarkars, subdivided in districts, or parganas. From Sher Shah’s administration on, revenue and judicial officers were posted at both sarkar and pargana levels, thereby ensuring an orderly system of land-revenue assessment and collection. Further, to centralize his administration, Humayun designated as much revenue-producing land as possible as khalisa, or land administered directly by the state, rather than by nobles.
In short, many of the ideological and institutional foundations of Mughal rule commonly associated with the reign of Akbar (r. 1556–1605) were already in place during Humayun’s turbulent reign, or during the interregnum of Sher Shah and his successors. Tragically, however, notwithstanding the many travails suffered in regaining his kingdom, Humayun lived for only six months after restoring Mughal rule. In late January 1556, he accidently fell from the staircase of his library in the Purana Qila and died shortly thereafter. Once again, the Indo-Timurid project was thrown into turmoil.