Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's War of Succession: The Brothers Who Died for the Peacock Throne
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's reign — the jizya, the temple policies, the endless Deccan wars. But something we haven't really dug into is how he actually got the throne in the first place. The war of succession was brutal, even by Mughal standards. Luna: It's wild to think that the guy who ruled for almost fifty years started by overthrowing his own father and killing all his brothers. Lucas: Exactly. And it wasn't just a quick coup — it was a full-blown civil war that lasted from 1657 to 1659, with four sons of Shah Jahan fighting for the Peacock Throne. The emperor fell ill in September 1657, and within weeks, the empire was in chaos. Lucas: You had Dara Shikoh, the eldest and Shah Jahan's favorite, who was a philosopher and a liberal — he'd translated the Upanishads into Persian, he was friends with Sufi mystics. Then you had Shuja, the governor of Bengal, who was a competent general. Murad Baksh, the youngest, was a hard-drinking, impulsive warrior. And Aurangzeb, of course, the most calculating of them all. Luna: So Dara was the obvious heir, but he wasn't really a soldier, was he? Lucas: That's the thing — Dara was brilliant in the library but not on the battlefield. When Shah Jahan fell ill, Dara effectively took over as regent in Agra, but he made a critical mistake: he didn't immediately secure the loyalty of the army or the nobles. Meanwhile, Aurangzeb was in the Deccan, far from the capital, and he started building alliances immediately. Lucas: Aurangzeb reached out to Murad Baksh, who was in Gujarat, and proposed an alliance. He promised Murad that they'd divide the empire after defeating Dara and Shuja. Murad, who was in debt and desperate, agreed. They combined their armies and marched north. Luna: And Shuja was doing the same thing from Bengal, right? Lucas: Right. Shuja declared himself emperor in Bengal and marched toward Agra. But Dara sent a force under his son Sulaiman Shikoh to stop him, and there was a battle at Bahadurpur in February 1658. Shuja was defeated and fled back to Bengal. That seemed like a win for Dara, but it actually left Agra vulnerable. Lucas: Because while Dara's army was chasing Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad were sweeping through central India. They met Dara's army at the Battle of Samugarh, just outside Agra, on May 29, 1658. It was the decisive fight. Luna: Samugarh — I've heard that name. It was huge, wasn't it? Lucas: It was massive — maybe 100,000 men on each side. Dara had the advantage of numbers and artillery, but Aurangzeb had better tactics. He used a classic Mughal maneuver: he had his troops feign retreat, drawing Dara's cavalry into a trap. Dara's elephant was hit by a rocket, and he panicked, dismounting and trying to escape. His army saw him flee and collapsed. Lucas: Dara escaped to Delhi, then Lahore, then eventually to Sindh, but Aurangzeb had won. He entered Agra and put Shah Jahan under house arrest in the Agra Fort — where he'd spend the last eight years of his life, looking out at the Taj Mahal. Luna: That's almost poetic. And what about Murad? The alliance didn't last, did it? Lucas: No, it was a sham from the start. After Samugarh, Aurangzeb invited Murad to a banquet in his camp. Murad got drunk, and Aurangzeb had him arrested. He was sent to Gwalior Fort — the Mughal prison for high-value captives. He was executed there on charges of murder, probably poisoned, in December 1661. Lucas: Then Aurangzeb turned on Shuja. Shuja had regrouped in Bengal, and Aurangzeb sent an army under Mir Jumla to pursue him. They met at the Battle of Khajwa in January 1659. Shuja was defeated again and fled to the Arakan kingdom, modern-day Myanmar. The Arakanese king, Sandathudamma, initially sheltered him, but then turned on him. Shuja and his family were killed in a massacre in 1661. Luna: So that's three brothers dead. But Dara was the most famous execution, right? Lucas: Yes. Dara was captured in June 1659 near Bolan Pass, betrayed by a Baloch chief who wanted Aurangzeb's reward. He was brought to Delhi in chains, paraded through the streets on a ragged elephant — a deliberate humiliation. Then Aurangzeb put him on trial for heresy. Dara had converted from orthodox Islam to a more syncretic Sufi philosophy, and that was used as a pretext. Lucas: He was executed by beheading on August 30, 1659, at the age of 44. His body was buried in an unmarked grave in Humayun's Tomb complex. Aurangzeb wanted to erase his memory — but ironically, Dara's writings on Sufism became more popular after his death. Luna: You mentioned a trial. Was there a specific religious charge? Lucas: The charge was apostasy. Aurangzeb convened a council of Islamic scholars, but the actual execution order was sealed by the emperor directly. There's a famous story that the Sufi mystic Sarmad — who was a friend of Dara's — was also executed around the same time for refusing to condemn Dara. Sarmad was beheaded in the streets of Delhi, still reciting a Persian couplet: 'The path we tread is a path of love; what need have we of a guide?' Luna: God. Aurangzeb really didn't leave any loose ends. Lucas: He didn't. But here's the thing — the pattern repeated. Aurangzeb's own sons rebelled against him. The most famous was Prince Akbar, who launched a serious revolt in 1681 with Maratha support. Aurangzeb crushed it, and Akbar fled to the Safavid court in Persia, never to return. Another son, Kam Baksh, was defeated and killed after Aurangzeb's death in the second succession war of 1707. Luna: So the same fratricidal pattern that brought Aurangzeb to power eventually tore his empire apart. Lucas: Exactly. The war of succession wasn't a one-time event — it was baked into the Mughal system. Every emperor faced it, and it drained the treasury, demoralized the army, and weakened the central authority. Aurangzeb won by being the most ruthless, but he also set a precedent that his sons followed. Lucas: If today gave you a clearer picture of how Aurangzeb clawed his way to the Peacock Throne — well, the way this show stays ad-free is listener support. If it's useful to you, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: It's amazing how much of the empire's later troubles trace back to that single succession crisis. Lucas: Absolutely. And the story doesn't end there — because Aurangzeb's own death in 1707 triggered another war, and this time the empire never really recovered. But that's a topic for another episode.