Aurangzeb's Lost Library: Books and Power

Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History · Sep 30, 2026 · 6m · transcript

While Aurangzeb is often remembered for his military campaigns and religious policies, his personal library in the Agra Fort was a masterpiece of imperial patronage that he himself rarely visited. This episode explores the Alamgiri Library, a collection of over twenty thousand volumes spanning theology, science, medicine, and poetry in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. We examine how these books were acquired through diplomacy, tribute, and purchase from across the Islamic world, creating an intellectual center that rivaled Isfahan and Constantinople. Lucas and Luna discuss the physical reality…