Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Deccan Exile: The Emperor Who Died Far From Home
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's wars and policies, but there's something that always struck me about his last twenty-five years. He basically never went home. He left Delhi in 1681 to campaign in the Deccan, and he never saw the Red Fort again. Luna: Wait, really? He just stayed in the south for decades? Lucas: Exactly. He set up his court in the Deccan, first at Aurangabad, then later at a camp near Bijapur and Golconda. He was so determined to crush the Maratha kingdoms and the Shia sultanates that he essentially exiled himself. But that's the irony — the more he tried to control the Deccan, the more it drained his empire. Luna: So his last years were basically a slow motion disaster? Lucas: In many ways, yes. But it's not just a story of military failure. It's also a deeply personal story. He was a man who wrote letters to his sons full of regret and bitterness, but also a man who spent his nights sewing caps and copying the Quran to earn his keep. The maasir i alamgiri gives us these incredible glimpses into his daily routine. Lucas: He slept on the ground, ate simple food, and refused any luxury. He even wrote that he had no time for the world. But he was also the man who ordered the execution of Sambhaji, the Maratha king, and who had the last Qutb Shahi ruler of Golconda dragged out of hiding. So there's this contradiction between the ascetic and the conqueror. Luna: How did he justify that to himself? Lucas: He saw it as his duty, I think. As a Sunni emperor, he believed he had to uphold the sharia and protect his realm from heterodoxy and rebellion. The fatawa e alamgiri, the legal code he commissioned, was his attempt to cement that vision. But in the Deccan, he found himself fighting an enemy he couldn't pin down — the Marathas were all over the countryside, using guerilla tactics, and he was chasing shadows. Lucas: You know, that reminds me of something. We've been talking about this for a while, and if you've been getting something out of these conversations, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that goes a long way. We really appreciate it. Lucas: So, back to Aurangzeb's exile. By the late 1680s, he had taken Golconda and Bijapur, but the Marathas were still out there. After Sambhaji was executed in 1689, his son Shahu was captured, but his brother Rajaram escaped and kept the resistance going. Aurangzeb thought he could finish them off, but he was already in his seventies, and the empire was bleeding money and men. Luna: So he never really won, did he? Lucas: He won battles, but not the war. The Marathas would melt into the hills, then come back. He tried to build a network of forts and posts, but it was like holding water in your hands. The famine of 1702-1704 was devastating — crops failed, soldiers died, and the treasury ran dry. The maasir i alamgiri records that he had to sell off his own provisions to feed his army. Lucas: And yet, he kept going. He was eighty when he wrote to his son, Prince Azam, saying, 'I have not done justice to the people, and I have not been able to fulfill the duties of kingship.' That's a man who knew he was failing, but couldn't stop. Luna: That's heartbreaking, in a way. Lucas: It is. But it's also important to remember that his policies had consequences. The jizya tax on non-Muslims, the destruction of temples — those weren't just symbolic. They alienated the Rajputs and others, and they gave the Marathas a rallying cry. In his last years, he was fighting a war on multiple fronts, and he couldn't trust his own generals. Lucas: He even had his own son, Prince Akbar, rebel against him, and that was a blow he never fully recovered from. The empire was fracturing, and he knew it. But he kept fighting to his last breath. Luna: So where did he die? I mean, he must have wanted to go back to Delhi eventually. Lucas: He didn't get the chance. He died in 1707 in Khuldabad, near Aurangabad, in a simple tomb next to a Sufi saint. He actually left instructions that he wanted to be buried there, and he even paid for the tomb out of his own earnings from sewing caps and copying the Quran. It's a far cry from Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal. Lucas: His children fought over the throne, and within a few decades, the Mughal Empire was just a shell. So his obsession with the Deccan basically broke the empire, even though he thought he was strengthening it. Luna: Do you think he had any moments of doubt, like maybe he should have just gone home? Lucas: There are letters where he sounds almost weary. He writes about the 'miseries of life' and how he's tired of it all. But he never turned back. He saw it as a matter of honor and faith. In his own mind, he was fighting for the survival of Islam in India, even if his methods were often harsh. Luna: It's kind of a tragic figure, isn't he? Lucas: Tragic, yes, but not necessarily sympathetic. He made choices that caused immense suffering — the wars, the executions, the famine. But looking at his last years, you see a man who was trapped by his own ambitions. He expanded the empire to its greatest territorial extent, but he also hollowed it out from within. Lucas: I think that's the real lesson of Aurangzeb's Deccan exile. Power can be addictive, but it can also be a prison. And sometimes the person who thinks they're conquering the world is actually just losing themselves. Luna: That's a good way to put it. Lucas: So, as we wrap up, I want to leave you with a question. What does it mean for an empire to outlive its founder? And what do we make of a ruler who spent his last decades fighting for control of a land that would never truly be his? Maybe that's something we can explore in a future episode.