Aurangzeb Timeline

Throughout his reign Aurangzeb corresponded with and issued firmans to European trading companies, including the English East India Company and the French Compagnie des Indes, granting them limited trading privileges while taxing their commerce heavily.

Image source: East India Company

By around 1690 the Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb reached its maximum extent, covering nearly the whole Indian subcontinent with perhaps a quarter of humanity living under its sway. Yet the cost of constant warfare left the treasury strained and set the stage for fragmentation after his death.

Image source: Mughal Empire

Aurangzeb had left no clear succession plan. His surviving sons immediately fought; Bahadur Shah I defeated and killed his brother Azam Shah at Jajau in June 1707, beginning the era of weaker emperors and gradual Mughal decline.

Aurangzeb died on March 20, 1707, aged 88, at Ahmednagar in the Deccan, exhausted after nearly fifty years on the throne and decades of Maratha warfare. In keeping with his austere piety he was buried in a simple open tomb at Khuldabad, funded by earnings from sewing caps and copying the Quran.

Image source: Tomb of Aurangzeb

Despite his austere personal habits, Aurangzeb commissioned major religious architecture, most famously the grand Badshahi Mosque in Lahore (completed 1673), one of the largest mosques in the world, alongside madrasas and charitable foundations.

Image source: Badshahi Mosque

Aurangzeb commissioned a panel of scholars to compile the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, a massive compendium of Hanafi jurisprudence completed around 1676. It served as the legal code of the Mughal Empire and influenced law in South Asia for centuries.

Image source: Fatawa 'Alamgiri

Over the course of his reign Aurangzeb issued a series of edicts promoting Sunni orthodoxy: appointing censors of morals, banning un-Islamic customs like music at court, prohibiting alcohol and gambling, and ordering destruction of some temples deemed sites of sedition.

Image source: Aurangzeb

The ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, was arrested and brought to Delhi, where he was executed on November 11, 1675, after refusing to convert to Islam. His martyrdom radicalized the Sikh community under his son Guru Gobind Singh, leading to armed resistance.

Image source: Guru Tegh Bahadur

On April 2, 1679, Aurangzeb reintroduced the jizya poll tax on non-Muslim subjects, which had been abolished by Akbar a century earlier. The controversial levy alienated Hindus and other communities and provoked protests, including demonstrations in Delhi.

Image source: Jizya

Mughal forces under Daud Khan captured the fort of Palamau in eastern India in 1660, extending imperial authority into the Chota Nagpur plateau region during the early years of Aurangzeb's reign.

Image source: Palamu district

In 1660 Aurangzeb dispatched large armies under Shaista Khan and others to subdue the rising Maratha power of Shivaji in the hill country of western India, beginning decades of intermittent warfare with the Marathas.

Shivaji personally led a daring night raid on Shaista Khan's headquarters in Pune in April 1663, cutting off three of the general's fingers and humiliating the mighty Mughal army, which withdrew from Maratha territory soon afterward.

Image source: Shaista Khan

Following pressure from Jai Singh I, Shivaji signed the Treaty of Surat/Purandar in 1665, ceding most of his forts to the Mughals, paying tribute, and agreeing to serve the empire—though hostilities later resumed.

Image source: Treaty of Purandar (1665)

Severe famine struck parts of the empire between roughly 1670 and 1672, compounded by outbreaks of plague. Contemporary chroniclers recorded enormous mortality, straining imperial finances and administration.

Image source: List of famines

In 1671 the Ahom kingdom decisively defeated a Mughal invasion force on the Brahmaputra River at Saraighat under Lachit Barphukan, halting Mughal expansion into Assam and marking one of the empire's notable military failures.

Image source: Battle of Saraighat

In 1672 thousands of Satnami religious dissenters rebelled near Delhi and even threatened the capital itself. Aurangzeb personally led troops and crushed the uprising with great severity, restoring order but revealing strains in imperial authority.

Image source: Satnampanth

The death of Jaswant Singh of Marwar in 1678 led Aurangzeb to attempt direct annexation of his kingdom, provoking fierce Rajput resistance. The costly war spread to Mewar and ended inconclusively in 1681, weakening Mughal-Rajput relations permanently.

Image source: Muhammad Akbar (Mughal prince)

The Maratha founder Shivaji died on April 3, 1680. His death briefly eased pressure on the Mughals but his son Sambhaji continued resistance, prompting Aurangzeb to commit ever larger resources to conquering the Deccan.

Image source: Shivaji

In 1681 Aurangzeb moved his entire court and household from Delhi to the Deccan, never returning north. For the last quarter-century of his life he directed endless campaigns against the Marathas from camps and newly founded cities like Aurangabad.

In 1681 Aurangzeb's fourth son Akbar proclaimed himself emperor and joined forces with Maratha rebels against his father. The revolt collapsed within months and Akbar fled to Persia, where he lived in exile until his death in 1704.

The long siege of Bijapur ended in September 1686 when the Adilshahi capital surrendered to Mughal forces. Its annexation removed one of the last independent Muslim sultanates of the Deccan and extended the empire to its greatest extent.

Image source: Siege of Bijapur

Aurangzeb besieged the Qutbshafi capital of Golconda for eight months before its fall in 1687, annexing the wealthy kingdom of Hyderabad into the empire and adding vast revenues and diamond mines to Mughal coffers.

Mughal forces captured the Maratha king Sambhaji in 1689 and Aurangzeb had him executed after torture for refusing to convert to Islam. Rather than ending Maratha resistance, the execution inspired fiercer guerrilla warfare led by his brother Rajaram.

Image source: Sambhaji