War of Succession by Shah Jahan’s Sons: Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh
Shah Jahan had four sons born of Mumtaz Mahal, and each was given administrative responsibility and a high mansab as he came of age. The rivalries that developed among these four princes would ultimately culminate in one of the most consequential succession struggles in Mughal history — a war of succession between Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb that would decide the future direction of the empire.
The Four Princes
- Shuja, the second eldest, was appointed Governor of Bengal in 1637, and maintained firm control over that historically turbulent province for the next two decades.
- Murad, the youngest, was appointed Governor of Gujarat, to which Malwa was later added.
- Aurangzeb was appointed Viceroy of the Deccan in 1636, at the young age of eighteen, holding the post for the next six years; he was reappointed Viceroy of the Deccan again in 1652.
- Dara, the eldest, was appointed Governor of Allahabad and subsequently of Lahore.
Dara was unmistakably his father’s favourite and spent most of his time at court by Shah Jahan’s side. This closeness bred deep resentment among the other three brothers, who gradually drew together in an informal coalition against him.
- In 1652, Shuja betrothed his daughter to Aurangzeb’s eldest son, Sultan Muhammad, while Aurangzeb, in turn, promised his own daughter to Shuja’s son.
- Murad, too, grew close to Aurangzeb during this period.
The sheer capability of all four princes made the eventual question of succession considerably more difficult to resolve, threatening to make the coming conflict both prolonged and bloody.
The Absence of a Clear Succession Tradition
- There was no clear tradition of succession among the Mughals, in keeping with broader Muslim political practice. The right of a ruling emperor to nominate his own successor had gradually come to be accepted, and was even endorsed by some contemporary political thinkers — but no special claim was ever conferred on the eldest-born as a matter of right.
- The Timurid tradition of partitioning the empire among heirs had never been formally accepted in India, though the idea continued to resurface periodically.
- In the final analysis, it was connections with powerful military leaders, along with sheer military strength and capability, that emerged as the real arbiters of succession.
The Illness of Shah Jahan and the Prelude to War
Shah Jahan, then residing in his newly constructed city of Shahjahanabad (Delhi), fell seriously ill with stranguary in September 1657.
- He rallied and gradually regained his strength under the devoted care of Dara. In the meantime, however, all manner of rumours had begun to circulate — including the claim that Shah Jahan had already died, and that Dara was concealing this reality to serve his own ends.
- By December 1657, Shah Jahan had recovered sufficiently to begin a slow journey to Agra.
- In the interim, the princes — Shuja in Bengal, Murad in Gujarat, and Aurangzeb in the Deccan — had either been genuinely persuaded that these rumours were true, or chose to act as though they believed them, and each began preparing for the war of succession that now seemed inevitable.
Shah Jahan’s Favouritism Towards Dara
Shah Jahan had long regarded Dara as his rightful successor.
- As early as 1654, Dara had been granted the title Sultan Buland Iqbal, given a golden chair beside the throne, and seen his mansab raised progressively — reaching, by 1658, the unprecedented rank of 60,000 zat, 40,000 sawar (of which 30,000 were duaspa sihaspa).
- Dara was also formally nominated as heir apparent, or wali ahd.
- Rather than ensuring a smooth succession, as Shah Jahan had hoped, these actions instead convinced the other princes of the Emperor’s clear partiality towards Dara — strengthening their collective resolve to make their own bid for the throne.
Aurangzeb’s Grievances Against Dara
The rivalry between Dara, the father’s favourite, and Aurangzeb, the most energetic of Shah Jahan’s sons, was sharpened by Aurangzeb’s conviction that Dara had consistently used his influence with the Emperor to humiliate and obstruct him.
- When Aurangzeb was transferred to the Deccan from Multan and Sindh, following the failure of his two campaigns against Qandahar, his jagirs were also shifted to the far less productive Deccan — a considerable financial loss for him.
- The Deccan was, in any case, a chronically deficit region, and the expenses of governing it had to be met through cash subsidies drawn from Malwa and Gujarat.
- Shah Jahan’s constant refrain was that this deficit should instead be resolved by expanding and improving cultivation. Aurangzeb attempted to do so with the assistance of Murshid Quli Khan, the diwan of the Deccan, but Shah Jahan grew impatient, accusing Aurangzeb of negligence and incompetence — even alleging that he had appropriated the most productive villages from the jagirs assigned to nobles stationed there, and, in a more trivial complaint, that Aurangzeb had kept for himself most of the mangoes from one of Shah Jahan’s favourite mango trees at Burhanpur.
- To ease his financial difficulties, Aurangzeb sought Shah Jahan’s permission to attack Golconda and Bijapur — both to seize a share of the treasure they had amassed in their Karnataka campaigns, and to gain further territory.
- Aurangzeb felt deeply cheated when Shah Jahan instead entered into a compromise with both Golconda and Bijapur, just as Aurangzeb believed himself to be on the verge of total victory. In both instances, he accused Dara of having intervened, and of having been bribed by the Deccani rulers.
Contrasting Temperaments
The character and outlook of Dara and Aurangzeb were markedly dissimilar.
- Dara kept close company with liberal Sufi and Bhakti saints and was deeply engaged with questions of monotheism. Having studied both the Biblical testaments and the Vedas, he had come to believe that the Vedas supplemented the Quran in the understanding of monotheism.
- Aurangzeb, by contrast, was devoted to the study of the Quran and hagiological literature, and was strict in his observance of religious ritual.
- Dara dismissed Aurangzeb as a “hypocrite,” while Aurangzeb branded Dara a “heretic.”
It would, however, be mistaken to conclude that this difference in outlook split the Mughal nobility neatly into liberal and orthodox camps. In practice, nobles acted chiefly on the basis of personal contacts and self-interest. For their part, the princes sought to win over influential nobles and rajas through personal ties and favours — Aurangzeb, for instance, had maintained contact with Jai Singh since as early as 1636.
The Eastern Campaign and the Battle of Dharmat
On learning of the military preparations of Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb — and their decision to march on Agra, ostensibly to visit their father and “free” him from the influence of the “heretical” Dara — Shah Jahan, acting on Dara’s advice, despatched two separate armies:
- An army to the east, led by Dara’s eldest son Sulaiman Shikoh and assisted by Mirza Raja Jai Singh, to deal with Shuja, who had already crowned himself.
- An army to Malwa under Raja Jaswant Singh, tasked with persuading Murad — then advancing from Gujarat, having likewise crowned himself — to turn back.
However, on reaching Dharmat in Malwa, Jaswant Singh found that the forces of Murad and Aurangzeb had already joined together. The two princes asked him to stand aside and allow them to proceed to Agra; considering retreat dishonourable, Jaswant Singh chose to give battle.
- The resulting Battle of Dharmat (15 April 1658) ended in victory for Aurangzeb, emboldening his supporters and considerably raising his prestige, while leaving Dara and his own supporters dispirited.
Dara’s Costly Miscalculation
Dara made a serious strategic error. Overconfident in the strength of his position, he had assigned many of his best troops to the eastern campaign, leaving the capital, Agra, dangerously denuded of defenders.
- The eastern army, under Sulaiman Shikoh, surprised and defeated Shuja near Banaras (Battle of Banaras, February 1658), and then proceeded to pursue him into Bihar — acting as though the contest at Agra had already been decided.
- Following Jaswant Singh’s defeat at Dharmat, urgent letters were sent recalling these forces to Agra. After hastily patching together a treaty with Shuja (7 May 1658), Sulaiman Shikoh began his march back to Agra from his camp near Monghyr in eastern Bihar — but it was already clear that he could not possibly return in time for the decisive confrontation with Aurangzeb.
Dara’s Search for Allies
After the defeat at Dharmat, Dara made frantic efforts to secure allies:
- He sent repeated letters to Jaswant Singh, who had by then retired to Jodhpur.
- He also approached the Rana of Udaipur.
- Jaswant Singh moved out only slowly, to Pushkar near Ajmer, where, after raising an army with funds supplied by Dara, he waited for the Rana to join him — but the Rana had already been won over by Aurangzeb.
Dara thus failed to secure the support of even the most important Rajput rajas.
Battle of Samugarh
The Battle of Samugarh, fought between Dara Shikoh and his two younger brothers, Aurangzeb and Murad Baksh, was fundamentally a contest of generalship — the two sides were almost evenly matched in numbers, each fielding roughly 50,000 to 60,000 troops.
- On the battlefield, Dara proved no match for Aurangzeb. The Hada Rajputs and the Saiyids of Barha, on whom Dara relied most heavily, could not compensate for the weakness of the rest of his hastily assembled army, while Aurangzeb’s forces were battle-hardened and well led.
- Beyond his shortcomings as a general, Dara had grown arrogant and excessively self-assured. He failed to win over the wider body of nobles to his cause, and was unwilling to heed the counsel of those more capable than himself.
- It proved a fatal error on his part to personally confront Aurangzeb on the battlefield while Shah Jahan remained the reigning sovereign — he had, in fact, been advised that he himself should only meet Aurangzeb in battle if the latter refused to recant his rebellion.
Nobility and Family Loyalties
The conflict between Aurangzeb and Dara was not, in essence, a struggle between religious orthodoxy on one side and liberalism on the other.
- Both Muslim and Hindu nobles were divided in their support between the two rivals in roughly equal measure. Shias, too, were split almost evenly — among nobles of 1,000 zat rank and above, up to the Battle of Samugarh, 27 Iranis supported Aurangzeb while 23 sided with Dara.
- As in so many other episodes of Mughal history, the loyalty of individual nobles was governed chiefly by personal interest and association with particular princes, rather than by ideological conviction.
- There is likewise little basis for the popular belief that the royal women were similarly divided — with Jahanara as a partisan of Dara, Roshanara a supporter of Aurangzeb, and Gauharara acting as a spy for Murad.
- Contemporary correspondence, including letters written by Aurangzeb himself, shows that although Jahanara was close to Dara in his religious quest and shared his eclectic outlook, she never closed her doors to her other brothers. Regarded by all as close to Shah Jahan, the princes — Aurangzeb included — regularly wrote to her seeking her support and intercession with the Emperor, and she frequently obliged.
The Fall of Agra and Shah Jahan’s Confinement
Following Dara’s defeat and flight, Shah Jahan found himself besieged in the fort of Agra; Aurangzeb forced his father’s surrender by cutting off the fort’s water supply.
- Shah Jahan was confined to the female apartments of the fort under strict supervision, though he was not ill-treated. He lived there for eight long years, lovingly cared for by his favourite daughter, Jahanara, who chose voluntarily to remain within the fort with him.
- Jahanara re-emerged into public life only after Shah Jahan’s death, and was thereafter accorded great honour by Aurangzeb, who visited her regularly, restored her to her former position as first lady of the realm, and raised her annual pension from twelve lakh rupees to seventeen lakhs.
After the Battle of Samugarh
- Under the terms of Aurangzeb’s agreement with Murad, the empire was to be partitioned between the two of them, with Murad ruling over Punjab, Kabul, Kashmir, and Sindh. Aurangzeb, however, had no genuine intention of sharing power — he treacherously imprisoned Murad and had him sent to the Gwalior jail, where he was executed two years later.
- After his defeat at Samugarh, Dara fled to Lahore, hoping to retain control over its surrounding territory, but Aurangzeb soon arrived nearby with a strong army, forcing Dara to abandon Lahore without a fight and flee into Sindh.
- Although the civil war dragged on for more than two years, its ultimate outcome was scarcely in doubt.
- Dara subsequently moved from Sindh into Gujarat, and then to Ajmer, on the invitation of Jaswant Singh, ruler of Marwar — an invitation followed swiftly by Jaswant Singh’s betrayal. The Battle of Deorai near Ajmer (March 1659) proved to be the last major engagement Dara fought against Aurangzeb.
- Dara might well have escaped safely into Iran, but chose instead to try his fortunes once more in Afghanistan. En route, in the Bolan Pass, a treacherous Afghan chieftain took him prisoner and handed him over to his sworn enemy.
Execution of Dara
A panel of jurists ruled that Dara could not be allowed to live, “out of necessity to protect the faith and Holy law, and also for reasons of state, and as a destroyer of the public peace” — a judgment that illustrates well how Aurangzeb used religion as a convenient cloak for his political objectives.
- Two years after Dara’s execution, his son Sulaiman Shikoh, who had taken refuge with the ruler of Garhwal, was handed over to Aurangzeb under threat of imminent invasion, and soon met the same fate as his father.
The Fates of Shuja and Murad
- Earlier, Aurangzeb had already defeated Shuja at Khanwah, near Allahabad (December 1658). Further operations against him were entrusted to Mir Jumla, who steadily pressed his advantage until Shuja was driven out of India altogether, into Arakan (April 1660).
- Soon afterwards, Shuja and his family met a dishonourable death at the hands of the Arakanese, on charges of fomenting rebellion.
Aftermath and Reconciliation
The civil war, which kept the empire in turmoil for more than two years, demonstrated clearly that neither nomination by the ruler, nor plans for the division of the empire, were likely to be accepted by rival contenders for the throne. Henceforth, military force became the sole real arbiter of succession, and successive civil wars would only grow more destructive over time.
Once securely seated on the throne, Aurangzeb made some effort to soften the harsher edges of the Mughal custom of fratricidal warfare:
- At the instance of Jahanara Begum, Sipihr Shikoh, son of Dara, was released from prison in 1671, granted a mansab, and married to one of Aurangzeb’s daughters.
- Murad’s son, Izzat Bakhsh, was similarly released, given a mansab, and married to another of Aurangzeb’s daughters.
- Earlier still, in 1669, Dara’s daughter Jani Begum — who had been raised by Jahanara as her own — was married to Aurangzeb’s third son, Muhammad Azam.
- Numerous further marriages were arranged between Aurangzeb’s own family and the children and grandchildren of his defeated brothers.
Dara Shikoh: Intellectual Pursuits and Arts
Dara Shikoh was the eldest son of Shah Jahan and, for most of his life, the most favoured candidate for the Mughal throne.
- He held the title Padshahzada-i-Buzurg Martaba (“Prince of High Rank”) and was favoured as heir by both his father and his elder sister, Princess Jahanara Begum. He also received the title Shah-i-Buland Iqbal from Shah Jahan.
- At the end of 1657, Dara Shikoh was appointed Governor of Bihar.
- On 6 September 1657, Shah Jahan’s sudden illness triggered a desperate power struggle among the four Mughal princes — though the strongest contenders were always Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. Dara contested the succession but ultimately lost the throne to Aurangzeb.
- He was defeated by Aurangzeb and Murad at the Battle of Samugarh, near Agra, on 30 May 1658. Aurangzeb subsequently seized the Agra fort and deposed Shah Jahan on 8 June 1658.
- Dara was executed by Aurangzeb in 1659 on charges of heresy.
Religious and Intellectual Outlook
Dara Shikoh, known for his liberal views and his fascination with pantheism, was an erudite champion of mystical religious speculation and a poetic exponent of syncretic cultural exchange among people of all faiths — qualities that made him appear a heretic in the eyes of his more orthodox brother.
- Dara was a devoted follower of the Persian mystic Sarmad Kashani, as well as of Lahore’s celebrated Qadiri Sufi saint Hazrat Mian Mir, to whom he was introduced by Mullah Shah Badakhshi, Mian Mir’s spiritual disciple and successor.
- Mian Mir was so widely respected across communities that he was invited by the Sikhs to lay the foundation stone of the Golden Temple at Amritsar.
- The Qadiri order reflected precisely the liberal and syncretic tendencies within Islam that so deeply influenced Dara’s own thinking.
- Dara later developed a close friendship with the seventh Sikh Guru, Guru Har Rai.
Literary Works
Dara devoted considerable effort to the search for a common mystical language between Islam and Hinduism.
- Towards this end, he completed the translation of 52 Upanishads from their original Sanskrit into Persian in 1657, so that they might be accessible to Muslim scholars. This translation is commonly known as the Sirr-e-Akbar (“The Greatest Mystery”), in whose introduction Dara boldly advances his hypothesis that the “hidden book” (Kitab al-maknun) referred to in the Quran is, in fact, none other than the Upanishads.
- His most celebrated work, the Majma-ul-Bahrain (“The Confluence of the Two Seas”), was similarly devoted to exploring the mystical and pluralistic affinities between Sufi and Vedantic thought.
- Dara’s other notable works include:
- Safinat-ul-Auliya (biographies of Sufi saints).
- Sakinat-ul-Auliya (biographies of his own two preceptors, Mian Mir and Mullah Shah).
- Hasanat-ul-Arifin (containing Dara’s own religious ideas).
Patronage of the Arts and Architecture
Dara was also an enthusiastic patron of fine arts, music, and dance — a trait that his brother Aurangzeb regarded with considerable disapproval.
- The “Dara Shikoh Album” is a celebrated collection of paintings and calligraphy assembled from the 1630s until his death, presented to his wife Nadira Banu in 1641–42. It remained with her until her own death, after which it passed into the royal library, where the inscriptions connecting it to Dara were deliberately erased — though many of the calligraphic scripts and paintings within it still bear his distinctive mark.
- The library established by Dara Shikoh survives to this day, on the grounds of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Kashmiri Gate, Delhi.
- Dara is also credited with commissioning several exquisite examples of Mughal architecture that survive to the present, including:
- The tomb of his wife, Nadira Banu, in Lahore.
- The tomb of Hazrat Mian Mir, also in Lahore.
- The Dara Shikoh Library in Delhi.
- The Akhun Mullah Shah Mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir.
- The Pari Mahal garden palace, also in Srinagar.
Many historians continue to hold that the subsequent course of Mughal history in the latter half of the 17th century might have unfolded very differently had Dara Shikoh, rather than Aurangzeb, ultimately ascended the Mughal throne.
