Nasir ud-Din HUMAYUN (r.1530-39, 1555-56) | |
"Timur, Babur, and Humayun"-- a
modern painter's
vision of how the *Mughal dynasty*
takes shape; *a
detailed
family tree* |
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Portraits of Humayun often give him a very Turkish appearance | |
QILA* |
The Purana Qila ("Old Fort") in Delhi (1530-45) was begun by Humayun; Sher Shah, during his own intervening rule, continued to work on it |
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Since 1510, the Portuguese had been in *Goa*; now from 1534 onward, the British were in Bombay |
Elaborate silver "shahrukhi" cons were issued by Humayun from his mint at Agra right up to the time he was dethroned and chased out of the country by Sher Shah | |
Humayun, now a kind of royal refugee, eventually found a welcome at the court of the Safavid ruler, Shah Tahmasp, in Isfahan | |
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THE SURI INTERLUDE, 1540-1555 | |
Sher Shah Sur (r.1540-45), Humayun's nemesis, the brilliant soldier and administrator who drove him out of India into a fifteen-year exile, used a mixture of Arabic and Nagari inscriptions on his coins | |
KUHNA* |
Inside the Purana Qila, Sher Shah added his own mosque, the "Qila-e Kuhna Masjid" (Mosque of the Old Fort), in 1541 (or maybe it was Humayun's; see *Glenn D. Lowry*) |
Among his other conquests, Sher Shah besieged the ancient fort of KALINJAR, in Madhya Pradesh; in 1545, in an accidental gunpowder explosion, he died there | |
Sher Shah's tomb, located in the center of a large tank, is in SASSERAM (or Sasaram), in his home region of Bihar | |
The mosque and tomb of Isa Khan (1547), who was one of Sher Shah's nobles, ended up near what later became Humayun's tomb | |
Sher Shah's son Islam (or Salim) Shah (r.1545-54) built the massive Salimgarh fort, just north of what later became the Red Fort; only remnants of it survive today | |
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Humayun managed to return to India in 1555; see the account by *Sidi Ali Reis*. But then he died suddenly, after a fall down some stairs, in 1556 | |
Humayun's tomb, in early drawings; it was built (1562/3-71) by his widow, Hamida Begam (Akbar's mother); his life was also chronicled by his sister *Gulbadan Begam* | |
Early photographs of Humayun's tomb | |
Some modern photos; Humayun's tomb is one of the great Delhi landmarks | |
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