For my wife, Karen
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For my wife, Karen |
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In the mid-seventeenth century, the Mughal Empire in northern India was one of the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, most cultured and most religiously tolerant states on the face of the Earth. By the early eighteenth century the Mughal Empire was a shadow of its former self, economically and politically ruined by decades of war under the religious zealotry of the emperor Aurangzeb. This left the Indian sub-continent open to the colonial ambitions of the European powers, resulting in the eventual colonisation and control of India under the British.
But what if upon the death of their father, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb did not become Mughal Emperor but instead one of his religiously-tolerant brothers took the throne? Someone who continued the Mughal tradition of religious tolerance and cultural diversity that was a great cornerstone of the Mughal Empire up to that point?
With India remaining a magnet for Europeans, but not coming under European control, what kind of history might have resulted from the Mughal Empire remaining strong and a great power in the world?
That is what this alternate history is intended to explore.
Note that Gurkani Âlam is Persian [Farsi] for 'Mughal World'.
The information on Gurkani Âlam is divided up into the following sections, on separate pages:
To various things that were very useful in the creation of this alternate history.
These pages have been some three years in the making, and contain some 165000 words. The final version was improved by helpful comments from various members of the AlternateHistory.com discussion forums.
They are the first pages I have created using Cascading Style Sheets, helped by tutorials from W3Schools.
Send any comments to me at tony {dot} website {at} clockworksky {dot} net.
My Roleplaying Page | My Alternate History Page | My Champions Page
The picture of the Taj Mahal used on these pages is Copyright 2007 Gerald Brimacombe. The picture of Emperor Shah Buland Iqbal [Dara Shikoh] used here comes from ExoticIndiaArt.Com. They are used here without permission, for personal use only and not for profit or commercial gain.
The font used for the Mughal World banner is called Alfred Drake and comes from the DaFont.com Site.
The background for these pages is a modified version of one from the IconBazaar.com site.
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Copyright © Tony Jones, 2007.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. |