Shah Jahan: Chahar Taslim and the Two Succession Wars

Shah Jahan’s reign began with a war between brothers for the throne. It ended the same way, with Shah Jahan himself locked away by his own son.

1. The First Succession War, 1628

Shah Jahan was born Prince Khurram. He became the fifth Mughal emperor. His reign lasted from 1628 to 1658.

Jahangir, his father, died in October 1627. A rival claimant, Prince Shahryar, held Lahore at the time. Nur Jahan briefly backed Shahryar’s claim. But Asaf Khan’s forces defeated Shahryar’s forces in January 1628.

On 23 January 1628, Shah Jahan gave a harsh order. He had Shahryar executed. He also had his nephews Dawar Bakhsh and Garshasp executed. His cousins Tahmuras and Hoshang met the same fate. This was a standard Mughal pattern for clearing rival claimants, not a personal act of unusual cruelty for its time.

• Shah Jahan’s reign is often called the peak of Mughal wealth and architecture.
• He built the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
• He founded Shahjahanabad, now known as Old Delhi.
• He took the title Sahib-i-Qiran-i-Sani, “second Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction.” This deliberately echoed Timur’s own original title.

For the fuller architectural story, see MedHist0015.

2. Chahar Taslim and Court Ceremony

“Chahar Taslim” means “four-fold salutation.” It names a specific court gesture that Shah Jahan introduced.

A courtier placed the back of the right hand on the ground. He raised it while rising. He ended with the palm on the crown of his head. He repeated this four times.

Shah Jahan brought in Chahar Taslim to replace an older ceremony called Sijda, or full prostration. Here’s why he made the change: it was mostly about religion. Full prostration was considered owed to God alone in Islam. This made the older ceremony theologically uncomfortable at a Muslim court.

2.1 Was Chahar Taslim part of the succession fight?

This was a reform of court etiquette. It defined Shah Jahan’s reign and title. It was not part of the succession-crisis story itself. But it reflects the same formal, ceremonial court culture that his architecture also expressed.

3. Building Shahjahanabad: Chronicle, Calendar, and Court

Shah Jahan’s reign is remembered for stone as much as for statecraft. He built the Taj Mahal at Agra between 1632 and roughly 1653, employing a workforce of around twenty thousand people. He also raised the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid at his new capital, Shahjahanabad.

His reign has its own official chronicle. Court historian Abdul Hamid Lahori wrote the Badshah Nama, also spelled Padshahnama, covering the first twenty years of the reign. His pupil Muhammad Waris completed the work after Lahori’s death, finishing it around 1656. It combines detailed prose with lavish court paintings of major events.

3.1 What other court reforms did Shah Jahan make?

Shah Jahan made one more court change beyond Chahar Taslim. Here’s why: he dropped Akbar’s solar Ilahi calendar era for official dating, replacing it with the Hijri calendar, the standard Islamic lunar calendar, to please the court’s orthodox religious scholars.

He also kept a poet laureate at court. The Persian-language poet Abu Talib, known by his pen name Kalim, held the title Malik-ush-Shu’ara, or “King of Poets,” from 1632.

3.2 How did Mughal painting change under him?

Mughal painting changed under Shah Jahan too. Akbar and Jahangir’s court painters favoured lively, naturalistic scenes. Painting under Shah Jahan moved toward formal, symmetrical durbar scenes, with jewel-like precision. The same imperial workshop produced very different work under each emperor, shaped by each ruler’s own taste.

4. The Balkh-Badakhshan Campaign and the Kohinoor

Shah Jahan’s ambitions reached beyond India too. In 1646, he sent an army into Balkh and Badakhshan, in what is now northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Prince Murad Baksh led the first phase of the campaign.

The campaign’s own official chronicler, Abdul Hamid Lahori, described the goal as reclaiming Balkh and Badakhshan as hereditary Timurid territory. He called the region “the keys to the acquisition of Samarqand,” the old capital of Shah Jahan’s ancestor Timur. Modern historians are divided on how seriously to take this. Some read it as a genuine, if unrealistic, bid to revive Mughal claims over Central Asia. Others see the more practical goal as simply installing a friendly ruler near Kabul.

Murad Baksh was recalled in disgrace in August 1646, after abandoning his post. Aurangzeb then took over the campaign from April 1647. The campaign ultimately failed. Supply lines across the Hindu Kush proved unsustainable, the terrain and climate were harsh, and local Uzbek forces resisted. The Mughals withdrew, and the Hindu Kush remained their effective north-western limit.

4.1 How did the Kohinoor reach the Mughals?

Not every gain came through conquest. In 1656, the Golconda noble Mir Jumla defected to the Mughals. As part of his gifts to Shah Jahan, he presented a celebrated large diamond, widely identified with the Kohinoor. It was not seized in battle. It arrived as a peace offering from a noble changing sides.

5. The Second Succession War, 1658 to 1659

Shah Jahan fell seriously ill in September 1657. This illness triggered a war among his own four sons: Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad Baksh.

Each son already governed a distant province before the war began. Shah Shuja was governor of Bengal. Aurangzeb governed the Deccan. Murad Baksh governed Gujarat. Only Dara Shikoh stayed close to the emperor at court.

Dara’s forces were first beaten at the Battle of Dharmat in April 1658. They suffered a decisive defeat at the Battle of Samugarh on 29 May 1658. Aurangzeb and Murad Baksh’s smaller but more experienced combined army overcame Dara’s larger force.

Aurangzeb then had Shah Jahan imprisoned at Agra Fort. This imprisonment lasted from 1658 until Shah Jahan’s death in 1666. Murad Baksh was later executed at Gwalior Fort.

Dara Shikoh himself fled after Samugarh. He was later captured and paraded through Delhi in chains. He was executed on 30 August 1659. The charge was apostasy, tied to his syncretic religious writings. For his scholarship and the fuller story of his fall, see MedHist0015.

• Shah Jahan’s reign began and ended with a succession war between brothers.
• This pattern of brother fighting brother repeated across Mughal generations.

5.1 Where did each of the four princes stand?

6. A View of the Taj, from a Prison Window

Shah Jahan’s eight years of captivity were not spent alone. His eldest daughter, Jahanara, chose to stay with him at Agra Fort. She could have remained free at court instead.

Shah Jahan was confined to the Musamman Burj. This is an octagonal tower inside Agra Fort. It overlooks the Yamuna river.

From that tower, he could see the Taj Mahal across the river. Mumtaz Mahal was buried there. Shah Jahan himself would eventually be laid to rest beside her.

Jahanara served and consoled her father until his death in 1666. She acted as his close confidante through his final years.

6.1 What happened to the Peacock Throne after him?

The same river view that framed his greatest monument also framed the last years of his reign, watched from captivity rather than from the throne. The jewelled Peacock Throne he commissioned outlived him at court. It was carried off decades later, in 1739, by the Persian invader Nadir Shah.

7. What the PYQs Keep Testing