Humāyūn: The Struggles and Resurgence of the Mughal Empire
Humāyūn, the son of the great Bābur, inherited an empire full of promise but fraught with challenges. While Bābur’s victories at Panipat (1526), Khanua (1527), and Ghaghara (1529) had established the Mughals in northern India, they had merely subdued—not reconciled—the powerful Afghan and Rajput factions. These groups, though temporarily restrained, remained hostile to Mughal rule, and their resistance would soon surface with full force during Humāyūn's reign. Challenges from within and outside the Empire One of the earliest threats Humāyūn faced came from Bahādur Shah of Gujarat, who, aided by Afghan and Mughal exiles, posed a serious challenge in Rajasthan. Despite Humāyūn’s efforts to conquer Gujarat in 1535, the region remained unstable until Bahādur Shah’s death in 1537, which ended the immediate danger. However, this was just the beginning of a much larger crisis. Meanwhile, in Bihar and Bengal, a formidable figure was rising— Shēr Shah Sūr , an...