Empire: World History - 208. Humayun Reconquers India

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Kicked out of India, Humayun roams the desert as a nomad, accompanied by his young pregnant wife, his court poets, and his library camels. Sher Shah has taken his throne and the Mughal Empire seems as though it will end soon after it had begun. But Humayun does not give up, he seeks refuge in Iran and seeks the support of a Persian cavalry to overthrow Sher Shah in India, and Humayun’s own treacherous brothers in Afghanistan. All the while, the openminded leader continues to explore his curiosities in astrology, inventions, and design. Listen as William and Anita discuss how the emperor Humayun reconquered India. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Anouska Lewis + Becki Hills Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Dripal. So just in the last episode, we left you at a low point in the story of Hamayo. First son, and he is the man who has made a promise to his father that no matter how shitty his brothers are, he's not going to kill them, and this is going to be a very great difficulty for him. He's in the deserts of sin. He's at his lowest point, but then he discovers love. He finds his wife far away from everything that he knows in exile, but his heart is full.

And he's also got this rather wonderful enemy in the form of Cher Shah, the Lion King, if you like, if you translate it, who has usurped everything that his father fought for and his throne in India and established his own empire there instead. Now, just to pick up on this, this is not such a well-known story as some of the other moguls, because Hamaio is so often overlooked in the pantheon, isn't he? He is, and there's been a lot of interesting new work on Humae. We've always thought of him as this completely hopeless, hippie-dippy sort of would-be mystic who's always sort of shooting arrows in the air to make predictions about the future. But he's also sort of brilliant and erudite and far more sort of bookish and fascinating and complicated than I think anyone guessed before. And the thing I like best about him is that even now when he's in exile and sin, the world he's

abandoned. The new country that he's conquered is gone. The new city he's been planning. Dean Pana is gone. His fantastic palaces, including a mystic palace and agriar that he's just built. All that is behind him. But he's got the thing that matters most to, which is his two library camels. A library camel? How marvelous. We all need a library camel on Empire Pod. This is the precursor to the mobile library that goes to distant places, is it? I mean, what? He really literally had two cabals laden with books. laden with books. And there's a lovely moment when at the lowest point of his life, later, we will come across when he suffers a defeat, but say any more than that at this stage,

because I wouldn't like to. No, because it's not like you at all. That's not you. I wouldn't ever spoil the ending. But there's this wonderful moment when a week later, when finally he finally succeeds, the camels come back as sort of homing pigeons and find him and he gets all his books back. He's also rather a good poet, which I don't think any of us had realised before. Oh, really, because his father was deeply critical of his writing. His dad was like one of those withering Indian dads who just, you know, you bring home an essay with an A on it. And he goes, well, the syntax was poor.

I've got for you here a little love poem he wrote. It's not clear whether this is directed at his new 14-year-old wife who's just given birth to Akbar, Amida Begap, or whether for someone of a completely different sex and age. here it is. My fate has fallen with a moon-faced beauty and fire has fallen into my heart. My house was brightened with the face of my beloved. From the moon-faced beauty has fallen a ray. In every direction my heart, oh life, draws me since my heart has fallen to become captive to this attractor of hearts. The object of my heart I shall seize now, with exhilaration, has fallen into my hand. Do not seek reason and wit in me when Humayon has fallen into senselessness.

And that sadly is a state that he seems to have been in quite a lot of his life. He's often in senselessness. You know, I'm quite interested. So he's writing poetry again. He's got love in his life, clearly, whether it's with his wife or somebody else. We're not entirely sure. But there's love in his heart. But he has very little else.

I mean, his pockets are empty. That's exactly right. When he meets people along the way, because, you know, if you want to try and regain your kingdom, I'm sure that's in his mind that he's been reduced and reduced to nothing. But what does he have to offer? If he wants to make allegiances, what does he have to woo, if you like, other leaders? Well, I think this is one of the reasons why he loves Hamidabegam as he does and why Akbar in due course also will absorb his heart,

because both of them are associated with this moment when he had nothing and they came to him. Hamidah Begum sees him in sin when he's lost everything. and at this lowest moment, in winter in Sindh, when he's trying to cross some mountains towards Afghanistan, they get stuck in the snow and they get separated from their supplies. And he has to kill one of the horses and cook it in a helmet of one of his guards. So that is absolutely the lowest of the low. You know, if you needed any more proof, that is living like a, not just like a nomad, but like a beggar. But again, at this moment, even when he is in extremists, he's got with him a painter.

We know there's a moment when a bird turns up and he loves the bird and he tells the painter to paint it. And there's just this one little note in Gulbadan, his sister's account of this life. But it shows that even when he's down to eating the horse flesh of his guards, he doesn't want to be anywhere without a mogul painter. He's still writing poetry. He's got his two library camels. And also there's lovely details. Eberkoch has found that one of his inventions was he had this sort of movable palace, which was like, I mean, quite a large and sort of substantial building, which could be sort of Ikeared down and put in a crate and then erected.

It was far more than a normal tent. And he also had this sort of other very substantial zodiac tent called the 12 Signs tent. And I think these things are probably travelling with him. So what is a zodiac dent? What does that mean? What is even is that? Well, one of the things that always makes historians fascinated by the moguls is that they break stereotype. And they embrace the Hindu ideas of the India they come to. And it's always said that, traditionally, the Akbar is the first to do this. But it seems that Hamayan, although he's born in Afghanistan and comes as a young man to India, that he immediately engages with,

Indian mystics and Indian astronomers and astrologers, that his very complicated ideas about wearing different colours on different days, the week actually comes as much from Hindu ideas as it does from Muslim ones. And among these ideas that he has, I think he's traveling with Hindu astrologers when he's on his way to Iran again, despite everything. Oh, I see. So there's a tent full of those guys. It's a mobile version. Remember I talked about his sort of twister carpet when he rolls a dice and goes into different phases of the moons and all sorts of complicated astronomical stuff. Yes, postures of heavenly direction.

Exactly. That's very nicely put, actually. It's a cross between a sort of Christmas party game and a mystical practice. I just had a thought about this man, because he's much more interesting than I thought he was before we started this. My first knowledge of Hamayo was in Delhi, the first time I went. and there were these roundabouts with sort of very overgrown, and you'd suddenly see a little bit of a ruin.

And my cousin, I was like, what is that? That looks very old. And she said, oh, that's nothing. It's just the tomb of Hamiu. That wasn't even correct. It was the tomb of Hamiu's mother. I have a friend that restored it. When they got up to the roof,

they found that the previous group of restorers on the quiet, rather than putting in proper roof tiles, had cut batter flip-flops and put them onto the roof, confident that no one would make the effort to go up and check their work. Can I just tell people about a butt of flip-flop? So there's anyone who's got any connection with India will know, but they are the ubiquitous flip-flop of everybody in India. They're just these rubber things, plastic thongs and rubber on the bottom. And they had used that as shingle.

I think that's rather marvellous. Okay. So can I just ask, his situation obviously is not great. But he's got the added problem, which we discussed just in the last episode, in that he's got these brothers. Kamran, Hindal and Ascari, who are the most disloyal, awful people that he's not allowed to kill. So what are they up to? Well, he's on his knees, you know, as it were, and popping in and out of his zodiac tent for some solace. What are they doing?

So Kamran has seized Kabul. He was originally sent there as a governor, but now he's just sort of ruling it as the Lord. He gives absolutely no help to him. And in fact, he sends the other brother, Ascari, to cut him off when he works out. what Humayans' plan is, which is to go all the way through Sindh to Iran and to appeal for help to the Safavids of Isfahan, which is, of course, what his father did. Babu did the same thing in extremists when they were trying to recapture Samakhan. And Babel fell out with all the people of Samakhan because he converted to Shia Islam. So I think the other brothers realized that this is Humayans'

plot that he's going to go and try and offer to convert in order to get support to win India back. And Ascari tries to cut him off, but he doesn't do it. But it's as he's fleeing to Iran that there is one of the most tragic stories about quite how hopeless Humayan is. It is actually probably the most hopeless thing he does in all his very erudite, brilliant, but hopeless life. And the one thing that he has successfully brought away, other than that he's the most hopeless thing, than his sort of fancy zodiac carpet and tent and the painter and all the other. The camel library. Let's not forget the camel library. The one thing of value and importance that can really change his situation is he's brought a bag of enormous Indian diamonds, all the best diamonds

that Barbo won, including this famous diamond called the Babur diamond that many experts believe is the Coenor. It's not proven. It's not provable, really. but it's a whopper, whether it is or is not the Coenor sitting in the Tower of London at this moment. There is an enormous diamond with Humayin as he flees. And one morning when he gets up on his way to run about to cross the border, he goes to the riverbank to do his ablutions as his servant records. And he does his business, gets back on his horse and gallops away. and it's only when he's about sort of half a mile off that his servant realizes.

I feel a little lighter. I feel a little lighter than when I got. What is it that I've, hang on, it's not keys. I've got my keys. I've got my specs. What is it that I... And it's not his mobile phone. No, he left every single one of the diamonds on the riverbank and just walked off.

You've got to love a man that can do that. You do, but you've also got to maybe question that because in the story of the Cohenol, which we have told and written a book about. There are other tales of people who have mislaid the diamond supposedly and then suddenly found them in a waistcoat in a drawer because they threw them in the dirty laundry. I mean, do we believe this story? Are these from reputable sources?

So we do, because he then rewards the servant who gives it back to him, who's called Juhah. He's very generous, Humayin. And not only, can you remember in the last episode, we had that story of the Waterman who blows up his buffalo hide and uses it as a rubber ring to paddle Humayon to safety when he's driven into a river. So just like he rewards him, he rewards Juhan. Dujan, due course, becomes such a senior figure,

he actually writes his own memoir where he tells this story. And he says, as the emperor was about to remount his horse, I saw a green flowered purse lying on the ground and a pencase by the side of it. And I rode up after him, and as soon as I'd overtaken him, I presented them. When His Majesty saw these articles, he was amazed and astonished and said, Oh, my boy, you have done me the greatest possible favour. If these have been lost, I should have been subject to the meanness of this Persian monarch. In future, please take care of him.

So he gives them to this boy to look after on the basis that he's more reliable. This young page boy has given all these things. And I think we should continue with this story, because in due course, it absolutely is the diamonds which save him mine. Shah Tamasp, who we've dealt with in earlier episodes of the Empire Pod, is a grumpy religious extremist. We did him, for those who maybe want to go and revisit in our Persian series. And initially, when Humayan arrives in Persia, he's given a very lukewarm welcome because these guys, the thing that matters most to the Safavids is, are you Sunni or Shia? They are this minority, the Shia, and they regard all Sunnis within.

enormous suspicion. And Humayne is a Sunni. So initially he doesn't get a very warm welcome. And the thing that turns it around is the gift of this enormous diamond, the Babur diamond. And we read in Johor's account, we remained several days encamped on the Shah's hunting grounds, during which time his majesty ordered his diamonds and rubies to be brought to him. And having selected the largest diamond, placed it in a mother of pearl box. He then added several other diamonds and rubies, and having placed them in a tray, gave them to the charge of Byron Begg to present to the Persian monarch with the message that they were brought from Hindustan purposely for his majesty. When Shatahmas saw these precious stones, he was astonished, and he sent

for his jeweller to value them. The jewelers declared that they were above all price, on which the Persians signified his acceptance to help Umayan. So this thing that he just left by the riverbank does literally turn his fortunes around. Well, I mean, it really does because when, again, I'm doing a dial-rumpel, but let's just say he does return to India. If he were, if he were to return to India, I mean, having a Persian cavalry with you, which is one of the best cavalries in the world, is not a hindrance. Let's put it that way.

Okay. But Shah Tamas, as we have described in our previous Persian series, is a really grumpy, angry difficult to get on with, man. So how do these two, you know, hippie-dippy, who are you, who sounds, you know, absolutely sweet? A bit hopeless, yeah. Ever so slightly hopeless. How do they get on? Because, you know, does he have to also embrace the religion of Thomas and say, look, you know what, I know I am a sonny, but I want your help. So I'm willing to, I'm willing to think about Shias. I'm quite interested in Shias. How far does he have to go? And how much has Tomas convinced by him. This is exactly the game he has to play. He knows what happened to his father,

Babu, when he embraced Shia Islam, or certainly made an outward appearance of having embraced it. Well, everyone turned against him and said, you're a treacherous man we can't follow. Exactly. But he now is in a situation where he really does have no option. And so there is this month when the two of them travel through Iran and they travel through all the nicest places. I mean, when I have traveled through Iran, if I had to choose my favorite places, he goes to Persepolis, which at this stage of history was believed by the Persians to have been built by the hero Jamshed. He goes to another building we've talked about also in our Persian series, the extraordinary

mausoleum of the Mongol Khan Ulgetu at Sultania, which is definitely the seed which stays in Humayyan's mind. And when he's planning his own tomb, as we now know he did, it's partly modelled on Sultania. So he's passing through all these places. And he basically he gets it right. He makes enough of a show of interest in Shia Islam and certainly tells, striking his beard. I'm fascinated by this without saying I'm actually converting to this. This is just fascinating. So certainly Shatimus is persuaded that he's serious. And having made whatever private promise he did do, he gets given at the end of this long tour of places like Tabriz and Ardabille and all these gorgeous places in Iran that he visits. He's given 12,000 Persian cavalry to go and retake Kandahar. And so this is the beginning of the comeback.

And Humayne has been now for whatever it is, 18 months on the run, ever since he lost the battle near Kanurj and has been fleeing. ever westwards into Persia, now for the first time, can begin to head eastwards back to it. Am I remembering it rightly that he also, and maybe this forges the relationship further, does he have to leave his son, Akbar, his newly minted son, in the Persian care as well? I mean, is that part of the deal? Not the Persian care, no. He's ended up with Ascari, who's the least devious of the uncles. And the young Abba, who's now, whatever he is, two years old or something, a toddler, is sitting in the Balahisar in Kabul, hoping that his dad may come and his fortunes will change.

And this begins at this moment with the Persian cavalry behind him. He takes Kandah and defeats Ascari and begins to look towards his first major step to reclaiming India, which is to try and capture Kabul. And in Kabul is the other brother, Kamran, who has proven himself to be a snake at every possible turn, every possible moment that he could have been a good brother. He has been the worst, the absolute pits of brotherhood. So, I mean, with this advancing army that has already been successful in Kandahar, no small thing. So what does Karmar do? When he sees the dust being kicked up by this cavalry of, you know, crack Persian cavalryman, does he stand or does he run? no, there's a battle and Homaan wins. Hulmine is not a bad general, although he does lose a couple, including the famous one to Cher Shah. Overwhelmingly in his life, he's a man who wins the battles that he sets out towards. So despite being the hippie-dippy mystic, despite being the bookish poet and the guy with, you know, he's always dreaming up mad inventions of floating gardens and collapsible palaces and IKEA tents and all this sort of thing. He is actually, like all the Timurids, he's an amazing

battlefield commander. And he moves against Kamran in Kabul. And he leaves Kandahar in the hands of his great ally, Byram Khan. And he gives his household and his baggage to his now 16-year-old wife, Hamida Begham. She's getting on a bit. She's cracking on a bit. Yes. And he sets off with his troops for Kabul. And on the way, they had the good luck to meet with a caravan of horse traders who've just come from India and acquired Persian horses. And they offered to support Humayans' campaign by supplying him with a thousand horses against just a promissory note. So they're persuaded to give them all these new horses for the cavalry. And there is a battle on the outskirts of Kabul. And quite a lot of Kamran's men just go over to Humayon because I think everyone in which regards him as a

as a good egg. Everyone knows that this guy is the true air of Babel, that he's a decent man. And they also know that Kamran is a slippery fox. There's a real issue of loyalty in what you think of a man. And if you see a man betray his brother, that is not good propaganda. No matter what the ruler has done, people don't forgive it very easily. And that certainly seems to be the case when people keep joining him. Does Kamran run away after losing the battle? After losing the battle, Kamran flees off to sin to the same place that Humayin was walking through. Eating his camel and a helmet. Yeah.

Eating his horse in a helmet, I should say. And Humayin enters Kabul without having to fight any more battles on the 17th of November 1545. And he's acclaimed by the population. Everyone comes out and cheers. And at that moment he sees his son Akbar for the first time in two years. He just left this little baby in a swaddling clothes and now it's a little two-year-old running around. Which I would suggest is quite irresponsible as a parent to do that. But, okay, look, let's take a break here because it looks like all will be well and Hamayo will live happily ever after.

Join us after the break because it, of course it's not going to be that. Of course it's not. Welcome back. So just before the break, we left you with success in Kandahar, success in Kabul. Bit by bit, by bit, Hamayo is claiming back territory from his treacherous brothers and he's got his little boy back now as well, who's now a toddler who he last left with a family. really murderous and treacherous brother as a baby. And everything is looking good. And what I love about Humay, William, and he reminds me a bit of you is he has a huge success and then he kind of

does a gap yard again because he loves his tours and parties. He does. He likes what both things? So a couple turns into party central after this victory. What kind of thing does he do? I mean, it's wonderful. I mean, the sort of the wrestling matches and planting are particularly cute here. So what does it like? He likes all that sort of thing. And he likes to combine a bit of wrestling with taking quite a lot of opium. So the two... Oh my God. It's like drunken boxing. And it's over this period that it's realized because they try to educate Akbar at this point. Akbar's gone slightly wild, I think. He's been out toddling around watching all these warriors.

And he has far more interest in war and battles than he does in his books as a young kid. And they try and teach him to read and he can't. And he remains bizarrely illiterate, uniquely among the Mughal Emperors for his whole life. Oh, this is so mad. He's basically dyslexic, I think, in modern terms. Well, Ebe Koch as well as I sort of said, you know, that she thinks he may be dyslexic. But you have to understand that, you know, if you've got tutors who are faced with this slightly wild boy, who's finding it very hard to read, that bears absolutely no resemblance

to the legacy of Akbar, who we're going to cover in an episode all of his own, who is known as one of the most learned, one of the most voracious hunters of truth of the entire Mughal dynasty. But does this without ever being able to read or read properly? I think it's crackers. Isn't that amazing? And the chroniclers of the time, or certainly Abel Faisal, who is the biographer of Akbar later in his life, writes that His Majesty was not destined for the formal knowledge of the world. And instead, he shows great promise as a huntsman, as a kind of young warrior. he's doing all the right things and he's sitting there with these little baby sword and

everything else. But they sack a couple of these old poor old mullahs who are brought him to try and teach him. The first teacher who's called Mullah Zada, Mullah Isam al-Din Ibrahim, who's a very sort of grand and great scholar, is sacked and accused of being more interested in flying pigeons than teaching the emperor, the future emperor. But the subsequent tutors do know better. Can I do a little bit of pop psychology? I mean, you can't stop me even if you wanted to.

You know, I'm on one now. But I think that these formative years are so telling because Akbar will grow up to be a great esthete. He will treasure things that he can see and things that he can hear. He's going to be more tolerant than any who have come before him. And I wonder, because look, they may have fired the teachers, but you can guarantee that that poor little boy who's not reading the Quran as he should or not reading the books is he's going to get frequent beatings for not doing his work and not concentrating.

And I think that remoulds a man, actually. I'll just end by reading two little lines by Abel Faisal. He says, his majesty was not receptive to lines scribbled by a pen. God did not desire that his special protege be sullied with formal knowledge. And instead, his majesty turned to pigeon flying, dog racing and hunting. Well, why wouldn't he? I mean, it's the equivalent of going to play football. round the back with your mates. Let's get back to the dad, though. So he's sort of done his tour.

He's had his opium wrestling matches. Everybody's had a massive party. Carball has been very, very jolly with pink blooming Judas trees and, you know, just colour and all sorts of wonderment that he brings. And there's one other good omen, which is an important thing, which we have many pictures of. It seemed to be, I mean, it's a weird moment to us, but it was clearly considered very significant at the time. Humayin, even in his lowest moments, had a pet cockerel, and he clearly didn't eat the pet cockerel when he had the option let the horse instead. And there's a moment when he hears that Kamran is coming for him again. The wicked brother has gathered an army in Sindh and is marching on Kabul. And at that moment,

when this news comes, the pet cockerel allegedly flies onto his shoulders and crows. So Humayne takes this as a moment that he's definitely going to win. And they set off together. I'm looking at a picture of it. I'm looking at a picture of it right now, a snowy white cockrawl on his shoulder and all of his retinue sort of looking in wonder, behold the cock on your shoulder, they say. And this is suddenly, you know, this is now going to be the thing that grants him victory. Oh, that's amazing. So magic cockcrawl, as you say, there are a few depictions of the magic white cockle. Okay. So what is Cameroon doing? He's not giving up. He's a scheming busted, as we've established before. Schemean Kamran does indeed attack and is again defeated. And he's captured by Humayin, who to the horror of his courtiers, he then forgives for the third time. And both brothers pour with tears,

but inevitably, of course, Cameron being the little shit that he is, within a month has fled the palace and is raising hell again. And this time, there's a battle called the Battle of Kipchak. and Humayin loses it initially. But what about the cock? What happened there?

How could this happen? Clearly disappeared. So why is he defeated? How is he defeated there? So there's this very, again, this sudden moment in 1550, and it looks again as if Humayan's fortunes have given up on him. And he gets wounded in this battle, and it's a very bloody wound.

And he throws off his bloody turban, or his bloody turban at least falls off. maybe. And it's found and brought to Kamran who thinks that Umayin is dead. And this means that Kamran no longer keeps up his guard. And shortly afterwards, Sumayan comes back, defeats Kamran for the last time. And there's no hugs this time. So can I just add to that? Because not only, you know, when he finds the blood-soaked clothes, does he think, oh good, my brother's dead, the one I hugged and promised to love and cherish just five minutes ago. He's dead. Hooray. But he then sort of, not only does he let his God down, but he rushes back to Kabul to take the young Prince Akbar, because if he has Akbar,

there's no other claimant who can come to the throne. So he is a terrible brother, but he's also a dreadful uncle as well, this man. Okay, so I just want everyone to feel better about what happens. So when he's defeated the second time, please tell me he's not hugged again. He's not hugged again. And this time, and this is interesting, that before, Humean can forgive him, because he's made this formal vow to his dad that he obviously doesn't want to break despite everything. I think his army sees what's coming and Kamran is blinded by the troops who've had enough.

Right, they take his eyes. They take his eyes out. And Humayin doesn't kill him. Again, very honorably, he doesn't kill him. But he sends the blind Kamran off to Mecca on a pilgrimage. So that's Kamran, eyeless and without much sympathy from the audience. But what about Little Hindle? So Hindal was the baby of Barber, the one that Barbara on his deathbed says, I want to see Hindle, please bring me Hindle.

You know, the real apple of his father's eye, even though Humayor is the one who becomes emperor. I mean, where are his loyalties and what's he up to in all this time? So Hindal has finally stayed loyal to Humayin, and he is always Humayin's favorite brother. And in that war, that final war between Kamran and Humayin, there's a moment when Kamran's forces attack Humayin's camp at night. and Humayin is actually not there but Hindle is and he's killed. Oh, he loses his baby brother, the only brother who was loyal. Yep. And him being a really sort of emotional cove, this would have been totally devastating for him, no?

I think this was devastating and we have again pictures of this in the miniatures. And this is one of the sort of sad moments of Humayan's life. But shortly afterwards, the missing library cows turn up. And again... Oh, few. because they'd been playing on my mind. Library camels have disappeared after the Battle of Kipchuk, and they turn up with his entire library,

which includes all Babu's favourite books too. And I think the original manuscript of the Babonama is on these library cabals at the spot. Without which we'd have lost the greatest autobiography written in this whole Islamic world ever, arguably. The Babonama is the great masterpiece. So anyway, the library camels turn out. Well, I'm glad about that,

because he needs something to read. And he's also got eyes to read them. Sorry, that's too soon. It's too soon to make jokes, eye jokes. But, you know, I don't like Cam Ran. So Cam Ran's been dispatched off to Mecca. He has won battles. He's lost Hindle, but he, you know, he's winning. Does he then think of India? Because, look, he's been out of India. He's been drop kicked out of India since 1543. He basically hasn't had any communication with India. It's been, you know, Sheshire has made sure that he has no foothold. And, you know, he's lost to Shersha. So he's a little bit battle. shy, I would have thought, of facing up to this man again.

Does things change? Not only that, Cher Shah has built a sort of Maginot line between Kabul and India. And I've stayed in one of these fortresses. And it is magnificent. It's the fort of Rotas, which is a sort of day's journey westwards from Lahore. And it's one of the greatest of all the fortresses of this time. It's in the middle of nowhere. So it's never been knocked down or had its walls sort of claimed for later projects.

and when I was in my 20s, I spent a night within the walls there. I somehow managed to get the Pakistan Archaeological Survey. And this was built specifically to stop Humayan coming back to India. It was meant to be this impregnable fortress that you couldn't possibly go round or ignore. But in quick succession, at this point, Sheshire and his son both die. and this Afghan empire which had been dominating India all the time that Humayan is in exile suddenly is thrown into chaos and the Maginot line of Rotas is abandoned. So indeed, Humayin thinks this is the moment I've been waiting for.

Not unreasonably, not unreasonably he thinks that, you know, the drawbridges down. How quickly then does that campaign start? So he now no longer needs the help of the Persians. He's got enough supporters in Kabul and in Kandahar, and he hasn't got his brothers. Trying to kill him at every turn. Every turn. So this is his great moment of triumph. And in 1554, he mounts his great attempt to retake his lost kingdom in India. And this time he chooses the best month for it. It's mid-November around this sort of time of year. which in the days before pollution used to be the most gorgeous time here in Delhi where I'm speaking from, but looking out onto post-Diwali terrible pollution outside.

I can't tell you how miserable is at the moment. And he moves towards India and he actually puts the 12-year-old Akbar, 12-year-old, in charge of the vanguard of the army. This is just unthinkable. A woman came up to who said, I heard you talking about your 14-year-old and talking about people leading battles. and I totally feel your pain. I've got one like that. This guy is 12.

Basically, strapped to a horse and sent in front of an army to charge. And I think he's good at it. This is what Akbar, he's not good at reading and writing. He is good at leading the vanguard of an army. And Humeoen chooses to go down the Kabul River, he loves boats. And he's always been designing these boat palaces and boat gardens and boat bridges. So he sends Akbar on horse and he comes down the Kabul River punting down the river. It's a wonderful river. I've driven along it. And in the 2nd of February 1555, he reaches Lahore and there's another battle and he defeats the last of Cher Shah's line who's pulled out his troops and lined them up along the plains just outside the walls of Lahore. And there's another month of brutal fighting. And eventually on the 23rd of July 1555, who might be

enters Delhi and assumes the throne in the citadel which he just begun when he was kicked out, Dienpanochila. Baranakila, meaning the old fort, very simply the old fort. Yep. And he then gets his chance to continue all the building that he hadn't built before. And the first thing, of course, he needs, being Humayne, is he needs a library. Well, it was either that or a zodiac chicken. I mean, it was one of those two.

I didn't know which way you were going to swerve in the end there. It was going to be, you know, planetary poultry or some books on a camel. Okay, so it's books. Right. And where does he get his books from? Does he send out across the rounds and send me your books? This time, the library camels are not lost. And they walk into piranha key, presumably in procession.

And the Chermandal is erected pretty quickly. And this is going to be very important because we're going to have to come back to the Shireman Dahl in less happy moments in a while. But this is the moment that Humayin has been saving up for. He didn't lose the faith. He didn't give up. At one point, he thought he might just go off to Mecca and throw the whole thing in. And we get in the very brief period now that Humayin still has to rule a wonderful taste of what he could have been if all this accidents and his brothers didn't betray him and all these terrible things didn't happen to him. So the first thing that happens is he imports Persian painters.

And this is a very, very important moment, because it's basically the moment when the Mughal military tradition, at the moment those of you who are in London can go and visit this extraordinary, absolutely wonderful mogul exhibition at the VNA, and there you see some of the greatest Islamic paintings ever produced. By people like Bichita and stuff. I mean, I was saying the name correctly. Yeah, you're saying it exactly right.

So Bichita is, just to give you some context, is what would you call him the Da Vinci of his day? You know, he is the painter, the miniatur, the miniatur, of his day. So Bichita is absolutely one of the greatest of all Mughal paintings, and he is, features wonderfully in the V&A mogul show, which everyone should go and see. But the two painters who kickstart this are the two greatest painters from Persia at the time. And their names are Mir Saeed Ali and Khadadad al-Samad. and they arrive just before Humayan sets off for Delhi in Kabul, and they follow him to Delhi. And they set up in Delhi this first Mughal Atelier. And what seems to happen, art historians think, is that they train up Jane painters from Gujarat,

because there are signs in the very early Mughal miniatures, particularly the Hamzanama, which is commissioned by the young Akbar shortly after this, signs that there are painters from the Gujarati Jane painting tradition, but they're studying under the Persians. And this, again, is very much what we're going to see in the moguls episodes which follow. It's this amazing fusion that we get of the colour and the brightness and the inventiveness of Indian painting meeting meeting the formality and precision of the Persian style. Yeah, and there is something very, very new happening. You're quite right, because there is a candor about this. And the only way I can sort of put this is he is a TikToker before TikTok. Because what the court paintings do is they chronicle even, you know, quite tender minutiae moments of Hamaio's life. So you've got, you know, Hamaya and Hameh are being reunited with Akbar. Somebody wasn't there at the time, but they painted it, you know, a little boy running to his parents. There's another wonderful miniature, is one of my favorites, which is Akbar wrestling with his cousins for a drum on the floor and he's clearly like a tod. Isn't it beautiful? It's a gorgeous picture.

I know that one. They're basically, they're brawling with each other, these two little kids. Well, Hamayo is sort of, you know, looking at, you kids in the background. But this is not courtly painting, as it has been known before. He is chronicling and telegraphing bits of life that we haven't been privy to. And it's rather, it's rather touching and marvelous, actually. It is. And there's this so much that is new that's happening in this painting at this time. You're getting a breaking down of the formality that's there in Persian painting. You've always had, under the best of Timurid and Persian painting, an extraordinary love of humanity and the recorded moment, exactly like you're saying. But it's often quite sort of hidebound and within these very tight, very formalized. Mughal painting, somehow, you know, the straps are loose. There's a greater humanity and a greater interest in individuals. And wit. There's wit. And there's sort of amusement. You know, you've got a man watching his kid beating up another kid. And they're only little toddlers. It's not like very violent. It's just two little boys squabbling on the floor. And it

looks more human than Courtney, which is kind of sweet. And this is the moment now when Humayne can indulge all his fantasies about floating palaces, floating market gardens, floating gardens, can really develop all his occult ideas. Remember that everyone in the world, including all over the West, believes still at this point in history that we are governed by the stars. And it is a sign of Humayans learning rather than a sign of his gullibility that he has this interest in the occult. And what is fascinating is he brings into Mughal court custom a whole series of Hindu practices which will continue in mogul court tradition, such as the weighing of the emperor. This is one of the most common pictures you see in mogul miniature.

The mogul emperor gets onto a pair of scales, and he's weighed against gold, which is then distributed to the poor. I think not just gold, but against gold, coral and pearls, is it? Anyway, there's this whole sort of tradition. Now, everyone used to think that was started by Akbar, but we've now found everything. that in fact it's Humayin who introduces this practice from the Hindu kings. And he also has this sort of idea of himself as a sun king. He plays tricks with light at court. The court language talks about him as a sun king, very much in the same manner that the French will

use for Louis the 14th. But with a whole lot of, I think, Zoroastrian ideas behind it. It's all very complex. Ebercoq writes absolutely beautifully about this. And then there's one other extraordinary moment when Humayan meets at this point, one of the other most extraordinary men of the age, who is a shipwrecked Ottoman admiral called Siddi Ali Race. And Siddi Ali Race is a measure of the kind of inquisitiveness of people's minds at this time, has discovered from captured Western sailors in the Ottoman realms that there has been a discovery of a new, continent called America. It's amazing. This is so early as well in history. And Sidi Ali Reyes has interviewed these sailors. He's brought them out of whatever terrible galley they'd been cast into. And he honors them and they reveal to him the details of their expeditions. And Sidi Ali Reyes and these sailors construct between them the first map of America made in a Muslim country. And bizarrely,

guy's shipwrecked off the coast of Gujarat and comes to Humayans' court at this point. So you can imagine these two sort of bookish, brilliant men meeting at the Shermandal. Who've been through lots. You know what? Sidiali Reyes's writing is so completely delightful because he talks about such things as, you know, sort of having a whale sailing towards your ship at great speed and the water turning grey or trying to get around whirlpools. I mean, it's a real, always own adventure. And you can just imagine the tales that he's. spinning to Hamaio who's eating up every single word of these real adventures that he's had on the ocean. Do you remember our wonderful guest, Mark Baer, who came on the pod to talk about

Suleiman the Magnificent? He opens his book on the Ottomans in the introduction with the story of the time when, after I think five years in the top capy archives, he'd befriended the librarians enough and they got out the Sade Ali-Rees map of America, which also has bizarrely bits of the coast of Antarctica, I think. There's a whole lot of sort of speculation on how this shoreline of Antarctica appears on this map too. Anyway, it's one of the extraordinary moments. You can just imagine him and Humayan. So everything is back together. Humayan is busy planning his mystic palaces. He's adopting Hindu ideas like weighing the emperor. He's reading and trying to introduce into his court the different colors for the different stars at the different times.

and stations of the planets. He's playing this bizarre twister. And then one day he climbs to the top of the newly made Shermandal, his library in the center of the Piranakila. And he's wearing one of his fancy long gowns that he wears now, he's emperor and back in charge of his palace. And at that moment, the call to prayer comes when he's just on the top step. and he turns a half step to go down the stairs again because he wants to go to the evening prayers

and he trips on a step in the long gown. Some people say opium was involved but there's actually no evidence for that. And he tumbles down the newly made sharp presumably. Freshly cut stone stairs. And he cracks his head. And it's not immediately clear that this is fatal. There's a deep wound in the temple. and blood has trickled from his ear.

But he regains consciousness. I mean, he doesn't, he's not sort of out and gone. He wakes up again, doesn't he? Does he manage to talk to his son or dictate something to his son, doesn't he? Akbar is off hunting or something. I think at this point as Akbar often does. And he's only 13. So, I mean, let's just put dates on these guys.

So, you know, Akbar having just a year ago led an army for his dad is off hunting age 13. And Hamayo is really very young. I mean, by our standards, he's only 48. He's only 48 years old. But he opens his eyes. His head is crusted in blood, but he's not dead. He opens his eyes and he calls for a scribe because his son is off hunting. And he says, I want you to write a letter to my boy.

And this letter survives. And it says, to our dearest and most precious son, beloved of fortune, and under the protective gaze of God, apple of my eye of the sultanate and caliphate, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, know that near the afternoon prayer on Friday the 11th of the current month, we went up to the roof of the library which is being rebuilt, and there we held interviews until the evening prayer.

When it was time for the evening prayer, we were in a hurry to get down, and we had gone a few steps down the stone staircase, which contains 12 stairs when the call for prayer was given. We wanted to sit down as we were in the act of sitting our royal foot, caught in the hem of a fur coat, and we rolled down to the bottom of the stairs. Divine protection preserved us, and aside from a slight bruising of the head and shoulder,

there is no other pain. Thanks to God for the limitless favour, it passed well and no injury was suffered, thank God. Our dear son should not allow himself to worry or suffer in any way, and he should be of easy mind. If any false report has arrived, he should not believe them, for through divine favour there is no cause for concern.

any condition that ensues will be reported on a daily basis, but he's fractured his skull. And he has a hemorrhage, he has an internal hemorrhage, his brain swells, and he dies. So this little boy gets the letter, he thinks his father is okay, and then in an instant, when his father's eyes closed for the last time, his life has changed forever. A 13-year-old will be the new emperor of the Mughals. and pretty lost, although Humao has left little blueprints for him to follow, which probably will be a comfort. Exactly that. And one of the things that's newly emerged from Eberch's extraordinary reassessment of Humaean is that Humaean was the person who came up with the ideas for Hume's tomb, which is a short distance from I'm talking five miles away from here in Delhi. and Humayyamaiyan's tomb is three quarters of the way to the Taj Mahal. You can see all the ideas which will become the most famous of all mogul buildings, the most famous of all Islamic

buildings, arguably the most beautiful building in the world. And it is Humayans' ideas that form that. And what's fascinating is that a lot of the ideas came from his travels in Afghanistan and Iran, if he hadn't had to lose the throne, if he hadn't had these terrible fortunes of crossing sinned, nearly losing his diamonds, going to Persia, he'd never have seen Sultania. He'd never have seen the extraordinary buildings of Herat, which absolutely fascinate him as they did his father. And before he dies, he is coming up with plans which are realized in Humayin's tomb, which will create the building style for which the moguls are best known. When you think of the moguls, the thing you think of is not so much their political action

or how they administered or their taxation system or any of the rest of it. It is the Taj Mahal. That is their achievement in a single building, this superbly beautiful, unbeaten glory of this white marble tomb. And three quarters of the idea of the Taj are there in Humayin's tomb. You can see it. You can see it. The outline, I mean, it's so familiar. It's in red brick rather than white marble. Exactly. But you can absolutely see it is a whisper of what is to come. That's a lovely way to leave it. Anyway, listen, join us next time when we discuss the reign of a scared little boy who starts off at the age of 13 and has some very big, but, you know, really remarkably underestimated shoes to fill. We talk about Emperor Akbar. Until the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. A goodbye from me, William Droomple.