SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Geographically the thesis is limited to Northern India, historically to the period falling between the year 1560 when Akbar began to rule and the year 1657 when Shah Jahan ceased to rule, and topically to the political structure of the Mughal Empire. It is divided into three parts. The first part which deals with the Central Government is divided into two sections, the one deals with the king and his position in the state, the transaction of state business by the king and his Farmans; and. the second with ministers as Heads of Departments and the transaction of the business of the Central Government by them. The second part deals with the structure of the Provincial Government and its relations with the Central; and the third gives an outline of the judicial system of the-Empire. A final chapter deals with Imperial service. Two Introductory chapters have been added to show the geographical features of the country and their effects upon the people and the form of government, and to give a summary of the experiments and lessons of three centuries of Muslim Rule in Northern India prior to the Mughals. The thesis is based entirely on original sources most of which have not been utilised at all by any other writer for this subject. The material, thus collected, is supplemented by the accounts of the contemporary European travellers and substantiated by historical the facts scattered through thousands of pages of the annals of the period, many of which have not been translated Into English. The thesis throws fresh light on a subject which has very rarely been dealt with and never in this precise form by writers oh Indian history.