Iranians in Mughal Politics and Society: 1606-1658

Historians have taken into account the Iranians presence in 17th century India in the context of their studies of the Mughal state and its apparatus. They do not, however, examine in depth the Iranians share in the formation of this apparatus. Many key questions pertaining to the migration of the Iranians in Mughal India remain unclear. This book examines the regions of Iran wherefrom the migrants came, the type of the people who migrated to India and the place where they finally settled. A major concern of the present work is to study and highlight the reasons and factors that determined the Iranians migration to India. Why did Iranians people migrate to India, why not to Central Asia? What were the factors which influenced and shaped the Mughal policy towards the Iranian nobility? Was it guided by the interests of the Mughal state? If yes, to what extent? Did religion exert any influence on the migration of Iranians into India, and or on their relationship with the Indian Mughal rulers? The book is an attempt to answer these questions. The study is based on a large number of sources, including Persian chronicles and tazkiras, both Iranian and Indian, and European accounts and travelogues.