Talk:Mughal Empire

Info Box name of Arabic and Urdu

In Arabic it is Sultanate Al Hindiyyah سلطنة الهندية

In Urdu it is Hindoostan ہندوستان as per poetry of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.

We should add this in info box. Abirtel (talk) 08:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

No we shouldn't, for the same reason (WP:INDICSCRIPTS) I gave you before. Remsense诉 12:54, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong here but WP:INDICSCRIPT only applies to Indic scripts, which the Perso-Arabic script is not. All the same, I too think that there is not need to add it to the infobox. PadFoot2008 12:57, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

It's a script that is used to write an Indian language in India, which is what the spirit of the guideline is about. Remsense诉 13:00, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Then can we go forward for English transliteration? Abirtel (talk) 06:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Forgive me for my ignorance, but I just don't really know why this would be considered key information to the reader. They are all variations on the name "Hindustan". Remsense诉 12:06, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Have a look of page East Germany. The entity is non existent.

But but it has different, conventional name and native name other than the title.

It is more fair to add native names of that entity along with title which is an exonym.

Greetings. Abirtel (talk) 04:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

That's one of the worse examples one could pick for several reasons, including that "Deutschland" and "Germany" are etymologically unrelated. It does not seem like you are engaging with the reasons why people may oppose this. I will try to state them clearly:

1. We shouldn't have script versions of names in the infobox, per WP:INDICSCRIPT.
   • I am going to continue to include Perso-Arabic with Brahmic scripts since it seems obviously in line with the point of said guideline—which is many scripts are used in India and it is not feasible to fairly represent them all.
2. The infobox is for key information at a glance. To me, key information includes that the Mughal Empire was called "Hindustan" by its inhabitants.
   • Each proposed name accidentally recreates the problem with the scripts above, just with the specific transliteration instead of script used.
   • This is important: the point is that these particular varieties of what I am judging to be the same name. Everyone called the country Hindustan, but of course it was adapted to the language they spoke.
   • Thus, for an English-speaking readership there is no key information being added, just an ornamental example that creates the same POV problems. We can't render "Hindustan" every single way, nor should we. What is important is that it was called Hindustan.

Remsense诉 04:52, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Emperor himself is considered a resident in his empire. Hindustani Bad Shahan always resided in Hindustan. Unlike British Indian Empire.

So the epithet of Aurangzeb

and the poetries of Bahadur Shah Zafar

have already passed out that criterion.

More over normal residents also refer that entity as Hindustan. See the Abul Fazl's Ain i Akbari.

Also Foreign documents in that entity's time frame also refer as Hindostan.

Lastly we have enough documents that English speakers referred that entity as Hindostan during the entity's existence.

References

👇 Abirtel (talk) 05:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

You are not listening. Please reread what I've said. Remsense诉 06:26, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Sure

Greetings Abirtel (talk) 03:29, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Atleast mention it in the 'top' just like it is mentioned in ottoman empire as turkish empire

and the first persian empire... why not here too?

Also we should change it in the infobox atleast,as its the official name used by their official records WhatAGreatWikiTuber (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Nope, per all of the reasons already discussed. Remsense ‥ 论 21:57, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Maratha Confederacy as a successor state

I added the Maratha confederacy as a successor state as most former Mughal territory including Delhi was succeeded by the Marathas. I have also added the British East India Company which also succeeded some Mughal territory. SKAG123 (talk) 04:38, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

As given, it's totally misleading at a glance. This is why the history should be treated primarily in prose—y'know, in the actual article—and parameters like these in the infobox should be used with care and only if it's not going to mislead the average reader. Remsense诉 04:53, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

If someone with no prior knowledge read that section as presented, they would come away with a totally inaccurate idea of the political progression in the broad strokes. If something needs nuance or a footnote to explain what it actually means, it shouldn't be in the infobox at all. Remsense诉 05:02, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree. The coins of the East India Company well into the 1830s were issued in the name of the Mughal emperor. I own a few, one of which I've added to the Company rule in India. Incidentally, the Marathas did the same. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

If political progression is the criteria for a successor then nearly every infobox about Indian empires including the Maurya Empire and Gupta Empire would have to be reorganized. The successor in nearly every other Indian empire recognized by the state that occupies the most territory of the preceding state. SKAG123 (talk) 17:25, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The point is clarity and immediate coherence. Infoboxes are not meant to look pretty, "full", or support what we consider to be undervalued perspectives; they are meant to communicate key information at a glance. If that is not possible, then unclear communication is not preferable.

As such, in any case:

nearly every infobox about Indian empires including the Maurya Empire and Gupta Empire would have to be reorganized

Correct; see also WP:OTHERCONTENT. Fixing the huge quantity of defective infoboxes onwiki is a big task—sometimes it feels Sisyphean. Please help out if you can. Remsense诉 17:37, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

That would be difficult as formal succession didn’t occur in most of Indian history. Most empires were conquered by others and weren’t formally succeeded. Other articles such as German Confederation also list various successors of the territory of the former state in this manner.

In this article, most territory under the Delhi sultanate was conquered by the Mughal empire therefore it is listed as a predecessor. Most former Mughal territory was succeeded by the Maratha Confederacy. There was not formal succession in either situation.

I don’t see an issue with using this criteria as most similar infoboxes have been have been stable in this way for a while. SKAG123 (talk) 19:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point I'm making, which is that simplification or omission is preferable to unexplained, misleading, or contrived presentation. The "formality" or "officialness" doesn't matter as long as "succession" is accurate to how sources describe a political situation. And I wish I did not have to reiterate that longevity is not a good excuse for something to be defective: mere longevity is the weakest form of consensus, as it only proves that nobody noticed or went out of their way to fix something. If something is confusing or defective, it should be remedied. Cf. WP:BEENHERE.

To be clear, I'm only interested in discussing this article and will not be bogged down in extended discussions about other articles: my entire point is that you can't just lean on what other articles say per WP:OTHERCONTENT. I'm saying they should likely be remedied as their presentation is confusing to the average reader, but I'm not actually on that project right now myself. Remsense诉 19:26, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

the issue is that political succession did not occur in most Indian empires as one empire typically just occupied another. The Mughals never succeeded the Delhi sultanate as Babur never became the sultan of Delhi.The Mughal empire did politically succeed the Timurad empire, however they had no power at the time. Similarly the Marathas never officially succeeded Mughals instead subdued them. It is inaccurate to say that the Mughal Empire was solely succeed by the British raj as the emperor has no real power in 1857 and was a puppet under the Maratha Confederacy and later East India Company.

Therefore Im proposing this format

predessor 1 - Delhi sultanate (as most former Mughal was under the Delhi sultans prior)

prodessor 2 - Timurad Empire (as the Mughal empire did politically succeed the Timurads)

succesor 1 - Maratha Confederacy(as most former Mughal territory was captured my the Maratha Confederacy and the Mughal emperor in 1758 onwards was a subordinate of the Maratha Confederacy)

succesor 2 - East India Company (as the Mughal emperor in 1803 had control of the city of Delhi as a subordinate under the East India Company)

successor 3 - British Raj ( as the British raj politically succeed the Mughal emperor however the emperor has no real power at the time)

Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks SKAG123 (talk) 19:34, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Just leave these fields blank, except perhaps for the Delhi sultanate. It is all far too complicated for an infobox, and takes up too much space. There are also the Jats, Sikhs, Afghans, Persians .... Johnbod (talk) 19:41, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Johnbod. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:47, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Seahawk-2023 Discuss here please rather than edit warring, and please use edit summaries when you edit. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 16:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The only successor was British Raj. Company rule and the Maratha Confederacy both were under the suzerainty of the Mughal emperors. Your claim that the Mughal emperor was subordinate to anyone is unsourced (the Marathas always acknowledged Mughal suzerainty) and has been discussed a million times in the Maratha page as well as here. PadFoot (talk) 07:33, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The issue, for the third time, is that it is not clear what is being communicated to the average reader. This isn't our personal research project where we try to fill out all the tables—it's an encyclopedia, and readers are meant to be able to quickly understand the key facts of a topic by glancing at the infobox. This way of using it fails those readers. As @Johnbod said (and also I did several times above): when we can't communicate facts intuitively in the infobox, we shall not communicate anything, and instead treat them with the space and nuance they deserve in the article body. Remsense诉 07:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Mughal "suzerainty" over anyone was wholly nominal by 1720 or earlier, and it would be misleading to recognize it (if only by implication) in the infobox. Johnbod (talk) 11:36, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

any person with no idea of indian history will casually miss 200 years of indian history, we should come up with a solution for successor problem WhatAGreatWikiTuber (talk) 14:52, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

We say in the Early Modern History section of the India page,

Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajput, and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience. Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India. As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and control their own affairs.

I haven't really read the discussion above carefully, but a successor state, as far as I'm aware, is a concept that became current quite a bit after the Mughals. To put it differently, if "Hindustan" under the Mughals had been a member of the UN, it is unlikely that the different regional elites mentioned in green above would have been able to call themselves "Hindustan," at the UN were they to seek membership. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:46, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Indostan, India

I am *not* trying to revive the 'Dominion of Hindustan' Topic Thread.

I am simply putting forward that we should mention other names like 'India' , 'Indostan' in the Name Section of the Mughal Empire.

Source : Countless maps from 17–18th century, can send if required. WhatAGreatWikiTuber (talk) 12:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Maps are not reliable sources. You can add names that are well sourced, preferably with the name explicitly stated as an alternative name (e.g., "the Mughal empire was called xxx by yyy"). Bear in mind that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE). RegentsPark (comment) 15:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

That's nonsense of course. Gold standards are not excuses for omitting entirely relevant information and context that our readers need. The maps are reliable sources, particularly official ones of wide circulation. They just have to be used appropriately and the correct WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. The Mughal Empire being called "India" in certain periods falls under WP:BLUE, "Hindustan" likewise. "Indostan" is probably uncommon enough that it's not worth including here per WP:UNDUE/WP:NOTABILITY—not WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE, which has to do with people mistakenly dumping entire works that belong at Wikisource or that are still under copyright and is irrelevant here—now that we can use Wikidata entries to park the full laundry lists of alternative names and spellings like "Hindoostan". (If it's challenged there but accurate, it may become necessary to source it here in an appropriate footnote or similar treatment.) — LlywelynII 08:16, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Other capitals

Speaking of covering more ground, either this article or one split off and linked from here needs to handle the full list of capitals, to the extent it's known. I get that we have the four major ones, but if it was a regular thing to have additional capitals at times, we should start compiling that information somewhere WP:READERS can get to it. I've got 17th century explorers talking about Danapur as the metropolis of the country and no idea from this article whether that's accurate, a mistake on their part for Agra, a mistake on our part where the capital was within modern Agra but not actually in the Agra of the period, or something else. Yes, the full list of capitals notable and not "indiscriminate", although it might be WP:UNDUE bloat here in the main article once the list gets long enough. — LlywelynII 08:16, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

In other news, this excellent Quora response has some issues with our not-very-well-sourced claim that Kabul was a regular summer capital for an extended period. — LlywelynII 10:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

The whole notion of a capital city for the empire (pre-say 1710) is probably mistaken. As with many states in this and earlier periods, the "capital" was where the monarch & his rather small bunch of administrators happened to be. Only as the state apparatus grew, and could not trail after the monarch everywhere, does the concept becomes useful. Johnbod (talk) 15:08, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I see we have Itinerant court - rather weak on Asia. Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

"uplands of the Deccan Plateau"

The lead says that the empire stretched south to the "uplands of the Deccan Plateau", yet this is contradictory to the map, which puts the southern boundary much further south than the limits of the Deccan, at the same latitude as Nagapattinam. The source used for the claim [1] is specifically talking about the territory held under Akbar rather than the "peak" (i.e. ~1700, Aurangzeb) described in the lead. What should the lead say the southern boundary was? Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@RegentsPark @PadFoot2008 thoughts? I have not been able to find any sources describing the boundaries of the empire under Aurangzeb. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 08:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@Flemmish Nietzsche, perhaps we can rephrase it to to say:

lower reaches of the Deccan peninsula in South India.

instead of:

uplands of the Deccan plateau in South India.

PadFoot (talk) 11:05, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Flag

Flags of the Mughal Empire ,it shows multiple historical paintings from Mughal era with flags being represented,aren't these painting enough source for flags? JingJongPascal (talk) 17:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. Paintings capture events at a moment in time and we have no idea what the significance of a particular flag in a painting was or even if it was something imagined by the painter rather than actually used as a representative flag. What we need is a reliable source from a historian that states, unequivocally, that a particular flag was the representative flag of a ruler, state, or dynasty. RegentsPark (comment) 00:42, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

You can search the archives of this talk page to see why a flag is not displayed. Remsense ‥ 论 00:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Multiple Maps

I have added another map with switcher

The peak extent will still be the default one tho JingJongPascal (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I know you didn't realize since you're on mobile, but your edit totally broke the article display on desktop. I also do not think two maps are necessary. Consider asking first next time. Remsense ‥ 论 00:37, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I added multiple Maps as Ottoman Empire

Also had multiple depicting their change in territories, I didn't realise the article broke on desktop JingJongPascal (talk) 07:16, 2 November 2024 (UTC)