Shah Jahan

Shah Jahan, born Khurram, was the fifth Mughal emperor. He was born in Lahore on 5 January 1592, took the throne on 19 January 1628 and was crowned at Agra on 14 February 1628. His son Aurangzeb imprisoned him in Agra Fort in 1658, and he died there on 22 January 1666. He is best known for the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in Delhi, and parts of the Lahore Fort and the Shalimar Gardens at Lahore were built in his reign (Wikipedia).

For the Panth his reign is the setting of Guru Hargobind's battles with the Mughal state. They followed an earlier clash in 1621, under his father Jahangir, when troops sent by the Jalandhar faujdar were repulsed.

Key moments

• Battle of Amritsar: the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says Shah Jahan was hunting near Amritsar while visiting Lahore when one of his favourite hawks flew into Sikh hands. The Sikhs refused to return it, and the emperor, annoyed, sent troops under Mukhlis Khan, faujdar of Lahore, who was killed at the place now occupied by Khalsa College. A Bhatt chronicle dates the battle to 14 April 1634. The date is disputed: Wikipedia's infobox also gives 1628, and the Encyclopaedia's entry on Painda Khan says the Guru's men fought imperial troops at Amritsar in 1629.
• 16 December 1634: the clash at Lahira, near Mehraj in the present Bathinda district, while the Guru was visiting Sikhs in the Malwa.
• 26 to 28 April 1635: at Kartarpur, Painda Khan, an Afghan once trained as a soldier by the Guru, turns against him after a quarrel over gifts and a hawk, and attacks with help from the Jalandhar faujdar. He is defeated in three days and falls to the Guru's sword on the last day.
• 1635 to 1644: the Guru retires to Kiratpur and spends the last nine years of his life there in peace.

What he is remembered for. In the Panth his reign is remembered for the three battles of the sixth Guru, the end of Painda Khan, and the Guru's last nine years at Kiratpur. In the empire it is remembered for its buildings and for the war of succession that followed: he named his eldest son Dara Shikoh as heir in September 1657, and Aurangzeb defeated Dara, had him killed in August 1659 and imprisoned his father, who is buried beside Mumtaz Mahal at the Taj Mahal.