Shah Jahan: Did you mean...?

Jahangir and His Vizier, I'timad al-Daula, folio from the Shah Jahan Album, ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper by Manohar, India, c. 1615. Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27) bestowed the title of...

Persian literature derives from a long oral tradition of poetic storytelling. The first recorded example of this tradition is the Behistun Inscription of Darius I (the Great, r. 522-486 BCE), carved on a cliff-face c. 522...

Spanning across three continents and holding dominance over the Black and Mediterranean Seas, the Ottoman Sultanate (1299-1922) was a global military superpower between the 15th and 17th centuries...

Persian miniature painting is a courtly and aristocratic art, with exquisite colors, balanced compositions, and meticulous attention to detail. Although its origins can be difficult to trace, many consider the Arzhang...

The Upanishads are the philosophical-religious texts of Hinduism (also known as Sanatan Dharma meaning “Eternal Order” or “Eternal Path”) which develop and explain the fundamental tenets of the religion. The name is translated as...

A tomb is an enclosed space for the repository of the remains of the dead. Traditionally tombs have been located in caves, underground, or in structures designed specifically for the purpose of containing the remains of deceased...

The story of the Mughal Empire is a fascinating one. It has most of the historical elements that one might expect out of an empire: powerful male rulers, wars of succession, magnificent buildings, conflicts...

East of the Zagros Mountains, a high plateau stretches off towards India. While Egypt was rising up against the Hyksos, a wave of pastoral tribes from north of the Caspian Sea was drifting down into this area and across into...

Suleiman the Magnificent (aka Süleyman I or Suleiman I, r. 1520-1566) was the tenth and longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Hailed as a skilled military commander, a just ruler, and a divinely anointed monarch...

Timur (1336-1405), also known as Tamerlane, Temür, or Timur Leng, was the founder of the Timurid Empire (1370-1507), which had its heartlands in modern-day Uzbekistan and capital at Samarkand. A Muslim Turkic...