Degeneration of Muslim Society

In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Mughals ruled an empire far greater in population, wealth, and power than any of the other contemporaneous empires with which they shared Turko-Mongol heritage: the Safavids, Uzbeks, and Ottomans. In Mughal India, the fundamental transformations of the preceding centuries—the expansion of the agricultural frontier, the growth of commercial networks, and incremental technological change—continued apace under stronger and more unified rule. This was across Eurasia an era of increased global contacts, population growth, and political strength. As had been the case in the sultanates before them, the core military and economic institutions of these early modern empires were not specifically “Islamic” but rather shared characteristic patterns common across Asia.

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