Grand Mughal

Grand Mughal or Mogul, also Great Mughal, is a title coined by Europeans for the ruler of the Mughal Empire of India. The Mughals themselves used the title Padishah. The title is especially associated with the third in the line, Akbar the Great (1542-1605).[1] It is said that the Portuguese called Akbar the Grand Mughal and sent Jesuit missionaries to convert him to Catholicism.[2]

Le Grand Mogol ("The Grand Mughal") as imagined by French cartographer Alain Manesson Mallet (Paris, 1683)

The Mughal empire was romanticized in Europe, particularly from the sixteenth century onward. The empire's court at Agra, for instance, was often described in glowing terms.[3] An account stated that it is not uncommon for Britons living in India to adopt the Mughal culture.[3]

The Mughal rule persisted until the mid-nineteenth century,[4] ending in 1737 with the death of the sixth Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb (an account also cited Nadir Shah's invasion as the cause of the empire's demise).[5]

In the same way the Ottoman sultan was known as the "Grand Turk".

References
  1. "...the Mughal dynasty". PBS (pbs.org). Retrieved April 11, 2010.
  2. Boavida, Isabel; Pennec, Herve; Ramos, Manuel Joao (2011). Pedro Páez's History of Ethiopia, 1622. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 5. ISBN 9781908145000.
  3. O'Brien, P. (2008). European Perceptions of Islam and America from Saladin to George W. Bush: Europe's Fragile Ego Uncovered. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 81. ISBN 9780230613058.
  4. Maxwell, Catherine (2017-10-20). Scents and Sensibility: Perfume in Victorian Literary Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191005213.
  5. Osterhammel, Jürgen (2018). Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 368. ISBN 9780691172729.
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