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Abstract
This study explores bilateral relations of the Mughal Empire with the most powerful Muslim contemporary state of the time: the Ottoman Empire. Bilateral relations between the two empires have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. Actually, scholars while narrating Mughal relations with Persia and Central Asia in detail have almost totally ignored Mughal-Ottoman relations. The present study is a pioneering effort. It seeks to fill a gap in Indian and Ottoman historical literature by exploring Mughal India's political and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire.
Introduction
The sixteenth century was a century of great men and great political events, a period of 'realignment of political forces' all over the world, of religious ferment, and of cultural, economic and ideological reassessment on an extensive scale. During this century the Muslim world saw the rise of three great empires that constituted the most active, the most articulate and the most closely knit segment of the Muslim world community. The Ottoman Turks established themselves in Western Asia and later penetrated into Eastern Europe. The Safawids occupied the greater part of the Iranian plateau, while the Chaghtai Turks swooped into the Subcontinent and founded the Mughal Empire when Babur in the year 1526 succeeded in establishing the Mughal Empire which comprised Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Punjab, and northern India.1 First and foremost was the common racial and cultural identity; both Mughal and Ottomans were Turks. Babur was steeped in Turkish culture. He was an accomplished poet and prose writer of Turkish. His autobiography, written in chaste Turkish, is a fitting memorial to his proficiency in the Turkish language. Babur was, however, a Turk in appearance as well as sentiment. He had only contempt for the Mongols, despite his being half Mongol himself. He prided himself on being a Turk, and now, in the country which he had conquered, he and his troops were never called anything but 'Mughals' a deformed pronunciation of the word Mongol, widely used by Turkish and Afghan people. As Annette Beveridge says; "It would make him turn in his grave to know that his dynasty was called Mughal, for he hated the name and the tribes."2
Humayun was equally well versed in Turkish. He spoke it fluently and appreciated the Turkish...