Common People and the Founding of the Mughal Empire: Timurid Practices of Wartime Justice and Tyranny over Local Populaces, 1494-1556

This project studies the wartime treatment of commoners by Babur (r. 1494-1530) and Humayun (r. 1530-1556) during their founding of the Mughal Empire. Originally conceived as a question of military logistics, i.e., how did these two Timurid conquerors supply their armies, it expanded into a question of kingship, i.e., how did they treat the local populaces who produced the supplies, especially food, that the soldiers needed in the campaigns across Central and South Asia.