The Second Mughal Emperor, Naseer od-Din Humayun

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On February 22, 1555 AD, the 2nd Mughal Emperor, Naseer od-Din Humayun reconquered eastern Afghanistan and northern subcontinent with Iranian help, fifteen years after losing his throne to the Pashtun adventurer, Sher Shah Suri, who drove him out of India. Born in 1508 in Kabul, where his father, the Timurid prince Zaheer od-Din Babar had established himself with the assistance of Shah Ismail I the founder of the Safavid Dynasty of Iran, he succeeded to the throne of Delhi in 1530, while his step-brother Kamran Mirza obtained the sovereignty of Kabul and Lahore.
His peaceful personality, patience and non-provocative methods, in addition to his addiction to opium, cost him the kingdom ten years later, forcing him to seek refuge in Iran, where he was cordially received by Shah Tahmasp I, who provided financial aid and 14,000 choice troops to regain his Empire.
Humayun, along with his trusted general, Bairam Khan, crossed the Indus River and in February of 1554, he occupied the Punjab, including Lahore, without any serious opposition. To check the Moghul-Persian advance, Sikandar Shah of Delhi sent a huge army of Afghans and Rajputs that was defeated. Finally on June 22, 1555, he again sat on the throne of Delhi.
Thousands of Iranians continued to migrate every year and were given high civil and military positions in the Mughal Empire. This signalled an important change in Mughal court culture, as the Central Asian origins of the dynasty were largely overshadowed by the influences of Persian art, architecture, language and literature.
Humayun’s most noted achievement was in the sphere of painting. His devotion to the early Safavid School, developed during his stay in Iran, led him to recruit Persian painters of merit to accompany him back to India. These artists laid the foundation of the Mughal style which emerged from its Persian chrysalis as an indigenous achievement in which Indian elements blended harmoniously with the traditions of Iran and Central Asia.
Even Humayun's tomb, built by his widow, Hamida Bano Begum (daughter of Shaikh Ali Akbar Jami, an Iranian Shi’ite Muslim descended from the mystic Shaikh Ahmad Jami of Torbat-e Jam in Khorasan), fits into the Iranian tradition of imperial mausoleums – a tradition that can be seen, for example, in Uljayatu's tomb at Sultaniyya and Timur's at Samarqand. It is said Humayun had also embraced the school of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. He was succeeded by his son, Akbar.