Editing Aurangzeb (section)

==Death==
{{See also|Tomb of Aurangzeb}}
[[File:Biwi ka Maqbara.JPG|thumb|[[Bibi Ka Maqbara]], the mausoleum of Aurangzeb's wife [[Dilras Banu Begum]], was commissioned by him]]
[[File:TOMB aURANGAZEB.JPG|thumb|Aurangzeb's tomb in [[Khuldabad]], Maharashtra.]]

By 1689, the conquest of Golconda and Mughal victories in the south expanded the  Mughal Empire to 4&nbsp;million square kilometres,<ref name="Taagepera">{{cite journal |author=Rein Taagepera |author-link=Rein Taagepera |date=September 1997 |title=Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia |url=http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3cn68807 |journal=[[International Studies Quarterly]] |volume=41 |issue=3 |page=500 |doi=10.1111/0020-8833.00053 |jstor=2600793}}</ref> with a population estimated to be over 158&nbsp;million.<ref name="borocz"/> However, this supremacy was short-lived.<ref>{{harvtxt|Richards|1996|p=1}}</ref> Historian [[Jos Gommans]] says that "...&nbsp;the highpoint of imperial centralisation under emperor Aurangzeb coincided with the start of the imperial downfall."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire 1500–1700 |first=Jos J. L. |last=Gommans|author-link=Jos Gommans |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-415-23989-9 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3C1vz5ioOMwC&pg=PA16 |access-date=30 September 2012}}</ref>

Aurangzeb constructed a small marble mosque known as the [[Moti Masjid (Delhi)|Moti Masjid]] (Pearl Mosque) in the [[Red Fort]] complex in Delhi.<ref>{{cite book |last=Murray |first=John |year=1911 |title=A handbook for travelers in India, Burma and Ceylon |url=https://archive.org/stream/handbooktravelle00john#page/198 |edition=8th |location=Calcutta |publisher=Thacker, Spink, & Co. |page=198 |access-date=25 January 2014}}</ref> However, his constant warfare, especially with the Marathas, drove his empire to the brink of bankruptcy just as much as the wasteful personal spending and opulence of his predecessors.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Richards | first1 = J. F. | year = 1981 | title = Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy | journal = Comparative Studies in Society and History | volume = 23 | issue = 2| pages = 285–308 | jstor=178737 | doi=10.1017/s0010417500013311| s2cid = 154809724 }}</ref>

[[File:Aurangzeb reading the Quran.jpg|thumb|upright|Aurangzeb reading the ''Quran'']]

The Indologist [[Stanley Wolpert]] says that:

{{blockquote|The conquest of the Deccan, to which Aurangzeb devoted the last twenty-six years of his life, was in many ways a Pyrrhic victory, costing an estimated hundred thousand lives a year during its last decade of fruitless, chess-game warfare ... The expense in gold and rupees can hardly be imagined or accurately estimated. Alamgir's moving capital alone-a city of tents thirty miles in circumference, two hundred and fifty bazaars, with half a million camp followers, fifty thousand camels, and thirty thousand elephants, all of whom had to be fed, stripped peninsular India of any and all of its surplus grain and wealth ... Not only famine, but bubonic plague arose&nbsp;... Even Alamgir had ceased to understand the purpose for it all by ... 1705. The emperor was nearing ninety by then ... "I came alone and I go as a stranger. I do not know who I am, nor what I have been doing," the dying old man confessed to his son in February 1707.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Wolpert|first=Stanley A. |author-link=Stanley Wolpert |year=2004 |orig-date= 1977 |title=New History of India |edition=7th |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=167–168 |isbn=978-0-19-516677-4}}</ref>}}

[[File:Tomb of Aurangzeb at Khuldabad, Aurangabad, 1850s.jpg|thumb|The unmarked grave of Aurangzeb in the mausoleum at [[Khuldabad]], Maharashtra. Painting by [[William Carpenter (painter)|William Carpenter]], 1850s]]

Even when ill and dying, Aurangzeb made sure that the populace knew he was still alive, for if they had thought otherwise then the turmoil of another war of succession was likely.<ref>{{cite book |title=Civilization and Capitalism: 15th–18th Century: The Perspective of the World |volume=III |first=Fernand |last=Braudel |author-link=Fernand Braudel |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley & Los Angeles |year=1992 |orig-date=1979 (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin: ''Le Temps du Monde'') |isbn=978-0-520-08116-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xMZI2QEer9QC&pg=PA514 |page=514 |access-date=30 September 2012}}</ref> He died at his military camp in [[Bhingar]] near Ahmednagar on 3 March 1707 at the age of 88, having outlived many of his children. He had only 300 rupees with him which were later given to charity as per his instructions and he prior to his death requested not to spend extravagantly on his funeral but to keep it simple.<ref name="Qadir1936"/><ref>Sohoni, P., 2016. A Tale of Two Imperial Residences: Aurangzeb's Architectural Patronage. Journal of Islamic Architecture, 4(2), pp. 63–69.[https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/72668-EN-a-tale-of-two-imperial-residences-aurang.pdf]</ref> His modest open-air grave in [[Khuldabad]], [[Aurangabad]], Maharashtra expresses his deep devotion to his Islamic beliefs. It is sited in the courtyard of the shrine of the Sufi saint Shaikh Burhan-u'd-din Gharib, who was a disciple of [[Nizamuddin Auliya]] of Delhi.

Brown writes that after his death, "a string of weak emperors, wars of succession, and coups by noblemen heralded the irrevocable weakening of Mughal power". She notes that the populist but "fairly old-fashioned" explanation for the decline is that there was a reaction to Aurangzeb's oppression.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Katherine Butler |last=Brown |date=January 2007 |title=Did Aurangzeb Ban Music? Questions for the Historiography of his Reign |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=41 |issue=1 |page=79 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X05002313|s2cid=145371208 }}</ref> Although Aurangzeb died without appointing a successor, he instructed his three sons to divide the empire among themselves. His sons failed to reach a satisfactory agreement and fought against each other in a [[Mughal war of succession (1707–1709)|war of succession]]. Aurangzeb's immediate successor was his third son [[Azam Shah]], who was defeated and killed in June 1707 at the [[battle of Jajau]] by the army of [[Bahadur Shah I]], the second son of Aurangzeb.{{sfn|Irvine|1971|p=33}}

Both because of Aurangzeb's over-extension and because of Bahadur Shah's weak military and leadership qualities, entered a period of terminal decline. Immediately after Bahadur Shah occupied the throne, the [[Maratha Empire]]&nbsp;– which Aurangzeb had held at bay, inflicting high human and monetary costs even on his own empire – consolidated and launched effective invasions of Mughal territory, seizing power from the weak emperor. Within decades of Aurangzeb's death, the Mughal Emperor had little power beyond the walls of Delhi.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Mehta|first1=Jaswant|title=Advanced Study in the History of Modern India 1707–1813|date=2005|publisher=New Dawn Press|location=Elgin Ill, US|isbn=978-1-932705-54-6|page=141|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d1wUgKKzawoC&q=%22mughal+emperor%22+%22gates+of+delhi%22+maratha+decline&pg=PR7}}</ref>