Comparative Questions?

  1. What do the documents included in this chapter reveal about the role of religion in Islamic imperial government? How was religion used to justify policy? How was it used to legitimize authority?
  2. Compare and contrast Selim’s letter to Ismail (Document 17-1) and the excerpts from the Memoirs of Jahangir (Document 17-5). What did each author see as a ruler’s primary duty? How did each go about fulfilling that duty?
  3. Compare the Mughal building projects described in this chapter (Document 17-3 and Document 17-4) with Justinian’s building projects in sixth-century Constantinople (Document 8-4). What similarities and differences do you note?
  4. How would you characterize Monserrate’s interactions with Akbar? How do they compare with those of the Spanish and the Mexica in roughly the same period (Document 16-4)?

The Tūzuk-i-Jahangīrī or Memoirs of Jahāngīr, ed. Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1909–1914), 2, 105.