Lord of All the World - The State, Heterogeneous Power and Hegemony in the Roman and Mughal Empires

TY - CHAP

T1 - Lord of All the World - The State, Heterogeneous Power and Hegemony in the Roman and Mughal Empires

AU - Bang, Peter Fibiger

PY - 2011/7/27

Y1 - 2011/7/27

N2 - Behind these observations was the ruler of the Mughal Empire between 1605 and 1627, Jahangir. The quotation is taken from his memoirs penned during the period of his reign and explains how he adopted the name under which he is known to history. The style is terse, the contents unexpected and pregnant with questions. In Jahangir’s reflections on ‘World Rule’ and providentially ordained government we see the confluence of three traditions of statecraft normally thought of as separate: Mughal, Ottoman and Roman imperialism. Within the space of a few lines, the problem of the character of universal empire appears as a question of similarities between Rome and the so-called Oriental despotisms of the Mughals and Ottomans. The emperor of Hindustan is found actively seeking to distinguish himself from a league of ‘Caesars’. The said ‘Caesars of Rum’, of course, were not the original Roman, but the Ottoman sultans, two of which had in previous generations held the name Selim, just as Jahangir had been named Salim at birth. ‘Caesar’, in turn, had been added by the Ottomans to their titles after the conquest by Mehmed II in 1453 of Constantinople, the old, and by then dilapidated, capital of the Roman Empire. As Kaiser-i-Rum Mehmed immediately moved his seat of government to his new won city and began restoring it to its former glory as the centre of a far-flung Mediterranean empire. Only from this time-honoured position, the meeting place of two continents, could the Ottomans hope to follow in the footsteps of the Romans and convincingly aspire to a universal dominion, as we read in the account of Kritovoulos, a contemporary Greek to join Ottoman service.2

AB - Behind these observations was the ruler of the Mughal Empire between 1605 and 1627, Jahangir. The quotation is taken from his memoirs penned during the period of his reign and explains how he adopted the name under which he is known to history. The style is terse, the contents unexpected and pregnant with questions. In Jahangir’s reflections on ‘World Rule’ and providentially ordained government we see the confluence of three traditions of statecraft normally thought of as separate: Mughal, Ottoman and Roman imperialism. Within the space of a few lines, the problem of the character of universal empire appears as a question of similarities between Rome and the so-called Oriental despotisms of the Mughals and Ottomans. The emperor of Hindustan is found actively seeking to distinguish himself from a league of ‘Caesars’. The said ‘Caesars of Rum’, of course, were not the original Roman, but the Ottoman sultans, two of which had in previous generations held the name Selim, just as Jahangir had been named Salim at birth. ‘Caesar’, in turn, had been added by the Ottomans to their titles after the conquest by Mehmed II in 1453 of Constantinople, the old, and by then dilapidated, capital of the Roman Empire. As Kaiser-i-Rum Mehmed immediately moved his seat of government to his new won city and began restoring it to its former glory as the centre of a far-flung Mediterranean empire. Only from this time-honoured position, the meeting place of two continents, could the Ottomans hope to follow in the footsteps of the Romans and convincingly aspire to a universal dominion, as we read in the account of Kritovoulos, a contemporary Greek to join Ottoman service.2

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - History

KW - Roman Empire

KW - Mughal Empire

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 9780230294721

SP - 171

EP - 192

BT - Tributary Empires in Global History

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

ER -