HISTORY OF SHAHJAHAN

Shah Jahan assumed the Mughal throne on 24 January 1628 in Agra, a few days after the death of Jahangir. He inherited a vast and rich empire; and at mid-century this was perhaps the greatest empire in the world, exhibiting a degree of centralized control rarely matched before. Shah Jahan expanded his empire in all directions: he annexed the Rajput kingdoms of Baglana and Bundelkhand to the west, and in 1635 he captured the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda in the Deccan. The king of Bijapur offered some resistance, but was eventually compelled to capitulate to the Mughal army's superior might. Shah Jahan also captured petty kingdoms in Kashmir and the Himalayas.
Due to his conquests in the first decade, the empire grew in size and influence. Encouraged by this, Shah Jahan turned his eyes towards Central Asia in the 1640s. He fought the Uzbeks in Balkh for several years before giving up. The other disastrous campaign was against the Safavids of Persia, who ruled Qandahar. Shah Jahan mounted three campaigns against the Safavids, but each of them failed completely. Though Balkh and Qandarhar constituted, in a manner of speaking, the ancestral homeland of the Mughals, their ambitions were thwarted by the harsh realities of cold weather, distance, scanty resources, and determined local resistance.