In the burning summer of 1658, the Mughal Empire stood at the edge of a sword. Emperor Shah Jahan lay ill, and in the marble corridors of power, brothers turned into enemies. At the heart of the storm were two princes: Dara Shikoh, the dreamer, and Aurangzeb, the strategist.
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Dara Shikoh was the eldest son, groomed for the throne, loved by his father, and admired by poets and saints. He spoke of unity between religions, sat with Sufi mystics, and translated ancient Hindu texts. But while Dara read books, Aurangzeb read battlefields. Silent, disciplined, and deeply ambitious, Aurangzeb believed the empire could not survive on ideas alone. It needed iron rule.
When Shah Jahan’s illness spread rumors of death, war erupted among the brothers. Dara marched confidently, trusting his royal birth and moral authority. Aurangzeb marched carefully, building alliances, bribing generals, and choosing the ground of battle. At Samugarh, Aurangzeb’s cannons thundered, and Dara’s forces collapsed. The scholar-prince fled, betrayed again and again, until he was finally captured.
Yet Aurangzeb’s greatest fear was not Dara’s army—it was Dara’s mind. Orthodox clerics whispered that Dara was a heretic, a threat to Islamic rule. Aurangzeb listened. He put Dara on trial, not as a rival prince, but as a danger to faith and order. The verdict was already written.
In 1659, Dara Shikoh was executed in Delhi. His body was paraded through the streets, a brutal message that mercy had no place in the battle for power.
Aurangzeb did not kill his brother out of hatred alone. He killed him out of fear—fear that a tolerant, questioning ruler would weaken the throne; fear that softness would destroy empire. Dara died dreaming of harmony. Aurangzeb ruled by discipline. And with that single act, the Mughal Empire chose strength over soul, a choice historians still debate centuries later.
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