Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad Shah (born Roshan Akhtar) (7 August 1702 � 26 April 1748) was Mughal emperor from 1719 to 1748. He was son of Khujista Akhtar, the fourth son of Bahadur Shah I. With the help of the Sayyid brothers, he ascended the throne at the young age of 17. He later got rid of them with the help of Asaf Jah I � Syed Hussain Ali Khan was murdered at Fatehpur Sikri in 1720 and Syed Hassan Ali Khan Barha was fatally poisoned in 1722. Muhammad Shah was a great patron of the arts, including musical, cultural and administrative developments. His pen-name was Sada Rangila ("ever joyous") and he is often referred to as "Muhammad Shah Rangila".

Although he was a patron of the arts, Muhammad Shah's reign was marked by rapid and irreversible decline of the Mughal Empire. The Mughal Empire was already decaying, but the invasion by Nader Shah of Persia and the subsequent sacking of Delhi, the Mughal capital, greatly accelerated the pace. The course of events not only shocked and mortified the Mughals themselves, but also foreign invaders, including the British.

The Mughal Empire was one of the great powers of the early modern era, ruling almost all of South Asia, a conquest state, dominated by its military elite. Many historians have viewed the Mughal Empire as relatively backward, the Emperor the head of a traditional warband from Central Asia, with tribalism and the traditions of the Islamic world to the fore, and the Empire
not remotely comparable to the forward looking Western European states of the period, with their strong innovative armies implementing the ‘military revolution’. This book argues that, on the contrary, the military establishment built by the Emperor Babur and his successors was highly sophisticated, an effective combination of personnel, expertise, technology and tactics, drawing on precedents from Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and India, and that the resulting combined arms system transformed the conduct of warfare in South Asia. The book traces the development of the Mughal Empire chronologically, examines weapons and technology, tactics and operations, organization, recruitment and training, and logistics and non-combat operations, and concludes by assessing the overall achievements of the Mughal Empire, comparing it to its Western counterparts, and analyzing the reasons for its decline.
Mughal dynasty, Mughal also spelled Mogul, Persian Mughūl (“Mongol”), Muslim dynasty of Turkic-Mongol origin that ruled most of northern India from the early 16th to the mid-18th century. After that time it continued to exist as a considerably reduced and increasingly powerless entity until the mid-19th century. The Mughal dynasty was notable for its more than two centuries of effective rule over much of India; for the ability of its rulers, who through seven generations maintained a record of unusual talent; and for its administrative organization. A further distinction was the attempt of the Mughals, who were Muslims, to integrate Hindus and Muslims into a united Indian state.