The Sea and the World of theMutasaddi:A profile of port officials from Mughal Gujarat (c. 1600–1650)

Abstract

This article seeks to trace the profile of the governors (mutasaddis) of the main port-cities (especially Surat and, to a lesser extent, Cambay) of the Mughal province of Gujarat in the first half of the seventeenth century. My research on the careers of individual mutasaddis – based mainly (but not exclusively) on existent Portuguese materials – allows us to better understand the social world of those occupying key positions in the ‘waterfront’ of the Mughal Empire and its dealings extensively with the European powers (Portuguese, Dutch and English). Hence, the analysis of the professional and personal trajectories of the Indian Muslim doctor Muqarrab Khan and the Persian Mir Musa Mu'izzul Mulk presented here demonstrate how far business, politics and cultural patronage were often entangled in the career of a Mughal mutasaddi of Gujarat.

Europe–Mughal India–Muslim Asia: Circulation of Political Ideas and Instruments in Early Modern Times

“…The same holds true for administrative elites who, from the 1600s on, increasingly engaged in sea trade. The more active among them were the officials posted in the maritime provinces of the empire, such as Gujarat (Flores 2011;Hasan 2004: 31-51), along with the many Iranian migrants who gained predominance in the Mughal nobility precisely around this time. Particularly significant is, in this last respect, a remark by the Dutch factor Francisco Pelsaert, who blamed the Iranians as much for trusting the higher levels of Mughal administration as for their excessive intervention in the economy (Pelsaert 1957: 92).…”