Bairam Khan
Regent of the Mughal Emperor
1501 CE to 1561 CE
Bairam Khan also Bayram Khan (died 1561) is an important military commander, later commander-in-chief of the Mughal army, a powerful statesman and regent at the court of the Mughal emperors Humayun and Akbar.
He is also guardian, chief mentor, advisor, teacher and the most trusted ally of Humayun.
Humayun honors him as Khan-i-Khanan, which means king of kings. Bairam is originally called Bairam "Beg" but later becomes honored as 'Kha' or Khan.
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The Great Crossroads
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Humayun's untimely death in 1556 leaves the task of further imperial conquest and consolidation to his thirteen-year-old son, Jalal-ud-Din Akbar (r. 1556-1605).
Following a decisive military victory at the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556, the regent Bayram Khan pursues a vigorous policy of expansion on Akbar's behalf.
As soon as Akbar comes of age, he begins to free himself from the influences of overbearing ministers, court factions, and harem intrigues, and demonstrates his own capacity for judgment and leadership.
A "workaholic" who seldom sleeps more than three hours a night, he personally oversees the implementation of his administrative policies, which are to form the backbone of the Mughal Empire for more than two hundred years.
He continues to conquer, annex, and consolidate a far-flung territory bounded by Kabul in the northwest, Kashmir in the north, Bengal in the east, and beyond the Narmada River in the south—an area comparable in size to the Mauryan territory some eighteen hundred years earlier.