Sher Shah Suri

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• published: 26 Aug 2014
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Sher Shah Suri (1486 – 22 May 1545) (Dari/Pashto: فريد خان شير شاہ سوري‎ – Farīd Xān Šer Šāh Sūrī, birth name Farid Khan, also known as Sher Khan, "The Lion King") was the founder of the Sur Empire in North India, with its capital at Delhi. An ethnic Pashtun, Sher Shah took control of the Mughal Empire in 1540. After his accidental death in 1545, his son Islam Shah became his successor. He first served as a private before rising to become a commander in the Mughal army under Babur and then as the governor of Bihar. In 1537, when Babur's son Humayun was elsewhere on an expedition, Sher Khan overran the state of Bengal and established the Sur dynasty. A brilliant strategist, Sher Shah proved himself a gifted administrator as well as an able general. His reorganization of the empire laid the foundations for the later Mughal emperors, notably Akbar the Great, son of Humayun. During his five year rule from 1540 to 1545, he set up a new civic and military administration, issued the first Rupiya and re-organised the postal system of India. He further developed Humayun's Dina-panah city and named it Shergarh and revived the historical city of Pataliputra as Patna which had been in decline since the 7th century CE. He is also famously remembered for killing a fully grown tiger with his bare hands in a jungle of Bihar. He extended the Grand Trunk Road from Chittagong in Bangladesh to Kabul in Afghanistan. This video is targeted to blind users. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Creative Commons image source in video