The Mughal Empire, founded in the sixteenth century, was a dynasty nourished by Central-Asian Turkic, Iranian, and Indian traditions; its art workshops reflected that plurality. Mughal painting inherited the fine brushwork and brilliant colour of the Bihzad tradition in Iran, but added to it Indian vitality and — in the reign of Emperor Jahangir — new elements from European painting.

The most famous example of this synthesis is the allegorical miniature "Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings," made around 1620 by the court painter Bichitr. The emperor sits on a throne raised upon a giant hourglass; the hourglass symbolises the flow of his life, and angels upon it write "O Shah, may you live a thousand years." Jahangir hands a book to a humble Sufi dervish — declaring that he values spiritual wisdom over worldly power.

The figures below the scene reinforce this message: an Ottoman sultan, an English king (James I, copied from a European portrait), and the painter's own self-portrait are ranged in respect before the emperor. Behind Jahangir's head blazes a vast halo containing both the sun and the moon. Hints of aerial perspective taken from Europe, realistic portrait faces, and the gold-work of the Persian tradition meet on the same page.

Mughal painting was thus a global crossroads: a laboratory blending visual languages from Samarkand to Isfahan, from Agra to London. It is the most splendid continuation in India of the Persian miniature path opened by Bihzad; it unites imperial power, religious tolerance, and artistic refinement in a single small page.