The Mughal dynasty (; Dudmân-e Mughal) comprised the members of the imperial House of Babur
(; Khāndān-e-Āl-e-Bābur), also known as the Gurkanis (; Gūrkāniyān), who ruled the Mughal Empire from 1526 to 1857.
The Mughals originated as a Central Asian branch of the Timurid dynasty, supplemented with extra Borjigin (the clan which ruled the Mongol Empire and its successor states) bloodlines. The dynasty's founder, Babur (born 1483), was a direct descendant of the Asian conqueror Timur (1336–1405) on his father's side and of Mongol emperor Genghis Khan (died 1227) on his mother's side, and Babur's ancestors had other affiliations with Genghisids through marriage and common ancestry. The term "Mughal" is itself a derivative form of "Mongol" in the Arabic and Persian languages: it emphasised the Mongol origins of the Mughal dynasty.
During much of the Empire's history, the emperor functioned as the absolute head of state, head of government and head of the military, while during its declining era much of the power shifted to the office of the Grand Vizier and the empire became divided into many regional kingdoms and princely states. However, even in the declining era, the Mughal Emperor continued to be the highest manifestation of sovereignty on the Indian subcontinent. Not only the Muslim gentry, but the Maratha, Rajput, and Sikh leaders took part in ceremonial acknowledgements of the Emperor as the sovereign of South Asia. The British East India Company deposed the imperial family and abolished the empire on 21 September 1857 during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The UK declared the establishment of the British Raj the following year.
The British tried and convicted the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II ( 1837 - 1857), and exiled him (1858) to Rangoon in British-controlled Burma (present-day Myanmar).
The Mughal empire is conventionally said to have been founded in 1526 by Babur, a Timurid prince from Ferghana which today is in Uzbekistan. After losing his ancestral domains in Central Asia, Babur first established himself in Kabul and ultimately moved towards the Indian subcontinent.