During the last half of Shah Jahan's reign a long-standing political and intellectual conflict in the Mughal empire polarized around the two most able and forceful Mughal princes. The liberal party found an articulate and influential spokesman in the eldest son of Shah Jahan. Prince Dara Shukoh attracted those nobles, imperial officers, scholars, intellectuals, and others who remained committed to Akbar's eclectic ideology and policies. The conservative party found its champion in Shah Jahan's third son. Aurangzeb drew to him Muslim nobles, officers, theologians, official ulema who wished to shift the empire toward a more properly Muslim state in conformity with the Sharia. The latter drew their confidence from an increasingly visible revivalist movement within Indian Islam. By the 1640s and 1650s other major policy issues such as the question of Deccan conquest and Mughal relations with Bijapur and Golconda were drawn into this rivalry.

The two princes emerged as spokesmen in part because of their high rank, status, and patronage they disposed. In reality, however, Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb were important because of the future. One of Shah Jahan's four sons, all mature men, would win the inevitable struggle for succession and Dara and Aurangzeb were the most likely candidates to prevail. Murad and Shuja, the other two brothers, while competent administrators and generals, were generally seen as weaker candidates for the throne.