[1][3] The territory of the empire was divided into provincial level administrative units known as Subahs (provinces), each was controlled by official governor called subahdar.

[1][3] Each Pargana has contained more smaller administrative units which called Tarafs, which in their turn consisted of several villages plus some uninhabited mountain and forest land.

The empire instead relying on recorded statistic details about each division to assess the territory's revenue, based on more simple form of land surveys.

[8] The imperial camp are used for military expeditions and royal entourage which also served as a kind of mobile, "de facto" administrative capital.

From the time of Akbar, Mughal camps were huge in scale, accompanied by numerous personages associated with the royal court, as well as soldiers and labourers.

In its early years, the empire relied on Hanafi legal references inherited from its predecessor, the Delhi Sultanate.

This compendium of Hanafi law sought to serve as a central reference for the Mughal state that dealt with the specifics of the South Asian context.

The Mughal qadi was responsible for dispensing justice; this included settling disputes, judging people for crimes, and dealing with inheritances and orphans.

Subjects of the Mughal Empire also took their grievances to the courts of superior officials who held more authority and punitive power than the local qadi.

Such officials included the kotwal (local police), the faujdar (an officer controlling multiple districts and troops of soldiers), and the most powerful, the subahdar (provincial governor).

[13] Jahangir was known to have installed a "chain of justice" in the Agra fort that any aggrieved subject could shake to get the attention of the emperor and bypass the inefficacy of officials.