One of the more embarassing phases in the history of the Mughal Empire in India.
Near the end of his reign, Mughal Emperor Akbar quarreled with his son, Salim (who is perhaps better known by the name he later ruled under, Jahangir), over Salim's behaviour - particularly over the fact that Salim was holding court in Allahabad as if he were a sovereign ruler. This negligent attitude towards Akbar's imperial authority angered Akbar - who responded with openly hostile demeanour.
To make matters worse, Salim took to roaming about India with an army (doing so for several years, from 1600 to 1602), and referring to himself as emperor. In 1602, apparently convinced of his supremacy, Salim marched on his father's capital of Agra with 30,000 men. Akbar, unworried by the military situation but realising the potential for unforeseen mischief, managed to negotiate an uneasy peace.
Salim then laid plans to use his troops to seize his father's chief advisor (an old enemy of Salim's). The advisor was captured and decapitated. Aggravating the situation, Salim petulantly ordered the advisor's severed head thrown in a latrine.
Even so, Akbar made no move to retaliate - reportedly, because he considered Salim a miserable alcoholic. Instead, Akbar arranged a public reconciliation, in 1603, at which occasion Salim surrendered 350 elephants, as a symbolic gesture of disarmament. Akbar reciprocated by crowning Salim with a royal turban, as symbol of his dignity as crown prince.
Soon, though, Salim found himself placed under house arrest, denied access to alcohol or opium.
All this disturbance, and the scandal of Salim's behaviour, had seriously damaged Akbar's authority. His court, shocked at Salim's dissolute ways, had chosen to support Salim's son Khusrau, instead. During an elephant joust in 1605, Khusrau's followers openly fought against Salim's - a fight only stopped when Salim's son Khurram (later emperor as Shahjahan, but only 13 years old at the time) intervened, at Akbar's command.
The strife between Akbar and Salim only ended with Akbar's death, in 1605. On his death bed, Akbar confirmed Salim as his designated successor, and Salim became Mogul Emperor under the name Jahangir.
This was not the end of the intra-familial strife, however - over the next two decades, Jahangir would have to fight a second civil war (the Mughal Civil War of 1607) and Khurram, like his father before him, would rebel (in the civil war now known as Shahjahan's Revolt). Along the way, he would order the murder of Khusrau, his own brother. Though Khurram (Emperor Shahjahan) would achieve great power, it came at a heavy cost in family lives.