Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
62. Akbar, the Great Moghul- Part 5 of 5
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
The response of the orthodox ulema and their interactions with the emperors determined the shape of Indian history, and ultimately that of global Islamic history. Ironically, the most determined resistance came from a Sufi order, the Naqshbandi that grew roots in Hindustan during the reign of Akbar.
KhwajaBaqiBillah, one of the Naqshbandi shaykhs, was born in Kabul in 1563, from where he migrated first to Lahore and then to Delhi. Dissatisfied with some of the practices introduced in the court, he interacted with court elements that sought to replace Akbar. It was at the instigation of these dissidents that Akbar’s brother Mirza Hakim invaded Lahore (1581), an event that brought the Great Moghul to Lahore and resulted in his conquest of Kashmir, Sindh, Baluchistan and southern Afghanistan. KhwajaBaqiBillah passed away in 1603. It was his disciple, Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi (1564-1624), who had a profound impact on Islamic thought, not just in India-Pakistan, but also in the entire Islamic world.
Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi was born into a family of Hanafi scholars, and was initiated into the Naqshbandi order at Delhi in 1599. Through his lectures, his writings, and his contacts with Emperor Jehangir (1605-1627), he deeply influenced social and political developments in India. Shaykh Ahmed was opposed to any form of innovation in religion and taught that religion should follow the simplicity and rigor of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. He was anguished at disrespect shown to Prophet Muhammed (p) as had happened when the Jesuit priests from Goa presented their religion at the imperial court in FatehpurSikri. He was distraught at the aggressiveness with which non-Muslims propagated their faiths, while the orthodox Muslims were constrained in implementing their practices. He wrote to the leading Moghul courtiers, as well as to the leading ulema of the age in India and in the Ottoman Empire, expounding his views on orthodoxy. These writings, Maktubat-I-Iman-I-Rabbani, have been translated into Turkish, Farsi, and Urdu, and have influenced Muslims the world over. Later historians termed his movement Mujaddidiya. Shaykh Ahmed elaborated and consolidated the principles of Wahdat as Shahada as a counterpoint to extreme interpretations of Wahdat al Wajud. So pre-eminent is the position of Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi among the ulema that he is referred to as Mujaddid al Alf e Thani (Renewer of the Second Millennium).
Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi was the first of three great Muslim thinkers of the subcontinent. The other two were Shah Waliullah (d. 1762) of Delhi, and Muhammed Iqbal of Lahore (d. 1938). Both Shaykh Ahmed and Shah Waliullah came from Sufi backgrounds and both are universally recognized as mujaddids (first rank scholars of Shariah, Fiqh and Sunnah who are qualified to reform religious practices). The eloquent poetry of Muhammed Iqbal of Lahore (1873-1938) echoes the legacy of tasawwuf left by Shaykh Ahmed and Shah Waliullah, although Iqbal went further than any of his predecessors in asserting the free will of man and its responsibility for noble action. In this respect, Iqbal stands at the confluence of the Asharite and the Mu’tazilite Schools, where the doctrines of qida (predestination) and qadr (free will) meet. The profound religious thoughts of these reformers require a separate volume. Here, we are concerned more with their social and political thoughts, and their impact on the history of the subcontinent.
There is a common thread in their approach to Muslim interactions with the largely non-Muslim populations of South Asia. Shaykh Ahmed took exception to Akbar’s initiatives for co-union with the Hindus. Perhaps it was a reaction to the Vaishanava Hindu revival in northern India at the time, or perhaps it was the deeply felt conviction of the shaykh that the future of Islam lay in strict adherence to the Sunni tradition. Some of his views were implemented during the reign of Aurangzeb (1658-1707) with disastrous consequences for the Moghul Empire. Aurangzeb befriended Shaykh Muhammed Maasum, son and successor to Shaykh Ahmed, while ShaykhSaifuddin, his grandson, lived at the court of Aurangzeb in Delhi.
Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi’s political leanings can also be seen in Shah Waliullah, one of the most eminent of Islamic scholars produced by India. In 1761, as the Marathas advanced towards the Punjab, and briefly occupied Lahore (1760), it was the forceful plea of Shah Waliullah, which invited Ahmed Shah Abdali of Kabul to intervene. The bitterly fought Battle of Panipat (1761), destroyed Maratha power in the north, and confined it to central India. More than a hundred and fifty years later, another profound thinker, Muhammed Iqbal, reflected on the apparent diversity of Hindu-Muslim ways of life, and advanced the idea of a separate state for Muslims-Pakistan.
The history of the subcontinent shows that Akbar’s attempts did not succeed. Muslim India remained ambivalent about his initiatives. Sunni Islam embraced the orthodoxy of Aurangzeb. The Shi’as maintained their exclusiveness. The Hindus and the Muslims both took aggressive positions. The Sikhs, who started out bridging the gap between Muslims and Hindus, ended up fighting them both. The partition of the subcontinent in 1947, and its gory aftermath in which Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs indulged in sustained orgies of mutual slaughter, was a political and social acknowledgement of this failure.
It is instructive to compare the achievements of Emperor Akbar with those of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The two were contemporaries. Akbar ruled from 1556 to 1605, while Elizabeth I ruled from 1559 to 1603. Both had inherited kingdoms that were weak and divided. When Akbar ascended the throne, his control hardly extended beyond Delhi and Agra. When he died in 1603, the empire embraced more than a million square miles and had become one of the most powerful empires in the world. When Elizabeth ascended the English throne, England was a marginal state in Europe and the object of intrigues by Spain and France. Scotland was at war with England. Elizabeth consolidated the United Kingdom, defeated the Spanish Armada and took England out of the orbit of Rome. When she died in 1603, England was the most powerful state in Western Europe.
Akbar’s dominions were far more extensive than those of Elizabeth, and had a population ten times that of England. But Akbar was a king-Emperor on the mighty landmass of South Asia. He made no attempt to build a strong navy. The material for building ships was available in Bengal as well as in Gujrat. The technology was available to them from the Ottoman Turks and from the Chinese. But as strong as they were on land, they surrendered the Indian Ocean to the Europeans. During the height of Akbar’s power, pilgrims to Mecca and traders to East Africa had to have their papers stamped by the Portuguese for safe conduct. In the year 1600, even while Akbar was consolidating his empire and Hindustan was headed towards a period of dazzling prosperity, the East India Company was granted a charter by Elizabeth I. Two hundred years later, when history hurled England and India into a fateful embrace, it was the lapse of the Great Moghuls to build a navy and control the Indian Ocean that made the difference, and the Company triumphed over the Rajas and Nawabs who had inherited the Empire.
The system of mansabs instituted by Akbar, while it served the empire during its period of expansion, proved to be a drag on the treasury when decay set in. In the 20th century, it proved to be an impediment to modernization in both India and Pakistan. Third, the empire lagged behind Europe in the diffusion of knowledge and technology. The printing press, which was introduced into Europe in 1415, made possible the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The printing press was not introduced into the Moghul territories until the 18th century. Technology and innovation suffered, while wealth and power became the focus of court life. India did not produce a Newton or Galileo or Kepler. Fourth, the Moghuls (and the Ottomans and the Safavids) knew far less about the Europeans than the Europeans knew about them. Indian explorers did not travel through Europe to learn about the “Firangis” who were increasingly active on their shores. Indian exclusiveness, Hindu and Muslim alike, acted as a barrier to correct information and knowledge about these traders from far-away lands. So, when the decisive confrontation came, faulty intelligence did the Indians in, while the Europeans took full advantage of the knowledge they had about Indian court intrigues and societal fissures.
Akbar’s greatest contribution to Islamic history was his extension of the framework for interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims. Until his reign, Sultans and ulema alike had divided the world into two neat little compartments, Dar ul Islam and Dar ulHarab. Dar ul Islam was where the Sultans reigned, and the non-Muslims paid jizya in return for military protection as Dhimmis (protected minorities). Dar ulHarab was where the non-Muslims ruled, and conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims were unavoidable. Religious obligations that were binding on all believers in Dar ul Islam, were not necessarily binding in Dar ulHarab. Akbar, the Great Moghul, added a third dimension to this bi-polar world. This was the dimension of co-union, in which the definition of People of the Book received the maximum latitude, the meaning of Islam as DeenulFitra (pristine and natural faith of all humans) was implemented, and Islam extended its loving hand to all mankind. Few grasped the vision of the Great Moghul. They were looking at the rainbow through a prism that allowed a single wavelength of light; the colors of the rainbow were lost to them. Akbar’s social, political and religious activism fell by the wayside, and history lost track of the lofty horizons shown by the Great Moghul. It chose instead narrow and sinuous alleys.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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