Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
58. Akbar, the Great Moghul - Part 1 of 5
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
Welcome to the series, History, Science and Faith in Islam. It is designed to foster a renewal of faith based on knowledge. This piece is on the life and times of Akbar, the Great Moghul.
Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar Padashah Ghazi, as his celebrated biographer Abul Fazal refers to him, was one of the greatest rulers produced by Hindustan. Muslim historians are ambiguous about his rule. Some consider him to be one of the greatest among Muslim rulers, while others look at him as a renegade. In the entire span of fourteen hundred years of Islamic history, no Muslim emperor stretched the social and religious envelope as an Islamic sovereign, as did Akbar, while remaining within the fold of Islam. And no one tackled the complex issues of Muslim interactions with a largely non-Muslim world with the sincerity, zeal, passion, originality, common sense, and commitment demonstrated by this complex, enigmatic, gifted, energetic, purposeful monarch.
The orthodox thought he had become a Hindu. The Hindus were convinced he died a Muslim. Others said he was pro-Shi’a, while some Shi’as said he persecuted them. The Jesuits sent from Goa thought he was a sure candidate for conversion to Catholic Christianity. The Jains and Parsis felt at home in his presence and considered him one of their own. He befriended the Sikhs, and protected mosques and temples alike. Akbar was a universal man; he was more than any single group thought of him. He was the purest representation of that folk Islam that grew up in Asia after the destruction wrought by the Mongols (1219-1252).
Jalaluddin Akbar was born to a Sunni father, Emperor Humayun, and Hamida Banu, daughter of a learned Shi’a Shaykh Ali Akbar, at the Rajasthan-Sindh outpost of Amarkot (1542), while Humayun was wandering in the Great Indian Desert after his defeat by Sher Shah Suri (1540-1555). Sher Shah is remembered in Indian history for his efficient administration and his extensive construction of roads and canals. Akbar’s grandfather Zahiruddin Babur, himself a deeply spiritual Timurid prince from Samarqand, had taken Hindustan in 1526, and had consolidated his hold on the Indo-Gangetic plains. The hapless Humayun inherited the kingdom but was unable to fight off the Afghan challenge led by Sher Shah Suri. So poor was Humayun when Akbar was born that he had no gifts to give his entourage on the birth of an heir. It is said that the proud father took out a small bottle of rose perfume, and anointed each one of his courtiers, proclaiming that the fame of the newborn would spread like the sweet scent of the rose in that perfume. History would prove him right.
Humayun’s misfortunes had a direct bearing on the early childhood of Akbar. In Afghanistan, Humayun tried to reclaim Kabul from his brother, Kamran, but lost the skirmish. His retreat from Afghanistan was so hasty that the infant Akbar fell into the hands of Askari, another of Humayun’s brothers, who was allied with Kamran. It was an unwritten covenant among the Timurid princes that while they scrambled for the throne upon the death of the king, the children were safe from the ensuing fratricide. Askari and his wife treated the infant with the utmost love. Akbar had no time for formal education but the keen intellect of the prodigious child absorbed the wisdom of the ancient people of the Hindu Kush, and their values of valor and courage.
When he had lost all hope of prevailing over Kamran, Humayun proceeded to Persia where the Safavid Tahmasp warmly received him. The Persian Emperor saw a golden opportunity to turn Hindustan into another bastion of Ithna Ashari Fiqh and offered to help Humayun if he would embrace Shi’a views. Humayun accepted the military help but he was ambivalent about his religious commitments. With Persian help, he first captured Kabul, and when the successors of Sher Shah Suri fell into arguments and squabbles, Humayun marched triumphantly back to Agra, the first Moghul capital. Hamida Banu and Akbar returned to Hindustan.
Humayun was always a prince of misfortune. Even his end was full of pathos. He was an avid patron of literature and had built a library, which housed more than 150,000 precious manuscripts. Even in his flight, when the Emperor literally had nothing, he carried the literary treasure with him, loaded on camels. Late one afternoon, in 1556, as he was in his study on the upper floor of the library, Humayun heard the call to prayer. The Emperor hastened to descend a steep stone staircase to join the congregational prayer. He slipped, his head hit a stone, and the following day died from head injuries.
Akbar was only thirteen when he ascended the throne. A key decision made by Humayun played a crucial role in the early life of Akbar. He had appointed Bairam Khan, a loyal and trusted friend, as Akbar’s mentor and wali (protector). When Humayun recaptured Agra, Bairam Khan rose rapidly through the ranks and became Khan Khanan (prime minister). The capable and loyal Bairam Khan meticulously carried out the initial consolidation of the empire, defeating a determined challenge from the Afghans led by an Indian general Hemu, and successively captured Agra, Gwalior and Jaunpur. Bairam fell victim to court intrigue. Akbar retired him, gave him a generous pension, and sent him off to Mecca for Hajj (1560). The following two years marked a brief period of ascendancy for Adham Khan, a foster brother of Akbar, but when Adham became tyrannical, Akbar had him eliminated, and assumed direct control of the affairs of the Empire.
A vigorous consolidation of the empire began and continued into the last years of Akbar’s reign. Malwa (1560), Chitoor (1567), Rathambur (1567), Gujrat (1573), and Bengal (1574) were added to the empire. In 1581, when his brother Mirza Hakim occupied Lahore, Akbar moved his headquarters to that city and stayed there for fifteen years to contain Mirza and ward off a threat of invasion from the powerful Uzbeks of Samarqand. Lahore was an ideal base to conduct operations to the northwest. From the Punjab, Akbar moved to capture Kashmir (1593), Sindh (1593), Baluchistan (1594) and Makran (1594). In 1595, he took Qandahar, a key trading post between Persia and India, from the Safavids. For a hundred years thereafter, this city in southern Afghanistan was contested between the Moghuls and the Safavids.
In 1591, Akbar invited the Bahmani Sultans of Ahmednagar, Bidar, Golkunda and Bijapur to submit to the Moghuls. But the Sultans of the Deccan, flush from their recent victory over the kingdom of Vijayanagar at the Battle of Tylekote (1565), refused. International politics played a part in this refusal. Many of the Deccan Sultans followed the Ithna Ashari Fiqh, and some toyed with the idea of accepting the Safavids as their protectors. Until the advent of Akbar, and the subsequent consolidation of the empire, India was a border state in the great tapestry of Muslim states extending from Morocco to the China Sea. The religious convulsions of Central and West Asia invariably had an impact on the Indian subcontinent. The triumph of the Safavids in Persia, and their rivalry with the Sunni Uzbeks to the north and the Ottomans to the west, brought this rivalry to India also. The Safavids were avid promoters of the Ithna Ashari Fiqh just as the Ottomans were champions of the Sunni School of Fiqh. So, when the Bahmani Sultans of Deccan toyed with the idea of joining the Safavid camp, Akbar would not tolerate it.
Outside interference on the soil of Hindustan was unacceptable to the Great Moghul. Indeed, at no time in Indian history, has a strong central government in the north tolerated splinter kingdoms either in Bengal or in the south. Akbar’s move into the Deccan was precipitated by the geopolitical rivalry between India and Persia and was not a reflection of the Shi’a-Sunni split. In 1596, Akbar moved on Ahmednagar, which fell after a determined resistance by its Queen Chand Bibi. When he returned to Agra in 1601, the empire extended over all of north and central India, Pakistan, Baluchistan, Bengal and Afghanistan. It was the richest and most prosperous kingdom in the world, and had a population of eighty million, about the same as the entire population of Europe.
(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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