Dara Shikoh: The Prince of a Shattered Dream
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
How noble the history of Indo-Pakistan subcontinent appears that it never had seen a ruler, tyrant like Ivan the terrible, Hitler, and Pol Pot, and religious persecutors like Mary and Elizabeth I of England, who had massacred their own people! This situation has bestowed an aura of tolerance over the politics and society of the Subcontinent. It was, in fact, due to its having an array of rulers like Asoka and Akbar whose greatness lay not in their victories for lands and territories but in winning the hearts of their subjects with concern for their welfare and inculcation of brotherhood and religious syncretism in them. They never rode roughshod over the citizens (with the exception of the present ruler whom we find today in India).
The owner of such benevolent qualities was a prince who could have made an addition to this list but unfortunately could not make it. His failure to capture the throne was a lost opportunity to add another chapter of liberalism, harmony and brotherhood in the history of the Subcontinent. This prince was Dara Shikoh (1615-1659), the eldest son of Emperor Shahjahan.
Even Shahjahan, in his ruing ethos, had come under the influence of Dara Shikoh, who believed in the coexistence of heterodox traditions in India. Dara had the same religious sentiments that ennobled the character of his great grandfather, Emperor Akbar. One of the reasons for this was that in his young age Dara had come in contact with two liberal Sufi shaikhs of Qadrya order, Mulla Mir and Mulla Shah Badakhshi, as well as some Hindu mystics. In this early phase of his mystical studies Dara had been able to compile a hagiography of Sufi saints and their mystical beliefs.
Following the Qur'anic injunction that no land has been left without prophetic guidance, Dara Shikoh was convinced that the Vedas and the Upanishads were the concealed scriptures mentioned in the Qur'an. He considered the Upanishads as the ultimate source of all monotheism, including Islam. With the assistance of some Brahman scholars, he translated the fifty-two Upanishads into Persian in a work titled Sirr-i-Akbar. He found many common grounds in Sufism and Vedanta; and to establish this relationship he wrote a treatise entitled Majmua-al-Bahrain (Mingling of the Two Oceans). To make it available to the Hindus he translated it into Sanskrit as Samudra Sangam. He maintained that the only difference between the Hindu doctrine of advaita (no duality) and the Islamic belief of tauheed was one of terminology, and thus the essential nature of Hinduism was identical to that of Islam. He spent long years in Kashmir translating the Vedas and the Upanishads into Persian, and this translation led to a Latin version. It is believed that it left a deep impression two hundred years later on the mind of the great German philosopher, Schopenhauer.
Dara Shikoh was the first contender of the throne. He had remained most of the time at the court in close personal contact with the Emperor. His greatest supporter was his eldest sister, Jahan Ara, who had served as the mistress of the royal household after the death of her mother, Mumtaz Mahal. She had similar intellectual makeup as her brother. In 1652, Shah Jahan had sent Aurangzeb to the Deccan, while Dara had stayed closer to his father as the governor of Punjab. The influence of Jahan Ara resulted in Dara emerging as Shah Jahan’s favorite son and heir apparent by about 1653.
Aurangzeb hated his elder brother from a very young age and always coveted his father’s throne. The tussle for the throne had begun in the midst of conflicting ideas and beliefs of the two princes, one radical and the other liberal. Shah Jahan used to control the tension between the two, hold them in check, and keep them away from an open warfare. In 1657, the aged Shah Jahan fell ill. The court at Delhi fell in a state of panic. Both parties became overly active over the issue of succession. The turmoil was not, however, to remain confined to the capital; soon its reverberations were felt in the far-off corners of the empire. However, Shah Jahan regained his health after a year and tried desperately to help Dara emerge as the stronger contender for the throne. But being more of a mystic Dara spent little time in forging strategies to win the crown which appeared to be his in view of his father's liberalism and affection for him. Dara cared little for worldly glory and was thus neglectful of court intrigues. Further, Dara had presented himself to the Muslims, in general, and the Ulema, in particular, as a non-practicing Muslim, thus losing their support and inviting their assault.
Dara was no match to his brother in shrewdness. Aurangzeb manipulated his youngest brothers, Murad and Shuja, to join him. He marched north with a joint force to defeat the formidable imperial army under Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur at Dharmat. Dara tried to defend Agra but had to flee. Aurangzeb encamped himself outside Agra. Fearing his own safety, Shahjahan shut the gates of the fort. Aurangzeb stopped the supply of drinking water from Jamuna. Shahjahan fell sick by drinking the bitter water of the wells of the fort. He wrote a pathetic letter to his son:
Praised be the Hindus in all cases,
As they ever offer water to their dead.
And thou, my son, art a marvelous Musalman,
As thou causest me in life to lament for water.
Later, Aurangzeb was successful in entering the fort. He imprisoned his father, usurped the power of the king, and then went after Dara. He met Dara at Samugarh, several miles east of Agra. Dara was betrayed by his own Muslim generals like Uzbek Khalilullah Khan, while thousands of Rajput soldiers died for him. He fled towards Agra but was captured by an Afghan chief, Malik Jiwan, whose life Dara had once saved from execution. Dara was sent to Aurangzeb. “Aurangzeb finally decided that future fake Daras must be prevented from stirring up trouble. Dara and his son SipihrShikoh would be dragged in squalor under military guard through the main thoroughfares of central Delhi, for every Indian to see”. The official Ulema condemned Dara to death on grounds of apostasy from Islam and idolatry. On the night of August 30, 1659, Dara and his youngest son SipihrShukoh were slain. Dara's head was delivered by the victorious Aurangzeb to his imprisoned father.
The dream of many that India would soon be blessed with another ruler as tolerant and liberal as Akbar was shattered. The course of history had taken a new turn.
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