Mughals - How Tyrannic And Oppressive

[Bodhi]

Driving down that famous ancient road which stretches out from rugged gAndhAra to lush va~Nga, while returning from mathurA after spending this shivarAtri with parents, our vehicle took an unplanned halt at sikandarA, where laid buried (actually no more!) the remains of the Great turuShka. We were overhearing the discussion that our fellow passengers were engaged in about him, and noted with satisfaction that while the make-belief about his iconic status for composite culture remains commonplace, there was also growing awareness among folks about his ghazi stripes of the pattern same as that of his predecessors and successors, and credit for this public awareness, we think, is to the bestirring bells rung by Sita Ram Goel.

Our mind was however captivated soon by a conflict of competing impressions that had remained in us about Akbar, after reading different accounts of his life, especially about his religious outlook. So we recalled the different sources we had come across so far, in parts or in full. The first one we were exposed to after the school texts, was the pseudo-history of chAchA, followed by it seems “Akbar” of the communist tripiTakAchArya, which must have been one of our first real introduction to rAhula sAMkR^ityAyana, then “Who Says Akbar Was Great” of P N Oak, the only title from the author in which we ever invested our money, then the account in Sita Ram Goel’s sleep-depriving “The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India”, some peripheral readings in Ram Chandra Verma’s thoroughly-researched “Akbari Darbar”, and some works from Aligarh’s apologist historians which were educative in no less measure if one knew how to distill out the polemics and rhetoric. And then of course at some point we had also gone through the angrezI translations of A’in-i-akabarI of abul fazl in parts, as well as the fragments of tawArIkh by bigoted badAyunI and the accounts of his equally zealous IsAist contemporaries of Jesuit persuasion, who were earning their grades from saving thousands of souls, by their own admission through baptizing the children dying in disease and starvation through plague and famine. Besides this, the remote and countless unconnected remnants of hearsay we had accumulated from miscellany, the sources of which we would never be able to place in our mind.

What stood very evident to us was that each of the sources had a very definitive, certain and absolute view on Akbar’s alleged attitude towards religious liberalism. chAchA, sAMkR^ityAyana, and a majority of their contemporaries such as AL srIvAstava and tArA chanda were absolutely sure about Akbar’s outlook to have been an inherent part of his personality, who is for them the very fountainhead of the Hindu-Moslem syncretism, secularism and composite culture. For nehrU, Akbar “created a sense of oneness among the diverse elements”, and therefore is the first builder of Indian Nationalism founded upon unity-in-diversity. For tArA chanda he is a beacon light of secularism: “He looked upon all religions alike, and regarded it his duty to make no difference between his subjects on the basis of religion.” In sAMkR^ityAyana’s assessment Akbar is the only notable milestone on the highway of religious tolerance that began with Emperor ashoka and concluded in mahAtmA gAndhI.

The Moslem contemporaries of these authors however have a lot less jubilant and fantastic attitude towards Akbar’s grandeur of religious tolerance, and in tradition of badAyUnI and sheikh ahmed sarhindI, they have generally and severely denounced him as an abominable heretic. abul kalAm AzAd, the mawlAnA, therefore frowns upon him as a villain who had all but finished Islam in India, so also ishtiyAq husain qureshI who alleges Akbar to be a kAfir and an enemy of Islam.

The modern authors from AMUs and JNUs have taken a clever turn from the position of their earlier generation on the subject. While the earlier generation was categorical about Akbar having become a kAfir by the end of his reign, many modern authors from this group have belaboured to show that either Akbar had returned to Islam in the end, or that his attempts to promoting an equal respect for all religions was something which needed no turning away from Islam at all, rather the tendency was indeed a continuation of chingiz khAn’s policy of religious tolerance, ‘yasA-i-chingizI’, that came into Akbar’s genes all the way through taimUr-the-lang, bAbUr and humAyun. More creative of these authors manage to suitably window-dress Akbar’s case for Hindu consumption as a magnanimous hero of Islam the religion of peace.

Oak on the other hand considers Akbar’s syncretism a hogwash effort by apologists, and his concessions to Hindus a cunning maneuver so as to set up a stable foundation for his empire. Sita Ram Goel considers Akbar’s alleged secularism a myth too and declares, “Akbar was every inch an Islamic bandit from abroad who conquered a large part of India mainly on the strength of Muslim swordsmen imported from Central Asia and Persia. He took great pride in proclaiming that he was a descendant of Taimur and Babur... He continued to decorate his name with the Islamic honorific ghazi which he had acquired at the commencement of his reign by beheading the half-dead Himu. The wars he waged against the only resistant Hindu kingdoms - Mewar and Gondwana - had all the characteristics of classic jihad… he went on a pilgrimage to the dargah of Muinuddin Chishti, the foremost symbol of Islam’s ceaseless war on Hindus and Hinduism. He sent rich gifts to many centers of Muslim pilgrimage including Mecca and Medina, and carried on negotiations with the Portuguese so that voyages by Muslim pilgrims could be facilitated. In his letters to the Sharifs of Mecca and the Uzbek king of Bukhara, he protested that he was not only a good Muslim but also a champion of Islam, and that the orthodox Ulama who harboured doubts about him did not understand his game of consolidating a strong and durable Islamic empire in India.”[1]

That is as far as his policy of state was concerned, but even about Akbar’s own personal outlook, Sita Ram Goel continues: “There is no evidence that Akbar’s association with some spokesmen of rival religions was inspired by any sincere seeking on his part, or that the association improved his mind in any way. He remained a prisoner of Islamic thought-categories to the end of his days.” [2]

But, here on this case we somehow differ with the savant. Something tells us, that reality is very simple, and not so complicated and convoluted as it seems. It is, we now think, entirely possible for Akbar to have been a genuine jehAdI during one stage of his life, and an equally genuine kAfir during another subsequent phase. Considering this a possibility, if we look at the available data, we are convinced about this hypothesis more and more. Consider for example the data Goel has provided in the portion we quoted two paragraphs above. Each of the incidents Goel mentioned there is about the first 37 years of Akbar’s life. What about the rest of his life and reign?

We do think now, that Akbar had not only finally managed to come out of the prison of Islam, and returned to his roots, but that he was also determined to stamp out Islam from India, forcefully if needed, just before his life came to an abrupt, premature and violent end when he died of poisoning (killed?).

This, we think, is closer to reality. Just that all of us have been conditioned for decades to not look at it that way because such transformations are not commonplace even in this age.

Since the authors across the spectrum have primarily focused only on one aspect of his life, the real causality also happens to be the loss of sight from the significant phenomenon, the transformation of the man from a stark jehAdI to a ferocious kAfir; from identifying the agents that kicked off the process and its catalysts; and from defining the energies that the process released and its reactions.

We shall over next few posts focus on these aspects of Akbar’s fabulous case of transition.

[ramana]

Bodhi, You wrote all that? If so I need to discuss a few things about Akbar.

[Bodhi]

Ramana, sorry I missed your post. I am of course no expert.

[Bodhi]

II

Savitri Chandra of JNU, the wife of Marxist historian Satish Chandra, analyzes Akbar’s philosophy of religious tolerance to be a continuation of ‘Sulh-i-Kul’ (Universal Peace) a spiritual concept of the Central Asian sUfI-s as described by abul fazl, a theory to which many have contributed before her. She however takes a leap forward in comparing it with the ideas of yuga-dharma and maryAdA taught by Akbar’s contemporary tulasIdAsa, and that of ‘nipakha’ (non-sectarianism) proposed by his another contemporary dAdU dayAla, and jubilantly declares: “Akbar's concept of sulh-kul not only implied preventing conflict (with) various faiths, but according to them a position of equal honour. This implied putting Islam on par with other religions. It also implied giving lower importance to the scriptures of various religions by emphasizing the fundamental unity of God, that different religions were different ways of reaching Him.” [5]

A laughter-worthy conclusion, but we quote the above only as a sample tone of the Secular-Marxist chorus, to highlight the general approach they adopt in presenting Akbar as a Moslem doyen of religious tolerance. The perseverance of these apologists is as painstaking as is their enterprise innovative, since they are faced with not one or two outliers of data to negate and explain, or suppress and ignore, but piles upon piles of evidence pointing unambiguously to the fact that Akbar had neither much value for the supposed equal honour to all religions, nor was he a Moslem when he is said to be practicing this principle. Thus as a workaround, such historians instead of looking at the behaviour of the subject as a primary means to get into his outlook, concentrate on Akbar’s supposed philosophy as articulated and portrayed by his contemporary biographers. They also clutch on to two declarations of policy from early reign of Akbar, the announcements of the abolition of Pilgrimage Tax (1563) and Jizia (1564), and parade these as proofs to show that Akbar was always tolerant and easy on Hindus.

Since they keep their focus diligently away from the actual behaviour of the man as the primary source of the analysis, the results they produce about his outlook abjectly fail to explain his actions. We believe that instead of taking at their face value the philosophical content of the chronicles laced with all their flattery and encumbered with intellectualization by the chroniclers, one should rely chiefly on the anecdotal data and events recorded by them about Akbar’s actual behaviour, and using this make one’s assessment of Akbar’s outlook.

That Akbar began as a ghAzI of standard make & model and remained firmly grounded for many years in the Islamic worldview of perpetual jehAd against infidel, is amply corroborated by all available evidence. The very launch of his career is marked by his tAlibAn-like beheadings of himU and his octogenarian father when captured after the battle of pAnipat and brought before his war camp. Akbar, then in his first teens, made a proposition of pardon if they converted to Islam. himU, afflicted with a severe brain injury and painfully dying already, responded with a short but stern speech that the doorsteps of death appear more agreeable to him and his father than converting to Islam. While the merit of beheading the eighty-year old kAfir was quickly claimed by pIr muhammad khan, a court noble, Akbar himself performed the beheading on the son. “Akbar merely touched himU’s neck by steel”, wrote abul fazl in a negationist tenor three decades after the event when both Akbar and he had remained Moslems no longer, and Akbar was openly regretful about his earlier behaviour. While we have to wait to return to that aspect, for the moment Akbar erected at the conquered battlefield a pyramid of skulls of kAfirs, and likely placed on top the skinned head of himU along with his headgear, if he were truly following the real turuShka tradition.

Arrival of Akbar in India and overthrowing himU was rightly reflected upon by mullAh-s as the descent of a pious mujAhidIn from dAr-ul-islAm to put down the infidels of hindostAn and rejuvenate the diminishing ghizawat in India. A well known shaikhzAdAh of that period, rizqullAh mushtaqI of Delhi, wrote that Akbar was sent to India by Allah to protect Islam from being suppressed by kAfir himU. [6]

Almost a decade later, now in his middle twenties, when Akbar led his bloody jehAd to chitrakUTa i.e. chittor, he was still discharging the war against Hindus as a religious obligation under commandments of Allah. After the pillage of chittor, slaughter of over thirty-thousand Hindu civilians and jauhar by thousands of rAjapUtAnI-s, the pronouncement of victory which Akbar issued on March 9, 1568, the notorious fathnAmA-i-chittor which seculars find so hard to ever quote in verbatim, is peppered with Qoranic verses, compares the battle of Chittor with jihAds led by Prophet, and reads just like coming from any other ghAzI before and after Akbar:

“The Merciful One whose Omnipotence has ensured the victory of the Moslems through ‘the promise to help believers is incumbent upon us’, the Omnipotent One who enjoined the task of destroying the wicked kAfirs on the dutiful mujAhids through the blows of their thunder-like scimitars, as laid down: ‘Fight them! I Allah will chastise them at your hands and He will lay them low and give you victory over them.’… In conformity with the happy injunction, ‘This is of the grace of my Lord that He may try me whether I am grateful or ungrateful’, we spend our precious time to the best of our ability in ghizA and jehAd and with the help of Allah, who is the supporter of our ever-increasing empire, we are busy in subjugating the localities, habitations, forts and towns which are under the possession of the kAfir, may God forsake and annihilate all of them, and thus raising the standard of Islam everywhere and removing the darkness of polytheism and violent sins, by the use of sword. We destroy their houses of idols, the temples in those and other parts of hindostAn, ‘Praised be Allah, who hath guided us to this’… While the thoughts of ghizawat and jehAd dominate enlightened mind, (rANA udai singh’s rejection to suzerainty) incensed even more the zeal for the Divine Religion… The armies of Islam placing their reliance in (the Qoranic revelation) that, ‘Allah is sufficient for us and most excellent protector’, fearlessly and boldly commenced the assault… the vigilant bands of Hindus (as despicable) as Jews, set ablaze the fire-raining 'manjaniqs' and 'top' one after the other… But the people of Islam were busy praying: ‘Our Lord! Bestow on us endurance, make our foothold sure, and give us help against the kAfir…” [7]

The well-known fate awaited kAfir-s at the hands of the young ghazi that was Akbar: “In accordance with the imperative command ‘And kill the idolaters all together’, those defiant kAfirs who were still offering resistance having formed themselves into multiple knots of two to three hundred persons, were put to death and their women and children taken prisoners.”[8] But Tod is much more explicit: “When the Carthagenian gained the battle of Cannae, he measured his success by the bushels of rings taken from the fingers of the equestrian Romans who fell on that memorable field. Akbar estimated his by the quantity of cordons of distinction (yaj~nopavIta) taken from the necks of the Rajputs, and seventy-four and a half ‘man’, or about five hundredweight, is the recorded amount. To eternise the memory of this disaster the number ‘74-and-1/2’ is tilac, that is, accursed. Marked on a banker's letter in Rajasthan it is the strongest of seals till date, for ‘the sin of the sack of Chittor’ is invoked on him who violates a letter under the safeguard of this mysterious number.” abul fazl records that at least three-hundred rAjapUta women voluntarily jumped into pyre, to save their honour from falling to the hands of the invaders.

After the sack of chittor and likely having decorated the conquered city with the tower of skulls of the slain infidels, Akbar proceeded towards ajmer to fulfill his pilgrimage to the dargAh of muin-ud-dIn the chisht, which he had avowed to undertake on foot if chittor were to be delivered from clutches of kAfir to the lashkar of Islam since he had already tried once and failed in the enterprise. Indeed the fathnAmA was executed and issued by Akbar from the dargAh of sUfI in ajmer, which shows that for him the war was nothing short of a pious duty, an essential stage of pilgrimage for a mujAhid like him.

Just four years earlier in anticipation of this jehAd, Akbar had deployed his lashkar-i-islAm under general khwAjA abdul mAjid Asaf khAn, in destroying the Hindu kingdom of Gonds ably ruled by rAnI durgAvatI, a chandela princess from mahobA. This war that had all the standard methodology of an islAmic jehAd, although Vincent Smith proposed, and now seculars describe, that this conquest was purely driven by Akbar’s insatiable ambition to expand his empire. In any case, the defeated kAfirs were not pardoned, and Hindu princesses who failed to join their sisters in jauhar, notably a younger sister of rAnI durgAvatI and a would-be daughter in law of her, were captured alive and sent to expand Akbar’s harem. Records abul fazl: “A wonderful thing was that four days after they had set fire to that circular pile, and all that harvest of roses had been reduced to ashes, those who opened the door (to womens quarters) found two women alive. A large piece of timber had prevented them and preserved from the fire. One of them was Kamlavati, the Rani's sister, and the other the daughter of the Rajah of Purangadh… These two, who had emerged from that storm of fire, obtained honour by being sent to kiss the threshold of the Shahinshah.”

Even if we accept the argument constructed by the likes of Vincent Smith that Akbar’s zeal came from his insatiable imperialistic ambition and greed, rather than from his religious belief, that hypothesis in no way negates his personal outlook being that of a fanatic Moslem at least in this stage of his life.

During this time, he even aspired like any other moslem monarch (including the fanatic final Nizam of Hyderabad in twentieth century), to become the khalIfA of all the momins of the world: “Insha’allah, within these few days we will reach the seat of the khilAfat”[9]. Quite like his illustrious ancestor Amir taymUr-the-lung who had little scruples in subjugating and slaying the then abbAsI khalIfA to appoint himself khalIfat-ul-lillAh, the Greatest Commander of the Faithful.

Like his ancestors, Akbar was a type of sunnI for whom visiting mazArs and dargAhs of walI-i-khudA was a necessary act of faith, and towards 13th century muin-ud-dIn the chisht he had a special reverence, visiting whose dargAh in ajmer was an annual affair for him. Even the chosen battle cry of his armies used to be ‘yA muin’, in name of the sUfI who was a ghAzI in his own way, and whose arrival from Central Asia to India is mysteriousely close to the arrival of armed jehAd by muhammed the ghorI. Akbar patronized this chishtI dargAh and its shaikhzAdAhs throughout the JehAdI phase of his life, and his abandoning it coincides his abandoning Islam, but that is much later. For now, he was so religiously engaged in sunnI saints that he even moved his capital away from Agra to a smaller town called sIkrI, where a contemporary faqIr from the lineage of the ajmer’s sufI, named sheikh salIm chishtI used to have his dwellings, and whom Akbar had come to patronize after the former miraculously blessed him with a son, who was named by Akbar after the faqir as Salim.

While many have argued that for Akbar, drive for power was above all other considerations including religion, but what seems closer to reality is that at least in this period, for Akbar, both Polity and Faith were one, and means to serve the interest of the other, in true Islamic tradition. We should take note, for instance, of the incident that after the rebellion against him led by Khan Zaman was crushed in 1567, the rebels were brutally and publicly executed by being trampled upon by elephants, but Akbar refused to mete out the same penalty upon rebel Muhammad Mirak of Mashad because he was a Syed and from the Prophet’s lineage [12], which certainly does not help the theory that Akbar had no religious scruples in dealing with the enemies.

He also appointed a little before this time, in 1565 or 66, a fellow sunnI of sUfI lineage, shaikh abdu-n nabI at the post of sadr-i-SudUr to look after the implementation of shariyat. The influence on Akbar of this fundamentalist bigot was so thorough that Akbar used to regularly visit his home to hear his lectures on Qoran and hadIs. It is recorded that he at this time respected this mawlAnA so deeply that at some instances Akbar was seen adjusting the former’s footwear when he rose from his seat. (Of course, much later, Akbar would simply repeal this post itself, and exile mawlAnA to Arabia at the end of which he was found dead in suspicious circumstances.)

Akbar even set up a new post in his cabinet and always appointed senior officials to this post, to look after the arrangements of the journey of Hajj for Moslems, and not unlike the current Governments of India, heavily subsidized the pilgrim expenses. He was said to have even contemplated building a grand sarai in Mecca for residence of pilgrims from India, and his first contact with Portuguese was in relation of arranging the system of voyage when the land route, via Iran, had become unsafe for sunnIs to travel, given the prevailing bloody shia-sunnI relation.

Akbar’s personal behaviour in these years demonstrates little scope of tolerance even for the non-sunnI Moslem sects, what to speak of the Hindus. There are several instances during this part of his reign when many non-sunnI Islamic sects, especially shi'a-s, were persecuted for being heretic and innovators besides numerous instances of suppressing these different sects. Remarkable is his own utterance when he ordered the execution of a sufI who had come from gujarAta and was blamed for having criticized the favourite saint of Akbar, the chishtI of sIkari, the event mentioned by sAMkR^ityAyana quoting from an authority he did not cite.[10]

Iqtidar Alam Khan writes [11]: “he had a manifestly suppressive attitude towards the sects condemned by the orthodox Muslims as heretics. The Iranian nobles, mostly Shi'as were encouraged and used against the discontented Turanis throughout the sixties. But at the same time their freedom to profess and practise their faith was sought to be restricted. A glaring example of such a restrictive attitude towards Shi'as was the exhumation, in 1567, of Mir Murtaza Sharifi Shirazi's remains from the vicinity of Amir Khusrau's tomb in Delhi at the suggestion of Shaikh Abdu'n Nabi. The argument put forward in justification of the exhumation was that a 'heretic’ could not be allowed to remain buried so close to the grave of a renowned Sunni saint. It was no doubt an extreme expression of sectarian hatred. Even Badauni had criticised the exhumation of Mir Murtaza Sharifi Shirazi's remains as a very unjust act. Akbar's farman to Abdus Samad, the Muhtasib of pargana Bilgram, directing him, around 1572, to ‘help in eradicating the heresy and deviation from the pargana' is an indication that the restrictive attitude towards Shi'aism continued to persist till as late as early seventies. Akbars hostility towards the Mahadavis was still more pronounced. His attitude towards them continued to be repressive down to 1573 when he is reported to have suppressed them harshly in Gujarat. It was in the course of this suppression that the leading Mahadavi divine, Miyan Mustafa Bandgi, was arrested and brought to the court in chains.”

When even non-sunnI Moslems were persecuted this way all through the 60s and at least till mid 70s, what to say of the Hindus? There were numerous instances of vandalism of temples by the army of Akbar, which was always full of fanatics. The desecration of the famous deity of the sisodiyA-s of mewAr, ekali~Nga mahAdeva, is a fact recorded in annals. Tod aptly says, “(Akbar) was long ranked with Shahab-ud-din and other instruments of Allah’s destruction, and with every just claim. Like these, he constructed from the altars of Eklinga a pulpit for the Koran.”[13]

The most outrageous vandalism of Hindu temples at the hands of Akbar’s forces was reserved for the lower Himalayas, which were raided by his general Hussein Khan the 'tukaDiyA'. This general had earlier gained the title of ‘tukaDiA’ due to his dictat to Hindus of North-West, which he governed, to always carry a yellow patch, a ‘tukaDI’, in their headgear, for easy identification. Something which should reminds us of the tAlibAns. So under this zealous commander, Akbar’s armies destroyed many temples and desecrated even more. Several mutilated images in uttarAkhaNDa, till today, bear witness to that barbarity. Most notorious of these events is the episode of nagarakoTa near kAngarA where the famous temple of devI, a shakti-pITha, was desecrated by slaying two-hundred cows in its compound, throwing their flesh and blood about, and finally demolishing the temple besides slaying countless kAfirs. The event is gleefully recorded by badAyUnI, who holds tukaDiA so high in admiration to consider him worthy of having been a contemporary of Mohammed and having participated in the original jehAds. Some Marxists like sAMkR^ityAyana isolate the responsibility to tukaDiyA and absolve Akbar of the crime. Other Marxist R S Sharma also cites some local tradition to state that Akbar had later lamented for this and sent a golden cHatra as atonement. [14] Be that as it may, and it is entirely possible for Akbar to have lamented for his behaviour as we shall get into subsequently, the fact remains that tukaDiyA was a high general in the army of Akbar, rose to the mansab of three-thousand, even higher than Birbal who remained only at two. Father Monserrate who visited Akbar’s kingdom was gladdened to see the idolatry being firmly wiped out by pious Moslems, he actually laments that not enough had been done in this direction.

Bartoli the Jesuit says about Akbar: “He never gave anybody the chance to understand rightly his inmost sentiments…, this was the characteristic manner of King Akbar, a man apparently free from mystery or guile, as honest and candid as could be imagined; but, in reality, so close and self-contained, with twists of words and deeds so divergent one from the other, and most times so contradictory, that even by much seeking one could not find the clue to his thoughts.'

But we think it is rather straight forward, for us, having the benefit of standing removed now from that time, to be able to look back at Akbar and understand something more about his personal religious outlook. During the first phase of his life he was a sunnI Moslem offering namAz five times a day, visiting dargAh-s of the sunnI saint in ajmer once a year, sometimes on foot, faithfully listening to the expositions on Qoran and Hadis by theologians, and above all, waging jehAd against the infidels. All of this is certain. What needs some forensic-like examination is to understand how he suddenly woke up and started questioning the religion of his birth, understood its value and finally liberated himself from it. That is what we now hope to get into.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Mar 13 2009, 02:05 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Mar 13 2009, 02:05 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bodhi, You wrote all that?[right][snapback]95437[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Bodhi, you sound like HH's long-lost twin in that post (61) - and in 64. What with the "we"s and the "Isaist"s and everything.

I once ran a web search on Leukosphere to work out whether it was an officially-used term (yes yes, we all know that leuko has to do with white or something - hence white blood cells are called leukosomething, but I didn't know if leukosphere was an existing phrase and whether it meant what I imagined it meant). From the search results it didn't seem to be a real word, by the way - but every web page where it was used that I looked at to find out what it meant, the writing styles of the persons corresponded: <i>one</i> fingerprint.
Since then, only one other person has used/borrowed an idea of the term: You once wrote leukonations.

Imitation is the best form of flattery they say. I can see it is more than that: a sign of friendship and admiration. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Bodhi]

HH is the master, the guru.

[Husky]

Du kleine, ich weiß schon (hatte schon gewußt): du liebst ihm. Er ist dein freund. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> Für dich, so wie ein bruder.
Freundschaft war immer das wertvollsten.

<b>ADDED:</b> I basically repeated:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->friendship and admiration<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Bodhi]

III

To better understand Akbar’s case of renouncing Islam it is necessary that we first draw a sketch of his personality profile, and highlight his attitude, tendencies and other aspects of his psychology, which is what we hope to do presently.

We know from many independent testimonies that he was a rather courageous individual, to the point of being reckless. He often comes across as someone who enjoyed taking risky bets in life, and deriving fun out of living on the edge. Many examples demonstrate this, like his knack for riding insane or intoxicated elephants; or going to invasions particularly during the rainy months prohibited in war manuals; or in defiance to the advice of the hakIm-s daring to smoke unknown variety of tobacco gifted by someone, and so on.

It also seems that Akbar had preference to rationale and logic, which became amplified with passage of time. On this account, the irritation of the Jesuit Fathers is very telling, whom he continued to persistently grill on the rationality of the Christian theology: “We see in this prince the common fault of the Atheist, who refuses to make reason subservient to faith, and, accepting nothing as true which his feeble mind is unable to fathom, is content to submit to his own imperfect judgment matters transcending the highest limits of human understanding.”[85] We can also notice that as soon as Akbar was introduced to the patterns of reasoning and logic especially of Greek variety, he immediately took strong liking to it. [86] His tendency of reasoning is likewise reflected in one of his letters to his younger son, in which Akbar expressed his admiration for the philosophy of karma and reincarnation of soul, saying these concepts had completely convinced his mind of their truth due to their irrefutable rationality [87] (on this last subject sheikh ahmed sarhindI, the contemporary naqshbandiyA sUfI was to later have much heartburn. [88])

Akbar had an experimenting attitude. For example, his famous ‘nursery test’ of bringing up a set of infants for a few years in absolute silence and see the language they spoke when they came of age, to validate the claim of Arabic being the ‘natural’ language for Allah to have sent Qoran only in that tongue. At another point he demanded mawlAnA-s and Padres to give a proof of their faith in front of him by entering a fire invoking their respective God and trusting God’s protection if their religions were truthful. [88.2] (Behind this hilarious idea we suspect some role of Birbal, who might have informed Akbar about fire-tests, the agni-parIkShA, which had been an old Hindu method among disputers.)

Akbar also comes across as someone who cared little for the norm, and having ability to generate fresh ideas and adopt new methods. This is demonstrated by his various impossible-looking initiatives of policy including his establishing one-way matrimonial ties with rAjapUta houses. Although no doubt implemented by means of cunning guile and brute force, this new policy nevertheless tied down rAjapUta-s in such strong fetters that became impossible for them to break.

There are a couple of more aspects of Akbar’s psychological profile that need our attention. From anecdotal data provided by different chronicles, we suspect that Akbar also suffered from a couple of neurological conditions.

First, although none of the historians suggest it, we dare to propose that he could have been a case of Dyslexia, i.e. learning handicap hampering ability in reading and writing. We suspect this because almost all chroniclers including his official historian abul fazl inform us, although apologetically and in a veiled way, that Akbar could never learn the letters and remained illiterate despite all the education he received. Our belief is further strengthened by another apparently disconnected fact recorded by Jesuits that Akbar used to have a tendency to quickly lose his concentration in conversations, a known symptom of the condition, and that he used to jump abruptly from one topic to the other, like a child, confusing the Jesuits who thought it was due to his impatience with them. Besides, there is another fact recorded by some of his biographers which suggest that Akbar had a rather visual mind with liking for arts of various kinds, another strong Dyslexic trait. Akbar was not only fond of drawings and paintings but also reasonably good at it himself. He patronized many Hindu and Persian artists in his royal studio, which he used to visit once a week, and used to particularly love doing calligraphy himself, having learnt the art from khwAjA abdus-samad, his Persian court artist (and in footsteps of Akbar, one of the earliest denouncers of Islam at the court).

Akbar although illiterate was not un-intelligent. The Jesuit observes: “Echebar... was interested in, and curious to learn about many things, and possessed an intimate knowledge not only of military and political matters, but also of many of the mechanical arts…, could discourse on the laws of many sects, a subject of which he made a special study. Although he could neither read nor write, he enjoyed entering into debates with learned doctors. He always entertained at his court, dozen or so (learned men)… To their discussions, now on one subject now on another…he was a willing listener, believing that by this means he could overcome the disadvantage of his illiteracy.” [89]

Being neither a neurologist nor a historiographer, whereas the subject demands one to be both, we can be wrong in diagnosing him as Dyslexic, but certainly when Oak calls Akbar an illiterate stupid, he is being uncharitable, and when A L Srivastava says that being “a truant child he did not sit down to read and write”, [90] he too is ignoring the fact that even in his adulthood Akbar unsuccessfully attempted to learn the letters and failed, while at the same time he was able to learn many other things and must have been intelligent enough to have created a vast and stable empire for himself and rule over it for over half a century.

Akbar might have also suffered from still another neurological condition which used to cause in him sudden and recurrent fits of seizures. While flattering biographers have described these fits as mystic spiritual experience like those of the Prophet, to modern eyes it appears that he suffered from some kind of Epilepsy. What is more, we think it could have been a result of a thorough mental depression due to his deep religious anxiety, unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Consider this report of the Jesuits from 1578 when Akbar was still a practicing Moslem although now in doubts about his faith and deeply disappointed with it: “His Seldan of Mecquae (Mecca), the chief of all his Mullas and Caziques (kAzI-s)… said, ‘Your Majesty follows a Good Law, and has no reason to doubt it, or to seek another.’ On hearing this, the King rose to his feet and exclaimed, ‘May God Help Us! May God Help Us!’, repeating these words, as if to imply that he was far from satisfied with the law that he followed...”

Our belief that his Epilepsy was a result of his deep anxiety with faith he practiced is strengthened by a couple of other data points. First, he is said to have reported having some spiritual visions during these fits, suggesting his inner demand for spiritual satisfaction might be at the root of the phenomenon. Second, as per the chroniclers the last of these fits is reported from the year 1579-80, which mysteriously coincides with his official departure from Islam, making it very safe for us to believe that it was no coincidence at all and abandoning Islam might have liberated him of the anxiety he suffered from, and rid him of these fits.

Few more attributes are important to remember. Akbar was fiercely independent since his childhood, having grown up without the oversight of either parents as well as having lost his father before entering the teens. He shows his independence quite early on when he defied the mutallIkI, the legal guardianship, of his uncle byram khAn, as well as culled the petticoat government of harem quite early on when he was very young. Akbar is also recorded as short tempered, impatient, and highly ambitious. Unlike other Moghuls after him, he was also known to be extremely hardworking, and very hands-on in all affairs of government, diplomacy, military and public administration.

Since we are looking at the psychological profile of Akbar, I wish we could have had some insights about his libido and sexual life, but none have left anything substantial on the subject except for Jesuits who say that he was very indulgent in his harem, which of course was very large with hundreds of wives and concubines from different countries, and we know a bit about his feats of mInAbAzAr. While the account of gulbadan, the aunt of Akbar and sister of humAyun, gives us some insights into the harem, and we have gone through the translation of her annals, but it does not add to our information about making up our mind on Akbar’s sexual life. At one place we can read a comment attributed to Akbar comparing his own attitude towards women in earlier and later phases of his life: “Had I formerly possessed the knowledge that I now have, I would have never chosen a wife for myself; for upon older women I now look as mothers, on women of my age as sisters, and on girls as daughters.” [90.1]

Ironically, a crucial factor behind Akbar’s exit from Islam might actually be his deep inclination towards religion, which is beyond doubt and confirmed by all testimonies of his life. We have seen that up until mid 1570s, that is till about Akbar reached mid-thirties of his life (b 1542), he remained not only a genuinely pious believer but in fact a zealous jehAdI, competing with mahmUd and shihAb-ud-dIn, bakhtiyAr and alA-ud-dIn, and other such earlier ghAzI-s, simply as an outward expression of following his religion. When he was a Moslem, he was following his faith as completely and religiously as is possible, but unlike others he demanded more out it than reciting Qoran in an alien tongue could afford, or visiting dargAh-s and hearing sermons of mawlAnA-s would supply. He had some higher expectations from his faith, probably some yearning for inner spiritual satisfaction which was not forthcoming resulting in anxiety as we have noted earlier. He might have genuinely believed that he could overcome this by going deeper in his faith and probably that by learning about its doctrine more closely and following it, he might reach closer to this gratification. It is more with this intention than any other that he decided to devote time and attention to thoroughly learning about his faith, and being relatively relieved of continuous battles and having etched for himself a sizeable empire, he could now afford time and attention for a sustained effort in this enterprise.

For a Moslem to renounce Islam voluntarily and be willingly declared an apostate, it must take an enormous amount of courage as well as a strong motivation. If courage is a prerequisite for the process, rational thought its germinator and deep quest for truth its nourishment, then we believe Akbar was a fit candidate for it.

Having now a general idea of the mind of the protagonist of our story, we can now turn to more happening part of the tale, the U-Turn.

continues

[Husky]

^ Bodhi's important post


Bodhi, I don't know that these would help you in that they are secondary or tertiary sources, but can see if they give any references to consult:
1. http://web.archive.org/web/20050207114949/...ad/subjects.htm
(Pakistani apostate Ibn Warraq's site)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It was not possible for him (Firuz Shah) to rise, as Akbar did, to the conception that the ruler of Hindustan should cherish all his subjects alike, whether Muslim or Hindu, and allow every man absolute freedom, not only of conscience but of public worship. The Muslims of the fourteenth century were still dominated by the ideas current in the early days of Islam, and were convinced that the tolerance of idolatry was a sin."

<b>AKBAR THE GREAT (1542-1605)</b>

It is significant and ironical that the most tolerant of all the Muslim rulers in the history of India was also the one who moved farthest away from orthodox Islam, and  in the end rejected it for an eclectic  religion of his own devising.  Akbar abolished the taxes on Hindu pilgrims at Muttra, and remitted the jizya or poll tax on non-Muslims.  Akbar had early shown an interest in religions other than the rigid Islam he had grown up in. Under the influence of freethinkers at his court like Abul Fazl, and Muslim and Hindu mysticism, Akbar developed his interest in comparative religion to the extent of building a special "house of worship "in which to hold religious discussions. At first, the discussions were restricted to Muslim divines, who thoroughly disgraced themselves in their childish behaviour.  Akbar was profoundly disgusted, for their comportment seemed to cast doubt on Islam itself. Now Akbar decided to include Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, and eventually three Jesuit fathers from the Portuguese colony of Goa. The Jesuit fathers were treated with the utmost respect; Akbar even kissed the Bible and other Christian holy images -- something totally revolting to an orthodox Muslim. One of the Jesuits became a tutor to Akbar's son.  There were further acts that alarmed and angered the Muslims. First, Akbar proclaimed the Infallibility decree, which authorized the emperor to decide with binding authority any question concerning the Muslim religion, provided the ruling should be in accordance with some verse of the Koran.  Second, Akbar again scandalised the Muslims by displacing the regular preacher at the mosque, and himself mounting the pulpit, reciting verses composed by Faizi,the brother of the freethinking Abul Fazl.  The Muslim chiefs in the Bengal now considered Akbar an apostate, and rose up in revolt against him. When the rebellion was crushed, Akbar felt totally free to do what he wanted. And, in the words of V. Smith, "He promptly took advantage of his freedom by publicly showing his contempt and dislike for the Muslim religion, and by formally promulgating a new political creed of his own, adherence to which involved the solemn renunciation of Islam."  Akbar rejected the Muslim chronology, establishing a new one starting from his accession. He further outraged the Muslims by issuing coins with the ambiguous phrase "Allahu Akbar", a frequent religious invocation known as the Takbir, which normally means "God is Great"(akbar = great), but since Akbar is also the emperor's name,"Allahu Akbar" could also mean "Akbar is God." <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo--> Akbar 's aim throughout his reign was to abate hostility towards Hindus, and his own vague religion was "a conscious effort to seem to represent all his people." He adopted Hindu and Parsee (Zoroastrian) festivals and practices.  Thus it is not surprising that"his conduct at different times justified Christians, Hindus, Jains, and Parsis [Parsees] in severally claiming him as one of themselves." Akbar's driving principle was universal toleration, and all the Hindus, Christians, Jains and Parsees enjoyed full liberty of conscience and of public worship.  He married Hindu princesses, abolished pilgrim dues, and employed Hindus in high office. The Hindu princesses were even allowed to practise their own religious rites inside the palace.  "No pressure was put on the princes of Amber, Marwar, or Bikaner to adopt Islam, and they were freely entrusted with the highest military commands and the most responsible administrative offices. That was an entirely new departure, due to Akbar himself..."


<b>AURANGZEB  (1618-1707)</b>

Akbar's great grandson, Aurangzeb, was, in total contrast, a Muslim puritan, who wished to turn his empire into a land of orthodox Sunni Islam, ruled in accordance with the principles laid down by the early Caliphs.  Once again, we enter the world of Islamic intolerance -- temples are destroyed (during the campaigns of 1679_80, at Udaipur 123 were destroyed, at Chitor sixty-three; at Jaipur sixty-six); and non -Muslims  become second class citizens in their own country.  The imperial bigot, to use Smith's phrase, reimposed the "hated jizya, or polltax on non-Muslims, which Akbar had wisely abolished early in his reign." Aurangzeb's aim was to curb the infidels and demonstrate the "distinction between a land of Islam and a land of unbelievers."  "To most Hindus Akbar is one of the greatest of the Muslim emperors of India and Aurangzeb one of the worst; to many Muslims the opposite is the case. To an outsider there can be little doubt that Akbar's way was the right one.... Akbar disrupted the Muslim community by recognising that India is not an Islamic country: Aurangzeb disrupted India by behaving as though it were." [Gascoigne 227]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

2. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Print...4-D85A9D2B4B6A}
<b>Islam’s Other Victims: India</b>
By Serge Trifkovic
FrontPageMagazine.com | 11/18/2002
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Mogul emperor Akbar is remembered as tolerant, at least by the standards of Moslems in India: only one major massacre was recorded during his long reign (1542-1605), when he ordered that about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus be slain on February 24, 1568, after the battle for Chitod. But Akbar’s acceptance of other religions and toleration of their public worship, his abolition of poll-tax on non-Moslems, and his interest in other faiths were not a reflection of his Moslem spirit of tolerance. Quite the contrary, they indicated a propensity for free-thinking in the realm of religion that finally led him to complete apostasy. Its high points were the formal declaration of his own infallibility in all matters of religious doctrine, his promulgation of a new creed, and his adoption of Hindu and Zoroastrian festivals and practices. This is a pattern one sees again and again in Moslem history, down to the present day: whenever one finds a reasonable, enlightened, tolerant Moslem, upon closer examination this turns out to be someone who started out as a Moslem but then progressively wandered away from the orthodox faith. That is to say: the best Moslems are generally the least Moslem (a pattern which does not seem to be the case with other religions.)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Bodhi]

thanks Husky.

[Bodhi]

IV

The year is 1574 from where we have to pick up the threads of this phase of our story.

Akbar is by now in control over a vast portion of North India, his writ reigning unchallenged from sindhudesha in west up to major parts of va~Nga in east, and from the foothills of himAchala in north up to the boundaries of marahaTTA country in south. The momentum of his imperialist campaign for expansion is now such that the next few years would see him delete the sovereignty of most prevailing kingdoms of India, some with physical military subjugation while others simply bullied into suzerainty, barring remote regions of coastal dakShiNApatha and prAgjyotiSha.

The only exception to this is mewADa, right in the heart of Akbar’s conquered domains, where a saffron banner continues to defiantly kiss the sky, decorated with its golden emblem of the sun and the moon looking over a cow feeding her calf. Pratap Singh Sisodiya the mahArANA neither budges to diplomacy nor is Moghal army able to overpower him militarily. In frustrating every advance of Akbar, he is more than matching imperialist resourcefulness with his single-minded grit and valiance of his dedicated followers. His insignia now includes a nAgarI line in brajabhAShA that more than defines the tumultuous struggle of mewADa: “jo dR^iDha rAkhahin dharama kau tAhi rakhahi kartAr” (Those who are stiff in protecting dharma, are looked after by the Creator). mahArANA remains the chief focus of Akbar’s hostility, the hallmark of which, the bloodbath of haldIghATI is a couple of years out in the future (1576).

Within dAr-ul-islAm Akbar is now considered one of the most powerful monarchs, if not the most, and his name is well known in Mecca, where he sends rich gifts with every contingent of hAjI-s from India. (There is an interesting account that gulbadan has left in her diary, of how when one of these days a fleet of Indian hAjI-s reached Mecca, of which she was a part, it caused a minor riot of sorts among Arabs who had gathered there to receive the presents sent by Akbar.) Arabian world is controlled from Constantinople by the Sultanate of the osmAnI turuShka-s, who are now fast receding in strength, thanks to the continuing push from the Christian west and to some extent the Shi’aite east. The then khalIfA, Murad the third, can measure up to Akbar only on one account, that is, the population of the harem.

Another major bloc in the Moslem world, the usbec-tAjiks of bukhArA are while no match to Akbar’s power, they are kept in good humour by him with diplomacy, since their co-ethnics still form a significant column of his military, and he needs to temporarily maintain peace at North-West to consolidate his conquered inner domains, otherwise his desire of rooting out the very seed of usbecs from the soil of India is well-known. For Akbar the real competition for dominance in islAmosphere is from the safAvI-s of Persia, whose great ruler shah tahmAsp is now in his advanced years, at whose court once humAyUn was sheltered as a political refugee at the time when Akbar was entering this world. shAh is destined to depart in a couple of years (1576), and is imitated by Akbar in many respects including the language policy, army regimentation, administrative structure, even in the numismatic designs. This is also largely because Akbar is continuously importing from Persia a majority share of his employees.

Indeed moslems are now flocking to Akbar’s capital from every known quarter of dAr-ul-islAm, mostly the nobles and mercenaries, scholars and artists, in lure of the blooming career opportunities. There is an interesting account in A’in that informs us of how Akbar conducted job interviews of these prospects, checked their references and fixed their compensations. One of the side-effects that this in-migration has resulted in, of importance to our topic, is that under Akbar are accumulated moslems of a variety of sects loathing each other as heretics and living in sectarian animosity.

There are Hindus too in his service, although their numbers making for a small minority. Some Hindus have reached quite higher up in his civil administration, like Todarmal, as well in military, like Man Singh Kachhwaha, besides some having gained his personal friendship, like Birbal. Such Hindus are joked about by mullAh-s, as kAfIrs spreading the reach of Islam. badAyUnI proudly reports in 1576: “Through the generalship of Man Singh the true meaning of this line of mullA shIrI became known, ‘A Hindu wields the Sword of Islam’ ” [4.1]

The imperial capital has been relocated to sIkarI, a few miles interior from Agra, and renamed as fatehpur the ‘City of Victory’. The selection of new capital is a decision driven largely by reverence to the sunnI sUfI sheikh salIm the chisht, who used to have his khAnakAh here, which is now flourishing under royal patronage while the sUfI himself has departed for Allah’s abode a couple of years back (d1572).

Although there are plenty of political matters that need considerable attention of Akbar at the moment - putting down this rebel here and attending to some other feud there - but things are a lot more stable while the empire is already consolidating, and Akbar can more or less remotely manage these affairs from his new capital.

Earlier concerns related to being childless are not bothering Akbar anymore, who now has two daughters and three princes, while another child is on the way. Salim born from the rAjapUtAnI wife is now five, whereas Murad and Daniyal born from two concubines are toddlers of four and two.

Having found some respite from politics and being relatively trouble-free, he now has the opportunity of turning to other priorities.

Year 1574 therefore, the thirty-third year of his life, marks the inauguration of the study of Islam by the Great turuShka.

badAyUnI’s take for 1574: “In the course of the last few years, pAdishAh has gained many great and remarkable victories, and his domain has grown in extent from day to day, so that not an enemy is left in the world; he now takes a liking for the society of ascetics and the disciple of the celebrated Mu’iniyyah (i.e. the cult of chisht), and spends time in discussing the Word of God (i.e. Qoran) and the sayings of the Prophet.” [4.2]

To make his enterprise of studying his religion as grand as any other, Akbar commissioned building of a complex dedicated to this sole purpose and named it ibAdat-khAnAh, the ‘House of Prayer’, along with a large lake in its annex which he named as anUpa tAlAba the ‘Lake without a Simile’. This construction would be ready for inauguration by fall in next year.

Let us note in the passing that while all other monuments mentioned in the histories of Akbar can be seen to this day at sIkarI, there is not one sign of ibAdat-khAnAh nor of anUpa-tAlAba, which are otherwise so well described not only in several independent chronicles but also depicted on portraits by contemporary painters. The entire complex has simply vanished, as if evaporated from the surface without leaving any trace. While there is no record of what happened to it, we have very little difficulty in suggesting that its disappearance has to do with the revenge of the believers, and it is more than likely that jehAngIr himself might have ordered its demolition to erase out the physical memorabilia of where his father shed from himself the religion of the Prophet. Little else explains the complete disappearance of ibAdat-khAnAh from sIkarI.

We may call it an act of fate or just a coincidence, but at the same time when ibAdat-khAnAH is under construction, an important agent makes its entry in the process. Sheikh abul-fazl allAmI, the author of A’in-i-akbarI joins in 1574 the clerical staff of Akbar’s secretariat, and little does Akbar know that abul-fazl is to eventually become a guide and a fellow traveler of the journey that has begun, and finally its martyr. abul-fazl’s efficiency would soon see him rise from being a technical-writer to first head the federal secretariat and finally as vizIr of the empire. Being a son of a renowned philosopher-scholar of the age, sheikh mubArak nAgaurI, condemned by orthodox moslems as a heretic but pardoned by Akbar due to some recommendations, abul fazl has thoroughly studied not only the doctrines of different sects within Islam, is trained in critical thought, but has also gained some knowledge about religions and philosophies that Islam has wiped out and is sympathetic towards those. Although only a youth in his early twenties, he would soon be discovered by Akbar as a budding scholar of Islam whom seasoned mawlAnA-s find hard to match both in eloquence as well as in knowledge.

What could be a more bizarre stroke of good fate than this that this year also coincides the beginning of our chief informant getting deployed at the scene, mullAh abdul qAdir badAyUnI. badAyUni, a pious young mullAh, is appointed in the summer of 1574 at the post of assistant shAhI imam of the royal mosque, and he does this crucial assistance to us by recording the events we are interested in, through this hobby of his of maintaining a private diary-like journal. This would eventually become the copious muntakhabut-tawArIkh, which is a very rich repository of data for us to learn about this process, especially because to a fundamentalist musalmAn like badAyUnI it would come intuitively to focus closely on the process of pAdishAh turning an apostate. Not only did badAyUnI have considerable access to Akbar’s religious life during this phase, and was privy to his words & deeds from up close, but what is even more important is that he wrote this chronicle as a private work not intended for others eyes in his lifetime. This way, we can take him to be free from considerations of flattery and other influences. Indeed he does not hesitate in openly cursing, condemning, even using expletives for what his moslem heart can not approve of. tawArIkh reaches us because Akbar remained unaware that under his nose badAyUnI was secretly writing it, and it came to light only during jehAngIr’s reign, who then attempted to purge its very existence by confiscating and destroying its every copy. Thankfully, tawArIkh had been copied and circulated more widely and unlike ibAdat-khAnAh it survives today to bear witness to Akbar’s U-turn.

In addition to tawArIkh, also of assistance to us are the reports and dispatches left behind by the Portuguese Jesuits, who had gleefully arrived for converting the ‘Great Mogor’, from Goa where right at the moment their co-religionists were busy in one of the bloodiest heathen-wipeouts outside of kraunchadvIpa.

But the most useful source for the proceedings of ibAdat-khAnAh, including a bit dramatized transcripts of some debates, comes to us preserved by the pArasIka refugees who being persecuted at the hands of Moslems in their homeland had fled from Persia to settle down in gujarAta province which has just joined the list of Akbar's conquests. We know that a learned pArasIka scholar and community leader dastUr meherjI rANA had arrived at Akbar’s court from gujarAta a little later from now, and had left Akbar bedazzled both with his wisdom and arguments as well as by the history he had narrated of how Islam had subjugated the glorious Persia and persecuted his ancestors.

A younger contemporary of learned dastUr rANA was kai-khusaru esfandiyAr, who was the son of dastUr’s master the jaruthastrian high priest of Fars, named Azar-kayvAn. esfandiyAr later undertook to study all the sects prevailing in India, with help of his brAhmaNa friends and by visiting monasteries from kashmIra to Andhra. The output was a significant Persian work on comparative study of religions, titled dabistAn-i-mazahab, compiled between 1630 and 1657 that is roughly during shAhjahAn’s time. This work is significant to our subject, because it not only dedicates a complete chapter to the cult of Akbar, but under it also provides a separate section to record the transcripts of ibAdat-khAnAH sessions, from the oral traditions of some ilAhIans, pArsIka-s and Shiites.

Generally our historians shrug this data aside as hearsay or hagiography since it was compiled at least four decades after the event. But we are of the opinion that even if allowing that some dramatizations or exaggerations have been utilized by the author in presenting the transcripts, what stands absolutely certain is that the chronologically relative flow of themes of debates as well as the main points under them, are extremely close to actual happenings. This is because there is near-absolute conformity of it with other independent chronicles: that of badAyUnI and of the Christists. Indeed it is comforting to observe that the descriptions of some of the debates are so close with the accounts by Christists - and dabistAn’s author had no access to the Jesuit reports dispatched to Goa and thence to Europe - that we can safely consider the data in dabistAn being closer to reality and can use it here with some care and due diligence.

The most disappointing to us is the response of the Hindus to this event.

Having commented that Hindus produce great philosophers but horrible historians, Max Muller remains a hated figure among large sections of Hindus of our time. But how do we escape from agreeing with Muller’s observation in context of our subject when we are faced with complete silence from Hindus on the subject of Akbar's U-Turn? There is no records kept by Hindus who watched the event from close, aside from some glorifications in jaina chronicles like vijaya-prashasti or in the vulgar poetries of the bhATs of rAjasthAn.

We do know that brAhmaNa-s had not only participated in the debates but had the foresight of collaborating well among like-minded, the shvetAmbara-s and the nAtha-yogI-s, and had indeed fared very well in the debates. Their performance evokes much disappointment from badAyUnI who is forced to admit that Hindus are superior philosophers and disputers than his own co-religionists: “Hindu ascetics and Barhmans… suppress all other learned men in their treatises on morals and on physical and religious sciences, and since they attain a high degree of knowledge of the future and of spiritual power and human perfection, they managed to bring proofs based on reason and testimony for the truth of their own religion and falsity of other faiths, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly that no man, by expressing his doubts, could raise a doubt in pAdishAh, even though the mountains should crumble to dust or the heavens be torn asunder.”[4.3]

Why did then Hindus not take care to record any of these happenings? Why did they fail to recognize and record the watershed event taking place before their eyes which had the potential of changing the course of history, indeed as it actually might have? What stopped the Hindu scholars from making critical assessment of the doctrines of invading religions, until dayAnand saraswatI did so in the nineteenth century?

But we digress, and must return to 1574-5 where stage is set and Akbar has now accumulated the best known sunnI scholars of his time. He is now spending with them at least a couple of evenings in each week to hear them discuss among themselves and with him the tenets of Islam, discussions moderated by none other than himself.

continues...

[Husky]

Just linking here since it's on topic.
Don't know how accurate it is as I haven't read it yet (am not really interested in Akbar).

http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/mo...r_ppg.html
via
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/07/akb...al-monarch.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Thursday, July 02, 2009
<b>Akbar "The Great": A Tyrannical Monarch</b>
jul 2nd, 2009

the great benevolent emperor, according to the likes of amartya sen-rothschild, turns out to have new clothes on closer inspection.

he was just yet another standard semitic barbarian, but he had learned the art of marketing (perhaps he had some interaction with the christists).

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajiv

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sachin Gupta <sachin1969@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Subject: Akbar, The Great A Tyrannical Monarch
To:


http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/mo...r_ppg.html

Akbar "The Great": A Tyrannical Monarch<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Bodhi]

V

While we have sufficient data about Akbar’s U-turn from the onwards of year 1576-77, that is generally coinciding with the time from which the Shiites got engaged, and the process stands fairly coherent after the year of 1580-81 when Akbar was done with the religion of the Prophet, our knowledge is woefully challenged by the insufficiency as well as lack of satisfactory clarity of data available about the happenings in the neighborhood of 1575-76. We are left only with badAyUnI narrating for us the events from this initial stage of the process, without the benefit of corroboration either from the IsAists or the informants of the dabistAn’s author.

We have already seen that down to this time Akbar was under major influence of the sUfI-s, originally of the naqshabandiyA variety but for many years now of their chishtI cousins. A couple of disconnected anecdotes narrated by badAyUnI reinforce our information on how deeply was pAdishAh biased towards chishtiA.

One of these days when blessed with a son, badAyUnI approached him for choosing a name for the newborn as per the custom, and the name Akbar proposed, ‘abdal hAdI’, indirectly reveals his bend at the time: ‘hAdI’ being a common address to the sUfI masters. [1] Another anecdote about name-giving confirms the same. After fulfilling his pious desire of participating in jehAd against Hindus at haldIghATI, badAyUnI returned to sIkarI in the end of 1576 with an accidentally captured elephant of mahArANA, dispatched for Akbar by Man Singh. When Akbar was told that mahArANA called it ‘rAma-prasAda’, he rechristened the war-elephant as ‘pIra-prasAda’, the ‘Grace of pIra’, referring by pIra the chishtI of ajmer. [2] (If name-giving could be any indicator of Akbar’s religious bend at any given time, then it is very interesting to note that during his later life the names Akbar gave to the newborns, for instance to the son of abul-fazl, or to his own grandsons, were all non- or pre-Islamic.)

At another instance, Akbar scoffed at a sUfI divine for having reportedly criticized the chishtI master, by saying: 'Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti is my preceptor... Anyone who says that he was misguided (gumarAha) is a kAfir, and I shall slay that person with my own hands.’[3]

Indeed, by this time, he was a committed follower of chishtiA, not only regularly visiting the dargAhs of the chishtI sheikhs but actually practicing their peculiar exercises. badAyUnI reports that sometime around 1576, Akbar went so far as to learn and attempt the performance of chillA-i-makus, sort of a penance in which one suspends one’s head downwards in a well for forty days while continuously meditating. [4]

His strong bias towards the sUfI-s must certainly have been playing an important role at ibAdat-khAnAh in this crucial initial phase, and to understand the likely dynamics better, we are forced to take an unavoidable digression into the position of sUfI-s within the scheme of Islam.

In the infancy of Islam there was hardly any need for either philosophy or mysticism. Its spirit was not concerned with these trivialities as it erupted forth from Arabia, the basic and the only demand it placed before the convert was the absolute acceptance and obedience to the revealed command of Allah, rather than explaining, understanding or putting it to reason, which was not only unnecessary but also implicitly impossible. Within this worldview, as the ultimate scope of human knowledge was limited to knowing Allah and His Law as revealed by the Prophet, it permitted the intellectual and spiritual pursuits only as far as they develop a deeper piety and belief in the revelation. However, by the mid of the next century even as the sword of Islam defeated and subjugated vast domains of the non-Islamic societies, it had to be confronted with the sophisticated ancient religions not on the battlefields anymore but now on the turfs of philosophy and theology, and had to soon recognize the crisis of its own poverty in these fields.

The realization necessitated the Moslems to systematize and develop somewhat more rational explanations of their theology, by desperately though reluctantly employing, like their Christian cousins had done before them, service of the Greek logic and system of rational disputation, while of course scornfully distilling out all the heathen thought that came with it. By unscrupulously utilizing the heathen system of ration for template and Qoran and the life of the Prophet as data, Islam began filling the void that was there in it concerning the finer points of theology like the nature and attributes of Allah, scope of revelation, free-will versus the pre-destination etc., thus the proper founding of Islamic orthodoxy and rise of the famous lines of jurists: abU hanIfA (d 767), mAlik ibn-anas (d 795), ash-shafi-I (d 820), and ahmed ibn-hanbAl (d 855). The new faculty inaugurated the careers for the custodians of Islamic orthodoxy and guardians of the new theology, who would systematize every fine point about theology, government, law and society of Islam.

While on one hand Islam was pressurized to develop the system of its orthodoxy, in the east it was staring at another and more profound crisis. Its newly conquered territories in east - the north-eastern IrAq and interior Persia, Turkey and Caucasus - were homes to several of the immensely rich and ancient Indo-Iranian-Greek mystic and monastic traditions, answer to which the invader did not know besides trying to wipe out the kufr and jAhiliyyA by brute force as it had done back home. Unlike what it encountered in west however, where the ground was already prepared for it by the very compatible Christian creeds, here Islam had to grapple with a whole different reality. Even after simply eliminating the monks and the mobeds, demolishing the monasteries and the fire-altars, the pious invader could only succeed in converting these people in letter but not so much in spirit. The new convert continued to apply counter-pressure and bring with him his ancient mystic spirit and traditions, to the new religion forced upon him. The reaction from the guardians of the purity in Islam was on the predictable lines: suppression of heresy through persecutions, which applied selective pressures on the native traditions and their followers, culminating in survival of those traditions which managed to learn how to adjust themselves and survive within the limits permissible in Islam, and these are who would later give birth to the sUfIs. It is no surprise to observe that the earliest illustrious sUfI-s were the children of the jaruthastrian converts to Islam, like bAyazId bastAmI (d 874) and mansUr al-hillAj (publicly executed 922) etc., although western sUfIlogists and apologists of Islam carefully conceal this fact.

Thus the making of the sUfI, which started in the ninth century but did not complete until the twelfth, the process involving gory persecution at the hands of ulemA and khalIfA, and resulting over time in circumspection and internalization of Islam by these mystics, causing them to make inventions of historically-impossible vaMshAvalI-s in order to link themselves to the Prophet and his companions (sometimes explaining these linkages using supernatural travels, spiritual visions, or appearances in dreams), liberal applications of hagiography to absorb the historical Moslem figures as saints of their own traditions, interpreting Qoranic verses and Prophetic traditions to seek approvals for their practices, adopting Arabic terminology to express their spiritual ideas (until a limited later revival of local vernaculars), and above all, forcefully de-linking themselves from their true origins. Then there was also an element of the pre-Islamic mysticism of Arabia finding a renewed channel to express itself once again too.

Our present scope would prevent us from delving much deeper into this process, and the matter need not detain us further than saying that Islam dealt with the crisis of its mystic poverty by ruefully allowing some liberty to the mysticism of the converts, as long as they did not clash with the core of Islam, as Sita Ram Goel writes: “…the sufi spirit was irrepressible like all other sterling expressions of the human spirit. But theology and theocracy were equally uncompromising. After a lot of terror inspired by theologians and theocrats, a compromise was made between the two… The sufis could sing and dance and indulge in other ‘frivolities’ provided they swore by the Muhammad, conformed to the Sunnah in their outer conduct, and served the sultans in the extension of Islamic imperialism.”[5]

Their islamization was to however complete soon, and whatever the origins of their real traditions, the later sUfI-s came down to become zealous missionaries of Islam, often displaying no lesser bigotry than the orthodox ulemA. Their role now started to come handy for both before and after the march of jehAd into undefeated dAr-ul-harb: before, as one writer perceptively states, as “the sappers and miners of the invading Muslim armies”, and after, as “a balm to the insulted, humiliated and the plundered” kAfirs[6]. They now played no small role in both converting the defeated kAfir as well as in preventing the neo-converts from falling back to their original faiths. Proverbially, the sword of sultan took the horse up to the water and sUfI-s made him drink it, whereas eventually the ulemA would take over and indoctrinate the coming generations of the neo-convert into Islam-proper.

The ulemA, the sultAn and the sUfI, now acted as if three columns of the vanguard of Islam, but like the three generals, while they acted in unison at war, internally they wrestled for supremacy over the other; the sUfI claiming to be the spiritual heir of the Prophet and his living model in this world, ulemA concerned with the preservation of the purity of the true faith as revealed, and the sultAn of course being the champion of Islam and its Rightly Guided khalIfA. The tussle between them can be noticed throughout the history of Islam, and is evident even before Akbar, during the tug of war between alA-ud-dIn khaljI, his contemporary orthodoxy, and nizAm-ud-dIn the chishtI awliyA of dillI. This process can also be noticed in the eighteenth century Arabia where the sa’Ud sultan and abdal wahhAb the ulemA would forge an alliance to subjugate the sUfI and ‘reform’ the Islamic faith. But despite the internal tussle, whenever the three resonated together in concordance, they imploded into the Islamic Revolution, as can be witnessed from the times of the Caliphs to the times of awrangzib the naqshbandiyA sUfI, down even to the revolution of AyAtollAh khomeinI or of the tAlibAn the pious deobandists.

In any case, what we are witnessing at the present moment in Akbar’s decision to hold theological discussions is, in our opinion, springing from this inherent schism between the sUfI-s and the Islam. Akbar was compelled to pay attention to it, he himself being inclined to the sUfI-s at heart but towards orthodox Islam in mind, as we can understand from this statement of badAyUnI: “pAdishAh has thus leisure to come into nearer contact with ascetics and the disciples of his reverence, muin, and passed much of his time in discussing QorAn and hadIs. Questions of Sufism, scientific discussion, enquiries into Philosophy and Law, were the order of the day. His Majesty spent whole nights in praising Allah; he continually occupied himself in pronouncing yA-huwA, and yA-hAdI, in which he was well-versed.” [7]

It would appear natural for such a pious follower of sUfI tarIqA to try and arbitrage a truce between sUfI-s and orthodoxy, maybe help develop a synthesis as had happened earlier outside India, for right at the moment orthodoxy was once again inspiring much terror into the sUfI-s and as we have seen the persecutions of heretics was the order of the day.

continued

1. Muntakhab ut-tawArikh, Vol. II, p229 (Incidentally, not unusual for the then prevailing infant mortality, the child was soon consumed by some fatal sickness, but in retrospect badAyUnI accuses himself, lamenting why he succumbed to the heretical ways of pAdishAh rather than bringing home his orthodox colleagues to recite QorAn to seek blessings for the newborn.)
2. Muntakhab ut-tawArikh, Vol. II, p243
3. Majalis, Maktaba Ibrahimia, #1367 p. 58. Quoted from IQTIDAR ALAM KHAN,"Akbar's Personality Traits and World Outlook: A Critical Reappraisal", Aligarh Muslim University - Center of Advanced Study in History
4. Muntakhab ut-tawArikh, Vol. II, p. 201 and vol. III p. 110. Akbar learnt it from a dervish Shaikh Chaya Laddha but did not perform it.
5. Sita Ram Goel, "Starting Point of Universal Spirituality", Defence of Hindu Soceity, Voice of India
6. Ram Autar Singh, Time for Stock Taking, Voice of India, 1996
7. Muntakhab ut-tawArikh, Vol. II, p. 203

[Bodhi]

a pillar-inscription inside a temple in mAravADa, announcing pAtasAha's grants in year 1594 to the temple.

<img src='http://inlinethumb04.webshots.com/45699/2226870100100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

seen on a plaque in ambara country, sitting in vIrAsana facing ShoDashabhujI jagadambA, angrily staring at us for our laziness

<img src='http://inlinethumb49.webshots.com/42544/2583246690100818794S425x425Q85.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

[Bharatvarsh2]

Aurangzeb, as he was according to Mughal Records

an exhibition mounted by FACT - India



http://www.aurangzeb.info/

Site has a lot of valuable info.

[Bharatvarsh2]

http://aurangazeb.wordpress.com/

[Bharatvarsh2]

Akbar was heavily influenced by the Sufis like Abul Fazl and his brother and his Hindu

generals, particularly Birbal and Todar Mal. He relied heavily on the ferocious

Amber cavalry and Rajas for keeping his borders safe. (at least he was so wise,

unlike Hindu Raja, to keep his NW frontier checked and fortified and keep a keen

eye on the developments of the Khurasan Mandala)

And he did encourage some Hindu activities with his royal approval.



But, a few instances, if correct keep, me alarmed. He may have checked the

orthodox, like the inimical Qazi body. But he certainly got the signed support

of the Ulema in 1579, in his tolerant period, to issue a mazhar decree that he

was the Khalifa of the age with all power! Thus, Akbar's war was not with all

orthodox Muslims, certainly not with the Ulema in 1579, but particularly with

the Qazi body.

1. He controlled where and when temples could be constructed. In 1595, actually

in his Hindu-tolerant period, he ordered Man SinghKachhvaha to convert the

temple he had started to built into a mosque. This is odd.

Forbes, Geraldine; Tomlinson, B.R. (2005). The new Cambridge history of India.

Cambridge University Press. p. 73.

2. He changed the sacred name of Prayaga into Ilahabas in 1583, also in his

tolerant period. A name with the Islamic word Ilaha. If he really respected his

Hindu subjects, there was no need to change the name and steal the traditional

sacred location from them. This is pure Muslim practice, like what Babur did to

Ayodhya.

3. His lust for Hindu princesses had a political motive too. To break the

backbone of the Rajas and keep them manipulating and loyal.

4. Despite political intrigues, one led by his own son, there were no religious

outbreaks of Sunnis around Akbar's last years. Even an influential orthodox

theologian like Abdul Haq still considered Akbar to be a Muslim and not a

heretic. Habib, Irfan (1997). Akbar and His India. New Delhi: Oxford University

Press, p. 96.



Perhaps, the illiterate megalomaniac Akbar, perhaps more a political Sufi Muslim

than anything else, wanted to surpass Jainas, Shaivas, Vaishnavas, Christians

and Muslims to be declared not only a political, but also a religious supreme

king. He wasn't opposed by most, whom he gave occasional rewards. But it was

particularly the orthodox Muslims around the Qazi group which called him

heretical with whom he got alienated.

In the end, from the start, his person and power mattered to Akbar. Friends were

rewarded, enemies were punished. That is Din-e Ilahi, a megalomaniac Sufi

variant of the totalitarian Islam, approved by the Ulema, who supported him, to

crush all the factions in Islam to one body under Akbar's Din-e Ilahi Khilafat.

(versus the Ottoman Khilafat)



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hinducivil...sage/48909

I hope Ishwa is okay with me posting this post of his here because it had some interesting info.

[Guest]

That's okay, Bharatvarsh2.

[Bodhi]

BhV sorry I missed your conversations earlier; please feel free to post it where it had appeared if you feel like.



Ishwa, what you said is of course what the reigning Aligarhites (Habib et al) have been repeating as proof of Akbar having remained a committed moslem contrary to the otherwise. Most of what they say is not borne out of fact however. Of late even Habib's colleagues and collaborators have questioned these notions, especially Sanjay Subramanyam and even subalternists like Harbans Mukhia.



My comments on some of your points:



<<<1. He controlled where and when temples could be constructed. In 1595, actually

in his Hindu-tolerant period, he ordered Man SinghKachhvaha to convert the

temple he had started to built into a mosque. This is odd.

Forbes, Geraldine; Tomlinson, B.R. (2005). The new Cambridge history of India.

Cambridge University Press. p. 73.>>>



Yes this is not only odd, this is also untrue. Man Singh's so called Masjid in the old capital of Jharkhand is exactly contrary to what is said above. There is absolutely no shred of any proof to support the conjecture -- which is why the Aligarhites keep attributing it to the "local oral traditions". I have studied the remains in detail and facts point exactly in opposite direction to this.



One may compare the structure of the mosque with the palaces at Sikari in UP and Rohtas in Bihar, also curious is the location of a sun temple near the so called mosque of Man Singh. In short, here is what my opinion of the matter is: the structure was originally supposed to be a palace along with a temple. A beautiful temple at the site, as it must have been since beginning, still stands, although the palace is gone. The Bengal-Bihar Governor Man Singh, as we know, faced frequent Afghan rebellious uprisings which he was mandated to quell in east, but these were only further fuelled by the murmurs about Akbar's blasphemous and apostatic acts -- and the sunnis of the moghal army also frequently threatened to turn against. Man Singh's case of converting the palace into a mosque was an act borne out from these compulsions. Even a dutch visitor to the place records this process. Also, there is nothing to show that the conversion had a sanction of Akbar; Raja Man Singh in particularly was quite autonomous in his decisions, especially in his construction spree, and required no order-taking from Akbar. By the way, in the same period, Akbar and Man Singh contributed financially to Konark and Jagannath temple -- as recorded by Patsah Buranji -- an Assamese Hindu Chronicle written by the Assamese ambassador at the Mughal court. In the same period Akbar got a certain brahmana tantrika from orissa to complie for him an exclusive mantra of Surya Sahasranama, and to initiate him in this. He memorised the mantra with effort and continued to recite till the end of his days (which was not far).



I hope to be able to clarify this oft-repeated evidence of Akbar's continued Islamness, when other pre-occupations permit me some time.



<<<2. He changed the sacred name of Prayaga into Ilhabas in 1583, also in his

tolerant period. A name with the Islamic word Ilaha.>>>



Please remember that "Ilaha" was NOT an Islamic but a pre-Islamic word simply meaning "God". Dominance of "Allah" over "Ilaha" is the Islamic contribution to some extent, the word having been created by prefixing "Al" to "Ilaha", meaning "The God". The making of exclusive "The God" from the simple and general "God" is what Islam is in a nutshell, besides of course the Finalness of its Prophet. Akbar understood this and laboured to revert Islam to its pre-Mohammedan days. During his later days he always used to refer to Islam not by its hallowed self-title "Islam" but as "kais-i-ahmad", "The Cult of Muhammedans"; In Akbar's view, it is just a cult and a corruption of the original and better religion. Akbar thought that Islam -- if Muhammad is taken out from it -- will heal itself out of the fanaticism it has gained. His clipping out the latter half of the Kalima of the moslem creed to be read in the mosques of his reign, i.e. removing "...and mohammed is his prophet", was an announcement of his intent: drop the prophet and Islam will be acceptable to him. His terminating in his empire of the usage of hijri era beginning with prophet's migration is also on that line.



<<<2. He changed the sacred name of Prayaga into Ilhabas in 1583, also in his

tolerant period. A name with the Islamic word Ilaha. If he really respected his

Hindu subjects, there was no need to change the name and steal the traditional

sacred location from them. This is pure Muslim practice, like what Babur did to

Ayodhya.>>>



Coming to "Ilahabad" -- not "Allahabad" which is a misspelling and a mispronunciation from what Akbar called it. You stopped just at looking the name. I suggest you to look at the larger things involved here in Akbar's liking to Prayag so much that he decided to shift his very imperial capital from Agra to Prayag/Ilahabad. As we know Akbar had first shifted his capital from Agra to Sikri -- and the shift was a representation of his religious tendency -- a devoted Sufi Moslem that he then was, moved his capital to the camp of Salim Chishti at Sikari. A decade later, when he had remained no longer a Moslem -- Sufi or otherwise -- he reverted back his capital to Agra. And then finally, he again decided to shift his capital when he had found his linking towards the ways of the Hindus. The new capital, like the earlier one, would be a statement of where is religious/spiritual tilt now stood. As he had earlier shifted to the Sufi Dargah, he now decided to shift to the holy Hindu city of Prayag, calling it the Abode of God -- Ilahabad. You have difficulty with the persian name -- but you dont see his inspiration. Your similie of Akbar's shifting his imperial capital to the Hindu holy city for the reasons of reverence, with that of Babur's vandalism at Ayodhya -- is hard to understand. So did he rename any other Hindu cities? What about Varanasi and Haridwar, both of which being important Hindu Centers in his domain, and which he liked very much too -- why did he not rename these two? If naming is anything to go by, please also remember that Akbar named a new fortess-city he built in the North West, near Attock, as Kashi, after the Hindu city and it came to be known as Attock-Kashi as says Badayuni in disdain.



Akbar could never practically sfift to Ilahabad -- it was taken by Salim -- unltimately symbolic of Akbar's failed mission of life.



<<<3. His lust for Hindu princesses had a political motive too. To break the

backbone of the Rajas and keep them manipulating and loyal.>>>



Of course the motive you said is the correct one, but irrelevant for the topic at hand -- he would do this even if he was or was not an apostate.



<<<4. Despite political intrigues, one led by his own son, there were no religious

outbreaks of Sunnis around Akbar's last years. Even an influential orthodox

theologian like Abdul Haq still considered Akbar to be a Muslim and not a

heretic. Habib, Irfan (1997). Akbar and His India. New Delhi: Oxford University

Press, p. 96.>>>



Inaccurate. Several of his senior sunni generals rose is revolt, but they were no match to Akbar's cunning and might as long as he had with him his chosen four -- Birbal, Todarmal, Abul Fazl and Man Singh. There is one curious instance recorded by Badayuni: Once some of Akbar's senior Generals approached him mildly complaining against his anti-islamic policies and saying what the Khalifa would think of these. Akbar reproached them harshly saying his is no army of Islam and if fighting for Islam is what motivated them they had better go and seek the skirt of the Khalifa for whom Akbar would be happy to address his letters recommending their service. In a letter, Akbar says something similar to his second son Murad -- that no Namaz or Azan should be heard in his war camps. If any generals or soldiers felt the need for namaz -- they should better do it privately in their camps; his is not an army of Islam. Still, the more fanatic of Akbar's generals were stealthily assassinated by his trusted fierce Rajput friends. Study the death of Husain Khan, killed like a dog on the orders of Akbar, much lamented by Badayuni.



But after the murders of his main friends, who were helping him stand up to the islamists, as well as the loss of his favourite sons Daniyal and Murad, both of whom Akbar was grooming as practically Hindus in outlook, Akbar's position became weakened. Sunnis then rallied around Salim who gave them solemn oaths to revert the despicable reign of Akbar again to the rule of Islam only if he came to power. But Man Singh was still too much for Jahangir to overcome in field, and Akbar had to be taken out through palace intrigues... Jahangir's rebellion is written off by the neo-Aligarhites like Irfan Habib as not having any religious motives at all. But i see it being much far from the truth.



<<<That is Din-e Ilahi, a megalomaniac Sufi variant of the totalitarian Islam>>>



Din-a-Ilahi was anything but any variant of Islam! It was more like the society of the Freemasons, and only condition of joining it was the personal declaration of the rejection of Islam.



<<<In the end, from the start, his person and power mattered to Akbar.>>>

<<<the illiterate megalomaniac Akbar>>>



It is true that Akbar was, above all, a power-hungry ruthless monarch without many scruples. Also true that he was illiterate, which I proposed was connected to some neurotic disorder rather than his being dumb or foolish. My friendly caution to you both is, please don't fall for P.N.Oakish stuff which will only mislead us to the wrong direction.



Finally, Ishwa and BhV, thanks for your comments; no offence meant in any manner; I just did not have enough time to elucidate it better or continue on important topic of Akbar's apostasy. Hope to get back to do so at some time very soon in a more formal manner.

[Guest]

No problem, Bodhi. I will be in this position too in the forthcoming months. I have to slow down to avoid a burn out.

I stand corrected on Akbar's change removed from orthodox Islam,. As I haven't made a thorough study of (the personality of) Akbar, that's why I am glad that you have cleared some points on these last doubts I had about Akbar and have enlightened me on the position of the Aligarhites w.r.t. Akbar.



Now, I do understand better the court intrigues of the last years of Akbar from Salim's rebellion on to the tensions after his death with the progressive Man Singh group favouring Salim's son and the orthodox group favouring Salim.

I also do understand the strategic and symbolic nature of Prayaga against this background of the orthodox camp versus Akbar's change.



As a matter of fact, I have no problem with a Persian name, but I concluded, perhaps hastily, with still keeping a Muslim Akbar in mind, that it contained an Islamic Arabic (!) word Ilah coupled to a M-Persian word -abad adopted and used solely by Muslims (Safavid influence entered through Humayun's and Akbar's Khurasanis?), that it was a strategic action against Hindus. With the new information about his change in mind, it thus was not an action against Hindus, but rather a personal action or plan against the orthodox (Sunnis and Sufis).

It doesn't seem to have been executed w.r.t. other Hindu centers, that's correct. But, then he didn't change the citynames in his Jihadi or Sufi period too, except only the addition of a Jihadi FatH-pur to Sikari.



You are partly right about the subtle notion of Ilahabad pointing to a pre- and non-Islamic Ilaha versus an Islamic Allah, seen from the perspective of Akbar's change on the religious plane. But, Ilah is certainly also a mainstram orthodox Muslim used word, remember the important Shahada for all Muslims: la ilaha ill allah .... Allah too is a contraction of al-ilah, as you have stated too: the ilah, par excellence. There are pre-Islamic Arabic and scores of Persian words and names which were being reused within orthodox Islam. Ilah was within the realm of Islam. Here is where I made my conclusion, w.r.t. changing a Hindu name Prayaga into a very Islamic sounding Ilah-abad, at least remote from a Hindu name and significance.



Akbar's personal invention called Din-e Ilahi, obviously, was far removed from orthodox Islam. But in my opinion was also far removed from Hindu Dharma, in the sense of respect for ancient old and periods of reformed streams through Bhakti-vada. A Jihadi previously, an 'enlightened' one now, he still was a powerful political leader in the first place and with ambitious religious visions in the second. But, people still remembered his earlier actions.

As smart as Akbar was, he must have known and felt the opposition from the orthodox Muslims, but also of scepsis amongst the other religious people. To convince the last that he really had changed may not have been easy to believe, even though he was sometimes generous towards Hindu rulers via his favourite general. But, was Man Singh respected or liked by his adversary Hindus, or simply tolerated or feared? (Hindu scepsis amongst nobility and learned ones?) I do not know.

A ruthless Jihadi from 1556 to ca. 1576, that is another 20 years of ruthless Muslim terror. Then he slowly started to change, first as a Chishtiya Sufi, then in the 1580s removed from orthodoxy, that is more than 34 long regnal years. In that sense I compared the competing Osman Khilafat with his Din-e Ilahi Khilafat, as in both ruler and religion are intertwined.

For sure neither Akbar's character nor the time he lived in were simple. Even though he may have changed for insiders, previously terrorised insiders and outsiders never give up their fear, scepsis or apathy. See how people in former Russia still weren't free from totalitarian clutches for a while after Gorbachev.



B.t.w. is there a change or development in character and position of these four, Abul Fazl (he came later), Birbal, Todar Mal and Man Singh, too? Maharana Pratap didn't like Man Singh and his Kula giving daughter's and son's services to a Turushka. His son Amar Singh didn't bow for Akbar in his last 6 years either.



There is one question I have: Was this U-turn for the general benefit of the Hindus, or was it rather motivated by his personal vendetta against orthodox Muslims? The Four Conspirators with his motivations had of course their own personal agenda's, but all five needed each other against the orthodoxy. The reason why I pose this question, is that (absolute and/or brilliant) powerful persons (see also brilliant artists adored by millions) can display a dual nature of higher spirituality and sophistication coupled with lower traits pulling them sometimes in scandalous situations or actions.



added today (october 27th)

Dear Bodhi,



In the above I wanted to take the role of the "advocate of the devil". Your research is very interesting and compelling to me. But I still keep getting questions in my mind, perhaps you can solve these. The question marks I have posted above, could have been put by anyone disagreeing with your case.



The points I wanted to raise probably needing more elaborately quoted and annotated explanation are:

1. From Jihadi Sunni period of Akbar, to intermediate Jihadi Sufi period till his complete U-turn as "Ilahi Sufi" period. Akbar had an agenda: like a boss trying to get out of the Maffia, you must have good bodyguards and followers, he too was in a same situation having his private trustees, but with paramount power.

2. Opinions of others about the Four Conspirants. All these four had their own agenda through Akbar.

3. Opinions and objections of Badayuni(and Sunni and Christian sources). Badayuni, jealous of Abul Fazl (his Ustad-bhai?), has his own agenda, like the missionary Christin writers, whose objective was follow the standard procedure of trying to get the monarch's soul through maligning.

4. Impact and adherers of the Din-i Ilahi cult. Is it correct that ownly a handful clique of court people surrounding the monarch were followers? This sounds like a political agenda.



By the way, here is a link with some very interesting material for your research, perhaps you already know: Http://www.scribd.com/doc/36781210/DIN-E...n-of-Akbar