Akbar’s Religious Views and Social Reforms

Akbar’s Religious Views and Social Reforms

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• Two aspects of Akbar’s religious policy need to be kept distinct: his state policies, and his own personal ideas and beliefs. While no watertight line can be drawn between the two, it is important to recognise that personal belief did not always dictate state policy.
• Akbar’s state policy on religion was shaped in large measure by Turko-Mughal traditions, further influenced by the movement of Hindu-Muslim rapprochement led by the bhakti saints and liberal Sufis, as well as by Akbar’s own deeply inquisitive mind and abiding interest in Sufism.
• According to his biographer Juwaini, Chingiz Khan “eschewed bigotry and preference of one faith to another, placing some over others” — a policy Timur continued, so that in his dominions, and those of his successors, there was no persecution of Shias, and even Christians and “heathens” found a place in government and the armed forces.
  • This eclectic tradition was fully reflected in the policies of Babur and Humayun. Humayun’s brother Kamran, an orthodox Sunni, is even said to have mocked Humayun’s eclecticism; Babur, for his part, did not hesitate to wear the Shi’ite kula (cap) at Samarqand when it suited him.
  • Humayun took shelter at the court of Shah Tahmasp and had several Shi’ites among his nobility. It was this broad liberal tradition that led him to choose Abdul Latif — considered a Sunni in Iran but a Shia in India — as one of young Akbar’s tutors.
• From the 15th century, rulers across various parts of the country adopted a more liberal policy of religious tolerance, seeking to foster Hindu-Muslim harmony — sentiments earlier nurtured by popular saints such as Guru Nanak, Kabir, and Chaitanya, and by the verses of the Persian poet Hafez, which championed human sympathy and a liberal outlook.
  • Bhakti saints welcomed devotees of all faiths, rejecting distinctions rooted in scriptural authority or tradition. Many Sufis — particularly the Chishtis of the doab and the Kubrawiyas of Bihar — made no distinction between peoples of different faiths, keeping their khanqahs open to all.
    • Abdul Qaddus Gangohi’s writings, which give Sufi allegorical meaning to words like gopi, murli, and Krishna, show how widely Hindi bhakti songs were used in the sama (musical gatherings) of some Sufi saints.
  • Politically, several provincial kingdoms — Gujarat, Malwa, and Kashmir among them — appointed Hindus to positions of authority at both local and central levels; under the Lodis, some Hindu rajas were even elevated to the rank of amir. The rise of Hemu to a position of pre-eminence after the death of Islam Shah reflected this broader trend — though instances of intolerance and temple destruction were certainly not absent during this period.
• Akbar’s own childhood tutors — who included two Irani Shias — were largely free of sectarian prejudice and contributed significantly to his later inclination towards religious tolerance.
• All these strands formed part of Akbar’s cultural inheritance, shaping both his personal thinking and his approach to state policy.

(1) The Early Phase (1556–73)

• Almost immediately after taking charge of government, Akbar signalled his broadmindedness: in 1563, he remitted the pilgrim tax — amounting to crores of rupees — levied on Hindus visiting Mathura and other sacred sites; earlier still, he had forbidden the enslavement of the wives and children of rebellious villagers.
  • He also married Rajput princesses without requiring their conversion to Islam, and allowed them to continue their own religious worship within the palace.
  • Birbal, who joined Akbar’s court soon after his accession and quickly rose in his favour, was likewise never prevented from carrying and worshipping idols even while in attendance on the emperor.
• Although Akbar was under considerable orthodox ulama influence at this stage, his state policy nonetheless reflected the liberal traditions of his predecessors, and clearly recognised the political need to conciliate and win over the Hindus.
  • It was in this context that, in 1564, Akbar took steps to abolish jizyah — a move Abul Fazl notes was taken despite “much chatter on the part of the ignorant,” i.e., the ulama, and which he justifies on the grounds that Hindus were equally loyal subjects who had “bound up the waist of devotion and service” for the advancement of the empire.
    • Abul Fazl further argues that the levying of jizyah reflected not merely the ulama’s desire for profit but their contempt for, and wish to humiliate, its Hindu payers.
  • Some modern scholars have suggested that Abul Fazl deliberately backdated the abolition of jizyah to 1564 to emphasise Akbar’s liberalism, whereas Badayuni places it as late as 1579.
    • Badayuni records that in 1575–76, Akbar directed Shaikh Abdun Nabi and Makhdum-ul-Mulk to examine the matter and determine fresh amounts of jizyah to be levied on Hindus — but this attempt to reverse the 1564 order ultimately failed.
• In his private conduct during this period, however, Akbar behaved as an orthodox Muslim — scrupulously observing daily prayers, sending delegations for the haj, and dispatching money for distribution among the needy in the Hijaz.
  • He was, at this time, deeply devoted to Abdullah Sultanpuri and Shaikh Abdun Nabi.
    • Abdullah Sultanpuri, a noted bigot who had received the title Shaikh-ul-Islam from Sher Shah, had been responsible for the persecution of the Mahdawis and the execution of their leaders under Islam Shah; he regained influence after Bairam Khan’s fall and received the further title of Makhdum-ul-Mulk.
    • Abdun Nabi, from a respected family and initially regarded as a distinguished scholar (though his learning later proved shallow), was made sadr on the recommendation of Akbar’s wazir, Muzaffar Khan; Akbar regularly attended his lectures on hadis. Abdun Nabi was so orthodox that he had once even opposed his own father for advocating sama (Sufi musical gatherings).
• Thus, even as Akbar pursued a broadly liberal state religious policy, this was a period when the orthodox ulama dominated the court.
  • Abdun Nabi enjoyed a free hand in distributing revenue-free grants to his favourites and, according to Badayuni, also used his position to persecute dissenters.
    • Two prominent figures — Mirza Isfahani, Akbar’s ambassador to Kashmir, and Mir Yaqub Kashmiri, the Kashmiri ambassador at the Mughal court — were executed in 1569 for Shi’ite beliefs and anti-Sunni activity at Srinagar.
    • Mahdawism was similarly persecuted, and even Shaikh Mubarak — the scholarly father of Abul Fazl — was hounded over alleged Mahdawi leanings until Akbar personally intervened to end the harassment.

(2) The Second Phase (1573–80)

• This was a phase of intense discussion and introspection for Akbar, one that led to a radical shift in his religious views and would deeply shape state policy in the third and final phase (1581–1605).
• Akbar’s successive victories against the Uzbek nobles, and his conquests in Malwa, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, reinforced his conviction that he was the chosen instrument of God for unifying India under his rule.
  • As Badayuni records: “The empire had grown from day to day; everything turned out well, and no opponent was left in the whole world. His Majesty had thus leisure to come into nearer contact with ascetics and the disciples of the Muinniyyah sect, and passed much of his time in discussing the word of God (Quran), and the word of the Prophet (the hadis or traditions). Questions of Sufism, scientific inquiries into philosophy and law, were the order of the day.”
  • Beyond his intensely enquiring mind, Akbar had, since childhood, developed a taste for the masnavis of liberal Sufi thinkers such as Maulana Rum and Hafiz; as ruler, he made a point of visiting the tombs of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti and several other renowned Sufi saints.

The Ibadat Khana Debates

• This intellectual ferment formed the backdrop to the construction of the Ibadat Khana (“Hall of Prayers”) at Fatehpur Sikri in 1575 — a large rectangular building erected around the cell of a Sufi saint, Shaikh Abdullah Niyazi, who had migrated to Gujarat, with spacious galleries built around it. Its proximity to both the Imperial Palace and the newly built Anup Talao allowed Akbar to visit as he pleased.
• The idea of public religious debate was itself far from novel.
  • Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims alike had long engaged in such arguments, both to satisfy intellectual curiosity and to assert the superiority of their own faith — a tradition traceable to the Umayyads and Abbasids, continued under the newly converted Ilkhanid Mongols, and later upheld at the Timurid court of Sultan Husain Baiqara of Herat.
  • Akbar had also heard that Sulaiman Karrani, ruler of Bengal, held nightly prayer sessions with some 150 renowned shaikhs and ulama, remaining in their company till morning while listening to religious commentary and exhortation.
• At first, the Ibadat Khana debates were open only to Muslims.
  • After completing state business each Thursday night, Akbar would repair to the Ibadat Khana; when attendance grew large, participants gathered instead in the courtyard of the Anup Talao. For more informal discussions, select scholars were admitted directly to the emperor’s bedchamber.
  • Initially, only Sufi shaikhs, ulama, learned men, and a few of Akbar’s favourite companions were admitted, divided into four groups among which Akbar would circulate — though the liveliest exchanges invariably took place among the theologians.
  • One early debate concerned how many wives a ruler could legally marry; the widely conflicting interpretations offered visibly upset Akbar. Though he had exhorted the assembly that his sole object was “to ascertain the Truth and discover the reality,” it soon became clear that the ulama had rather different aims — chiefly, to assert their own superiority and browbeat their rivals into submission.
• These early discussions were, in themselves, neither new nor especially startling. But following a mystical experience in 1578, Akbar opened the Ibadat Khana’s doors to Hindus of various sects, Jains, Christians, and Zoroastrians, which led to still greater confusion.
  • Even questions on which Muslims had traditionally been united — the finality of Quranic revelation, the Prophethood of Muhammad, resurrection, and the very unity of God — now came up for debate, to the horror of the more orthodox participants.
  • Far from adding to his credit, the Ibadat Khana brought Akbar growing discredit; convinced of the futility of the exercise, he effectively closed it in 1581, and formally in 1582.
• It is not entirely clear what Akbar hoped the Ibadat Khana debates would achieve.
  • If his aim was to persuade the leaders of different faiths to set aside their differences and arrive at commonly accepted truths, this was unlikely to succeed — these were precisely the sections most invested in preserving their distinctiveness, each convinced of his own view’s superiority and intent on winning Akbar’s favour rather than seeking genuine consensus.
  • If, instead, Akbar’s purpose was to arrive at his own personal understanding of religious fundamentals, he could equally have pursued this through private discussion — a method he resorted to both during and after the Ibadat Khana debates.
  • Perhaps Akbar himself had no very clear idea of what he sought from the exercise; but having set the process in motion, he found himself drawn ever deeper into controversies he had little desire to engage with, remarking: “I wish I had not heard such differences of opinion from teachers of traditional subjects, nor confounded by different interpretations of the Quranic verses and the traditions of the Prophet.”
• It would nonetheless be wrong to dismiss the Ibadat Khana debates as meaningless or purely harmful — they carried two important consequences.
  • First, they convinced Akbar that all religions contained elements of truth and ultimately led to the same Supreme Reality — a crucial stage in the development of his own religious thought, and one that fed directly into his evolving concept of sulh-i-kul (peace among all religions).
  • Second, the debates publicly exposed the narrowness, bigotry, and arrogance of the court ulama, precipitating a lasting breach between them and Akbar — a rift that Abul Fazl and like-minded thinkers actively worked to widen.
• In this way, the Ibadat Khana debates played a crucial role in the emergence of a new, liberal, and tolerant Mughal state.

The Mahzar and the Beginning of a New State Policy

• The Mahzar — an attested declaration signed by seven leading ulama, including Shaikh Abdun Nabi, Abdullah Sultanpuri, and Shaikh Mubarak (Abul Fazl’s father) — was issued in 1579, and has since generated considerable historical debate.
  • Was Akbar, in imitation of the Pope, claiming for himself “the attributes of infallibility”? Or was the Mahzar meant to free him from any notional allegiance to the Ottoman Khalifa or the Shia rulers of Iran? It effectively permitted Akbar — who was scarcely literate — to interpret religious law himself.
• The document declared Akbar to be “the Sultan of Islam, the asylum of mankind, the commander of the faithful, the shadow of God over worlds” — attributes traditionally reserved for the khalifa of the age.
  • There was, in practice, little opposition to conferring this title on Akbar, since the Timurids had never recognised any outside authority as khalifa in the first place — meaning the question of countering Ottoman or Iranian claims of suzerainty over India scarcely arose, as such claims (barring the Shah of Iran’s in the Deccan) had never actually been made.
• Citing the Quran and various hadis (some of them spurious), the Mahzar argued, second, that a just and wise ruler like Akbar not only merited the allegiance of all his subjects but held a position, in God’s eyes, higher even than a mujtahid (interpreter of holy law).
  • Third, it held that should “a religious question arise in future, and the opinions of the mujtahids be at variance,” the emperor could adopt whichever interpretation best served “the welfare of mankind and proper functioning of the administrative affairs of the world.”
  • Finally, it affirmed that Akbar could issue any decree that did not contradict the explicit text (nas) of the Quran and hadis, provided it was “calculated to benefit humanity at large.”
• The Mahzar was, in fact, no great novelty: earlier Indian rulers such as Balban and Alauddin Khalji had similarly claimed the right to enforce whatever laws they deemed necessary, regardless of strict conformity with the sharia.
• The Ibadat Khana debates had already made Akbar painfully aware of how deeply the theologians disagreed among themselves on almost every subject. A decisive break with the orthodox ulama came over a controversy involving a leading Brahman of Mathura, accused of appropriating materials collected by the local qazi for a mosque and using them instead to build a temple, as well as of insulting the Prophet and criticising Islam.
  • A commission of enquiry — including Abul Fazl and Birbal — found the Brahman guilty. One section of the ulama demanded the death penalty; another argued that, as a zimmi (protected person), he deserved only a heavy fine and the disgrace of being paraded on a donkey.
  • Akbar himself favoured leniency but left the final decision to Abdun Nabi, who had the Brahman executed — a decision that widened the gulf between the emperor and his sadr, especially once it emerged that Abdun Nabi had earlier executed an Afghan and a Shi’ite on similarly flimsy charges.
  • It was in this context that Shaikh Mubarak, himself a noted scholar, told Akbar directly: “Your Majesty is the Imam of the age and a mujtahid. What need do you have of the assistance of these ulama in issuing your commands, whether religious or secular?”
• The matter was debated repeatedly with the theologians, and the Mahzar emerged as its outcome.
  • Per Badayuni, some signed willingly, while others — such as Abdun Nabi and Abdullah Sultanpuri — did so under duress. It is worth noting that the document does not claim Akbar to be a mujtahid himself (though Abul Fazl elsewhere calls him one); rather, it grants him, as ruler, the right to choose between existing interpretations or earlier legal rulings, guided by political necessity and the needs of governance — undercutting the common charge that the Mahzar was fundamentally dishonest, since it explicitly ties any such ruling to public good and administrative need.
  • Its real significance, as historians have noted, lay in being “the first effective declaration of the principles [of sulh-i-kul] which he had decided to implement firmly” — making a final breach with the orthodox ulama inevitable.
• The Mahzar also carried international implications.
  • Having brought north India up to Bengal under his effective control, Akbar was now prepared to assert equality with powerful West Asian rulers such as the Ottoman Sultan and the Safavids of Iran, presenting India as a land of sectarian peace in deliberate contrast to both.
    • The document opens: “Hindustan has now become the centre of security and peace, and the land of adl (justice) and beneficence…,” adding that as a result, “a large number of people, especially learned ulama and great lawyers having left the countries of Arab and Ajam (Iraq and Iran) have turned towards this land and occupied it as their home…”
  • Through the same document, Akbar also reminded the ulama that the machinery of the state existed for the welfare of the people.

Breach With the Orthodox Ulama

• A final rupture between Akbar and the orthodox ulama was not long delayed, since it was clear he would now chart his own course.
  • It would be wrong, however, to see the Mahzar as a deliberate attempt to divide the ulama — they were already deeply split, with Abdullah Sultanpuri and Shaikh Abdun Nabi, the two leading figures, openly opposed to each other. In this sense, the orthodox faction largely dug its own grave; Akbar had simply grown disgusted with their shallowness, bigotry, and venality.
• On enquiry, it emerged that Abdullah Sultanpuri, to avoid paying zakat, would transfer all his property to his wife each year and have it transferred back before year-end — a practice others too were found to follow.
  • It was similarly discovered that Abdun Nabi’s wakil routinely took large bribes before confirming rent-free grants for petitioners.
• In 1579, Akbar appointed both Abdullah Sultanpuri and Abdun Nabi to lead parties of haj pilgrims to Mecca, with instructions not to return without express permission — but their removal from court did nothing to stem growing disaffection among the ulama.
  • In 1580, when a section of nobles in Bengal and Bihar, angered by the strict enforcement of the branding (dagh) system, rebelled and proclaimed Mirza Hakim as king, several ulama openly joined them.
    • Mulla Muhammad Yazdi, qazi of Jaunpur, issued a fatwa declaring rebellion against Akbar lawful, while the qazi of Bengal called the uprising divine retribution for depriving the ulama of their madad-i-maash grants.
    • After the rebellion was crushed, both men were summoned to Agra and ordered drowned while crossing the Jamuna; many others were imprisoned or dispersed. This severe action, it should be noted, was driven by administrative necessity rather than any hostility to Islam or to orthodox Muslims as such.
• On hearing of the rebellion against Akbar, Abdullah Sultanpuri and Abdun Nabi — who had spared no effort to vilify Akbar while at Mecca — returned to India in 1582, only to find the revolt already crushed.
  • Abdullah Sultanpuri died at Ahmadabad, where several boxes of gold ingots were discovered in his family graveyard and confiscated by the state.
  • Abdun Nabi was brought to Fatehpur and handed over to Todar Mal for an audit of the funds entrusted to him for disbursement at Mecca; shortly after, a mob broke into his prison and strangled him.

Re-organisation of the Madad-i-Maash Grants

• One of the traditional functions of the state, in India and elsewhere, was to support scholars, spiritual practitioners, indigents, widows, and respectable men without employment.
  • In India, land grants made for this purpose were called shasan; under the Muslim states, they were termed milk, madad-i-maash, or sayurghal, and fell under the general supervision of the sadr. Beneficiaries were generally Muslim, while the needs of non-Muslims were, to some extent, met separately by Hindu rajas who continued to control considerable tracts of land.
• Akbar initially left the distribution of madad-i-maash lands entirely to the sadr.
  • Under the Lodis and Surs, vast grants of such land had gone to Afghans and their supporters, the Indian Shaikhzadas; during Bairam Khan’s regency, Shaikh Gadai attempted to reclaim many of these grants, though with limited success.
• In 1565, Shaikh Abdun Nabi became sadr, overseeing two significant developments during his tenure:
  • First, the madad-i-maash grants held by Afghans were resumed into crown lands, with only claims personally certified by Abdun Nabi being confirmed — causing considerable distress, even as it swelled crown revenue.
  • Second, grantees holding land in scattered locations were ordered to consolidate their holdings in a single place of their choosing — a measure that eased hardship and simplified administration.
• During this period, Akbar rarely interfered with Abdun Nabi, who exercised full authority over these grants.
  • Per Badayuni, he “distributed enormous areas of land to the people as madad-i-maash, pensions and religious endowments” on a scale that dwarfed all previous grants: “never was there in the reign of any monarch, a sadr-us-sudur so powerful as Shaikh Abdun Nabi…”
  • Amid mounting complaints, Akbar eventually ordered a personal enquiry into the rent-free grants of anyone holding more than 500 bighas of land, aiming to reduce such grants and encourage grantees to take up productive trades to supplement their income.
• To further curb the sadr’s power, when subahs were formed in 1580, a sadr was appointed to each province — with the empire further divided into six circles, each under a supervising officer, to keep these provincial sadrs in check.
  • In 1589, a new rule required that all rent-free lands consist of one-half tilled land and one-half land merely capable of cultivation; if a grant was found to be entirely tilled, one-fourth of it was liable to resumption — thereby using revenue-free grantees, too, as agents of agricultural expansion.
• Initially, revenue-free grants were restricted largely (though with some exceptions) to Muslims — grants to the temples of Vrindavan and the jogis of Jakhbar being notable early exceptions.
  • After 1575, at Akbar’s own instance, grants began to be extended to “the mean, the rebel and even to Hindus” (Badayuni); after 1580, the number of non-Muslim grantees rose steadily, with rent-free grants going to Hindus, Jains, Parsis, and Jesuits, and to saints and ascetics of various persuasions receiving cash grants in growing numbers.
  • Akbar also established two charitable establishments outside Fatehpur Sikri to feed the poor — Dharmapura for Hindus and Khairpura for Muslims — with a third, Jogipura, later added as jogis began to congregate there in large numbers.
• With the eclipse of orthodox ulama dominance, the state’s patronage was thus opened to a more equitable distribution across all faiths.
  • At the same time, the rules governing grants were tightened: all grants above 100 bighas were subjected to scrutiny (and generally reduced), and a periodic review process was introduced to weed out undeserving grantees and admit new, deserving ones.

(3) The Third or Final Phase of Akbar’s Religious Beliefs and State Policy (1581–1605)

• Akbar’s own religious ideas and beliefs crystallised only gradually over this final phase.
  • At their core lay his faith in an uncompromising monotheism, or Tauhid-i-Ilahi, drawing substantially on the Islamic philosopher Ibn al-Arabi.
  • Like many Sufis, Akbar believed communion with God was attainable through meditation, and regarded slavish imitation (taqlid) of traditional practice as unnecessary for a true believer.
• Akbar held a deep personal faith in God, believing every human act ultimately answerable to Him, and accorded great reverence to light (nur) — associated with spiritual elevation, and reflected for him in the Sun and in Fire.
  • Considerable controversy surrounds the extent of Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian, or Christian influence on Akbar’s beliefs.
    • Badayuni accuses him of adopting various Hindu practices — worshipping the sun and fire, reciting the thousand-and-one names of the sun in Sanskrit, wearing a tika, and adopting the custom of rakhi.
    • Others trace his reverence for fire to Zoroastrian influence, and his occasional bans on animal slaughter on particular days to Jain influence; he was drawn to the theory of transmigration, though he rejected its specifically Hindu form of the soul passing from body to body.
• Relations with the Jains: Akbar held regular discussions with Jain scholars and was considerably influenced by some of their teachings.
  • His first encounter with Jain ritual practice came through witnessing the procession of a Jain shravika named Champa after a six-month fast; impressed by her devotion, he invited her spiritual teacher, Acharya Hiravijaya Suri, to Fatehpur Sikri — the Acharya duly journeyed there from Gujarat, and Akbar was struck by his scholarship and character, holding several debates and discussions on religion and philosophy with him at court.
  • While Akbar remained sceptical of Jain views on God and creation, he grew genuinely convinced by their philosophy of non-violence and vegetarianism, eventually deploring the eating of all flesh, and issued several imperial orders favourable to Jain interests, including bans on animal slaughter. Jain authors of the period also recorded their experiences at the Mughal court in Sanskrit texts that remain relatively unknown among Mughal historians.
• The more useful question, however, is not so much where a given idea originated — since, as has been noted, “ideas have no frontiers” — but how, in a particular historical context, older ideas were revived or given new meaning.
  • Respect for light, for instance, is also found in the thought of the 11th-century philosopher-Sufi Al-Ghazali, and in Muslim sects such as the Ishraqis and Nuqtawis.
• Akbar’s central conviction was that all religions contained an element of truth, though this truth was often obscured by blind imitation (taqlid) and empty ceremonial. He was therefore unwilling to identify himself exclusively with the dogma or rituals of any single faith, even as he showed respect to all.
  • Accordingly, he forbade cow slaughter, and observed both Dashera and Nauroz (an old Central Asian tradition, also celebrated by the Parsis). His guiding belief, as recorded by Abul Fazl in the Ain, was: “It is my duty to be in good understanding with all men. If they walk in the way of God’s will (riza), interference with them would be itself reprehensible; and if otherwise, they are under the malady of ignorance and deserve my compassion.”
  • Akbar permitted Brahman priests to tie jewelled strings around his wrist as a form of blessing; following his example, several nobles adopted the wearing of rakhi. He gave up beef and forbade the sale of all meat on certain days — practices that, notably, both his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan continued to observe, along with occasional vegetarian meals and drinking only Ganges water.
• Akbar’s eclecticism was denounced by orthodox mullahs as bidat (heretical innovation).
  • Badayuni charges him with “rejecting inspiration, prophet-hood, the miracles of the Prophet and of the saints, and even the whole law (sharia).”
  • Christian missionaries, led by Father Monserrate, levelled similar accusations — Monserrate writes: “one does not know what (religious) law he follows, though he is certainly not a Mahomedan as his actions show plainly enough…”
    • The Jesuits, convinced they could convert Akbar to Christianity, misread his patience during the Ibadat Khana debates — hurling abuse at Islam and mistaking Akbar’s tolerance, along with his instruction that Salim attend some of their discourses, for genuine openness to conversion.
  • In fact, Akbar never asked his followers to abandon Islam itself, as some historians have wrongly claimed — only to abandon its rigidly orthodox form. What he sought was an Islam flexible enough to accommodate political necessity, and one that could “appeal to man’s reason” (Abul Fazl).
  • Reconciling reason with faith was, at any time, a genuinely difficult task — all the more so where theologians had long grown accustomed to a position of unquestioned superiority. As Badayuni candidly remarks: “If some true knowledge was thus everywhere to be found, why should truth be confined to one religion, or to a creed like Islam which was comparatively new….” It was in this climate that certain elements raised the cry of “Islam in danger,” opposing social reform in the name of preserving Islamic “identity” — though, in reality, what they resisted was the loss of Islam’s primacy, and their own position of primacy within the state.

Din-i-Ilahi

• The Din-i-Ilahi is often described as a syncretic religion propounded by Akbar in 1582, intended to merge the best elements of the empire’s various faiths and thereby reconcile the differences dividing his subjects — an idea Akbar arrived at through the Ibadat Khana debates, which convinced him that no single religion could claim a monopoly on truth.
  • Several devout Muslims, including the qazi of Bengal and the noted Sufi scholar Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, denounced it as blasphemous.
  • The system attributed to Din-i-Ilahi was, in essence, an ethical code: it discouraged lust, sensuality, slander, and pride as sins, while upholding piety, prudence, abstinence, and kindness as core virtues, encouraging the soul’s purification through yearning for God. Celibacy was respected and animal slaughter discouraged, and the system had no sacred scriptures and no priestly hierarchy.
    • To commemorate this development, Akbar renamed Prayag as Allahabad (pronounced Ilahabad) in 1583.
• The idea that Din-i-Ilahi constituted a genuinely new religion is now widely regarded as a misconception, arising largely from erroneous translations of Abul Fazl’s work by later British historians.
  • It is, however, accepted that the principle of sulh-i-kul — which lay at the core of what came to be called Din-i-Ilahi — was adopted by Akbar not merely as a religious idea but as a component of broader imperial administrative policy, forming the foundation of his overall policy of religious toleration.
  • The charge that Akbar had renounced Islam altogether was pressed by both the Jesuit fathers at his court and by Badayuni, who argued that he had set up a new religion combining elements of Hinduism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and other faiths, with himself as its head.
    • Monserrate goes so far as to claim: “he (Akbar) has a strong desire to be looked upon, and esteemed as a God, or some great ‘Prophet’, and that he would have people believe that he performs miracles, healing the sick with the water with which he washes his feet.”
• Modern scholarship, however, does not support the claim that Akbar sought to establish a new religion.
  • It has been pointed out that Din-i-Ilahi had no priesthood, no rituals or fixed beliefs, and no scriptures — indeed, we do not even know precisely when it was formally “established.”
  • According to Bartoli, a priest who never actually visited India, Akbar convened a general council in 1582 to promulgate the new faith, sending a Shaikh to proclaim across the empire that a new religious law would soon be issued from court — yet no such orders have ever been discovered.
  • The earliest mention of the “new religion” and its “ten virtues” appears only in Muhsin Fani’s Dabistan-i-Mazahib, written well into Shah Jahan’s reign — describing virtues of a fairly general character, such as liberality, loathing of evil, and purification of the soul.
  • Notably, Abul Fazl himself never uses the term Din-i-Ilahi, referring instead to Tauhid-i-Ilahi (Divine monotheism), whereas Badayuni uses both terms interchangeably.
    • Abul Fazl links this concept to the idea of Akbar as spiritual guide of the people, discussed in a section of the Ain often mistranslated as “Ordinances of the Divine Faith.”
    • He describes two tendencies among men — those inclined towards religion (din) and those inclined towards worldly affairs (duniya) — and argues the necessity of finding common ground between them, given the all-encompassing nature of God, while also guarding against “fanatics who lust for blood, but look like men,” who would brand any bold expression of enlightened thought as heresy. In such circumstances, Abul Fazl argues, people naturally look to their king to serve as spiritual guide as well — a role for which Akbar, in his account, was destined, though he remained “behind the veil” until ready to assume it.
    • Whether Akbar’s claimed spiritual leadership was meant in a general or a more specific sense remains debated; Abul Fazl himself cites Akbar’s own words — “By guidance is meant indication of the road, not the gathering together of disciples,” and “To make a disciple is to instruct him in the service of God, not to make him a personal attendant” — which arguably capture the true, more modest spirit of Akbar’s claim.
• The “four degrees of faith” in the emperor — often mistakenly conflated with Din-i-Ilahi — are first mentioned by Badayuni as early as 1580.
  • These degrees represented a disciple’s readiness to sacrifice property, life, honour, and religion for the emperor; possessing all four constituted the highest degree, while sacrificing even one conferred a single degree.
  • There was, in truth, little that was new in this: many Sufi orders had long demanded comparable sacrifices from their disciples. The “sacrifice of religion” here meant giving up rigid, imitative religious practice, so that the principle of sulh-i-kul could operate without hindrance.
  • Akbar appears to have been highly selective in admitting disciples to these four degrees — Blochmann, the English translator of the Ain, identified only 18 nobles who qualified, of whom Birbal was the only Hindu.
    • At a council convened in 1582 for “evolving a new religion,” Akbar is said to have invited Man Singh to join. Man Singh replied that if discipleship simply meant willingness to sacrifice one’s life, he already carried his life in his hands and needed no further proof; but “if, however, the term has another meaning and refers to faith, I certainly am a Hindu. If you order me to do so, I will become a Muslim, but I know not of the existence of any other path (religion) than these two.” The matter reportedly ended there, with Akbar pressing him no further.
    • Man Singh’s response suggests that many at court believed the four degrees carried genuine religious significance — though Akbar himself apparently viewed them as intended chiefly for high dignitaries and for essentially political ends.
  • There was, in fact, growing concern at the time over the scarcity of officers of proven integrity and uprightness capable of meeting the political and military demands of an expanding empire; the four degrees of devotion served as an ideological device to bind the new, heterogeneous Mughal elite firmly to the throne.
• The formal ritual of admission was elaborate: courtiers regarded the “chain of discipleship” as a mark of the highest honour, with Sunday fixed as the day of initiation and disciples enrolled in batches of twelve.
  • The novice, turban in hand, placed his head at the emperor’s feet — symbolising the casting aside of conceit and self-interest — after which Akbar raised him up and presented him with the shast, engraved with the name of God and Akbar’s own favoured motto, “Allah-o-Akbar” (God is Great).
  • Members greeted each other with the formulas “Allah-o-Akbar” and “Jalla Jalaluhu,” generally abstained from meat during the month of their birth, and were expected to host a feast and distribute alms on their birthday.
• Significantly, Akbar began enrolling disciples around 1580 — precisely the period he was contending with rebellion in the east (partly backed by orthodox ulama), his half-brother Mirza Hakim’s advance into Punjab, and a resurgent Uzbek threat in Central Asia. In this climate, Akbar sought both an end to sectarian strife within the empire and unquestioning loyalty from his nobility.
  • Discipleship proved an unusually effective means of assimilating a diverse body of nobles and binding them to the throne — princes and high dignitaries continued to describe themselves as murids (disciples) of the emperor even under Akbar’s successors, claiming spiritual guidance from the ruler’s “angelic heart.”
• The Tauhid-i-Ilahi was, in short, far from a mere monument to Akbar’s folly.
  • Though many opportunists and flatterers joined for personal gain, Akbar succeeded in creating a durable tradition of loyalty to the Mughal throne — a legacy he passed on to his successors.
  • It was, at its core, a political device: Akbar was attempting to fashion a new state and a new nobility, one that neither the Christian missionaries nor narrow orthodox figures like Badayuni could fully understand or sympathise with. By framing it as a religious innovation and charging Akbar with apostasy, such critics deflected attention from the far more significant, if painful, emergence of a new polity founded on liberalism, justice, and equal treatment for all faiths.
• One may still reasonably ask whether it was wise of Akbar to employ religio-spiritual devices for essentially political ends. In doing so, he undoubtedly created confusion and set a precedent that, in the long run, complicated the secular character of the polity.
  • It was, in this light, prudent of Jahangir to discontinue the practice of granting the shast or formally enrolling disciples, even though some nobles continued, as a mark of honour, to describe themselves as murid or banda (slave) of the emperor.
  • In his broader effort to secure loyalty, Akbar was also not above drawing on popular credulity: Abul Fazl records that Akbar would breathe upon cups of water brought to him daily, “by this means, many sick people of broken hopes, whose diseases the most eminent physicians pronounced incurable, have been restored to health.” Thus, even as Akbar rejected the very idea of miracles — dismissing them as “the product of mental enthusiasm” — he was not above exploiting popular belief in them when it suited his purposes.

Social Reforms and Towards Integration

• Beyond proclaiming a state founded on universal peace and justice, Akbar took concrete steps to foster mutual understanding between religious communities.
  • He established a translation bureau, staffed by a panel of scholars including Hindu pandits, to render Sanskrit, Arabic, and Greek works into Persian.
    • The works chosen spanned fables and legends (such as the Singhasan Battisi), poetic drama (Nal-Daman), and works of counsel and aphorism (the Panchatantra), as well as major religious texts — the Atharva Veda, Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Gita.
  • Akbar’s second purpose in commissioning these translations, as Abul Fazl notes in his preface to the Mahabharata, was to demolish “the pillars of blind following” and inaugurate a fresh era of enquiry and research into religious matters — a tradition that continued to grow through the seventeenth century.
    • Abul Fazl was notably critical of the mutual ignorance among Hindu and Muslim religious leaders regarding each other’s core texts, extending his criticism to Hindu religious leaders as much as to the Muslim ulama for their blind adherence to faith and consequent resistance to genuine enquiry.
  • The Christian Gospels, too, were translated into Persian — likely for the first time — alongside works of history, astronomy, and mathematics, such as Kalhana’s Rajatarangini (a history of Kashmir) and Bhaskaracharya’s mathematical treatise, the Lilavati.
• A number of measures Badayuni dismissed as “new and absurd” were, in fact, genuine reforms of moral, social, and educational character.
  • Wine was permitted “if used for strengthening the body, as recommended by doctors”; prostitution was regulated, and the illicit trafficking of women brought under control.
  • Akbar decreed that no man should take more than one wife, unless his first marriage had produced no children; he permitted widow remarriage, and raised the minimum age of marriage to sixteen for boys and fourteen for girls.
    • Marriage between cousins and other close relations was banned, and marriages were to proceed only with the mutual consent of the parties’ parents; a bureau was even established for the registration of marriages.
  • Sati among Hindu women was prohibited, except where the woman herself gave clear consent. Though these were undeniably progressive measures, it remains unclear how consistently they were enforced in practice.
  • Akbar also banned the sale and purchase of slaves and prohibited slavery more broadly — though its practical impact on the royal household or noble establishments appears to have been limited.
• Some of Akbar’s regulations flowed directly from his belief in religious freedom for all and his opposition to tradition unsupported by reason.
  • Thus, a Hindu forcibly converted to Islam who wished to revert to his original faith was permitted to do so, and no restrictions were placed on the construction of Hindu temples, Christian churches, or Jewish synagogues.
    • In this light, Badayuni’s claims that Akbar converted mosques into storehouses, banned the azan except for Friday prayers, or forbade the haj altogether are largely dismissed by historians as considerable exaggeration. Badayuni himself complains: “Playing with dice, and taking interest was allowed, and so in fact was everything admitted which was not allowed in Islam” — objecting even to Akbar’s decision to shave his beard and establish a play-house.
  • Akbar banned the circumcision of boys below twelve without their own consent, and even regulated the direction in which bodies should be buried — some of these regulations, admittedly, proved impractical and generated considerable resentment.
• Akbar also revised the educational syllabus, placing greater emphasis on moral education and secular subjects — mathematics, agriculture, geometry, astronomy, principles of governance, logic, and history — a shift Badayuni criticised as discrimination against Arabic and religious learning such as Quranic exegesis and hadis.
  • He further extended generous patronage to artists, poets, painters, and musicians, making his court a genuine centre of the arts and crafts of the age.
• Ultimately, while the Mughal state under Akbar became broadly secular and liberal in matters of religion and policy, and actively promoted cultural integration, it continued to preside over a society that remained fundamentally hierarchical and deeply traditional — a tension his successors would inherit and have to confront in their own reigns.