DEBATE

Akbar’s religious policy in the early phase

of his reign: A complex story

Iqtidar Alam Khan

The author’s earlier thesis that Akbar in his early years tended mainly to follow a policy aiming
to please orthodox Muslim elements possibly oversimplified a complex situation, as if Akbar
had either to be orthodox or tolerant. In a fresh review of the entire debate, it is here argued
that the picture remained complex until about 1578, with Akbar’s own political interests and
personal inclinations often pulling policy on the ground in different directions. It was only after
1578 that tolerance in the form of Sulh-i Kul (absolute peace) became his major principle for
dealing with different sections of his subjects.

Keywords: Akbar, Shaik̲ h̲ ‘Abdu’l Nabī, Shi‘as, Hindus, harem

As stated in my article, ‘The Nobility under Akbar and the Development of his
Religious Policy’, originally published in the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society
(1968),1 it was aimed at stimulating fresh thinking over some of the well-known
generalisations about the evolution of Akbar’s religious policy so often repeated in
textbooks. I am pleased that Shireen Moosvi has come out with arguments contesting
my finding that prior to 1579, on occasions Akbar pursued a policy mainly aimed
at winning the sympathy of orthodox Sunni elements among Indian Muslims.2
Before I discuss the points raised by Moosvi, I consider it imperative to notice
a curious piece of evidence which, if accepted as authentic, would suggest that as
early as 1560, Akbar was known among those close to him as having developed
close ties with Hindus. Such evidence, if genuine, would strengthen Moosvi’s
implied suggestion that Akbar’s tolerant attitude in matters relating to religious
beliefs was ingrained in him from his early years. Though she has not referred to
this evidence, it is important that it should first receive our attention.
The evidence is represented by two lines of Turkish poetry included in Bairam
Khan’s Diwān.3 Aziz Ahmad, who first cited these lines, treats them as the earliest
record testifying to ‘a natural lack of prejudice on Akbar’s part against Hindus,
even a liking for them’. Bairam Khan in these lines is supposed to be reproaching

1
  Included in I.A. Khan, India’s Polity in Age of Akbar, Ranikhet, 2016, pp. 118–133.
2
  S. Moosvi, ‘Akbar’s Enterprise of Religious Conciliation in the Early Phase, 1561–78, Spontaneous
or Motivated’, Studies in People’s History 4(1) (2017), pp. 46–52.
3
  Dīwān-i Bairam Khān Khān-i Khānān, ed. S. Ḥusamuddin Rashidi and Mohammad Sabir
(with introduction by Mahmud al-Hasan Siddiqui), Karachi, 1971, text, p. 79.

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DOI: 10.1177/2348448919834794
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Akbar ‘for giving preference to Hindus over Muslims as if he were a Hindu

himself’.4 While citing these statements from Aziz Ahmad, Raghavan remarks: ‘it
is also possible that the ghazal is not authentic’ and points out that the date of its
composition (before 1560) was at a time when Akbar had not yet ‘embarked on
the Rajput alliance or exhibited any sign of religious eclecticism or liberalism’.5
It is, indeed, possible that these lines, as suggested by Raghavan, are not a part of
the original compilation. The possibility of these lines being interpolated at a later
stage by a copyist, although unlikely, the verse being in Turki, cannot be entirely
ruled out. The more likely explanation is that the verse does not refer to anything
done by Akbar at all, no marriage of whom to a Hindu princess is known to us
from Bairam Khān’s lifetime. Rather, it seems to touch on a marriage between a
Muslim and Hindu as unnatural—opposed, as it says, to both Muslim and Hindu
culture. The word jāgīr, not yet in common use during Bairam Khān’s time,6 should
rather be read as chākar (servant), an old Turki word (surviving in Hindustani in
the phrase naukar-chākar). In any case, a close analysis of the verse reveals that
it is of no relevance to Akbar’s relations with Hindus.
Regarding Moosvi’s critique of my study of the religious policy of Akbar,
I have tried to emphasise in my present article that the abortive attempt to reimpose
jizya in 1574 was only one reflection of Akbar’s attempt at placating orthodox
Islamic sentiment, it was also being reflected in his measures against Shi‘ite and
Mahdavīs in the 1560s and early 1570s. His allowing, on Shaik̲h̲ ‘Abdu’l Nabī’s
suggestion, the removal of the dead body of a widely respected Shi‘a divine, Mīr
Murtazā Shīrāzī, from the proximity of Amīr Khusaru’s tomb (in 1566), on the
plea that a ‘heretic’ could not be allowed to remain interred so close to the grave
of a Sunni dignitary was obviously aimed at placating sectarian sentiment among
Sunni Turanis and Indian Muslims.7
Such an anti-Shi‘a bias may also be detected in the articulation of the official
version of political developments during this time. For example, in 1567, Qāsim
Arsalān, the court poet, is reported to have celebrated the death of Uzbek rebels,
‘Alī Qulī Khān and Bahādur Khān, by composing a couplet where they are called
not only namak-harām (disloyal) but also bedīn (apostates).8 The last epithet is an
obviously hostile reference to their Shi‘ite leanings.
Such anxiety, on Akbar’s own part, or, may be, on the part of persons allowed
to articulate state policy to placate Sunni orthodoxy, which seems to have persisted
4
  A. Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in Indian Environment, New Delhi, 1963, reprint 1999, p. 176.
5
  T.C.A. Raghavan, Attendant Lords, Bairam Khan and Abdur Rahim, Courtiers and Poets in Mughal
India, Noida, 2017, p. 58.
6
  Cf. I. Habib, ed., ‘Three Early Farmans of Akbar’, in idem (ed.), Akbar and his India, Delhi, 1997,
p. 272; and my article, ‘The Mughal Assignment System During Akbar’s Early Years, 1556–75’, in
I.A. Khan, op. cit, p. 24.
7
  ‘Abdul Qādir Badāūnī, Muntakhabut Tawārīkh, ed. Ali, Ahmad and Lees, Bib. Ind., Calcutta,
1864–69, Vol. II, p. 99.
8
  Ibid., p. 98.

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down in the early 1570s. On the eve of the Gujarat campaign in 1572, he is reported
to have proclaimed that the subjugation of the territory was necessary for punishing
Afghan converts to Mahdavism reportedly tyrannising over orthodox Muslims there.9
According to Ghaus̤ī Shat̤ t̤ ārī, the Bohra divine, Shaikh Muḥammad Nahrwāla had
taken a vow not to put on a turban as long as the Mahdavī heresy was not eradicated
from amongst the Bohra community. On reaching Naharwāla, Akbar is reported to
have promised Shaikh Muḥammad that he would support his cause and so made
him put on a turban, though nothing in fact was done to make good his promise.10
In this context, it is worth remembering that the state policy in the years following
Bairam Khan’s dismissal (1560) was considerably influenced by Shaikh ‘Abdu’l
Nabī11 and other men belonging to Indian Shaikhzāda families who were known
for their religious bigotry and hostility towards Hindu chiefs. Evidently, this state
of mind on the part of an influential segment of Muslim elite of North India had
been persisting since the closing decades of the Sharqi rule.
A passage in Badāūnī’s Najātu’l Rashīd, for instance, seems to suggest that there
survived a vocal body of opinion among the ulamā from the fifteenth century
holding that the Hindu chiefs needed to be suppressed not only for their refusal to
pay kharāj-o-jizya (land-tax and poll-tax) but also for making hostile comments
about Islamic faith and its followers. It is true that there was also present a
contrary opinion among Muslims. For example, Qutlaq Khān, the wazīr of the
Sharqi Sultan, opposed the suggestion that a crusade be launched against Hindus.
But he was overruled at an assemblage of scholars by the majority led by a certain
Qāzī A‘z̤am. The latter is reported to have recorded the proceedings of one such
discussion in a book titled Risāla-i ‘Azmīa. Badāūnī claims to have possessed a
copy of that book and records his agreement with the course of action suggested in
it.12 One may imagine that this orthodox tendency in Sunni Islam would be equally
intolerant towards sects such as Shias and Mahadavis.
The state policy under Akbar from 1560 onwards, roughly down to 1575, had
thus often to accommodate the prejudices of theologians, commanding much
influence among Muslims. They often goaded him to be harsh and sectarian
towards nonbelievers as well as the so-called heretics. According to Badauni, this
phase also witnessed Akbar’s lavishing much favour on the theologians in the form
of land grants on an unprecedented scale.13 A majority of persons benefiting from
this flood of favours would obviously be Indian Muslims managing mosques and
dargāhs (mystic hospices) in different places. One may even speculate that this
attitude of placating the a’imma (functionaries of Islamic religious institutions)
was partly aimed at weaning them away from the influence of Afghan chiefs who

9
  Nafā’īsu’l Ma’ās̤ ir, MS. Br. Library, 62a and b ff.
10
  Cf. Muḥammad Ghaus̤ ī Shat̤ t̤ ārī, Gulzār-i Abrār, ed. M. Zaki, Patna, 1994, pp. 296–97.
11
  Badāūnī, op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 79–80.
12
  Badāūnī, Najātu’l Rashīd, ed. S. Moinul Haq, Lahore, 1972, p. 240.
13
  Badāūnī, Muntakhabut Tawārīkh, Vol. III, p. 80.

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until late years were their rulers. They were evidently regarded by Mughals during
these years as their main potential opponents among the notables or ashrāf among
the Muslim population.
During the mid-1570s the cultural milieu of the Mughal state power continued to
be coloured by religious bigotry is indicated by Badāūnī’s report of the behaviour of
Mughal soldiers commanded by Birbal during the siege of Kangra (980/1572–73).14
They are reported to have killed cows herded together within the main temple
and desecrated its sacred precincts. This kind of behaviour would surely have
invited a harsh reprimand by Akbar in the post-1579 phase; yet, as late as 1573,
even a highly placed Hindu noble like Birbal did not feel confident enough to take
measures for preventing such display of bigotry by soldiers under his command.
As noted earlier, Akbar’s financial patronage extended to the aimma during
Shaik̲ h̲ ‘Abdu’l Nabīs tenure as ṣadr in the form of land grants was unprece-
dented. Evidently, matters like the story of Akbar’s birth in the house of a Rajput
chieftain mentioned by Shireen Moosvi15 did not carry much weight with him
during these years. His foremost anxiety then was to create a support base for the
Mughal state in the reconquered territories of North India and to ensure that
the remaining pockets of Afghan resistance were eliminated as early as possible.
The experience from 1562 to 1568 had shown that the Rajput chiefs who mattered
were not amenable to gestures like abolition of jizya (1562) or Akbar’s marriage
with a princess belonging to the Kachwaha clan (then a relatively minor Rajput
ruling family).
It is true that, as brought out by Ahsan Raza Khan, by 1566, Akbar had already
adopted the Hindu practice of toladān. Many chiefs of the Punjab reportedly
came to pay homage and make offerings to him, on the occasion of his observing
toladān at Lahore in 1566.16 But evidently, the chiefs mentioned in this context
were the zamindars of north-western Punjab. They obviously did not command
prestige and political clout as compared to the Rajput chieftains of Mewar, Mar-
war and Bikaner whom evidently Akbar was particularly eager to win over or
reduce to submission around this time. Extra aggressive language of the Fatḥnāma
of Chittor (1568) where Akbar is made to express his zeal to destroy temples,
may thus be attributed, besides the draftsman’s tendency to copy the language of
similar documents of the past, to the frustration of the Mughal court over its lack
of success until then in forming an alliance with Rajput chieftains on its own terms.
An oral tradition current among the Mughal ruling circles during the first half of
the seventeenth century was to the effect that such an alliance had already been
suggested by Shah Tahmasp to Humāyūn.17

14
  Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 161–62.
15
  Moosvi, op. cit., p. 47.
16
  A.R. Khan, ‘Akbar and the Chiefs’, in Akbar and His India, ed. I. Habib, New Delhi, 1997, p. 4.
17
  Cf. Farīd Bhakkarī, Ẓakhīratul Khawānīn, ed., Moin ul Haq, Karachi, 1961, Vol. I, pp. 103–04.

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Evidence about Akbar’s personal beliefs, social predilections or preferences

during this period is admittedly problematic. On the one hand, sometimes in his
eagerness to show utmost respect to the Sunni divines at the court, he would go
to the extreme of making a gesture of helping one of them remove his shoes.18
As indicated by the cases cited earlier, he was often prone to allow them to persecute
individuals accused of holding heretical beliefs. But regarding non-Muslim subjects
in general, Akbar appears to have adhered, down to 1575, to norms evolved during
the preceding centuries of Turkish and Afghan rule when ordinarily the state
authorities maintained an attitude of indifferent tolerance towards Hindu religious
institutions. These were ordinarily allowed to be maintained by Hindu local
authorities or priestly managements according to rules and conventions set by the
Brahmin priests.19 It is true that Akbar did go further: the documents preserved by
the Goswamīs of Vrindavan show that by his farman issued as early as 8 January
1565, a grant of 200 bīghas of tax-fee land (in‘ām) was conferred on Gopāl Dās,
priest at the Madan Mohan temple at Vrindavan. On 6 October 1568 by another
farmān, issued at the recommendation of Todar Mal, Akbar entrusted the manage-
ment of the Madan Mohan and Govind Dev temples of Vrindavan to the famous
Chitanya divine Jīv Goswami.20 Indeed, Akbar was now ready, simultaneously
with his willingness to favour Muslim orthodoxy, to play the arbiter in Hindu
religious matters as well. The attitude that Akbar had in this respect during the late
1560s was illustrated by the manner in which he was reported to have handled a
dispute between two groups of Hindu mendicants (sanyāsis) namely, Pūrīs and
Kūrs, over a particular spot in the vicinity of the main temple at Kurukshetra. In the
12th R.Y. (beginning 11 March 1567), while the royal camp was passing through
Ambala, the matter was brought to Akbar’s notice by the representatives of the
two groups with a request that he might act as a sort of referee during a fight they
planned to have for settling the dispute. Though Akbar judged the claim of the Pūrīs
as being more in accordance with the established tradition, he refrained from giving
a verdict, allowing the two groups to settle the matter by having the customary
fight. However, to ensure that the Pūrīs were not overwhelmed by the numerically
stronger Kūrs, he directed some of his own servants, disguised as Pūrīs, to join the
fight so that the judgement that he finally gave in favour of Pūrīs remained consistent
with customary rules governing the affairs of this pilgrim centre.21

18
  Badāūnī, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 80.
19
  Such an attitude on the part of Delhi Sultans implied a recognition of Hindu subjects as zimmīs.
This is evidenced by the use of the phrase kharāj-o-jizya for the land tax and poll tax, both of
which could only be levied on zimmīs. Cf. I. Habib, ‘Land Tax and Other Rural Taxes’, in Irfan Habib
et al., Economic History of Medieval India, 1200–1500, Delhi, 2011, p. 50.
20
  Cf. T. Mukherjee and I. Habib, ‘Akbar and the Temples of Mathura and Its Environs’, PIHC 48th
session, Goa (1987), pp. 235–36.
21
  Akbar-nāma, Vol. II, ed. ‘Ahmad Ali and ‘Abdur Rahim, Calcutta, 1873–97, p. 287. Cf. S.P. Verma,
‘Paintings Under Akbar as Narrative Art’, in Akbar and His India, ed. I. Habib, Delhi, 1997, pp. 158,

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By agreeing to settle a dispute among two groups of Hindu mendicants with

reference to a patently pagan tradition, Akbar here dramatically deviated from
the position he would be expected to take as an orthodox Muslim ruler, especially
in the Naqshbandī tradition.22 As a matter of fact, a closer examination of the
evidence that we have on Akbar’s conduct in his private life, as well as in his
capacity as sovereign head of the Timurid state in India, during the 1560s and early
1570s, shows that in this early phase of his reign there persisted a palpable tension
between his formal commitment to orthodox Islamic doctrines and the novel ideas
and tastes that he was acquiring as a sovereign whose interests were best served
by incorporating Hindu ruling groups within the state apparatus.
The state policy that unfolded from 1560 onwards under Akbar’s direct rule for
about 15 years often seems to reflect tensions and uncertainties of this situation.
On the one hand, it was seemingly influenced by the orthodox Islamic tendency
represented by Naqshbandī sufic order which is reported to have become influential
at Akbar’s court during the early years of his reign. But these very years also
witnessed a slow unfolding of his innate attitude of respect for the sentiments of
women he came into contact with. An early manifestation of this trait after his rise
to the throne was his going to Māham Anaga personally to inform her about the
execution of her son, Adham Khān; he appeared to be offering an explanation to
the old lady for an action taken in his capacity as the sovereign.23 The regard paid
to Maham Anaga, mother of the murderer, was in sharp contrast to what happened
with other executions. Kāmrān’s son put to death in captivity after Akbar’s accession
was never even mentioned in any official records.24 But in the case of Adham Khan,
a grand tomb was allowed to be built close to the semi-sanctified premises of the
Qubbat ul-Islam mosque in Mehrauli.
This tendency of Akbar to be influenced by women with whom he came into
close contact with appears to have brought about a gradual shift in his overall atti-
tude in matters relating to religious taboos. During the early 1860s, Akbar allowed
himself to become instrumental in the drive of orthodox ‘ulamā to sideline the
so-called heretics, on the one hand, while Akbar’s experience, of having in his
harem Hindu wives who evidently were not really converted even after joining
the royal household, was of considerable significance in influencing his views, on
the other. As early as 1562–64, Rafīuddīn Shīrāzī, then at Agra, attributed Akbar’s

168, where paintings depicting this episode in Tārikh-i Khāndān-i Timūrya, Khuda Bakhsh Oriental
Public Library, Patna, MS. p. 322, and Akbar-nāma, MS, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, No.
61/117, are reproduced.
22
Commenting on the career of Shaikh Mubārak, Badāūnī (iii/74) observes: ‘In the beginning of the
rule of the emperor (Akbar), as the faction of the naqshbandīs was in a dominant position, he (Mubārak)
decided to join the same (sufic) order’.
23
  Bayāt, Tazkira-i Humāyūn o Akbar, ed. M.H. Husain, Calcutta, 1941, pp. 251–52. The
passage has been translated by S. Moosvi, Episodes in the Life of Akbar, New Delhi, 1994, pp. 32–34.
24
  See for a biography of Mirzā Kāmrān’s son, Mirzā Abu’l Qāsim, my Mirza Kamran: A Biography,
Bombay, 1964, pp. 54–56.

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prohibition of slave trade to the influence of a Brahman mistress.25 In 1577, when

‘Shaikh ‘Abdu’l Nabī executed a Brahman of Mathura for blasphemy, Akbar’s
annoyance upon this action was said to have been enflamed by his Rajput wives
protesting that the mullahs were getting out of hand.26 Such harem influence was
obviously behind Akbar’s occasional participation in Hindu rituals that must have
been observed by some of his non-Muslim wives, during the 1560s.27 Again, we
know on the authority of a seventeenth-century chronicler that during this phase,
Akbar would sometimes put on a saffron dress, which made Shaik̲h̲ ‘Abdu’l Nabī
so indignant that he threw his staff at him.28 Akbar’s abolition of jizya in 1564
again appears to be a development of the same nature. It ostensibly did not reflect
his considered world view but was possibly dictated partly by his anxiety to win
the cooperation of the Rajput chiefs. Again, it is possible that the influence of his
Hindu wives was also at work in inducing Akbar to remove the discriminatory
tax. Akbar was persuaded to reimpose the jizya in the early 1570s, which goes to
show that the abolition of jizya in 1564 had not been a final decree, and, given the
existence of contrary influences could be reimposed.
No doubt Akbar during the 1560s and early 1570s, aimed at securing the support of
Rajput chiefs as well as to co-opt in his administration newly risen Persian-knowing
Hindu managerial personnel proficient in managing state finances since the time of
Afghan rule. By 1566–67, Todar Mal, a distinguished representative of this class, had
already risen to the position of a premier state functionary.29 In 1571, while visiting
Banaras for taking a ceremonial bath, Todar Mal entertained a complaint by local
Hindus against Bāyazīd, the shiqdar of that place, accusing him of converting the
site of an old temple into a mosque-cum-school (madrasa). Todar Mal asked
the complainants to represent the matter before Mun‘im Khān, then administering
the eastern sarkārs from his headquarters at Jaunpur. Subsequently, Bāyazīd was
called to Jaunpur for explaining his side of the matter, but no further action was
taken. Later, Akbar made a grant for meeting the expenses of the madrasa.30
Bayazid’s, testimony on this episode, thus shows that in its basic orientation, the
state policy with regard to non-Muslim subjects under Akbar during this phase was
not much different from what it would have been under his Afghan predecessors.
But the presence of Todar Mal as an influential state functionary made a difference
in so far as, henceforth, there would be present in the central government someone
who gave a sympathetic hearing to complaints of Hindu subjects against the

25
  Rafīuddīn Shīrāzī. Tazkiratu’l Mulūk, Br. Lib. Add 23, 863, 107b ff., 195b.
26
  Badāūnī, Muntakhabut Tawarīkh, Vol. III, p. 81.
27
  Ibid., Vol. II, p. 261.
28
  Bhakkarī, op. cit., pp. 69–70.
29
  See Abu’l Faẓl, Akbarnāma, Bib. Ind., Vol. II, p. 270.
30
  Bayāt, Tārīkh-i Humāyūn o Akbar (1567), pp. 211–12. The passage is quoted and discussed in P.
Prasad, Sanskrit Inscriptions of Delhi Sultanate, 1191–1526, Delhi, 1990, p. 150, the inscription from
the temple having been taken to Jaunpur and put in the Lal Darwaza mosque. See also H. Mukhia,
The Mughals of India, New Delhi, 2004, p. 23.

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highhanded attitude of individual state functionaries. It is interesting to note that

almost contemporaneous with Akbar’s reimposition of the jizya, a farmān of Akbar
issued in 1575, carried a seal of Todarmal, reading ‘Rāja Todar Mal, slave of the
Court under Protection of Rām’, and this open avowal of Hindu faith apparently
aroused no objection at the court.31
I seek to end this note without going into too many details with the remark
that Shireen Moosvi’s scholarly comments on my article of 1970 have persuaded
me to reconsider my presentation in that article in one particular respect. My
comments speculating on the response of Indian Muslims to various measures
and developments during the early part of Akbar’s reign sometimes might have
tended to create an impression that all of them were always prone to be placated
by a sectarian attitude towards Hindus as well as non-orthodox Muslims. I should
make it clear that this was not my assumption at all. Let us not forget that the set
of persons Badāūnī bitterly denounces for ‘misleading’ Akbar later on included
Shaikh Mubarak and his sons who would always be counted among the most
distinguished Indian Muslim intellectuals of the sixteenth century. Again, Shireen
Moosvi’s comments persuaded me to concede that the language of my observations
on Akbar’s early measures at times become one-sided. It is perhaps not fully valid
to assert that abolition of pilgrimage tax in 1562 and of jizya in 1564 were entirely
the outcome of the exigencies of the situation and that no element of religious
tolerance or intellectual influence was at work. Her reference to the grant made
to Chaitanya priests of Vrindavan in 1565 is naturally very pertinent here. I wish
Vrindavan documents to be published by T. Mukherjee and Irfan Habib in 1987,
had been known to me in 1968!
I would like to end this note with a reference to Akbar’s sayings listed by Abul
Fazl in Ā’īn-i Akbarī where we find Akbar admitting almost mournfully that in the
early years of his reign, he was responsible for forcing people to convert to Islam.
The tenor of this saying makes one wonder how a medieval monarch should have
the moral courage not only to make such a confession but also to express his deep
regret at behaving in this manner. The saying I am referring to here is not usually
reproduced by Akbar’s admirers possibly owing to their tendency to focus on the
phase of his life after 1579 when he began preaching and practising the famous
principle of sulh-i kul (absolute peace). This saying is not cited by his Hindutva
denigrators as well because any ordinary student of history would not fail to read
in it a message reminiscent of humanity and truthfulness at the level of Mahatma
Gandhi’s Experiments with Truth. The saying I refer to reads:

Earlier I did force men to convert to my faith. I used to regard that a sign of
being a Muslim. As I gained awareness, I was ashamed. I myself was not a
(true) Muslim, but was forcing others to convert and considered this attitude
religiousness (dīndārī).32

  I owe information on this seal to Moosvi, ‘Akbar’s Enterprise of Religious Conciliation’, pp. 49–50.
31

  Abu’l Faẓl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, litho., Nawal Kishore, Lucknow, 1310 H, p. 181, saying number 56.
32

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