Akbar

Mughal emperor of India (r. 1556-1605)

• Born: October 15, 1542
• Birthplace: Umarkot, Sind (now in Pakistan)
• Died: October 16, 1605
• Place of death: Āgra, India

As one of India’s greatest Mughal emperors, Akbar conquered and unified northern India under his rule. In addition to military conquest, his most significant achievements include the development of an efficient bureaucratic structure, patronage of the arts, and enlightened policies of religious tolerance.

Early Life

Akbar (AK-bahr) was born Abū-ul-Fath Jahāl-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Akbar in the kingdom of Sind. Of mixed Turkish, Persian, and Mongol ancestry, Akbar was a descendant of both Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. His grandfather, Bābur the Tiger, a Muslim chieftain of a small state in Turkestan, invaded India in 1526 and within four years conquered Hindustan in northern India and Afghanistan. The Mughal Dynasty , founded by Bābur, ruled northern India until the British took over in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Bābur was succeeded in 1530 by his son Humāyūn, who was unable to prevent the conquest of the empire by the Afghan chieftain Shēr Shāh Sūr. Driven from his throne at Delhi, Humāyūn fled to Persia to seek support. During this flight, his Persian wife, Hamida, in 1542 gave birth to Akbar while in the kingdom of Sind. In 1555, with the aid of Persian troops, Humāyūn reconquered the area around Delhi and reclaimed his throne. He died the next year, in January, 1556, as a result of an accident caused by the effects of opium.

Akbar was thirteen when he succeeded his father as the third Mughal emperor of India. He had been reared in the wilds of Afghanistan, where he developed a love of hunting and riding. Throughout his life, he sought reckless, dangerous activities, such as riding wild elephants and spearing tigers. Such risk taking was probably the result of his recurrent bouts of depression, which caused him to take extreme chances in order, he said, to see whether he should die. A kindly person, he was also high-strung and had a violent temper.

Of only moderate height, Akbar was muscular and broad-shouldered. He had narrow eyes (reflecting his Mongolian ancestry), a dark complexion, a thin mustache, and long hair. Although his head drooped slightly toward the right and he suffered from epilepsy, he had an impressive, commanding presence. He had a keen intelligence but never learned to read or write, even though he had been provided with a tutor from age five. He had, however, a deep love and knowledge of literature, and he was skilled in mechanical arts.

When he became emperor, Akbar, despite his youth, was already serving as governor of the Punjab and had military experience. His claim to the throne, however, was immediately challenged by ambitious rivals, the most threatening of whom was a Hindu named Hemu. Akbar’s rule was secured when his father’s loyal and capable general Bairam Khan, on November 5, 1556, defeated Hemu’s large army at Panipat, north of Delhi. Bairam Khan then ruled as the young emperor’s regent for five years, until Akbar’s ambitious nurse, Maham Anaga, had the regent deposed so that she could run the empire herself. In 1562, at age twenty, Akbar took personal control of his empire.

Life’s Work

At the beginning of Akbar’s rule, only a portion of the territory originally conquered by Bābur was under Mughal control. Akbar’s reign was characterized by successful military conquests, and he regained that territory and much more. With a large, efficient standing army that he himself often led, he extended Mughal authority over Afghanistan and all India except the Deccan, in the south. The greatest resistance to his rule came from the fiercely independent Hindu Rajputs, who controlled the area known as Rājasthān. The Rajputs were eventually subdued through both conciliatory and ruthless policies.

In 1562, Akbar married the daughter of Raja Bihari Mal of Amber, one of the leading Rajput rulers. Although Akbar had a large harem, this Hindu princess was his favorite wife and mother of his heir Salim (later known as Jahāngīr). As a result of the marriage alliance, many Rajputs came to serve in the Mughal administration and army. The princes could continue to rule, but they had to acknowledge Akbar’s suzerainty and supply him with money and soldiers. To facilitate Indian acceptance of Mughal rule, Akbar abolished the enslavement of prisoners of war and no longer forced those he conquered to convert to Islam. If rulers nevertheless resisted, they were mercilessly crushed. When the Rajput ruler of Mewar refused to follow his orders, Akbar, in 1568, captured the fortress of Chitor and ordered the massacre of thirty thousand prisoners.

Despite episodes of draconian cruelty, Akbar’s reign was generally marked by enlightened reforms promoting social peace. Most notably, he instituted a policy of religious toleration. In addition to his own sense of fairness and interest in unrestricted religious dialogue, Akbar believed that the conquering Mughals, who were Muslim, had to have the support of the native Hindu populace. Akbar therefore removed many of the penalties that had burdened Indian Hindus. In 1563, he abolished a tax, which dated from well before Bābur’s invasion, on Hindu pilgrims who traveled to holy places. In 1564, he abolished the jizya, a tax on non-Muslims. He ended the destruction of Hindu temples and allowed new ones to be built. He encouraged Muslim acceptance of Hindu traditions, although he did try to eliminate the Hindu practices of child marriage and widow burning (suttee). Schools were founded under government sponsorship for Hindus as well as Muslims. Hindus served and advanced equally with Muslims in the government and the army.

Akbar’s economic policies were also fair and effective. Taxation was based on landed property, and one-third of the value of the harvest went to the royal treasury. (This was a lower taxation than before or after Akbar.) In times of poor harvest, taxation was reduced or suspended. Efficient tax collection, coupled with a sound currency and flourishing trade, created great prosperity. Most of the hundred million people under Akbar’s rule were still very poor, but historians have suggested that peasants were probably better off then than they were in more modern times.

Akbar maintained centralized control over his empire by instituting an effective bureaucratic hierarchy based on standardized ranks and salaries. The higher administration was divided into thirty-three ranks, classified according to the number of cavalry the officeholder was expected to raise for the emperor. There was no distinction between civil and military ranks, and all were theoretically appointed by and responsible to the emperor. The empire was territorially divided into twelve provinces and further subdivided into systematic administrative units. The civil code was based on Muslim law, but local disputes that took place between Hindus could be decided according to Hindu law.

The prosperity of the empire allowed Akbar to amass a huge fortune, making him the richest king in the world. He had an elaborate court, which for many years he held at a magnificent new palace-city, Fatehpur Sikri (city of victory). Despite the grandeur of his public life, in which he assumed an almost godlike persona, Akbar in his personal life had simple, even austere habits. He maintained a very moderate diet, with usually only one main meal a day. Near the end of his life, under Jain influence, he almost entirely gave up eating meat. He did, however, drink liquor excessively and, like his father, was a regular user of opium. He slept very little, no more than about three hours per night.

During Akbar’s reign, Mughal culture flowered, characterized by a distinctive, elegant blend of Persian and Hindu styles, with some European influence. Akbar employed more than one hundred painters at court who regularly exhibited their work to him. He himself was a gifted artist. He was also a musician, performing on a kind of kettle drum, and was skilled in Hindu singing. Although illiterate, he collected a large library and encouraged literary production. He created the post of poet laureate for Hindi, the northern Indian vernacular that became India’s national language, and had Sanskrit works translated into Persian for his courtiers.

Akbar’s primary interest was religion. He built at Fatehpur Sikri a house of worship in which to discuss theological questions. At first limited to Muslims, the debates were soon opened to Hindus and those of other faiths. He invited Jesuits from the Portuguese colony at Goa to come to his court, and he listened so intently to them that they thought he was about to convert to Christianity. He did reject Orthodox Islam, but instead of becoming a Christian, he sponsored his own religion, known as the Divine Faith, a mystical blend of Hinduism and Islam. Akbar claimed that he was God’s vice-regent, with authority to rule over spiritual as well as temporal matters. This new religion had little influence and disappeared after his death.

Akbar’s last years were marred by his son Salim’s attempts to usurp his throne. Salim may have caused his father’s death in 1605 by poisoning him. When he succeeded Akbar, Salim took the Persian name Jahāngīr, meaning world seizer. Akbar is buried in a mausoleum at Sicandra, nearĀgra.

Significance

Known as the Great Mughal (Persian for Mongol), Akbar created an imperial government that lasted until the nineteenth century. His administrative system, efficient and open to the promotion of talent, was adopted by the British when they later conquered India. Although there were enormous disparities of income between the Mughal elite and the impoverished peasants during his reign, his reign was characterized by a level of general prosperity unmatched in later years. The contemporary of Elizabeth I of England and Philip II of Spain, Akbar surpassed both of them in wealth, power, and majesty. He enjoyed a semidivine status but nevertheless had a personal concern for the well-being of his subjects. He was humble enough to disguise himself sometimes in order to mix with his subjects and listen to their views.

Akbar succeeded in establishing internal peace within his empire because he combined a realistic assessment of the limits of power with a humanistic concern and just administration. His system of taxation, for example, which brought great wealth into his treasury, was flexible enough to encourage rather than crush those suffering economic hardship. The glory of Akbar’s reign included a cultural blending that produced the beautiful, distinctive Mughal style. This creativity was stimulated by the toleration for cultural and religious differences, a toleration that was perhaps Akbar’s greatest achievement. With India later to be so torn apart by conflict between Hindu and Muslim, Akbar’s policy of religious toleration and mixing makes him a model of enlightened rule.

Bibliography

Binyon, Laurence. Akbar. New York: D. Appleton, 1932. A brief, readable biography of Akbar with emphasis on his personality rather than on his rule.

Burn, Richard, ed. The Mughal Period. Vol. 4 in The Cambridge History of India. Reprint. New Delhi: S. Chand, 1987. This history of the Mughal Empire from the conquest of Bābur to the eighteenth century includes a detailed account of Akbar’s rule, with emphasis on his military conquests and religious thought. Includes bibliography, illustrations, maps.

Du Jarric, Pierre. Akbar and the Jesuits: An Account of the Jesuit Missions to the Court of Akbar. Translated with an introduction and notes by C. H. Payne. New Delhi: Tulsi, 1979. A translation and reprint of an early seventeenth century French account of Akbar and his rule, based on reports and letters by Jesuits in Akbar’s court.

Habib, Irfan, ed. Akbar and His India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Anthology collects essays on Akbar himself, as well as essays on Indian culture and the general environment in which Akbar ruled. Includes bibliography, illustrations, map.

Husain, Afzal. The Nobility Under Akbar and Jahāngīr: A Study of Family Groups. New Delhi: Manohar, 1999. Details the kinship structures of nine noble families and the social structure of Mughal culture in general. Explains the relationship between family, politics, and religion in Akbar’s empire. Includes appendices, bibliography, index.

Smith, Vincent A. Akbar, the Great Mogul, 1542-1605. 2d rev. ed. Delhi: A. Chand, 1966. Still the most complete biography of Akbar. A balanced account that assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Akbar’s personality and rule. Contains a lengthy annotated bibliography, maps, and illustrations.

Wellesz, Emmy. Akbar’s Religious Thought, Reflected in Mogul Painting. London: Allen & Unwin, 1952. A lucid account of how Akbar’s eclectic religious interests and policy of religious toleration influenced the creation of Mughal painting. Includes forty black-and-white art plates.

Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. The chapter on Akbar in this general history, written by one of the leading historians of India, provides an accessible introduction. Includes bibliography, illustrations, maps, index.