Faculty of Law Aligarh Muslim University

Home Assignment-I
Subject- History
Topic- Religious Policy Under Mughals (Unit-1)

Submitted by-
Anas Ali
Roll No.- 19BALLB 050.
Enrl no. - GK1043
Semester- II

Submitted to-
​DR. SK. EHTESHAM UDDIN AHMAD
Religious Policy Under Mughals

Introduction

The Mughal (or Mogul) Empire ruled most of India and Pakistan in the 16th and 17th
centuries.It consolidated Islam in South Asia, and spread Muslim (and particularly Persian)
arts and culture as well as the faith.The Mughals were Muslims who ruled a country with a
large Hindu majority. However for much of their empire they allowed Hindus to reach senior
government or military positions.
There had been Muslims in India long before the Mughals. The first Muslims arrived in the
8th century.In the first half of the 10th century a Muslim ruler of Afghanistan invaded the
Punjab 11 times, without much political success, but taking away a great deal of loot.A more
successful invasion came at the end of the 12th century. This eventually led to the formation
of the Delhi Sultanate.A later Muslim invasion in 1398 devastated the city of Delhi.The
Mughal Empire grew out of descendants of the Mongol Empire who were living in Turkestan
in the 15th century. They had become Muslims and assimilated the culture of the Middle
East, while keeping elements of their Far Eastern roots.They also retained the great military
skill and cunning of their Mongol ancestors, and were among the first Western military
leaders to use guns.

The change in the composition of the upper ruling classes in North India after the
Muslim conquests should be regarded as a watershed in Indian history. The most
important political reason for demarcation from the preceding period is the bare fact that now
the Muslims emerge as the dominant factor in the Indian polity-a process, that continued for
many centuries including the Mughal rule. This has naturally affected the periodization of
Indian history. Some modern scholars are prone to call medieval period "as" Musllm period:
They think that since Muslims were the rulers, Islam must have been the state religion. But
this perception is erroneous, because it places exclusive Importance on religion of the upper
ruling-classes, completely disregarding other significant compments of medieval society like
economic, political and social interests. Secondly, it is not rational to equate the religion of
the ruler with that of the state. Such perceptions complicate the issue of state and religion.

Religious Policies of Akbar

Akbar's attitude towards religion and religious communities is generally evaluated on

the basis of the measures which he took between 1560-65 and which primarily affected
the non-Muslim population of the Empire. During this period the Emperor established
matrimonial relations with the Rajputs, abolished the pilgrimage tax, prohibited the
conversion of prisoners of war to Islam and abolished jiziya. These measures seem to have
given Akbar the image of a "secular" emperor. In his personal
beliefs, however, Akbar was a devout muslim. The works like Gulzar-i Abrar and
Nafais-ul Maasir, suggest that the emperor showed deep respect to the ulema and
bestowed upon this group abundant favours. Encouraged by emperor's bounty some
of them persecuted even the non-Sunni sects of the Muslims. The suppressive
measures taken against the Mahdavis and the Shias pass almost unnoticed in the
chronicles of this period.

A change however appears in his attitude after 1565. There is "a marked retrogression in his
attitude in matters pertaining to religion". A document signed by his wakil Munim Khan
(August-September 1566) refers to the order regarding the collection of jiziya in the vicinity
of*Agra. In 1568, Akbar issued the famous Fathnama of Ch~ttor (preserved in the Munshat-i
Namkin) which is full of terms and idioms that can be compared with any other prejudiced
and bigoted declaration. He declares his war against the Rajputs as jihad, takes pride in
destroying temples and in killing the kafirs. Then we have Sharaif-i Usmani which tells that
the Emperor ordered Qazi Abdu! .Samad of Bilgram to check the Hindus from practicing
idol-worship there. Tp crown all this, in 1575, according to Badauni, Akbar reimposed jiziya
though it did not work.

Religion, thus, was not the main concern of the Mughal Emperor. The significant issue before
Akbar was to subdue the local chieftains. Religion was used only as a tool to attain political
goals. When this strategy did not yield substantial gains, Akbar dropped it.

Another interesting aspect deserving consideration is the establishment of the Ibadat

khana. The Ibadat Khana or House of Worship was a prayer or a meeting room built by
Akbar at his palace in Fatehpur Sikri. Originally he intended the place to be only for Sunni
Muslims to gather and discuss various issues. However, when petty differences between other
religious sects and followers got out of control he decided to open the room to people of all
faiths.Locals and visitors to the city were often invited to participate in debates and
discussions in this room. Religious leaders and philosophers from his empire and those who
were passing through were encouraged to come to the discussions on Thursday
evenings.Perturbed by the differences of the religious leaders and philosophers, Akbar
attempted to bring about a reconciliation by creating a new faith, the Din-i-Ilahi or Faith of
the Divine.

The Dīn-i Ilāhī was essentially an ethical system, prohibiting such sins as lust, sensuality,
slander, and pride and enjoining the virtues of piety, prudence, abstinence, and kindness. The
soul was encouraged to purify itself through yearning for God (a tenet of Ṣūfism, Islāmic
mysticism). There were no sacred scriptures or a priestly hierarchy in the Dīn-i Ilāhī. In
practice, however, the Dīn-i Ilāhī functioned as a personality cult contrived by Akbar around
his own person. Members of the religion were handpicked by Akbar according to their
devotion to him. Because the emperor styled himself a reformer of Islām, arriving on Earth
almost 1,000 years after the Prophet Muḥammad, there was some suggestion that he wished
to be acknowledged as a prophet also. The ambiguous use of formula prayers (common
among the Ṣūfīs) such as Allāhu akbar, “God is most great,” or perhaps “God is Akbar,”
hinted at a divine association as well.

Akbar is recorded by various conflicting sources as having affirmed allegiance to Islām and
as having broken with Islām. His religion was generally regarded by his contemporaries as a
Muslim innovation or a heretical doctrine; only two sources from his own time—both
hostile—accuse him of trying to found a new religion. The influence and appeal of the Dīn-i
Ilāhī were limited and did not survive Akbar, but they did trigger a strong orthodox reaction
in Indian Islām.

Religious Policies of Aurangzeb

A year after he assumed power in 1658, Aurangzeb appointed muhtasaibs, or censors of

public morals, from the ranks of the ulema or clergy in every large city. He was keen that the
sharia or Islamic law be followed everywhere, and that practices abhorrent to Islam, such as
the consumption of alcohol and gambling, be disallowed in public. But he was at the outset
faced with one problem, namely that the treatment he had meted out to his own father,
subjecting him to imprisonment, was scarcely consistent with the image he sought to present
of himself as a true believer of the faith. Accordingly, Aurangzeb sought recognition of his
ascent to the Mughal Emperor’s throne from the ruler of the holy places in the Hijaz, and he
became a great patron of the Holy Places. He is reported as well to have spent seven years
memorizing the Koran, and unlike his predecessors, his reign was marked by austerity. The
monumental architecture that characterized the reigns of Akbar and Shah Jahan — the Agra
Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, the Taj Mahal, Shahjahanabad, among others — held little interest for
Aurangzeb, and similarly the musicians who had adorned the courts of his predecessors were
dismissed.

From the standpoint of Aurangzeb’s Hindu subjects, the real impact of his policies may have
started to have been felt from 1665.In 1665, the Emperor instructed the governor of Gujarat
that diwali and holi should be celebrated outside the bazars of the city of Ahmedabad and its
parganas. The reason given for the partial ban of holi was that Hindus "open
their mouths in obscene speech and kindle the holi bonfire in chaklas and bazar, throwing
into fire the faggot of all people that they can seize by forcc and theft".Hindu religious fairs
were outlawed in 1668, and an edict of the following year prohibited construction of Hindu
temples as well as the repair of old ones. Also in 1669, Aurangzeb discontinued the practice,
which had been originated by Akbar, of appearing before his subjects and conferring darshan
on them, or letting them receive his blessings as one might, in Hinduism, take the darshan of
a deity and so receive its blessings. Though the duty (internal customs fees) paid on goods
was 2.5%, double the amount was levied on Hindu merchants from 1665 onwards. In 1679,
Aurangzeb went so far as to reimpose, contrary to the advice of many of his court nobles and
theologians, the jiziya or graduated property tax on non-Hindus.
On the issue of celebrating Holi and Diwali outside the city of Ahmedabad Jadunath Sarkar
comments that "It was really a police regulation as regards holi, and act of bigotry in
connection with diwali". This is a well-considered verdict though .Sarkar overlooks the point
that there was no general ban on diwali or holi in the
Empire. This should be juxtaposed with Aurangzeb's order for "putting a stop to
Muharram processions ... in all the provinces, after a deadly fight between rival processions
had taken place at ~urhanpur" in January, 1669. This ban, too, was a "police regulation" but
in contrast with diwali and holi, it was not confined to any particular province.

And what of the popular representation of Aurangzeb as a ferocious destroyer of Hindu

temples and idols? Hindu temples in the Deccan were seldom destroyed, notwithstanding
Aurangzeb’s extensive military campaigns in that area. True, in north India, some Hindu
temples were undoubtedly torn down, but much work needs to be done to establish the
precise circumstances under which these acts of destruction took place. The famed Keshava
Rai temple in Mathura was one such temple, but here Aurangzeb seems to have been
motivated by a policy of reprisal, since the Jats in the region had risen in revolt. Like his
predecessors, Aurangzeb continued to confer land grants (jagirs) upon Hindu temples, such as
the Someshwar Nath Mahadev temple in Allahabad, Jangum Badi Shiva temple in Banaras,
and Umanand temple in Gauhati, and if one put this down merely to expediency, then why
cannot one view the destruction of temples as a matter of expediency as well, rather than as a
matter of deliberate state policy? Moreover, recent historical work has shown that the number
of Hindus employed as mansabdars, or as senior court officials and provincial administrators,
under Aurangzeb’s reign rose from 24.5% in the time of his father Shah Jahan to 33% in the
fourth decade of his own rule. One has the inescapable feeling that then, as now, the word
‘fanaticism’ comes rather too easily to one’s lips to characterize the actions of people acting,
or claiming to act, under the name of Islam. It is also notable that as a firm Sunni, Aurangzeb
dealt as firmly with the Shia kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda as he did with the Hindus or
Muslims. One can safely assert that Aurangzeb acted to preserve and enhance the interests of
his own Muslim community, and restored the privileges of the Sunni ulema, but his actions
with respect to the Hindus, Shias, and others are more open to interpretation.

Conclusion

There was no constant religious policy-perse-of the Mughal state. It varied according
to the whims and personal perceptions of the Mughal Emperors. Babur and Humayun did not
have time to formulate any clear and definite policy. Akbar and Jahangir, were tolerant to a
large extent. Shah Jahan did depart from the norms of his predecessors in certain respects. It
was however, the reign of Aurangzeb, which
saw the practice of puritanical and anti-Hindu measures. These were perhaps the
result of Aurangzeb's sensitivities as an individual and a consciousness of guilt that
pervaded his "self'.
Bibliography

● J.F. Richards, The Mughal Empire.

● Satish Chandra, Medieval India (Old NCERT).