Modern World History

Dara Shikoh
Dara Shikoh was the first son of one of the most powerful sovereigns of India's Mughal dynasty, Shah
Jahan (r. 1628–58). In his autobiography, Dara wrote that his father longed for an heir to the throne and
prayed that Sufi saint Muin al-Din Chishti would fulfill his wish. The next year, Queen Mumtaz Mahal
gave birth to Dara near the saint's shrine in Ajmer. Dara spent his early years in the palace and then was
assigned command of an army when he was 17 years old. His father also gave him administrative
appointments and high state honors to qualify him to be his successor and avoid dynastic conflict.
Nevertheless, when Shah Jahan became ill in 1657, Dara and three younger brothers, Muhammad Shuja,
Murad, and Aurangzeb, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for their father's Peacock Throne.
Aurangzeb and Murad accused Dara of being an apostate because of his involvement with Hindu yogis
and ascetics. Never very adept at war, Dara was defeated on the battlefield, tried by the ulama for
apostasy, and executed in 1659. Aurangzeb took the throne for himself and did away with his remaining
brothers.

Dara Shikoh, like his great-grandfather Akbar (d. 1605), is usually placed within the liberal wing of South
Asian Islam, in juxtaposition to hard-line religious conservatives such as his brother Aurangzeb. His
interest in religion first became evident in 1640, when he was 25 years old. It was at this time that he
compiled a biographical dictionary about Muhammad, the Prophet's wives and family, the first caliphs,
the Shii Imams, and hundreds of Sufis, particularly those of the Qadiri, Naqshbandi, Chishti, Kubrawi,
and Suhrawardi orders. During the same year, he and his older sister, Jahanara (d. 1681), were initiated
into the Qadiri Sufi Order by Mullah Shah, a prominent Sufi master who had been serving as their
spiritual guide. Dara wrote several books and tracts on Sufi doctrine and practices, reflecting the stages
of his journey on the Sufi path. His most important comparative work was Majmaa al-bahrayn (The
confluence of the two oceans), in which he sought to prove that Islam and the Vedanta tradition in Hindu
religious thought shared the same essential truths. For example, he equated the great names of God in
Islam with those given by Hindus to their absolute cosmic being. He also identified the Islamic idea of
resurrection with Hindu notions of liberation. Shortly before his death, Dara translated chapters of the
Sanskrit philosophical commentaries on the Vedas known as the Upanishads into Persian. Indeed, it was
through his translation, in which he had the assistance of Hindu pandits and ascetics, that the
Upanishads became familiar to scholars of Indian language and literature in the West. Dara also was
involved with the translation of the Bhagavad Gita, the most well known sacred text in the Hindu
religion.

Further Information
Muhammad Dara Shikuh, Majmaa al-bahrayn, or The Mingling of the Two Oceans. Edited and
translated by M. Mahfouz ul-Haq (Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1929).

John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India, 2 vols. (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal
Publishers, 1983).

Citation Information
Campo, Juan E. “Dara Shikoh.” Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2016. Modern World History,
online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17283&itemid=WE53&articleId=270441. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.
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