Will the real Akbar please stand up?

Will the Real Akbar Please Stand Up?, November 21, 2006


By
Cheri Montagu "Writer" (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) - This review is from: Akbar: The Greatest Mogul (Hardcover)







It's always embarrassing to be wrong in public, but if one is going to
learn, it is better to confront one's mistakes than to ignore them as if
they had never happened. When I wrote my short review of Vincent
Smith's AKBAR THE GREAT MOGUL, I was overly impressed by its Oxford
imprimatur, the author's scholarly credentials, and the book's venerable
age (1917). It is not surprising that I gained the impression that
Akbar had embraced Parsiism, for after asserting that the Emperor had
rejected Islam, Smith provides what seems like unmistakable evidence for
this conversion: Akbar worshipped fire and the sun. What seems less
easy to understand or explain is how I could have overlooked the
passages in Smith's book which imply that Akbar, having rejected Islam,
began to persecute Muslims. If this is correct, it would greatly
tarnish his well-known reputation for toleration.


Trying to decide if I should buy S.M. Burke's AKBAR, THE GREATEST
MOGUL from Amazon, I examined a library copy of the more recently-penned
biography alongside of Smith's work. And to my relief (for I have had a
special affection for Akbar since I read about him years ago in Bamber
Gascoigne's THE GREAT MOGHULS), I found in it an excellent refutation of
Smith's charges of religious intolerance. To quote Burke: "To have
punished anyone solely on the score of religion was alien to Akbar's
entire outlook. The seniormost ladies of his own household-- his
mother, his aunt Golbadan and his wife Salima-- were all pious Muslims
and he always paid them the greatest respect. He arranged for Golbadan
and Salima to gain merit by performing the hajj [pilgimmage to Mecca].
If being a fervent Muslim was a crime in Akbar's eyes, as Badauni would
have us believe, how did Badauni, the self-confessed zealot, manage to
survive at court, so close to Akbar, till the very end of the Emperor's
life?" (p. 128). To which I might add, concerning the charge that he
banned Arabic letters, that if he had done so he could not have expected
to see his own name anywhere, as it is in fact part of the Muslim
takbir, the first sentence pronounced daily in the muezzin's call to
prayer, "Allahu akbar" or "God is great", and nothing could have been
more Arabic.


This still leaves open the question of what religion Akbar
ultimately embraced. His "Din-I-Ilahi" was a customized religion wich
undoubtedly contained a large measure of self-glorification, for no one
denies that Akbar was vain. But there was good reason for him to
consider himself to still be a Muslim even after he established it. It
so happens that there was a brand of Islam which was popular in Akbar's
time and very different from the bigoted Islam of the ulema whose
bickering so irritated Akbar. This was Sufisim, a type of mysticism
which sought union with the divine through ecstatic attainment of union
with God, usually brought about through contemplation and an austere way
of life. Sufis were tolerant, believing that there is a core of truth
in every religion: like the Persian poet Rumi and the Christan Gnostics,
they would have agreed that God is to be found not in a synagogue,
church or mosque but in one's own heart. Burke provides much evidence
of Akbar's attraction to Sufism. Indeed, Akbar himself experienced
mysterious moments of "seizure", in which he became detached from
everything that was going on around him and unable to participate in it,
as though he were possessed. In one instance, he was engaged in a form
of hunting which he greatly enjoyed, in which beaters drove animals
into a confined space where they could be slaughtered-- depictions of
this form of hunting, as well as Akbar hunting on horseback with
cheetahs, still exist in Moghul miniatures. On this particular
occasion, after his "seizure", Akbar seemed to lose all his thirst for
blood and ordered that the animals be released unharmed. He seemed
elated and himself interpreted such "seizures", which recurred on other
occasions, as moments of complete union with God such as the Sufis
sought.


Smith attempted to explain these episodes by hypothesizing that
Akbar was an epileptic, but why then would he have interpreted the
seizures in a positive light? As Burke says, it is more plausible to
conclude that they were exactly what Akbar thought they were, and it
does not matter whether or not WE believe that he had attained union
with God on these occasions, only that Akbar, being of a mystical bent,
genuinely believed that he had. Interestingly, Akbar may have been
afflicted with another disorder, although the possibility has never been
raised by any author to my knowledge, including Burke. This is
dyslexia. It is well known that Akbar was illiterate. Smith attributes
this to youthful idleness, and Burke to "an unsettled childhood and
natural aversion to being taught." (p. 31). But given the undeniable
intellectual capacity and love of learning that he displayed as an
adult, it seems more likely that he had a reading disorder which could
have been easily overcome in today's world but which was not even
recognized in his own era or Smith's, for that matter.


Smith's assertion that Akbar was "free from a love of cruelty for
its own sake," is supported by the edict, cited by both Smith and Burke,
which he promulgated against involuntary suttee. As Burke says, "On
one occasion Akbar heard that a Rajput princess did not wish to commit
suttee after the death of her husband but her son and other relatives
were resolved to force her to burn herself. He immediately mounted his
horse, speeded to the spot, and prevented the tragedy." (p. 141) It is
also supported by the shock Akbar felt at the hideous torture-death
inflicted on a man by his son Salim (the future Jahangir) when he was in
his cups (p. 208). But there is one question on which debate still
rages as it does about his religion. Smith says that "Akbar's whole
policy was directed principally toward the acquisition of power and
riches, and that "improvement of the condition of the people was quite a
secondary consideration." Burke takes strong exception, using numerous
examples to demonstrate the falsity of this assertion. For one thing,
if Akbar's system of administration was not beneficial to his subjects,
why did the British themselves model theirs upon it? (p. 215) Secondly,
Akbar expressed his concern for the poor and downtrodden in innumerable
ways. He made himself accessible to everyone, even the lowliest of his
subjects. He distributed alms in vast amounts and encouraged his
nobles to do the same. He built free hospitals and schools, serais (the
equivalent of today's hostel) for poor travelers, and constructed wells
and dams to help the peasants (pp. 145-221). When one of his ministers
pleaded that, because of old age and failing health, he wished to
retire and spend his days in "remembering God", Akbar refused to let him
go and said that "No worship of God is equal to the soothing of the
oppressed."


It seems that Burke is right when he says of Smith and some of his
contemporaries who felt the same about Akbar, "they were reluctant to
permit any period of Indian history to outshine the British inerregnum
in benevolence and enlightenment." (p. 216) Another Englishman felt
differently. In an address to the Pakistani parliament, the last
viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, said, "When the East India Company
received its charter nearly four centuries ago, your great Emperor Akbar
was on the throne, whose reign was marked by perhaps as great a degree
of political and religious tolerance, as has been known before or since.
It was an example by which, I honestly believe, generations of our
public men and administrators have been influenced." (p. 221)

http://www.amazon.com/Akbar-Greatest-S-M-Burke/dp/812150452X

I will print this on fine japanese vellum paper and use it to scratch my ass next time it itches. will attempt to read in between the said scratching.