Mughal Emperor Akbar

“ The Yusufzais not only repulsed the first attack of the Mughals, but when reinforcements, sent by Akbar under his special favourite, Rájá Bírbal, joined the attacking party, they too were driven back with a loss of 8,000 men, amongst whom was the Rájá.3 It was the severest defeat the Mughal troops had ever experienced. To repair it, the Emperor despatched his best commander, Rájá Todar Mall, supported by Rájá Mán Singh, of Jaipur. These generals manoeuvred with great caution, supporting their advance by stockades, and eventually completely defeated the tribes in the Khaibar Pass. ”

“ Shaikh Mubarak, the father of Abu'l-Fazl—the Emperor Akbar's famous vizier, was a disciple of Shaikh 'Aláí and from him imbibed Mahdaví ideas. This brought upon him the wrath of the 'Ulamá who, however, were finally overcome by the free-thinking and heretical Emperor and his vizier. There never was a better ruler in India than Akbar, and never a more heretical one as far as orthodox Islám is concerned. ”

“ This man, whose memory even to-day is revered by the Hindus, was a descendant of Baber, Abul Fath Jelâleddin Muhammed, known by the surname Akbar "the Great," which was conferred upon the child even when he was named, and completely supplanted the name that properly belonged to him. And truly he justified the epithet, for great, fabulously great, was Akbar as man, general, statesman and ruler,—all in all a prince who deserves to be known by every one whose heart is moved by the spectacle of true human greatness. ”

“ It was apparent often enough in the military expeditions that Akbar far surpassed his contemporaries in generalship. But it was not the love of war and conquest which drove him each time anew to battle; a sincere desire inspired by a mystical spirit impelled him to bring to an end the ceaseless strife between the small states of India by joining them to his realm, and thus to found a great united empire. ”

“ And still we cannot call its establishment an absolute failure, for the spirit of tolerance which flowed out from Akbar's religion accomplished infinite good and certainly contributed just as much to lessening the antagonisms in India as did Akbar's social and industrial reforms.
A man who accomplished such great things and desired to accomplish greater, deserves a better fortune than was Akbar's towards the end of life. ”

“ Similarly with Prince Murád. As to his successor, Jahángír, he was, in most respects, the very opposite of his father. Towards the close of the reign he set an example which became a rule of the Mughal dynasty, that of trying to establish himself in the lifetime of his father, whose dearest friend, Abulfazl, he had caused to be assassinated. Nothing could exceed the exemplary patience and forbearance with which Akbar treated his unworthy son. Again, Akbar abhorred cruelty: he regarded the performance of his duty as equivalent to an act of worship to the Creator. ”

“ When the war begins, then suddenly our Siddha and other followers will fall from him, and join the army of Kashmir; and Akbar will have enough to do in making good his retreat. In the meantime our party in Agra will have proclaimed Salim emperor, and taken possession of the fortress and treasure. So if Akbar succeeds in his retreat, he will find more fighting awaiting him, and the end must, I suppose, be his abdication in favour of the Prince Royal. ”

“ Other historians of the reign were Shaikh Illahdad Faizi Sirhindi, whose “Akbar-nama” comes down to 1602; Maulana Ahmad, of Tatta, who compiled the “Tarikh-i Alfi,” under the Emperor’s own superintendence, and Asad Beg, who related the murder of Abú-l Fazl and the death of Akbar, bringing his narrative down to 1608. The greatest settlement officer and financier of Akbar’s court was Todar Mall. There were also poets, musicians, and authors of commentaries who were encouraged by the liberality of the Emperor. ”

“ He was a man of great ability and of tried integrity. Though attached to the court of a Muhammadan sovereign, he was an earnest Hindu, and performed faithfully all the ceremonies of his religion. On one occasion when accompanying Akbar to the Punjab, in the hurry of departure he forgot his idols. As he transacted no business before his daily worship he remained for several days without food or drink, and was at last with difficulty consoled by the Emperor.
Of the army the principal component force was cavalry. Elephants too constituted an important feature in the array of battle. ”

“ Then it became necessary to prove publicly that neither craft nor force could avail against Akbar, and that the reins of government remained in the Emperor’s hands. You have forced me to it, and on your head rests the blame of what has happened to-day. You have done yourself much injury, and grieved me deeply, more deeply than you can comprehend. May you never learn from experience what a father feels when, sword in hand, he is forced to meet his son as an enemy. ”

“ Before setting out on the expedition, however, he paid another visit to the tomb of the saint on the hill of Ajmere.
I have written much in the more recent pages of the marches of Akbar, and the progress of his armies, but up to the present I have not referred to the principle on which those movements were made. There have been warriors, even within the memory of living men, who have made war support war. Upon that principle acted the Khorasání and Afghán barbarians who invaded India when the Mughal power was tottering to its fall. But that principle was not the principle of Akbar. ”

“ In 1150 one of his successors wrested Amber from the Mīnas and made it his capital. The Amber State from the first acknowledged the supremacy of the Mughal emperors, and the chief of the period gave his daughter in marriage to Akbar. This chief’s son, Bhagwān Dās, is said to have saved Akbar’s life at the battle of Sarnāl. Bhagwān Dās gave a daughter to Jahāngīr, and his adopted son, Mān Singh, the next chief, was one of the most conspicuous of the Mughal Generals, and at different periods was governor of Kābul, Bengal, Bihār and the Deccan. ”

“ At the period at which we have arrived this Rájpút prince was governor of the Punjab. From his family Akbar now selected a wife for his son, Prince Salím, afterwards the Emperor Jahángír. The marriage was celebrated at Fatehpur-Síkrí, with great ceremony and amid great rejoicings. Until this reign the Rájpút princes had scornfully rejected the idea of a matrimonial alliance with princes of the Muhammadan faith. But it was the desire of Akbar to weld: to carry into action the cardinal principle that differences of race and religion made no difference in the man. ”

“ The result was that his political system gradually drifted after his death into the old narrow groove whence he had emancipated it, whilst his religious system perished with him. After the reigns of two successors, Muhammadan but indifferent, persecution once again asserted her sway to undo all the good the great and wise Akbar had effected, and to prepare, by the decadence of the vital principle of the dynasty, for the rule of a nation which should revive his immortal principle of justice to all and toleration for all. ”

“ Akbar’s grandsire, the mountains of the north-west frontier.
If the balance of administrative merit is in favour of the English, and this is not established, it in no way detracts from the glory of the great Emperor. Yet we may claim that the islanders who now occupy the place of Akbar are not unworthy to succeed him. The work that is before us is more prosaic than was the duty of the puissant sovereign. The charm of one central glory, round which all that was great and good in India could congregate ”

“ The first thing to be accomplished was to annex all India--as bloodlessly as he could. That is the first thing to be noticed in Akbar's rule. War, even from the beginning, was never to him anything but the lesser of two evils; the other being disunion, decentralisation, consequent misgovernment.
His first annexation was Mâlwa, where the governor, hard-pressed, "sought a refuge from the frowns of fortune" in Akbar's clemency. As a result of which he lived, and fought, and died, long years afterwards, in the service of the king, feeling his honour in no way impaired by his defeat. ”

“ But I have remarked to him that he raises Akbar too much to the clouds; for after all, he, as a man, has his faults, like others, and perhaps in the future he may be accused of flattery of princes and of prejudice. But he would not listen to me, nor in the least diminish his praise of the Emperor. ‘If I,’ he answered me, ‘may not say all that I in truth think of the man, who is more than my prince—he is my benefactor and truest friend,—rather than not say what I think, I would throw my book away.’ As you can understand, against all that there was no reasoning ”

“ Some, such as the abolition of suttee and the legislation for widow remarriage which he enforced easily, nearly cost us India to establish.
But Akbar had the advantage of being a king indeed.
"There is but one God, and Akbar is his Viceroy."
Such was his first motto. If it made him a despot, his second one made him tolerant.
"There is good in all things. Let us adopt what is good, and discard the remainder." And this admixture of despotism and tolerance is the secret of Indian statesmanship. ”

“ Even to-day every traveler in India thinks he has been set down in another world when he treads the ground of Rajputâna and sees around him in place of the weak effeminate servile inhabitants of other parts of the country powerful upright men, splendid warlike figures with blazing defiant eyes and long waving beards.
While Akbar valued the Rajputs very highly his own personality was entirely fitted to please these proud manly warriors. ”

“ No one could save the empire but a born statesman. Akbar had already proved himself a born soldier. Had he been only a soldier he might still have held his own against Afghans and Usbegs from Peshawur to Allahabad. Had he been bloodthirsty and merciless, like Bairam Khan, he might have stamped out revolt and mutiny by massacre and terrorism. ”

“ Towards the end the Emperor mixed among those around him, throwing among the bystanders small golden objects in the form of flowers and fruits, addressing here and there kind and friendly words—confirming many afresh in their conviction that in Akbar the people had not only a great and powerful, but also a benevolent ruler, to whose heart the well-being of his subjects was dearer than his own greatness. ”

“ The defeat of that prince by Bábar had greatly affected the power of Mewár, and when Sher Sháh drove Humáyún from India its chiefs had been compelled eventually to acknowledge the overlordship of the conqueror. But, during the disturbances which followed the death of Sher Sháh, they had recovered their independence, and at the accession of Akbar they still held their high place among the states of Rájpútána. Of the other states it may briefly be stated that the rulers of Jaipur had paid homage to the Mughal in the time of Bábar. ”

“ He had seen enough faithlessness in the Mohammedan nobles and in his own relatives. Besides, Akbar was born in the house of a small Rajput prince who had shown hospitality to Akbar's parents on their flight and had given them his protection.
The Rajputs are the descendants of the ancient Indian warrior race and are a brave, chivalrous, trustworthy people who possess a love of freedom and pride of race quite different in character from the rest of the Hindus. ”

“ From olden times the inhabitants of India have had a predisposition for religious and philosophical disputations. So Akbar, too, was convinced of the utility of free discussion on religious dogmas. Based upon this idea, and perhaps also in the hope that the Ulemâs would be discomfited Akbar founded at Fathpur Sikrî, his favorite residence in the vicinity of Agra, the famous Ibâdat Khâna, literally the "house of worship," but in reality the house of controversy. ”

“ This in short is a picture of the life and activities of the greatest ruler which the Orient has ever produced. In order to rightly appreciate Akbar's greatness we must bear in mind that in his empire he placed all men on an equality without regard to race or religion, and granted universal freedom of worship at a time when the Jews were still outlaws in the Occident and many bloody persecutions occurred from time to time; when in the Occident men were imprisoned, executed or burnt at the stake for the sake of their faith or their doubts ”

“ When the tax-collector availed himself of this privilege the Hindu lost thereby his greatest possession, his caste, and was shut out from any intercourse with his equals. Accordingly he was compelled to pass his whole life trembling in terror before this horrible evil which threatened him. That a man of Akbar's nobility of character should remove such an atrocious, yes devilish, decree seems to us a matter of course; but for the Hindus it was an enormous beneficence. ”

“ The foundation everywhere reaches water.
The year did not close without an event which afforded Akbar the opportunity of displaying his decision and prompt action in sudden emergencies. I have shown how, on his visit to Mándu, the Uzbek governor of that city had taken fright and rushed into rebellion; how Akbar had caused him to be pursued and punished. The treatment of the rebel, though not unduly severe, had spread in the minds of the Uzbek nobles at the court and in the army the impression that the Emperor disliked men of that race, and three or four of them combined to give him a lesson. ”