The Islamic World to 1600
Akbar, 1556-1605
The Mughal Empire was finally consolidated as one of the Islamic world's three Great Empires by Humayun's son, Akbar, who was a strong ruler like his contemporaries, Suleyman I in the Ottoman Empire and Abbas I in the Safavid Empire. Humayun had died unexpectedly in 1556 after falling down a flight of stairs, and Akbar was only 13 years old when he ascended to the Mughal throne. His first challenge came from a Hindu prince, Hemu, who met Akbar's army near Delhi shortly after Akbar took power in 1556. Akbar won the battle, and claimed Delhi for the Mughal Empire. He then moved his court from Kabul, where it had been staying in safety until the Mughal Empire could be consolidated in Hindustan. Within two years of that victory, Akbar had defeated two other challengers to the throne, and was thus able to take full control of the Mughal Empire by the time he was 15 years old.
After regaining Babur's former territory, Akbar turned his attention to the expansion of the Mughal Empire. He looked to Rajasthan first, which was a strongly Hindu province. He had already tried to work his way into the principalities of Rajasthan by marrying into their ruling houses, but the leader of Rajasthan, the Rana of Mewar, refused to submit to Mughal rule. The two sides met in 1567 at the fort of Chitor, which the Rana's family had controlled for 800 years. Akbar's victory there resulted in Muslim control of virtually all of Rajasthan. Next, in 1573, he conquered Gujarat, a traditionally Muslim region, and in 1575, Akbar succeeded in annexing the province of Bengal - where Sher Shah had first challenged Humayun. In 1586 he took the province of Kashmir, which would remain a favourite place of future Mughal emperors, and which today is the source of conflict between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, both of which claim jurisdiction over Kashmir. In 1592, Akbar further expanded his empire into the Sindh, including Umarkot, the city of his birth, then into Baluchistan and Qandahar. By 1595 the Mughal Empire covered the entire Hindustan plain, from the Indus in the west, to the Ganges in the east, and the Hindu Kush and Himalaya Mountains in the north. To the south, the Deccan, a region of rough terrain, provided another natural boundary for Hindustan, but Akbar tried to get through it in the last 12 years of his life. He never succeeded in doing so, however, and thus the Mughal Empire never reached the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent.
During this period of expansion, Akbar briefly moved the Mughal capital from Agra to a new site nearby, which he named Fatehpur Sikri, meaning "Village of Victory." It was abandoned after only 14 years, however, and Akbar returned the Mughal court to Agra.
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Fatehpur Sikri |
Although his military pursuits took a great deal of time and effort, Akbar spent time on his internal administration as well as his foreign policy. As he matured, Akbar developed a particular interest in religion. He was known for his toleration of Hindus, for example, and had several Hindu wives. Contrary to former Muslim rulers in India with Hindu wives, however, Akbar allowed his wives to practice their religion within the harem. Akbar also employed more Hindus in the Mughal civil service than any of his predecessors, because he realised the importance of maintaining good relations with the majority Hindus of the Mughal realm. He knew that a Muslim Empire that refused to treat Hindus well could not expect to survive long in India.
Dargah Mosque, built during Akbar's reign Courtesy of About Islam and Muslims www.unn.ac.uk/societies/islamic/ |
Akbar's respect for Hinduism had less to do with political power, however, than with simple personal interest. Although he was a practising Sunni Muslim, Akbar took great interest in learning all he could about other religions - from Hinduism to Shi'a Islam to Christianity. He even invited Christian missionaries from the Portuguese settlement at Goa, on India's west coast, to come to Agra and teach him the basic tenets of Christianity. He also often held religious discussions at a specially built centre of worship at his court. He regularly invited representatives from several different religions - including Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity - to come to these discussions. These explorations into other faiths often upset Akbar's Muslim subjects, who believed he was drifting from Islam. Indeed, he did take several steps away from orthodox Islam, most notably by proclaiming himself the founder in 1582 of a new religion, Din-i-Ilahi, or "Religion of God." The new religion was vaguely defined, and appears to have centred on Akbar himself as its deity, but he never made any serious attempts to spread it beyond his inner circle. He did, however, introduce a new calendar, which defined dates according to the Divine Era, which was the date of Akbar's ascension to the throne. Similarly, he changed the imprint on Mughal coins to read, Allahu akbar, which had an intentionally ambiguous meaning. Because the word, akbar, means "great" as well as being the emperor's name, the phrase could mean either "God is great" or "Akbar is God."
Akbar's relations with his son and heir, Salim - who later changed his name to Jahangir to avoid confusion with the Ottoman Sultan Selim II - were strained at best. Akbar did not believe that Salim would make a good emperor, and thus he openly favoured his other sons for the throne. When Akbar died in 1605, however, Salim did succeed him as Mughal emperor, and indeed proved himself to be a very capable ruler. Under Salim (Jahangir) and his descendants, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, the Mughal Empire would continue to grow as one of the Islamic world's three Great Empires.
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