The Institutes of Akbar 2.2
The Áín i Akbari (Blochmann, Jarrett) 2.2
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2.2.1
Other Mahdis appeared in various parts of India. In 956 (A. D., 1549), a Mahdi of great pretensions arose in Biánah, S.W. of Agrah, in the person of Shaikh ’Aláí. This man was a Bangálí Musalmán. His father had been looked upon in his country as a learned saint, and after visiting Makkah, he had settled, in 935, with his younger brother Naçrullah, likewise a learned man, at Biánah, where they soon became respected and influential men. Shaikh ’Aláí had shewn from his youth the learning of the lawyer and the rigour of the saint; and on the death of his father, he gathered numerous pupils around himself. ‘But the love of power issues at last from the heads of the just,’ and on the day of the ’Íd, he kicked an influential Shaikh from his haudáh, and, supported by his brothers and elder relatives, he proclaimed that he alone was worthy of being the Shaikh of the town. About the same time, one Miyán ’Abdullah, a Niyází Afghán and disciple of Mír Sayyid Muhammad of Jaunpúr, arrived from Makkah, and settled at a retired spot near Biánah. Like his master, he was a man of oratorical powers and was given to street preaching; and in short time he gained numerous followers among the woodcutters and water-carriers. Shaikh ‘Alái also was overawed by the impressive addresses of Miyán ’Abdullah;
2.2.2
he gave up teaching and struggling for local influence, turned faqír, told his wife either to follow him to the wilderness or to go, distributed his whole property, even his books, among the poor adherents of the Niyází, and joined the fraternity which they had formed. The brethren had established among themselves community of property, divided the earnings obtained by begging, and gave up all work, because it was said in the Qorán, ‘Let not men be allured by trade or selling to give up meditating on God.’ Religious meetings, the object of which was to prepare people for the advent of the promised Mahdi, were daily held after the five prayers, which the brethren said together, and wherever they went they appeared armed to the teeth. They soon felt strong enough to interfere with municipal matters, and inspected the bázárs and removed by force all articles forbidden in the law, defying the magistrates, if opposed to them, or assisting them, if of their opinion. Their ranks increased daily, and matters in Biánah had come to such a pass, that fathers separated themselves from their children and husbands from their wives. Shaikh ’Alái’s former position and the thoroughness of his conversion had given him the rank of second leader; in fact, he soon outdid Miyán ’Abdullah in earnestness and successful conversions, and the latter at last tried to rid himself of his rival by sending him with six or seven hundred armed men towards Makkah.
2.2.3
’Alái marched with his band over Basáwar to Khawáçpúr, converting and preaching on the way, but on account of some obstacles they all returned to Biánah. Shaikh ’Alái’s fame at last reached the ear of Islám Sháh, who summoned him to Ágrah; and although the king was resolved to put him to death as a dangerous demagogue, and was even offended at the rude way in which ’Alái behaved in his presence, he was so charmed by an impromptu address which ’Alái delivered on the vanities of the world and the pharisaism of the learned, that he sent cooked provisions to ’Alái’s men. To the amusement of the Afghan nobles and generals at court, ’Alái on another occasion defeated the learned on questions connected with the advent of Mahdi, and Islám Sháh was day after day informed that another of his nobles had gone to ’Alái’s meetings and had joined the new sect. It was at this time that Shaikh Mubárak also became a ‘disciple,’ and professed Mahdawi ideas. It is not clear whether he joined the sect from religious or from political motives, inasmuch as one of the objects of the brethren was to break up the party of the learned at Court, at whose head Makhdúm ul Mulk stood; but whatever may have been his reason, the result was, that Makhdúm became his inveterate enemy, deprived him of grants of land, made him flee for his life, and persecuted him for more than twenty years, till Mubárak’s sons turned the tables on him and procured his banishment.
2.2.4
The learned at Court, however, were not to be baffled by ’Aláí’s success, and Makhdúm’s influence was so great, that he at last prevailed on the king to banish the Shaikh. ’Aláí and his followers readily obeyed the command, and set out for the Dak’hin. Whilst at Handiah on the Narbadá, the frontier of Islám Sháh’s empire, they succeeded in converting Bahár Khán A’zam Humáyún and half his army, and the king on hearing of this last success cancelled his orders and recalled Shaikh ’Aláí.
2.2.5
About the same time (955), Islám Sháh left Agrah, in order to put down disturbances in the Panjáb caused by certain Niyází Afgháns, and when he arrived in the neighbourhood of Biánah, Makhdúm ul-Mulk drew the king’s attention to Miyán ’Abdullah Niyází, who after Shaikh ’Aláí’s departure for the Dak’hin roamed about in the hills of the Biánah district with three or four hundred armed men, and was known to possess great influence over men of his own clan, and consequently over the Niyází rebels in the Panjáb. Islám Sháh ordered the governor of Biánah, who had become a Mahdawí, to bring Miyán ’Abdullah to him. The governor advised his religious leader to conceal himself; but Miyán ’Abdullah boldly appeared before the king, and so displeased him by his neglect of etiquette, that Islám Sháh gave orders to beat him to death. The king watched on horseback for an hour the execution of the punishment, and only left when Miyán ’Abdullah lay apparently lifeless on the ground. But he was with much care brought back to life. He concealed himself for a long time, renounced all Mahdawí principles, and got as late as 993 [A. D., 1585] from Akbar a freehold, because he, too, had been one of Makhdúm ul-Mulk’s victims. He died more than ninety years old, in 1000, at Sarhind.
2.2.6
Islám Sháh after quelling the Niyází disturbances, returned to Agrah, but almost immediately afterwards his presence was again required in the Panjáb, and it was there that Shaikh ’Aláí joined the royal camp. When Islám Sháh saw the Shaikh, he said to him in a low voice, “Whisper into my ear that you recant, and I will not trouble you.” But Shaikh ’Aláí would not do so, and Islám Sháh, to keep up the appearance of authority, ordered a menial to give him by way of punishment a few cuts with the whip in his presence. Shaikh ’Aláí had then scarcely recovered from an attack of the plague, which for several years had been raging in India, and had a few badly healed wounds on his neck. Whilst he got the cuts, one of the wounds broke open, and ’Aláí fainted and died. His body was now thrown under the feet of an elephant, and orders were given that no one should bury him, when all at once, to the terror of the whole camp and the king who believed that the last day had dawned, a most destructive cyclone broke forth. When the storm abated, ’Alái’s body was found literally buried among roses and other flowers, and an order was now forthcoming to have the corpse interred. This happened in 957 [A. D., 1550]. People prophesied the quick end of Islám Sháh and the downfal of his house. Makhdúm ul-Mulk was never popular after that.
2.2.7
The features common to all Mahdawi movements, are (1) that the preachers of the latter days were men of education and of great oratorical powers, which gave them full sway over the multitudes; and (2) that the Mahdawis assumed a hostile position to the learned men who held office at Court. Islám has no state clergy; but we find a counterpart to our hierarchical bodies in the ’Ulamas about Court, from whom the Sadrs of the provinces, the Mir ’Adls, Muftis, and Qázis were appointed. At Dihli and Agrah, the body of the learned had always consisted of stanch Sunnis, who believed it their duty to keep the kings straight. How great their influence was, may be seen from the fact that of all Muhammadan emperors only Akbar, and perhaps ’Aláuddin Khilji, succeeded in putting down this haughty set. The death of Shaikh ’Alái was a great triumph for the Court ’Ulamas, and a vigorous persecution of all Mahdawi disciples was the immediate result. The persecutions lasted far into Akbar’s reign. They abated only for a short time when the return of Humáyún and the downfal of the Afghán power brought about a violent political crisis, during which the learned first thought of their own safety, well knowing that Humáyún was strongly in favour of Shi’ism; but when Akbar was firmly established, and the court at Agrah, after the fall of Bairám Khan, who was a Shi’ah, again teemed with Hindústáni Sunnis, the persecutions commenced.
2.2.8
The hatred of the court party against Shaikh Mubárak especially rose to such a height, that Shaikh ’Abdunnabi and Makhdúm ul-Mulk represented to the emperor that inasmuch as Mubarak also belonged to the Mahdawis and was, therefore, not only himself damned, but led also others into damnation, he deserved to be killed. They even obtained an order to bring him before the emperor. Mubarak wisely fled from Agrah, only leaving behind him some furniture for his enemies to reek their revenge on. Concealing himself for a time, he applied to Shaikh Salim Chishtt of Fathpur Sikri for intercession; but being advised by him to withdraw to Gujarat, he implored the good offices of Akbar’s foster-brother, the generous Khan i A’zam Mirza Kokah, who succeeded in allaying all doubts in the mind of the emperor by dwelling on the poverty of the Shaikh and on the fact that, different from his covetous accusers, he had not cost the state anything by way of freeholds, and thus obtained at least security for him and his family. Mubarak some time afterwards applied indeed for a grant of land for his son Abul Faiz, who had already acquired literary fame, though he was only twenty years old, and waited personally with his son on Shaikh ’Abdunnabi. But the latter, in his theological pride, turned them out his office as men suspected of Mahdawi leanings and Shi’ah tendencies.
2.2.9
Even in the 12th year of Akbar’s reign, when Faizi’s poems had been noticed at court,—Akbar then lay before Chitor—and a summons had been sent to the young poet to present himself before his sovereign, the enemies at Agrah saw in the invitation a sign of approaching doom, and prevailed on the governor to secure the victim this time. The governor thereupon sent a detachment of Mughul soldiers to surround Mubarak’s house. Faizi was accidentally away from home, and the soldiers suspecting a conspiracy, subjected Mubarak to various sorts of ill-treatment; and when Faizi at last came, he was carried off by force to Chitor. Nor did his fears for his father and his own life vanish, till his favourable reception at court convinced him both of Akbar’s good will and the blindness of his personal enemies.