History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c39.s2: §2. Diplomatic intercourse with the Sharif of Mecca.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c39.s2
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§2. Diplomatic intercourse with the Sharif of Mecca.
v3.c39.s2.1
Among the chiefs of Islam, the Sharif of Mecca held a position of peculiar honour and importance. He had control over the holy places, and through him alone could alms from outside reach the pious men and mendicants who lived in that sacred soil to which the heart of the entire Muslim world turns in prayer five times a day. After the War of Succession, Aurangzib planned to drown in a shower of gold any scruples which the headmen and theologians of the Holy City might have felt in acknowledging as lawful sovereign the usurper of a loving father's throne.* In November, 1659, shortly after his grand coronation, he despatched Mir Ibrahim, a pious Sayyid, with six lakhs and sixty thousand Rupees for distribution among the Sayyids, recluses, servitors of the mosques and shrines, and devotees at Mecca and Medina. The chief of the mission died in Arabia about June 1661 and the charge of the party was transferred to Haji Ahmad Said, who carried his pious task out, and returned to Court in March 1665, bringing with himself Sayyid Yahiya, the bearer of a friendly letter and some relics from the Sharif of Mecca. This envoy received Rs. 13,000 in return.
v3.c39.s2.2
Thereafter agents of the Sharif used to visit the Delhi Court every year and levy contributions in the name of the Prophet. Thus, we find that in 1668 they took away Rs. 9,000, in 1671 Rs. 30,000 and 100 gold pieces, in 1674 Rs. 5,000, and in 1686 Rs. 5,000. Besides these, large sums were often sent by Aurangzib through his own agents for distribution in the Holy City. In December 1684 he entrusted the Shaikh-ul-Islam (the resigned Chief Qazi) with a casket full of supplicatory letters addressed to the Prophet with a request to deposit it at the foot of the Prophet's tomb. In December 1693 when his son Muhammad Azam recovered from a serious illness, he sent Rs. 1,20,000 to be spent in charity at Mecca and Medina.
v3.c39.s2.3
∗ Manucci says that at first "the holy men of Mecca declined to accept the gifts sent by Aurangzib, because his father was still alive" (ii. 3); but in a few years the Grand Sharif repented of it and "sent envoys to find out if Aurangzib would consent to renew the offering that he had before sent." (ii. 114.) Naturally, the official history of the reign would be silent about any such rebuff, if the Emperor received it. I can only suspect from the long time which the Mughal embassy at Mecca took to do its work that there was some such hitch. The party sent out with the gifts was absent from India for more than five years, which cannot be explained by imagining that the members had an insatiable appetite for pilgrimage (haj).
v3.c39.s2.4
But at last the Sharif's greed made Aurangzib turn against him. In the last decade of his reign he wrote to his *wazir*, "The Sharif of Mecca, having heard of the great wealth of India, sends an envoy every year for making his own gain. The money that I send there is meant for the poor and not for *him*. Devise some means by which it may reach them and the hands of this unrighteous exactor may not touch it. Ask of the [Arab] traders at Surat who have the best repute and substance, if they can convey my money to the poor of the Holy Cities in safety. If so, it will be sent through their agency. My object is to please the souls of the lovers of God and not to proclaim my charity." (*Ruqat*, No. 174.) Two other letters make the same complaint of the Sharif intercepting the royal alms and diverting the money to his own use, while the mendicants and recluses of Mecca starved. At last Aurangzib resorted to the policy of sending money secretly and in small instalments to the needy people of the Holy Cities, through the merchants of Surat, without the agency or even knowledge of the Sharif.* (K.T., 25b, 114b.)