Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c5.s1.75.4

c5.s1.75.4

The theologians, similarly, authorized the state to expropriate from people any property or money it deemed fit in cases of military exigencies, and to distribute it ‘among the soldiers of Islam’.² In short, the ‘Ulama subscribed to the proposition : ‘He who obeys the Sultan, obeys the Lord Merciful’.³ When the Mughul Emperor Akbar laid claims to the exclusive religious and secular leadership of the Indian Muslims and the whole country agreed to this position without much protest, it was only a natural consummation of these developments. Under this dispensation, the *Imam-i-‘Adil* (‘the just Imam,’ otherwise the Sultan) acquired the right of superseding the consensus of the most approved theological opinion on any point at issue, and of giving his own interpretation to the injunctions of the Qur’an guided by very general provisions : nor was his decision to be disputed by anybody in the kingdom. This was the pinnacle of secular power : Islam became not only subordinate, but actually and definitely subservient to the state. The state in its turn assumed a divine character, both the benevolence and the persecutions of a monarch being divine attributes.⁴ We do not deny that many orthodox theologians like Bada’uni did not submit to this position, or only submitted with extreme reluctance, and that some earlier monarchs like Jalal-ud-din Khalji tried to be sincerely religious. But such isolated examples were not strong enough to influence the irresistible course of events.