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Mughal Administration c12: Chapter VIII. The Sovereign as the Head of Religion

Mughal Administration c12

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Chapter VIII. The Sovereign as the Head of Religion

§ 1. The religious function of the Sovereign in a Muslim State.

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Examples are numerous in Oriental history of sovereigns claiming the position of the spiritual leader of their people. It may have been due to the natural vanity of man or to the astute political design of securing to one's self the supreme authority in Church and State alike, and thereby making the sovereign's position unassailable, or to a combination of both these motives. The lord of half a million swords does not feel happy unless he can flatter himself that he has won the unforced love and spontaneous obedience of his subjects. He has a natural weakness for thinking that he is not as other men are, that he is akin to the gods, and that he rules by a divine right as a semi-divine being. Flatterers had instilled the same idea into the minds of the Roman Emperors and the Stuart kings of England.

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It found an easier lodgement in the Islamic State. That State is a theocracy, and its sovereign, in strict theory, is God's representative on earth. He is the commander of the faithful in the battlefield and the public prayer alike. He is the only Khalifa of the time, and if he is worthy of his position then the mantle of the Arabian Prophet has descended on him, and he ought to be not only the leader of the national army but also the highest living exponent of the faith (*mujtahid*) and leader in prayer (*Imam.*) Only the military type of the State and exigencies which made a rude unlettered soldier instead of a deeply-read theologian the only successful sovereign in most Islamic lands throughout the middle ages, prevented this claim from maturing. The actual experience of a long series of centuries gradually disabused the public mind of the idea that the Sultan was necessarily also the Mujtahid or Imam. But he might be so.

§ 2. Popular longing for the advent of a Superman guide.

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Anthropomorphism or the worship of God in the form of man, is the besetting sin of the Aryan race. The Persians could not shake it off even after their conversion to a strictly monotheistic religion like Islam, and the variety of incarnations adored by the Persian people along with Islamic tenets proves how fertile a field for man-worship Iran is. We find a full account of these religious movements in Browne’s *Literary History of Persia* (Vol. I. Ch. 9). Sufism, to which the Persians among all Islamic races have made the largest contribution, also favours the recognition of inspired or superhumanly gifted spiritual preceptors.

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The *Insan-i-kamil* or Perfect Man is the title given by Muhammadan mystics to the highest type of humanity, *i.e.*, the theosophist who has realised his oneness with God. This theory of the Perfect Man is based on a pantheistic monism which regards the Creator (*al Haqq*) and the creature (*al Khalq*) as complementary aspects of Absolute Being,—or as a Hindu would say the *Purusha* and the *Prakriti* are two aspects of one and the same thing. “Man,” as an Arabian mystic writes, “unites in himself both the form of God and the form of the universe...He is the mirror by which God is revealed...We ourselves are the attributes by which we describe God ; our existence is merely an objectification of His existence.”...The Perfect Man, who typifies the emanation of Absolute Being from itself and its return into itself, moves upward through a series of illuminations until he ultimately becomes merged in the Essence,... when the seal of deification is set upon him. He now becomes the Pole-star (*Qutb*) of the universe, and the medium through which it is preserved ; he is omnipotent, nothing is hidden from him ; it is right that mankind should bow down in adoration before him, since he is the vicegerent (*Khalifa*) of God in the world (*Quran*, ii, 28). Thus, being divine as well as human, he forms a connecting link between God and created things. According to orthodox Muslims this representative Superman is the Prophet Muhammad...Al Jili holds that in every age Muhammad assumes the form of a living saint, and in that guise makes himself known to mystics. [*Encyclo. Islam*, ii. 510.]

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So much for the craving of the Sufistic Muslims in general and the men of the Persian race in special, for a divine teacher in a human form in their own age. The Hindu is even more ready to welcome an *avatar*, because it is his creed that such avatars have appeared by the million in the past and God is sure to incarnate Himself when the age requires it by reason of its excess of sin and the agony of spiritual hunger unsatisfied by the existing teachers. (*Bhagabat-Gita.*)

§ 3. Akbar claims to be a divine agent.

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While earnest believers were expectant for such a superman *guru* or Lord of the Age (*Sahib-i-zaman*), it would be in accordance with human nature to find that there was a vast number of interested people who wished to secure material gain by professing religious adoration to the sovereign, as the cynical Al Badayuni has pointed out.

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The religious atmosphere of India was quivering with electricity in the first half of the 16th century. Chaitanya and Nanak preached and converted during this period, and their new creeds, by supplying the exact spiritual needs of the age, became realm-conquering movements within India. Other movements, deviating from the old orthodox faith, also arose in India, as has been clearly shown by Blochmann in the Introduction to his translation of the *Ain-i-Akbari*, Vol. I, particularly the Mahdavi sect, *i.e.*, men on the look out for a new Mahdi or Supreme spiritual guide. [The Mahdavi sect lingered in Bijapur well beyond the middle of the 17th century and still flourishes in Gujrat.] *Ency. Isl.* iii. 111.

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The Emperor Akbar was led to claim this position, partly by his natural vanity, but more by the flattery of his favourites, as Al Badayuni has pointed out.

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Though illiterate, he secured his own recognition as the *mujtahid* or infallible interpreter of the Quran and of all disputed points of Islamic theology (1579). His coquetry with Hinduism, his long and secret conversations with famous Hindu sannyasis and pandits, his edict of toleration for all Hindu practices, and finally his adoption of several Hindu rules of conduct and ceremonies, led the Hindus to regard him as one of themselves. They styled him *Jagat-guru*, or the spiritual guide of the universe, while the coterie of his Muslim adorers (mostly Persians) called him the *Insan-i-kamil* and the *Sahib-i-zaman*.

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As the religious guide of his subjects, Akbar adopted, at first secretly and cautiously, many of the attributes and prerogatives of a prophet and even of an incarnation. It excited the intense disgust of his orthodox Muslim subjects and was often checked by the fear of a revolt of the Muslim soldiery at the call of the old-type Mullas.

§ 4. How Akbar was adored as a religious guide.

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I quote from his courtly flatterer Abul Fazl:—

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"Whenever, from lucky circumstances, the time arrives that a nation learns to understand how to worship truth, the people will naturally look to their king,...and expect him to be their spiritual leader as well ; for a king possesses, independent of men, the ray of divine wisdom...Now, this is the case with the monarch of the present age...Men versed in foretelling the future knew this when his Majesty was

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born, and they have since been waiting in joyful expectation.

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"His Majesty, however, wisely surrounded himself for a time with a veil, as if he were an outsider or a stranger to their hopes. But can man counteract the will of God? He could not help revealing his intentions...He is now the spiritual guide of the nation. He has now opened the gate that leads to the right path and satisfies the thirst of all that wander about panting for truth.

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"Men of all nations, old and young, friends and strangers, the far and the near, look upon offering a vow to his Majesty as the means of solving all their difficulties, and bend down in worship on obtaining their desire when his Majesty leaves the Court, there is not a hamlet town or city that does not send forth crowds of men and women with vow-offerings in their hands and prayers on their lips, touching the efficacy of their vows [made to the Emperor] or proclaiming the accounts of the spiritual assistance received [by secretly praying to him]...His Majesty gives satisfactory answers to every one, and applies remedies to their religious perplexities. Not a day passes but people bring cups of water to him, beseeching him to breathe upon it...Many sick people whose diseases the most eminent physicians pronounced incurable, have been restored to health by this divine means.

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"Notwithstanding every strictness and reluctance shown by his Majesty in admitting novices, there are many thousands, who have cast over their shoulders the mantle of belief, and look upon conversion to the New Faith as the means of obtaining every blessing.” (*Ain.* i. 163-165.)

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The initiation ceremony and rules of life of the members of this new sect are described in the *Ain-i-Akbari*, i. 165-167, and I need not quote them here.

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In addition to the *kurnish* and the *taslim* which all persons presented at Court had to make to the sovereign, the disciples of Akbar had to perform the *sijdah* or prostration by bowing down the forehead to the ground. This is an exercise performed at the Muslim prayer, and therefore the orthodox regarded it as a ceremony exclusively due to God. Akbar yielded to the public discontent and very prudently restricted the prostration to the hall of private audience. Its popular name was *zamin-bos* or kissing the ground before the throne. This abject mode of showing respect prevailed in ancient Persia as well as the Hindu States. Religious leaders are entitled to it, as we see daily around us. Abul Fazl justifies it by saying that “They look upon a prostration before his Majesty as a prostration before God ; for royalty is an emblem of the power of God.” (i. 159).

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It was a practice intensely hateful to the Muslims, and though Jahangir continued it, Shah Jahan had to yield to public opinion and abolished it at his accession.

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The *darshaniyas*, or men who did not begin their day’s work nor break their fast without first gazing on the Emperor’s face as on an idol in the morning, formed another sect of his worshippers, and they followed a special set of rules. (*Ain*, i. 207.)

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Even the slaves of the imperial household were, in name at least, converted into the Emperor's disciples. As the Court-historian writes,

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"His Majesty, from religious motives, dislikes the name *banda* or slave ; for he believes that mastership belongs to no one but God. He, therefore, calls this class of men *chelas*, which Hindi term signifies a faithful disciple. Through His Majesty's kindness, many of them have chosen the road to happiness (i.e. embraced the divine faith of Akbar)". (*Ain.* i. 253.)

§ 5. Religious titles of the Emperor.

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The tradition of the Emperor being the spiritual guide of the people and of his initiating personal disciples, continued in Aurangzib's reign, though that Emperor attracted men by his reputation for strict orthodoxy, ascetic rigour of life and power of working miracles, for which he was called *Alamgir*, *zinda pir* or 'Alamgir the living saint.' In 1690, when the Emperor was encamped at Badri on the bank of the Krishna, Salabat Khan the *Bir-i-tuzuk* presented to him in the court of justice a man, who said, "I have come from the far-off land of Bengal, wishing to be your Majesty's disciple. I hope that you will favour me by granting my desire." Aurangzib smiled a sarcastic smile and gave the Khan about Rs. 100 in cash and some bits of gold and silver to be presented to the man, saying, "Tell him that the favour he is really expecting from me is *this*!" The man flung the money away and threw himself into the river. He was rescued by the Court attendants.

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The Emperor ordered him to be taken to a famous Muslim scholar of Sarhind, with a request to admit him as a disciple. (*Masir-i-Alamgiri*, 333-334.)

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As a token of the religious veneration paid to the Emperors, they continued throughout the Mughal period to be addressed by their sons and subjects with epithets characteristic of prophets, such as *Qibla wa qaba*, i.e., the central point to which the faithful must turn in prayer, like the Black Temple at Mecca or Solomon’s Temple at Jerusalem, the *Qutb* or Pole-star of the faith, and *Pir wa murshid-i-alam-wa alamian* or *du-jahan* or *din wa dunia*, i.e., the spiritual guide and preceptor of the world and its inmates, or of this world and the next.

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In imitation of Akbar, his contemporary, the Bijapuri Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II, took the title of *Jagat-guru*. He is popularly said to have inclined to the Hindu faith and practices, lived on milk and even worshipped the Hindu god Narsoba in a small temple on the western edge of the inner ditch of the citadel of his capital. His Muslim historian has taken pains to rebut the charge that he apostatized from Islam (*Busatin-us-Salatin*, 259-260, 264), but admits that in popular speech he was called *Jagat-guru*. [Also Bombay Gazetteer, xxiii, 636.]

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The Mughal Emperor, as we have seen, claimed to be *Jagat-guru* or world’s Supreme Religious Head. But this Pope was married, and it would have been inconsistent if his principal wife did not partake of his spiritual attributes. Thus we find that Jahangir’s wife, a Jodhpur princess and the mother of Shah Jahan, was styled the *Jagat Gosaini*, or female Pope of the World! (*Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri*, 5.)

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There are many historical parallels to this aspect of the Mughal monarchy. The Abbasid Khalifs of Baghdad rose to the throne on the crest of a religious movement in favour of the family of Ali and they claimed the spiritual homage of the Muslim world by reason of their descent from the prophet's family as completely as the political allegiance of their subjects.

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So, too, the Safavi dynasty of Persia at first created an influence and a strong following by posing as religious leaders, and then easily seized the throne of that country. The Sikh *gurus* began as religious guides pure and simple, and ended by becoming warriors and rulers of men. Even now they are designated as the 'ten Padishahs' by their votaries.

§ 6. Aurangzib as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy; Shias persecuted.

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Apart from the position of *Jagat-guru* or the direct and personal religious preceptor of his subjects or an inspired and miracle-working saint, which was aspired to by Akbar and Ibrahim Adil Shah, and that of a darvish on the throne or living saint by which title Aurangzib loved to be called,—the Mughal Emperor, by constitutional law, filled the office of the executive head of the dominant creed. As the "Khalifa of the Age" it was his duty to enforce the orthodox faith, which was the Sunni form of Islam. Political considerations and the legacy of his more tolerant predecessors compelled Aurangzib to use the talents of many Shias,—both of Persia and Central Asia,—but their lot was not a happy one. In the war of succession with his brothers in the earlier years of his reign, he had owed much to Mir Jumla, a Shia; but in his old age his bigotry was intensified and made his Court no place for this sect. We find many illustrations of the anti-Shia feeling in this Emperor's letters and even in the official history of his reign.

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To him a Shia was a heretic (rafizi), and he usually calls the Persians carrion-eating demons (Irani ghul-i-bayabani); but this tone may have been partly due to his political rupture with the Safavi Shahs. In one of his letters he tells us how he was pleased with a dagger presented to him by a noble man, which was named Rafizikush or Shia-slayer, and ordered some more of the same shape and name to be made for him. [Ruqaat-i-Alamgiri, 133.]

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The result was that his Shia officers had to practise hypocrisy in order to save themselves.

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Sarbuland Khan, a grandson of a king of Badakhshan, was Aurangzib's second Bakhshi from 1672 to 1679. Once his Majesty complained that Sarbuland's words savoured a little of Shiaism, to which the Khan replied, "Yes, many of the Sayyids of Bukhara belong to this sect. My speech still bears traces of the effect of my former association with them. But I have not been confirmed in this faith. Through ill luck, I have withdrawn myself from this creed but not yet attained to that!" 'This Sarbuland Khan, we are told by the same authority, used to favour the Persians and recommend them to the Emperor for high offices. Though Aurangzib distrusted that race, he was forced to employ them on account of their unrivalled ability in bookkeeping and finance. [Hamid-ud-din's *Ahkam*, § 38 and 39.]

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The position of the Shia nobles in Aurangzib's Court was bad enough on account of their master's orthodoxy; but it was rendered worse by the jealous hostility of the Sunni nobles, most of whom belonged to a different race, named the Turani (Central Asian) or Afghan. Indeed, in the 18th century, the Persian and Turkish parties—or the Iranis and Turanis, as they were called,—were sharply divided at the Mughal Court, just as they had been under the Bahmani Sultans of the Deccan in the 15th, with disastrous consequences to the latter. Even European visitors like Bernier and Manucci could not fail to notice the antagonism of interest and sharp contrast of policy between these two races in the Delhi imperial service, especially when an embassy from Persia was expected [*Storia do Mogor*, ii. 50-53, Bernier, 146-153]. Marriage did not tend to heal this sectarian conflict, because the Shias naturally liked to marry within their own circle, and Sunnis were known to have refused the hands of Shia brides. Thus, we learn from Hamid-ud-din Khan's *Ahkam* that Ruhullah Khan I, the Paymaster-General of Aurangzib (1686-1692), made a will on his death-bed, declaring that he had renounced the Shia faith for Sunnism, and requesting the Emperor to give his two daughters in marriage to Sunnis. Now, though this Ruhullah Khan was very highly connected,—his mother being a sister of the Emperor's mother,—the hand of his daughter was refused by Siadat Khan, a petty nobleman, who asked, "How do we know that she too holds the Sunni faith? In case she persists in her ancestral religion (i.e., Shiaism), what can be done?" (*Ahkam* § 69.)

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The Emperor, too, doubted the sincerity of Ruhullah's alleged conversion to Sunnism, and this surmise was proved true. The Khan, on his death-bed had requested the Emperor to send the imperial qazi (a Sunni) to wash and shroud his corpse. But the qazi, on reaching the Khan's house after his death, was given a letter in which the dying man had begged him to delegate his burial arrangements to his confidential servant Aga Beg. The qazi knew this man to be a Shia theologian and priest disguised as a servant, and reported the new development of the case to the Emperor. Aurangzib replied in an indignant tone:—

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"Let the qazi come away from the house. The late Khan had made deception his habit in life, and at the time of his death too pursued the same detestable sin. What concern have I with anybody's religion? Let Jesus follow his own faith and Moses his own!"

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But the Shias had good reasons for concealing their faith from him.* In one letter of Aurangzib we read how he was alarmed at the coincidence that the paymaster and two nazims of Lahore were Shias, and immediately ordered that the former should be transferred elsewhere. (Kalimat-Tay., 16a.) Very late in his reign, he objected to the practice of sending the bones of rich Shias secretly after death to Karbala and Mashhad for burial. This he regarded as a superstition, (Ibid, 12a), though he himself practised the gross idolatry of adoring the Prophet’s bogus footprints on stone and his hairs (asar-i-sharif.)

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∗ On 3rd Nov. 1672, an old servant of the days before Aurangzib's accession was beheaded for cursing the first three Khalifs. (*M. A.* 120.) The Emperor objected to

§ 7. Education in Muslim India.

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In Mughal India, as in mediæval Europe, education was a branch of religion, and the educational expenditure of the State was defrayed out of the Alms Fund and through the hands of the imperial Almoner (Sadar-us-sadur.) The vast non-Muslim population was outside the pale of State charity. We have a farman of the earlier part of Aurangzib’s reign which illustrates this arrangement. He instructs the diwan of Gujrat that every year

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making the word Ali a part of any newly-created noble's title. (M. A. 313.) In one letter he narrates with approval the story of how a Sunni murdered a Shia at Isfahan and escaped to safety! (I. O. L. 1344, f. 34b.) He orders that Persians newly arrived in India should not be posted to any of the ports on the West Coast. (Kalimat-Tay. 141 a.) Many instances of the bloody persecution of the Shias, on the charge of blasphemy (against the first three Khalifs), in Aurangzib’s reign are given in the Tarikh-i-Kashmiri Azami.

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teachers should be appointed at the cost of the State and stipends paid to the students according to the recommendation of the Sadar of the province and the attestation (*tasdiq*) under seal of the teacher. The money was to be paid out of the Public Treasury. The grant was very small, as we read of only three *maulavis* being appointed, one at Ahmadabad, one at Patan and a third at Surat, and only 45 students enjoying the subsistence allowance. [*Mirat-i-Ahmadi*, i. 258.]*

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The monasteries (*khankas*) when not endowed by private donors, received larger subsidies from the Government, and they were expected to play the part of the Cathedrals of Christendom in fostering theological learning and general education. The Delhi Government gave allowances to families of famous scholars (who taught pupils in their own houses) at Sarhind, Sialkot and some other towns. But these schools died out when the families ceased to produce learned men.

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We may conclude our remarks about learning in Mughal India, by referring to the allied subject of the Court poets. These were Persians born in Iran. By all the Emperors except the puritanical Aurangzib they were highly patronised and well rewarded for their odes. Such odes had to be written to order to celebrate victories, royal marriages, coronation, birth-day and other Court festivities, and to supply inscriptions (*kutaba*) for the Emperor’s favourite buildings or chair of State. One of these poets received a purse of Rs. 10,000 for a four-line epigram describing how a trained leopard struck down a wild buffalo before the Emperor Jahangir. [*Tazkira-i-Sarkhush.*]

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∗ Cf. In Morocco the Government expenditure on education was limited to allowances to some *ulama*. Nothing was done for public health,—a few hospitals were to be found in certain towns where a few miserable creatures lived in filth, receiving from the *hubus* and the charity of the public barely enough to prevent them from dying of hunger. [*Ency. Isl.* iii. 170.] Egypt had one grand college, Al Azhar.

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These poets, in the 17th century, were closely related by birth or marriage to the Court physicians, who were mostly Persians. A run-away physician of the Shah of Persia was sure of a cordial welcome at the Court of Delhi. [Abdul Hamid’s *Padishah-namah*, ii. 367--'8 ; *Alamgirnamah*, 45.]

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Even the ladies of these Persian families of poets and doctors were learned and accomplished persons and they were employed in the imperial harem to teach the princesses and to superintend the distribution of the Emperor’s alms to women. In the last capacity the officer was called *Sadar-un-nisa* or ‘Almoner for women’. The life of *Siti-un-nisa*, the friend of the Empress Mumtaz Mahal and governess to her daughters, gives us a charming picture of culture within the harem in the glorious times of Shah Jahan. [See my *Studies in Mughal India*, pp. 21-26.]

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