Mughal Administration c12.s6: § 6. Aurangzib as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy; Shias persecuted.
Mughal Administration c12.s6
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§ 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 Through ill luck, I have withdrawn myself from this creed but not yet attained to that!"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