I.A.

Assignment ( History Minor , Sem 4th )

Ques – The ideological and religious policy of the Mughal’s was crucially linked
to their idea of centralised administrative system. Elucidate.

The Mughals never decided, once and for all, whether they were saints, conquerors,
or accountants of the soul. Their religious policies were never just about piety—they
were about power, panic, and the price of empire. From Babur to Aurangzeb, each
ruler wrestled with the same impossible question: How do you bind a Hindu-majority
land to a dynasty with Persian dreams and Turkic blood? Their answers were as
messy as their lives:

- Babur (1526-30) drank wine while writing poetry about repentance, banned cow
slaughter to pacify subjects but called them "heathens" in his diary. A man torn
between his sword and his conscience.

- Humayun (1530-56), the exile, wore Shi’a red to beg Persian help, then swapped it
for Sufi robes when Delhi needed mystics more than muskets. His faith changed with
his fortunes.

- Akbar (1556-1605), the genius, invented a new religion (Din-i Ilahi) but cared more
about tax rolls than theology. His "universal peace" was really about keeping Rajput
swords loyal and Jain bankers lending.

- Jahangir (1605-27) hung portraits of Jesus next to Qur’an verses, yet had Guru
Arjan tortured to death. A connoisseur of contradictions.

- Shah Jahan (1628-58) built the Taj Mahal as a monument to love—then taxed
Hindu pilgrims to pay for it. Beauty and exploitation in marble.

- Aurangzeb (1658-1707) spent 49 years trying to purge India of "sin," only to die
lonely, cursing the Marathas. The empire’s most devout ruler became its undoing.

The Administrative Tightrope religious edict served the bureaucracy:

• Temples were spared or smashed based on rebel alliances, not scripture.
• Sufi shrines got tax-free land—but only if they preached loyalty.
• Jizya was abolished and reimposed like a fiscal weapon, not a holy duty.

This was never just about God. It was about gold and garrisons. When Akbar
married Rajput princesses, he wasn’t being romantic—he was outsourcing war costs
to their fathers. When Aurangzeb banned music, he wasn’t just pious—he was
punishing the Shia nobles who loved it.

Behind every policy were men who doubted:

- Babur’s guilt over his drinking. Humayun’s terror during 15 years of exile. Akbar’s
grief after his friend Birbal died in battle, making him question "universal" faith.
Aurangzeb’s letters to his son confessing, "I rule a fire, and it burns my soul."

---- The Mughals didn’t just rule India—they fought, loved, and bargained with it, one uneasy
prayer at a time.

Babur: A Conqueror’s Pragmatism

Babur’s religious stance was shaped by his Central Asian heritage and the
immediate demands of ruling Hindustan. In his memoir, the Baburnama, he
expresses disdain for Hindustan’s "heathen" practices, yet he never imposed mass
conversions or destroyed temples as policy. His famous order to ban cow slaughter
in Gwalior (1528)—recorded in his own words—,” Was less about Hindu sensitivity
and more about preventing unrest among his new subjects.” He granted land grants
(madad-i ma’ash) to both Muslim clerics and Hindu mathas (monastic institutions ).
In the recently discovered Khat-i-Baburi, the will of Babur, Babur advises Humayun
to recognize the diversity of Indian society and respect all local norms and traditions.
Humayun also did not follow orthodox religion, and he patronized Shias as well.
Liberal scholars like Abdul Latif Qazvini and later Shaikh Mubarak and AbulFazl were
significant influences on Akbar.

Humayun

Like Babur, Humayun relied on land grants to religious elites both Hindu and Muslim
to buy loyalty. His farmans to Jain merchants (recorded in Munis Faruqui’s -The
Princes of the Mughal Empire) show a pragmatic need for revenue over dogma. In
1537, Humayun sought allies against Sher Shah Suri. The solution? Marry the
daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber—except this wasn’t the romantic union later
Mughal chroniclers painted. Why It Mattered:
- First Mughal-Rajput marriage—a template Akbar would exploit.

◼ Babur and Humayun’s religious policies were less about grand ideology and
more about survival in a land that felt alien to them. These warrior-kings clung
to their Central Asian identity while bargaining with Hindustan’s spiritual
landscape. Their approach was deeply human—improvised, inconsistent, and
often lonely.

Akbar’s Sulh-i Kul

The religious ideas of Akbar were shaped by changes in the political and
administrative scenario and changes in his own personality . He lacked formal
education but he was always interested in religious and spiritual matters. He was
well versed in the mystic works of Hafiz , Rumi and Saadi . According to Nizami, the
First phase was marked by vulnerability and diffidence to the Ulema. -sympathy to
Islam Akbar seems to be coming to terms with the Islamic orthodoxy, and we find a
certain ambiguity in his ideas, as if groping or a curiosity to know more. In the first
twenty years of his reign, Akbar made serious departures from the traditional Sunni
system of government. In 1562, the pilgrimage tax on Hindus was abolished. Akbar
also abolished the practice of enslaving families of prisoners of war. Abulfazl dates
the abolishment of the jizya to 1564. Despite these measures in favour of the
Hindus, in the early phase of his reign Akbar remained largely Islamic. The nobility in
this part was dominated by Muslims. Satish Chandra has argued that in the early
part of his reign, Akbar was the orthodox Muslim of his youth. His deference towards
the leading orthodox Sunni personalities prevented any the ulama and he gave them
full and independent control over religious affairs.

In the second phase, Nizami refers to this phase as apathy to Islam a change can
be seen in Akbar's religious beliefs around 1573 onwards. Akbar's growing
awareness of the repercussions of the traditional orthodox Sunni dominance over his
administration compelled him to an active search for new solutions. He therefore
encouraged the emergence of a new elite group, whose spokesman was Abul Fazl.
Also, from his early childhood Akbar had held a special interest in spiritual matters
and had felt that the orthodox view of Islam was not giving him the needed answers.
He slowly started getting influenced by jogi’s, qalandars and sanyasis. This was
probably due to their disregard of established norms of religion, a theme that can be
noticed throughout Akbar's religious thought. Nizami, in fact, calls the second phase
as a period of apathy to Islam.This period is characterized by the discussions at the
Ibadat Khana. It was established in 1575 at Fatehpur Sikri, after Akbar's Gujarat
campaign. The word was wrongly translated by Vincent Smith as the 'House of
Worship'.

The Third or final Phase of Akbar's Religious Belief and State Policy (1581-1605) is
characterized by the crystallization of Akbar's ideological beliefs. Nizami calls it the
phase where Akbar displayed antipathy to Islam. The crux of Akbar's religious beliefs
was his faith in uncompromising monotheism or Tauhid-i-llahi.It means divine path It
is largely based on the ideas of Islamic philosopher Ibn-i-Arabi. 'Tauhid' can mean
'unity of God' and the idea may be interpreted as divine monotheism. It seems that
the members were expected to give up jan (life), mal (wealth), din (faith) and namuz.
It is believed by many that because he expected the followers to give up din or faith,
he was abandoning Islam. In Akbar's official history, the Akbar nama, Abu al-Fazl
indicated that Akbar, ruling from his divinely bestowed office, had several unique
qualities: one was his ability to receive extraordinary divine revelation; two, he was
like a father to his subjects, borrowing from ancient Indian concepts of kingship;
three, Akbar was dedicated to communal harmony, corresponding to Suhrawardi's
belief that if a divinely enlightened ruler ruled benevolently, then his state would be
an enlightened one. Together these three qualities generated the concept of sulh-ikul
or peace toward all, perhaps the most significant aspect of Akbar's fifty-year reign.

The gradual changes in Akbar's governance over his long career steadily moved the
state. in the direction of inclusiveness. Akbar began his career with a group of
supporters and a style of rulership inherited from his father which was heavily
Islamic, and specifically Central Asian, in orientation. As his empire expanded into
territories far beyond those controlled by the last dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate,
Akbar broadened his base of support by inducting a number of indigenous warriors,
both Muslim and Hindu, into the inner circles of power. That his inclination to be
inclusive was not merely a pragmatic decision is revealed in Akbar's subsequent
actions. He not only sought to eliminate distinctions in state policy based on religious
affiliation, but he also transcended the boundaries between the Islamic and the Indic
traditions in his own court ritual and imperial ideology.

Thus in conclusion we may say that Akbar's reign realizing that orthodox Islamic rule
was impractical in a predominantly non-Muslim land, Akbar introduced the concept of
sulh-i-kul (peace with all), advocating for religious tolerance and the supremacy of
the emperor over sectarian divides. This ideology was institutionalized through the
Mansabdari system, a bureaucratic structure where military and civil officials
(mansabdars) were graded and appointed based on merit and loyalty rather than
religion or ethnicity. As emphasized in the Cambridge History of India, this system
enabled Akbar to integrate non-Muslim elites—especially Hindu Rajputs—into the
empire’s ruling class, thus enhancing political cohesion. Akbar’s religious
innovations, including the Din-i Ilahi, were less about doctrinal imposition and more
about creating a spiritual and administrative harmony that sustained the centralized
state religious ideas and beliefs grew organically during his reign based upon his
understanding of various religions and were not fixed as such. He tried, through his
religious concept of Sulh-i-kul to be more inclusive and to take everyone along
thereby automatically ensuring the growth and consolidation of imperial authority.

Jahangir & Shah Jahan

Under Jahangir (1605–1627) and Shah Jahan (1628–1658), there was continuity in
administrative structures but a gradual reorientation towards Islamic symbolism.
Jahangir maintained Akbar's policy of tolerance while upholding orthodox practices to
maintain support among conservative Muslim factions. Shah Jahan’s reign,
characterized by grand Islamic architecture such as the Taj Mahal and increased
patronage of Islamic scholars, saw the aesthetic and ceremonial dimensions of Islam
become more visible. However, these symbolic shifts did not alter the foundations of
governance. The Mansabdari system, zabt revenue collection methods, and the role
of imperial diwans (bureaucrats) remained as cornerstones of the administrative
apparatus. This demonstrates how the ideological orientation of the emperor could
shift without disrupting the centralized structure.
In conclusion we can say that both rulers maintained Akbar’s broad framework but
with subtle shifts:
- Jahangir tolerated Sikhism (initially) but executed Guru Arjan (1606), revealing
limits to pluralism.
- Shah Jahan restored some Islamic orthodoxy, demolishing newly built Hindu
temples (e.g., Benares, 1632), as recorded in François Bernier’s Travels in the
Mughal Empire. However, he retained Hindu mansabdars like Raja Jai Singh.

Aurangzeb’s Reign

Aurangzeb’s reign (1658–1707) introduced a more rigid Islamic orthodoxy. His

policies, such as the reimposition of the jizya and temple destructions, were
ideologically driven but also aimed at consolidating support among conservative
clerical classes. Despite these polarizing decisions, Aurangzeb retained and even
expanded the administrative mechanisms inherited from his predecessors. As
Stewart Gordon notes in The New Cambridge History of India, Aurangzeb’s empire
required an efficient bureaucracy to manage its vast expanse, and thus he continued
to rely on Hindu officials and the Mansabdari system. The paradox of his rule lies in
the coexistence of doctrinal conservatism and administrative pragmatism—a pattern
that illustrates the elasticity of Mughal governance.

The ideological diversity across successive reigns was not random; it reflected the
evolving political challenges and the need to preserve imperial stability. Akbar’s
innovations emerged in response to the necessity of integrating a fragmented polity.
Aurangzeb’s policies, by contrast, were shaped by increasing internal dissent and
the threat of decentralization. In both contexts, ideology was adapted to support
centralized control. As Grewal argues, the Mughal religious policies were dynamic
tools of governance rather than expressions of fixed theological commitments.

Moreover, the Mughal state used religious patronage and symbolism to craft imperial
legitimacy. Monumental architecture, court rituals, and the patronage of religious
scholars were all utilized to project the emperor as a divinely sanctioned sovereign.
Yet, this symbolic authority was always undergirded by a meticulously organized
administrative structure. The empire’s extensive use of record-keeping, standardized
revenue systems like zabt, and the deployment of trained officials in provincial
centers ensured that the emperor’s writ extended far beyond the capital.

In conclusion, between 1550 and 1700, the Mughal emperors successfully

intertwined religious and ideological policies with a centralized administrative system
to manage a vast and diverse empire. From Akbar’s vision of pluralism to
Aurangzeb’s orthodox legitimacy, each ruler adapted their ideological approach to
reinforce state authority. As reflected in the works of J.S. Grewal, the Cambridge
History of India, and Stewart Gordon, the Mughal Empire’s resilience and success
lay in this dynamic fusion of ideology and administration—a model that stands as
one of the most sophisticated forms of early modern imperial governance.

Referred Histographies ---

1. J.S. Grewal
2. Stewart Gordan
3. Satish Chandra
4. K.A.Nizami
5. Muzaffar Alam

Riddhi Pathak,

230080,

History-Spanish B.A. Multidisciplinary