Akbar: The Greatest Mogul [Hardcover]

S. M. Burke (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Coronet Books Inc (December 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 812150452X
• ISBN-13: 978-8121504522
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,571,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will the Real Akbar Please Stand Up?, November 21, 2006

By 

Cheri Montagu "Writer" (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Akbar: The Greatest Mogul (Hardcover)

It's always embarrassing to be wrong in public, but if one is going to learn, it is better to confront one's mistakes than to ignore them as if they had never happened. When I wrote my short review of Vincent Smith's AKBAR THE GREAT MOGUL, I was overly impressed by its Oxford imprimatur, the author's scholarly credentials, and the book's venerable age (1917). It is not surprising that I gained the impression that Akbar had embraced Parsiism, for after asserting that the Emperor had rejected Islam, Smith provides what seems like unmistakable evidence for this conversion: Akbar worshipped fire and the sun. What seems less easy to understand or explain is how I could have overlooked the passages in Smith's book which imply that Akbar, having rejected Islam, began to persecute Muslims. If this is correct, it would greatly tarnish his well-known reputation for toleration.

Trying to decide if I should buy S.M. Burke's AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL from Amazon, I examined a library copy of the more recently-penned biography alongside of Smith's work. And to my relief (for I have had a special affection for Akbar since I read about him years ago in Bamber Gascoigne's THE GREAT MOGHULS), I found in it an excellent refutation of Smith's charges of religious intolerance. To quote Burke: "To have punished anyone solely on the score of religion was alien to Akbar's entire outlook. The seniormost ladies of his own household-- his mother, his aunt Golbadan and his wife Salima-- were all pious Muslims and he always paid them the greatest respect. He arranged for Golbadan and Salima to gain merit by performing the hajj [pilgimmage to Mecca]. If being a fervent Muslim was a crime in Akbar's eyes, as Badauni would have us believe, how did Badauni, the self-confessed zealot, manage to survive at court, so close to Akbar, till the very end of the Emperor's life?" (p. 128). To which I might add, concerning the charge that he banned Arabic letters, that if he had done so he could not have expected to see his own name anywhere, as it is in fact part of the Muslim takbir, the first sentence pronounced daily in the muezzin's call to prayer, "Allahu akbar" or "God is great", and nothing could have been more Arabic.

This still leaves open the question of what religion Akbar ultimately embraced. His "Din-I-Ilahi" was a customized religion wich undoubtedly contained a large measure of self-glorification, for no one denies that Akbar was vain. But there was good reason for him to consider himself to still be a Muslim even after he established it. It so happens that there was a brand of Islam which was popular in Akbar's time and very different from the bigoted Islam of the ulema whose bickering so irritated Akbar. This was Sufisim, a type of mysticism which sought union with the divine through ecstatic attainment of union with God, usually brought about through contemplation and an austere way of life. Sufis were tolerant, believing that there is a core of truth in every religion: like the Persian poet Rumi and the Christan Gnostics, they would have agreed that God is to be found not in a synagogue, church or mosque but in one's own heart. Burke provides much evidence of Akbar's attraction to Sufism. Indeed, Akbar himself experienced mysterious moments of "seizure", in which he became detached from everything that was going on around him and unable to participate in it, as though he were possessed. In one instance, he was engaged in a form of hunting which he greatly enjoyed, in which beaters drove animals into a confined space where they could be slaughtered-- depictions of this form of hunting, as well as Akbar hunting on horseback with cheetahs, still exist in Moghul miniatures. On this particular occasion, after his "seizure", Akbar seemed to lose all his thirst for blood and ordered that the animals be released unharmed. He seemed elated and himself interpreted such "seizures", which recurred on other occasions, as moments of complete union with God such as the Sufis sought.

Smith attempted to explain these episodes by hypothesizing that Akbar was an epileptic, but why then would he have interpreted the seizures in a positive light? As Burke says, it is more plausible to conclude that they were exactly what Akbar thought they were, and it does not matter whether or not WE believe that he had attained union with God on these occasions, only that Akbar, being of a mystical bent, genuinely believed that he had. Interestingly, Akbar may have been afflicted with another disorder, although the possibility has never been raised by any author to my knowledge, including Burke. This is dyslexia. It is well known that Akbar was illiterate. Smith attributes this to youthful idleness, and Burke to "an unsettled childhood and natural aversion to being taught." (p. 31). But given the undeniable intellectual capacity and love of learning that he displayed as an adult, it seems more likely that he had a reading disorder which could have been easily overcome in today's world but which was not even recognized in his own era or Smith's, for that matter.

Smith's assertion that Akbar was "free from a love of cruelty for its own sake," is supported by the edict, cited by both Smith and Burke, which he promulgated against involuntary suttee. As Burke says, "On one occasion Akbar heard that a Rajput princess did not wish to commit suttee after the death of her husband but her son and other relatives were resolved to force her to burn herself. He immediately mounted his horse, speeded to the spot, and prevented the tragedy." (p. 141) It is also supported by the shock Akbar felt at the hideous torture-death inflicted on a man by his son Salim (the future Jahangir) when he was in his cups (p. 208). But there is one question on which debate still rages as it does about his religion. Smith says that "Akbar's whole policy was directed principally toward the acquisition of power and riches, and that "improvement of the condition of the people was quite a secondary consideration." Burke takes strong exception, using numerous examples to demonstrate the falsity of this assertion. For one thing, if Akbar's system of administration was not beneficial to his subjects, why did the British themselves model theirs upon it? (p. 215) Secondly, Akbar expressed his concern for the poor and downtrodden in innumerable ways. He made himself accessible to everyone, even the lowliest of his subjects. He distributed alms in vast amounts and encouraged his nobles to do the same. He built free hospitals and schools, serais (the equivalent of today's hostel) for poor travelers, and constructed wells and dams to help the peasants (pp. 145-221). When one of his ministers pleaded that, because of old age and failing health, he wished to retire and spend his days in "remembering God", Akbar refused to let him go and said that "No worship of God is equal to the soothing of the oppressed."

It seems that Burke is right when he says of Smith and some of his contemporaries who felt the same about Akbar, "they were reluctant to permit any period of Indian history to outshine the British inerregnum in benevolence and enlightenment." (p. 216) Another Englishman felt differently. In an address to the Pakistani parliament, the last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, said, "When the East India Company received its charter nearly four centuries ago, your great Emperor Akbar was on the throne, whose reign was marked by perhaps as great a degree of political and religious tolerance, as has been known before or since. It was an example by which, I honestly believe, generations of our public men and administrators have been influenced." (p. 221)