Akbar

Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar was born on 15 October 1542 in Umarkot in Sindh, the son of the Mughal emperor Humayun and Hamida Banu Begum. Humayun had lost his empire to the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri and was in flight. Through Babur the family descended from Timur and, on the side of Babur's mother, from Genghis Khan.

When Humayun withdrew to Persia, the young Akbar was left with an uncle in Kandahar and later in Kabul. He was trained in hunting, fighting and riding but probably never learned to read and write; he had much read aloud to him. In 1555 Humayun retook Delhi, and Akbar became governor of the Punjab with Bairam Khan as guardian.

After Humayun's sudden death in January 1556, the thirteen-year-old Akbar was proclaimed emperor at Kalanaur. In November 1556 the Mughal army under Bairam Khan defeated the general Hemu at Panipat. From 1560 Akbar took over the government himself and, through campaigns and alliances, extended the empire from Afghanistan to Bengal and from Kashmir to the Deccan.

Akbar organised the nobility in the mansabdari system, in which ranks determined the number of horsemen to be supplied and the salary. With his minister Todar Mal he introduced a land tax based on measured land and average yields. He bound Rajput rulers to him through marriages and high office but dealt harshly with resistance, as at the siege of Chittor in 1567–1568, which ended in a massacre.

Akbar took a great interest in religion. From 1575, Sunni and Shia scholars, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians and Jesuits from Goa debated in the Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri. In 1579 he had himself granted the right to decide disputes between jurists. Around 1582 the Din-i Ilahi emerged, a small circle around the emperor that historians see mainly as a form of personal loyalty.

In the 16th century the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Persia and the Mughal Empire were the great Islamic empires, with Persian as a shared language of government and culture. In India a Muslim dynasty ruled over a predominantly Hindu population, alongside Jains, Sikhs and others. Stable government therefore required cooperation with local elites.

European traders were present along the coasts: the Portuguese controlled Goa and part of the maritime trade. The Mughal court was a centre of miniature painting, architecture and history writing, with works such as Abu'l Fazl's Akbarnama and Persian translations of Sanskrit epics, such as the Mahabharata, illustrated as the Razmnama.

Akbar's administrative systems gave the Mughal Empire a solid fiscal and military base, so that under his successors Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb it remained one of the richest states in the world for more than a century. Cooperation with Rajput families gave Hindu nobles an important place in the army and administration.

The policy of religious inclusion had limits and opponents. Orthodox Sunni scholars, including Abd al-Qadir Badauni in his chronicle, accused Akbar of apostasy. His conquests cost many lives, and the tax burden fell mainly on peasants. Present-day political debates in India and Pakistan use his figure in divergent ways.

Akbar died on 27 October 1605 in Agra, probably of dysentery, after his son Salim had opposed him for several years. Salim succeeded him as Emperor Jahangir. Akbar was buried in a mausoleum at Sikandra near Agra, completed under Jahangir.

His court historian Abu'l Fazl portrayed Akbar as an ideal, divinely guided ruler, while Badauni gave a far more critical picture. Modern historians see him as an able statesman who made political use of religious diversity. How 'tolerant' his policy really was remains a subject of debate.