A lamp for the dark worl.., p.47
A Lamp for the Dark World, page 47
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Nizamuddin Ahmad, ‘Tabakat-i Akbari’.
36. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
37. Many years later, Abul Fazl would describe Sangram as ‘the first of his Majesty’s private guns’; Akbar killed 1019 animals with it. See Abu’l Fazl, The Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 1, trans. H. Blochmann (First published 1927; Low Price Publications, 2014).
38. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Maulana Ahmad and others, ‘Tarikh-i Alfi’.
42. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
43. Iqtidar Alam Khan, ‘The Nobility under Akbar and the Development of His Religious Policy, 1560–80’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 1/2, April 1968.
44. Iqtidar Alam Khan, The Political Biography of a Mughal Noble: Mun’im Khan Khan-i Khanan, 1497–1575 (Orient Longman, 1973). For more on these ‘upstarts’, see footnote 44 in Chapter 5.
45. ‘When Babur arrived’ in Hindustan, writes Michael H. Fisher, ‘a substantial minority of people living in South Asia were Muslims: some were immigrants and their descendants, but most were converts . . . Some prominent converts later claimed biological descent from the Prophet Muhammad or another revered Arab, boasting honorifics like Sayyid or Shaikh, despite their Indic biological ancestry.’ These would be the ‘Shaikhzadas’ – literally ‘sons of Shaikhs’. ‘Indian Muslims’ also comprised ‘settled Indo-Afghans’. See Fisher, A Short History of the Mughal Empire.
46. Khan, ‘The Nobility under Akbar and the Development of His Religious Policy, 1560–80’.
47. Ibid.
48. The briefly rebellious and increasingly reliable Asaf Khan was left to govern Chittorgarh.
49. ‘When we reflect what he did, the age in which he did it, the method he introduced to accomplish it’, writes Col. G. B. Malleson, ‘we are bound to recognise in Akbar one of those illustrious men whom Providence sends, in the hour of a nation’s trouble, to reconduct it into those paths of peace and toleration which alone can assure the happiness of millions’. See Malleson, Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire. Meanwhile, Vincent A. Smith has this to say: ‘Akbar regarded the assertion of independence by any ruling prince within the reach of his arm as a personal affront to be expiated by ruthless conquest.’ See Vincent A. Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, 1542–1605 (Clarendon Press, 1917).
50. ‘The Happy Sayings of His Majesty’, in Abu’l Fazl, The Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 3, trans. Col. H. S. Jarrett (First published 1927; Low Price Publications, 2014).
51. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
52. See Talbot, ‘Justifying Defeat: A Rajput Perspective on the Age of Akbar’.
53. Ibid.
54. Lt-Col. James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India, vol. 2 (Higginbotham & Co., 1880).
55. Norman P. Ziegler, ‘Some Notes on Rajput Loyalties during the Mughal Period’, in The Mughal State: 1526–1750, eds. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Oxford University Press, 1998). It is from this ‘chakar’, presumably, that we get the commonly used Hindustani term, naukar-chakar.
56. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
57. It was around this time, too, that Baz Bahadur – a decade after he lost his kingdom and his beloved Rupmati to Adham Khan and Pir Muhammad’s unsparing attack, having spent long years seeking shelter and alliances, once even with the Rana of Mewar – decided there was nothing for it but to join Akbar’s court.
58. Rajasthan, as Norman P. Ziegler describes it, was not a rich land of itself, being ‘a relatively isolated frontier region of marginal agricultural importance’. It was, however, ‘a strategic transitional zone situated between larger cultural centres in Gujarat and on the north Indian plain, criss-crossed by trade routes running between these larger centres’.
59. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 1.
Chapter 7
1. Abu’l Fazl, The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl (completed by Inayatullah), vol. 2, trans. Henry Beveridge (First published 1902–1939; Low Price Publications, 2017).
2. Nizamuddin Ahmad, ‘Tabakat-i Akbari’, in The History of India, As Told by Its Own Historians, trans. H. M. Elliot, vol. 5 (Trübner and Co., 1873).
3. Fr. Antonio Monserrate, The Commentary of Father Monserrate, S.J. on His Journey to the Court of Akbar, trans. J. S. Hoyland, annotations S. N. Banerjee (Oxford University Press, 1922).
4. ‘The pious King, who used not to make any other requests to God, became a wisher for this great boon.’ See The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
5. Monserrate, The Commentary of Father Monserrate.
6. Chester Beatty / Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Balchand._ Akbar_inspecting_construction_for_his_new_capital_Fatehpur_Sikri,_Akbarnama,_1603-5,_ Chester_Beatty_Library.jpg
7. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
8. Abdul Qadir Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh (Selections from Histories), vol. 2, trans. W. H. Lowe (first published 1884–98; Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1990).
9. Nor was it Muzaffar Khan’s love for ‘a young man’, thwarted by Akbar two years earlier. At the time, the accountant had declared himself a dervish, renouncing the world to tend to his broken heart, but he returned, evidently, and there seem to have been no hard feelings on either side. The beloved’s fate is unrecorded. See The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
10. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
11. Abu’l Fazl, The Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 1, trans. H. Blochmann (First published 1927; Low Price Publications, 2014). The historian adds that if any player ‘lost his patience and got restless, he had to drink a cup of wine’.
12. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2.
13. Ibid.
14. Itimad Khan had been making overtures to Akbar for a while, it seems. When the padishah was besieging Chittorgarh, he received a gift from the Gujarati khan: a ‘sea-elephant’ – presumably from Africa – ‘which had exceedingly long ears’ (The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 2).
15. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
16. Editor’s note in Shaikh Illahdad Faizi Sirhindi, ‘Akbarnama’, in The History of India, As Told by Its Own Historians, trans. H. M. Elliot, vol. 6 (Trübner and Co., 1875).
17. Stephen F. Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
18. Shaikh Illahdad Faizi Sirhindi, ‘Akbarnama’.
19. See Afzal Husain, The Nobility under Akbar and Jahangir: A Study of Family Groups (Manohar Publishers, 1999).
20. Victoria and Albert Museum: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O9594/akbar-painting-mahesh
21. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
22. Ibid.
23. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid. In an earlier edition, I had assumed that these thorny plants were cacti. I am grateful to Pradip Krishen for pointing out to me that all cacti are, in fact, native to the Americas, and that it was virtually impossible for these to have been transplanted and growing wild in sixteenth-century Gujarat. The thorny plants that obstructed Akbar’s way were Euphorbias (Euphorbia caducifolia), indigenous to this region. Henry Beveridge and W.H. Lowe, translators of the Akbarnama and Badauni’s history respectively, are careful to note the distinction. The Persian word for the plant was zaqqum and Beveridge translates it as ‘thorn bushes’, with a note to identify it as ‘euphoria antiquorum’. Lowe (who translates it incorrectly as ‘prickly pear’ but also identifies it as ‘euphorbia of the ancients’) notes that ‘al-zaqqum’ is ‘a tree said in the Quran to grow in the midst of Hell.’
26. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
27. Nizamuddin Ahmad, ‘Tabakat-i Akbari’.
28. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3. Evidently, Ibrahim’s fellow Mirzas annoyed him with their harsh appraisal of his performance against Akbar: ‘a discussion arose among the brothers about Ibrahim’s defeat at Sarnal. From criticism they came to violent language, and from that to a quarrel. Ibrahim Husain [Mirza], who was skilful as a swordsman and distinguished for his want of sense, was displeased with his brothers and separated from them, and foolishly resolved to make an attack on the capital. His haughty brothers, from their evil destiny, were glad of the departure of such a brother and did not try to appease him.’
29. Monserrate, The Commentary of Father Monserrate. Such was the wealth and renown of the ports of Gujarat that Ralph Fitch, an early English traveller to Akbar’s court, came bearing a letter from Queen Elizabeth addressed to the ‘King of Cambay’. See William Foster, ed., Early Travels in India: 1583–1619 (Low Price Publications, 1921).
30. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
31. Ibid.
32. Could it be that Gulrukh gave her daughter to Baglana in a bargain of her own? She would have trusted Akbar not to harm the girl; and the boy, her son, might yet grow up to stake a claim in his grandfather Kamran’s name.
33. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3; the commander was Saif Khan, elder brother of one of Akbar’s milk brothers, Zain Koka.
34. Jahangir, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, ed. and trans. W. M. Thackston (Oxford University Press with the Smithsonian Institution, 1999).
35. Abu’l Fazl, The History of Akbar, vol. 5, trans. W. M. Thackston (Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press, 2019).
36. Ibid.
37. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
38. Chester Beatty / Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Akbar_Fights_ with_Raja_Man_Singh.jpg
39. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
40. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
41. Abu’l Fazl, The History of Akbar, vol. 5, trans. W. M. Thackston.
42. Victoria and Albert Museum: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O9429/husain-quli-and-akbar- painting-basawan
43. The other, a nonentity called Shah Mirza, was part of this alliance but plays no real role in the events that follow.
44. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
45. Nizamuddin describes him riding in a cart, one night, being massaged to soothe the pain; for most of the journey, day and night, Akbar was in his saddle.
46. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3. Akbar was not angry because they were lost but because his men had tried to dodge his orders. Akbar had wanted the imperial escort to take them via Sirohi. Only recently, however, a Mughal general – Mir Muhammad Khan, Aziz’s uncle – was grievously injured by the Rajputs of Sirohi, one of whom stabbed him near his collarbone as Mir Muhammad offered them paan, betel leaves, in friendly farewell. Akbar had reacted to Sirohi’s resistance with punitive missions, and the area was quiet now. Still, his companions did not think it wise to risk a journey through it in such small numbers. They persuaded the escort to pretend he was going via Sirohi, while taking another route. The escort obliged, promptly lost his way and gave the whole game away.
47. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
48. Ibid.
49. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
50. The Abyssinians had long been a force in the region. These particular troops were led by the son of a chief called Wali Khan, accused of murdering Chenghis Khan, the Gujarati king whose demise had spurred Akbar’s conquest of this land. Chenghis Khan’s mother had come to Akbar demanding justice for her son, and Akbar had had Wali Khan executed. His son, then, had both a personal and a political grudge against the padishah.
51. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
52. Abu’l Fazl, The History of Akbar, vol. 5, trans. W. M. Thackston.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
56. Ibid.
57. Nizamuddin Ahmad, ‘Tabakat-i Akbari’.
58. Ibid.
59. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
60. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
61. The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
Chapter 8
1. Abdul Qadir Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh (Selections from Histories), vol. 2, trans. W. H. Lowe (first published 1884–98; Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1990). This particular phrase, however, is translated by H. M. Elliot in the extracts of Badauni’s work published in The History of India, As Told by Its Own Historians, vol. 5 (Trübner and Co., 1873).
Badauni’s secret history was published after the emperor’s demise, naturally, and promptly banned by his successor, thus becoming an instant hit. See Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship & Sainthood in Islam (Columbia University Press, 2012).
2. Abu’l Fazl, The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl (completed by Inayatullah), vol. 1, trans. Henry Beveridge (First published 1902–1939; Low Price Publications, 2017).
3. Nizamuddin Ahmad, ‘Tabakat-i Akbari’, in The History of India, As Told by Its Own Historians, trans. H. M. Elliot, vol. 5 (Trübner and Co., 1873).
4. His battle cry was ‘Either martyrdom or victory’, because, as he explained to anyone who asked why he wouldn’t put victory first, Husain Khan would rather ‘see the glorious departed, than the lords who remain alive’. See Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
5. Husain Quli tried to mollify the disappointed warrior by showing him around the battlefield, telling him all the stories, and letting him chase after Mirza Ibrahim. It may be that Husain Quli was feeling a bit guilty. Husain Khan had written to him before he arrived, asking him to delay the battle by a day: ‘. . . if you would let me be a participator in this victory, and postpone the battle one day, it would be only friendly’. Husain Quli had replied with a friendly enough yes but ignored the request.
6. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, trans. W. H. Lowe.
7. P. P. Sinha, Raja Birbal: Life and Times (Janaki Prakashan, 1980).
8. Akbar described Birbar thus in a letter to another of his favourites, Abdur Rahim. See Sinha, Raja Birbal.
9. Now better known as Kangra.
10. Harbans Mukhia, citing S. R. Sharma’s record of a local tradition, writes that Akbar sent a golden umbrella for the temple’s deity as a way to ‘make amends’ for the bloody siege. See Harbans Mukhia, The Mughals of India (Blackwell Publishing, 2004; Indian reprint by Wiley India, 2018). The Akbarnama, too, records that Akbar wanted to visit the Nagarkot temple in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, 1581–82, a decade or so after the battle at the shrine. The road was difficult but no one dared dissuade the emperor until Akbar himself had a dream telling him to return. At this, writes Abul Fazl, ‘A great delight took possession of everyone’. See The Akbarnama of Abu’l Fazl, vol. 3.
11. Such ideas of a second (and final) coming were common across religions and the globe. Christopher Columbus’s search for a new route to India, by which he stumbled upon the Americas, derived some of its urgency from the belief in an imminent return of the messiah. As Reginald Stackhouse explains it, Columbus’s sponsors, the Spanish royalty, hoped that the ‘fabled wealth of the East would give them up front financing against the infidel – and prepare for Christ’s coming at Jerusalem’. Columbus himself hoped that a shortcut to the east would allow Christian missionaries to get there faster and thus ‘meet the provision for world evangelization before the Lord could return’ (Reginald Stackhouse, ‘Columbus’s Millennial Voyage’, Christian History, no. 61, 1999).
12. Specifically in the court of Sher Shah Suri’s son and successor, Salim Shah.
13. Heinrich Blochmann in his introduction to Abu’ l Fazl, The Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 1, trans. H. Blochmann (First published 1927; Low Price Publications, 2014). Outspoken and intelligent, Shaikh Ala’i ‘charmed’ Salim (or Islam) Shah, Sher Shah’s son and successor, along with many of his courtiers, including Shaikh Mubarak. ‘It is not clear’, writes Blochmann, whether Abul Fazl’s father ‘joined the sect from religious or from political motives’ – the latter would have been to ‘break up the party of the learned at the Court, at whose head Makhdum-ul-Mulk stood’. The court clerics would not take such a challenge lying down, of course. Makhdum-ul-Mulk persuaded Salim Shah to banish Shaikh Ala’i.
Soon, however, the shah reversed his decision and recalled the shaikh, asking him only to whisper that he had recanted his Mahdawi beliefs. The shaikh refused and Salim Shah had no choice but to order him to be whipped. The punishment was not intended to be lethal, but it killed the shaikh. Immediately, a great cyclone hit Salim Shah’s camp; afterwards, Shaikh Ala’i’s body was found buried in flowers. Such a clear sign of divine blessing did little, presumably, to discourage the Mahdawis, nor to bolster the court clergy’s popularity. As Blochmann writes, ‘Makhdum-ul-Mulk was never popular after that’.
14. Blochmann’s introduction to Abu’l Fazl, The Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 1.
15. Ibid.
16. H. M. Elliot’s translation in The History of India, As Told by Its Own Historians, vol. 5. W. H. Lowe’s translation (which is what I quote unless otherwise indicated) is more sympathetic; in it, Badauni seems to be saying that the cleric’s books were precious to him like ‘ingots’ – not bricks – of gold. There is nothing ambiguous, however, about Badauni’s disgruntlement with the court clergy.
17. Blochmann’s introduction to Abu’l Fazl, The Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 1. A ‘number of Turks came and surrounded our abode’, Abul Fazl would write, years later, in the Akbarnama, remembering the moment with vestigial anxiety, perhaps.
18. And defence, then as now, had one of the biggest claims on government resources. Gunpowder was expensive. So were horses, which had to be imported and were ‘constantly needing replacement due to uncongenial equine conditions’ in South Asia. See Michael H. Fisher, A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B. Tauris, 2016).
19. Jouher, The Tezkereh al Vakiat, or Private Memoirs of Moghul Emperor Humayun by Jouher, trans. Major Charles Stewart (Oriental Translation Fund, 1832). The annals suggest that one of the essential features of armies at this time, big or small, was a body of accountants. Thus, the handful of men who accompanied Humayun on his Persian exile included no less than three accountants (plus an assorted muster of men including a librarian, bartender, keepers of bedding and the strongbox, and Jouher the ewer-bearer, of course).
