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Europe–Mughal India–Muslim Asia: Circulation of Political Ideas and Instruments in Early Modern Times. Part 2

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All in all, Xavier’s mirror for princes was hardly the place for the Mughals to find a discussion about the latest developments of Western political history and thinking; it was unlikely, therefore, to act as a source of inspiration in this domain. Besides, the scarcity of the surviving manuscripts as well as their exclusively European location (see supra: n. 1) point to the rather limited success of the A¯da¯b-us-salt.anat in India, particularly as compared to the Samarat-ul-fala¯sifa. On the basis of the present survey, and pending further research on the subject, it may therefore be safe to conclude that early modern Europe was not among the role models the Mughals referred to in matters of state building or technologies of governance. Why exactly such was not the case is, however, a question that remains to be thoroughly examined.

3 Mughal India and Safavid Iran: Political Transfers in Muslim Asia

In this respect, and in contrast to the situation described above, one stands on firmer ground when moving into what I have called the Asian-Islamicate ecumene. As indicated in the introduction, recent scholarship has called attention to the circula tion of elites and their contribution to the dissemination of political models within this space. If a number of studies have brought to light interesting cases of sometimes multilateral ideological influences, fewer have addressed the question of governmental technologies as part of politico-cultural transfers. The second part of the present essay will focus on such a case of transfer through the analysis of Mughal emulation of the Safavid mercantilist policy inaugurated by Sha¯h Abba¯s I (ruled 1587–1629).5

Before presenting the main characteristics of the latter, it is important to note the existence among the Ta¯jik elites of Iran of a long tradition combining political and commercial participation and embodied by the figure of the ta¯jir (pl. tujja¯r) or merchant (Calmard 1988). From the fifteenth century onwards, a number of them chose to settle in South and South-East Asia, sometimes responding to the invita tion of newly-created dynasties. This holds particularly true for the Deccan, where Bahmanid sultans (1387–1489) and their successors in Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, and Golconda encouraged the migration of Iranians to their territories and gave pride of place to individuals with dual administrative and commercial expertise (Subrahmanyam 1992). For all that, it was not to the Ta¯jik tujja¯r—among whom many Sayyids were also to be found—that Sha¯h ʿAbba¯s turned for the implementa tion of his centralising reforms, of which the new mercantilist orientation was only a part. On the contrary, he treated them with greater hostility than his predecessors, being suspicious of the socio-religious prestige of the Sayyids, and, more generally, of their propensity to invest both in land property and in commercial activities. The Safavid therefore chose to rely on two groups—a corps of slaves and the Armenian merchant community—who were more amenable to his wishes than the Ta¯jik merchant-administrators. The Armenian support was especially important for the development of ʿAbba¯s’ new commercial policy which aimed primarily at increas ing the silver reserves of the state.6In order to do so, the monarch resorted to a number of measures, including an import-substitution policy for cotton cloth, a ban on gold and silver exports, and, most famously, the instauration of a state monopoly on silk exports (1619). Silk was Iran’s most valuable export product and the newly created monopoly guaranteed the state the major part of the benefits accruing from its trade by compelling foreign merchants—mostly representatives of the East India Company (EIC) and the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC)—to deal exclusively with state-appointed intermediaries. Besides, ʿAbba¯s worked hard to provide Iran with a commercial outlet that would be safe from Ottoman and Portuguese appetites. To this end, he simultaneously explored the possibilities offered by the Northern land route (via Russia) and the Southern maritime axis (via the Persian Gulf). Thanks to the expulsion of the Portuguese from Hormuz in 1622, the latter solution finally prevailed: the port of Bandar ʿAbba¯s was founded on the site of ancient Gombroon and soon became a major commercial hub.

In contrast to the mercantilist model elaborated by Sha¯h ʿAbba¯s, Mughal partici pation in trade appears far more limited at first sight. Just as their Afghan predecessors and their Uzbek and Safavid contemporaries, Akbar and Jaha¯ngı¯r certainly considered the protection of merchants and the maintenance of a decent road network a part of their kingly duty. Besides, trade represented a significant source of income for the state, especially after the conquest of the two maritime sultanates of Gujarat and Bengal in the 1570s, even though the revenues deriving from this lagged behind those accruing from agricultural production. Even so, beyond this traditional relationship of protection and taxation, a number of elements point to the greater involvement of the Mughals in commercial activities from the first quarter of the seventeenth century onwards.

The first element is undoubtedly the growing participation of the imperial family and the Mughal elite in maritime trade. This is borne out by a series of documents such as the registers of the Estado da I´ndia (Flores 2005: 261–264), the correspon dence of English and Dutch merchants with the EIC and the VOC (Chandra 1959: 93–94) and a collection of Mughal administrative papers concerning the port of Surat (Hasan 1989–1990; Moosvi 1990). All testify to the fact that Mughal monarchs and members of their family (including women) were the owners of ships conveying their goods (textiles, indigo, tobacco) to the great ports of the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and South-East Asia. As shown by the nature of the evidence gathered here, the mercantilist evolution of the dynasty failed, however, to be integrated on the ideological level. The same holds true for administrative elites who, from the 1600s on, increasingly engaged in sea trade. The more active among them were the officials posted in the maritime provinces of the empire, such as Gujarat (Flores 2011; Hasan 2004: 31–51), along with the many Iranian migrants who gained predominance in the Mughal nobility precisely around this time. Particularly significant is, in this last respect, a remark by the Dutch factor Francisco Pelsaert, who blamed the Iranians as much for trusting the higher levels of Mughal administration as for their excessive intervention in the economy (Pelsaert 1957: 92).

The successive stages of the Iranian rise to power in the Mughal state apparatus are well known: initiated by Huma¯yu¯n (ruled 1530–1540; 1555–1556), vigorously pursued by Akbar, the recruitment of Iranians further intensified in the time of Jaha¯ngı¯r, during whose reign they achieved first rank in the nobility in respect both to numbers and positions. Symbolised by the ascendancy of Nu¯r Jaha¯n’s family (the favourite queen, herself of Iranian origin), the migration flow continued unabated throughout the seventeenth century even though, from the 1650s on, Iranians increasingly had to compete with other groups (Indian Muslims, Ra¯jpu¯ts) for state patronage. In their attempt to explain Mughal “Iranophily”, historians have generally emphasised the push factors lying behind it, including Safavid religious intolerance and the limited career prospects offered by Iran as compared to India. While it cannot be denied that such factors did play a substantial role, this line of explanation is marred by its portraying of the Mughals as totally passive in the process. As rightly suggested by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1992), the profile of those Iranians who reached the highest levels of Mughal state apparatus, as well as the nature of the positions they held, rather point to the fact that Indian monarchs valued these individuals for very specific competences.

The case of Nu¯r Jaha¯n’s family appears particularly significant in this respect (Habib 1969). Of her grandfather Khwa¯ja Muh˙ammad Sharı¯f, a Ta¯jik from Tehran, we know that he held an important position in the Safavid fiscal administration under Sha¯h T˙ahma¯sp (ruled 1524–1576) and was associated with the renowned and powerful family of A¯ qa¯ Muh˙ammad Dawatda¯r through matrimonial alliance. His son Iʿtima¯d-ud-daula chose to settle in India, where his expertise in fiscal matters enabled him to hold the combined offices of wazı¯r and wakı¯l from 1611 until his death in 1621. These same competences were transmitted to his son A¯s˙af Kha¯n who, like his father, is praised in contemporary literature for his ability in the fiscal domain; more importantly, he inherited from his father the position of wakı¯l, which he likewise held until his death in 1641. As a matter of fact, statistical studies have shown that the highest offices in Mughal fiscal administration became an Iranian preserve from Jaha¯ngı¯r’s reign on (Ali 1985). A¯s˙af Kha¯n is also the first member of

the family whose commercial activities are known in detail, even though the profile of Khwa¯ja Muh˙ammad Sharı¯f and his connections with A¯ qa¯ Muh˙ammad Dawatda¯r leads one to believe that trade was already part of the portfolio of familial activities back in Iran. Whatever the case may be, the family’s involvement in commerce only grew stronger during the second half of the seventeenth century, as shown by A¯s˙af Kha¯n’s and his son Shayista Kha¯n’s strong participation in the trade of the Bay of Bengal (Prakash 1985).

Before concluding on this point, it is worth pausing briefly to consider another biography, whose complexity is all the more illuminating. Mı¯r Jumla Is˙faha¯nı¯ hailed from one of the Sayyid clans of Ispahan, whose diversified interests in land property, manufacturing, and commercial activities are otherwise well known. He left Iran at the beginning of the seventeenth century and settled in Golconda where, according to the memoirs of Jaha¯ngı¯r, he was, for ten years, the factotum of Muh˙ammad Qulı¯ Qut˙b Sha¯h (ruled 1580–1612) and the centre of the affairs of the state (Jaha¯ngı¯r 1999: 258). In 1613, his falling out with the next sultan drove him out of Golconda, and it is only after he had failed to attract the patronage of the neighbouring kingdom of Bijapur that he resolved to go back to Iran. The reasons for this reluctance are made clear by the treatment he received at the court of Sha¯h ʿAbba¯s. After having tried for a while to exchange a part of the immense wealth he had acquired in India (through his fiscal duties and his likely participation in the lucrative trade of Masulipatnam) for a high position in Safavid administra tion, Mı¯r Jumla understood that the Sha¯h would concede no political participation to him and, in 1618, he therefore decided to leave yet again for the subcontinent (Bhakkarı¯ 2003: 72). At the Mughal court, the Mı¯r actually obtained what the Safavid had denied him and henceforth held a series of high positions in the imperial administration until his death in 1637 (Ali 1985: 128, 141). The case of Mı¯r Jumla Is˙faha¯nı¯ vividly illustrates how the Iranian merchant-administrators were pushed into the background in Safavid times, driving many of them on to the road to India as a result. Besides, his successful career under Jaha¯ngı¯r and Sha¯h Jaha¯n demonstrates the degree to which the Mughals valued the Iranian elites, who combined administrative and commercial expertise. That men such as Mı¯r Jumla, Iʿtima¯d-ud-daula, and so many others were also natural vehicles for the diffusion of Sha¯h ʿAbba¯s’ new commercial policy in Mughal territories is beyond doubt. The growing participation of the imperial family and the Mughal elite in maritime trade and the Iranian hegemony in the politico-economic sphere are not, however, the only elements hinting at the Mughals’ attraction towards state mercantilism. It is also borne out by some specific directions of Mughal expansion, as well as by the hardening of the dynasty’s attitude toward European trade companies.

Contrary to received wisdom, Jaha¯ngı¯r’s reign did not coincide with the com plete cessation of the conquest process (re)initiated by Akbar: the new monarch succeeded in subjecting Ra¯jpu¯t Mewar, kept the Deccani sultanates under continu ous pressure, and, more importantly for the present purpose, pursued Mughal expansion into the southern and eastern fringes of Bengal. The main motivation behind this last operation was essentially commercial, the Mughals aiming at seizing Bengal’s two principal ports—Hughli to the west and Chittagong to the east—which were then under the control of Portuguese merchants and the Magh dynasty of Arakan, respectively. It is true that nothing came of these expeditions at the time. However, Jaha¯ngı¯r’s efforts were continued by his successors and finally proved successful; Hughli and Chittagong fell to the Mughals in 1632 and 1666 respectively, henceforth providing the dynasty with privileged access to the Bay of Bengal and its lucrative trade.

Jaha¯ngı¯r not only pursued an aggressive policy on the eastern margins of the empire, he also took a harder line on the European presence on the western coast. The first open conflict broke out in 1613 with the seizure and destruction by the Portuguese of a ship from Surat that was bringing a valuable cargo back from Jeddah, a cargo in which the emperor’s mother had an important interest (Flores 2005: 251–261). The scale of Jaha¯ngı¯r’s reaction—all the Europeans living in the empire were put under arrest and had their goods seized—shows that the Mughals were less and less ready to accept European control of sea trade, and indicates, by the same token, their growing interest in this activity. A period of “contained conflict” succeeded the crisis of 1613–1615, which lasted until the end of the reign and saw the Portuguese progressively lose ground against the Mughals’ increasing pressure. In this respect, Jaha¯ngı¯r’s 1617–1618 trip to Gujarat appears particularly significant, because of its likely connection with the new commercial policy that was taking shape at the time. During his short stay in Cambay, the monarch actually publicised his willingness to promote traffic between the western coast of the empire and the Red Sea, and to turn Cambay into the most attractive harbour of the whole western Indian Ocean, thanks to the fiscal reforms he intended to introduce there. That he took the opportunity during his stay in Gujarat to assign the government of the province to his son Sha¯h Jaha¯n is also no coincidence: he thereby made sure that imperial authority would be felt more strongly in the future, especially vis-a`-vis the Europeans (Jaha¯ngı¯r 1999: 241, 244).

In this, as in many other cases, Sha¯h Jaha¯n proved to be an excellent choice. The prince was himself actively involved in Gujara¯tı¯ trade, and Portuguese archives indicate that he indeed took a harder line against the Estado da I´ndia (Flores 2005: 262–264). The Portuguese were not, however, the only Westerners to feel the bitter taste of his formidable gift for negotiation, his dealings with the English factors of Surat testifying to his expert use of the carrot and stick method (Faruqui 2002: 187–189). With the support of his father, Sha¯h Jaha¯n succeeded in establishing, within the context of Gujarat, a steadfast commercial policy whose aim was to develop Mughal interests in international trade, liberate them from Portuguese control and, more generally, to protect them from European appetites. In many respects, the government of the richest province of the empire may thus be said to have been the laboratory where the prince elaborated and put to the test the mercantilist policy he was to develop as king. For, of all Mughal monarchs, Sha¯h Jaha¯n was certainly the one most deeply involved in maritime trade. Besides, Iranians continued to be massively recruited under his rule and to trust the higher levels of the fiscal apparatus. Last but not least, Mughal mercantilist tendencies grew even stronger at his instigation, as shown, for instance, by the expulsion of the Portuguese from Hughli in 1632, or the attempts to institute royal monopolies on commodities such as indigo, lime, or saltpetre (Chandra 1959: 94–95).


The commercial policy of the dynasty was not, however, the only sphere to bear the imprint of the processes of competition and imitation that informed the relations of Mughal India with the contemporary polities of Muslim Asia throughout the early modern period. Reciprocal influences were also of tremendous importance where state ideology was concerned. As has been argued elsewhere (e.g. Lefe`vre 2010; Moin 2010), this holds particularly true for Mughals and Safavids during the seventeenth century, but other examples are not hard to find. To cite but one, Paul Wormser (2009) has recently built on the earlier insight of Denys Lombard to demonstrate how the sultans of Aceh successively turned to Ottoman and Mughal models to legitimise their power and elaborate a sophisticated royal ideology. As far as political ideas and instruments are concerned, there is, then, no denying that the transfers that took place within the Asian-Islamicate ecumene far exceeded the exchanges between Europe and Muslim Asia in early modern times. This is, of course, in sharp contrast with the situation that was to prevail with the advent of European domination in the region from the eighteenth century on.

 

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Notes

C. Lefe`vre (*)

Centre d’E´tudes de l’Indes et de l’Asie du Sud, E´ cole des Hautes E´tudes en Sciences Sociales, 190-198 avenue de France, 75244 Paris Cedex 13, France

e-mail: co.lefevre@gmail.com

A. Fl€uchter and S. Richter (eds.), Structures on the Move,

127

Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-19288-3_7, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

128 C. Lefe`vre

1The British Library has a nineteenth-century copy of the work of Satta¯r (hereafter BL, MS. Or. 5893), which bears the slightly different title of Samarat-ul-fala¯sifa or Evening story of the philosophers. Of the six other known manuscripts of the text (sometime also entitled Ah.wa¯l-i Firangista¯n or Events of the land of the Franks), three are preserved in India, two in the United Kingdom, and one in Iran. The copy of the A¯da¯b-us-salt.anat preserved in the School of Oriental and African Studies (hereafter SOAS, MS. 7030) dates from 1609; the Casanatense Library of Rome holds the only other known copy, which was similarly completed in 1609. For two recent overviews of these works, see Alam and Subrahmanyam (2009: 472–475) and Sidarus (2010). I am grateful to the latter for having given me access to his paper before publication.

2For the origins of this scheme in Greek historiography, see Momigliano (1982).

3For the pre-Islamic history of Spain as seen by Arab geographers and historians, see Picard (2003).

4BL, MS. 5893: 49–51. For a similar account by a fifteenth-century North African geographer, who was himself relying on a number of predecessors such as al-Idrı¯sı¯ (d. approx. 1165), see al H˙imyarı¯ (1938: 10–11, 157–159).

5For an extended version of this point and a larger discussion of reciprocal Mughal and Safavid influences, see Lefe`vre (2010).

6The following presentation of ʿAbba¯s’s mercantilist policy is based on Matthee (1999


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