Paper - State in Medieval India I(M31406)
Submitting
to - Prof. Najaf Haider
Submitted
by - Ravish Raj (MA 1st Year)
Date - 18/10/2019
In
the machinery characterised by monopoly over surplus extraction, the king is
ensconced in the paramount position.
Kingship thus becomes a powerful concept, the efficacy of its design determining the extent to which the
extraction relationship is lopsided in favour of the king. Kingship can be asserted through coercion as
well as hegemony, the two often working in
synchrony with each other. That the Mughal ideas on kingship were potent
tools of exploitation is attested by the
extended longevity of the Mughal Imperial system, the constituents of
which are visible in the states that
succeeded the empire. JF Richards1 argues that the comprehensive restructuring brought about by the empire
survived in subsequent agrarian, monetary, taxation, military and administrative systems. In
addition to that, the standards of arts, aesthetic and public behaviour were also moulded by the Mughal
tradition. The Mughal way was embedded so deep
in the consuetude of the subcontinent that the East India Company, in
the initial phase of colonisation, used
the imperial myth of authority for its consolidation.
The absence of the law of succession has been a critical lacuna in the political system of Islamic states. Hence, succession, more often than not, has been mired in violence and bloodshed. This lack also led to the development of multiple political theories seeking to legitimise a specific way of securing and sustaining kingship. The institution of Caliph may be regarded as the first in this long list of ideas on kingship, from where a departure is witnessed in the thirteenth century when several legitimate Islamic states emerge, the distinctive feature being the shift from mandatory acknowledgement by the Caliph in the form of investiture. The association of an inheritable divine mandate with Chingis Khan was an attempt to convert kingship into a hereditary institution. The works of scholars like Nasiruddin Tusi and Jalal al-Din Davani further extended the theoretical compendium by adding the usurpation of power, imparting of justice and championing the cause of Islam as legitimising factors. The founding of personal myths not only legitimised one's own rule but also validated the claims of one's descendants, as evident in the case of the Timurid myth.
This
essay is restricted to the evaluation of the ideas of kingship of two prominent
Mughal kings and whether these ideas
were designed to legitimise a dynastic rule.
Akbar
Initially,
Akbar had to conform to the accepted norms of kingship, which included the appeasement of the ulema. He promoted high
priests of orthodoxy to essential offices, accepted their religious authority and even bore the
title of ghazi for the expansion of Islam. Akbar had resorted to various strategies to solidify
his authority. His expansionist policy led to the enlargement and diversification of the
nobility, thus creating a dynamic balance. Mansab system and the allurement of it both created new
identities and ensured that ambitious people sought the status of 'slave' warrior-administrator. So
that they should seek it voluntarily, Akbar repositioned the sense of honour from sectarian to
imperial pride, from bardic glory to chronicled fame. He did so by carefully constructing the
emperor's person and using that as the personification of the empire. In addition to that, he capitalised
on his Timurid descent and subordinated the elites via an elaborate code of behaviour and
rituals.
Richards3
throws light on Akbar's public image. The emperor's person, according to him,
was shaped by two factors: (i) his
accessibility, and (ii) symbolic acts of asserting sovereignty.
Harbans
Mukhia4 sees the accessibility of the emperor as a marker of the relative
flexibility in the conduct of courtly
rituals. Akbar was an active, energetic and curious man who would go out of character5 several times, the political
motive being the dilution of the claim of the nobility to the proximity of the king. He also
entertained diverse religious thoughts and was ready to engage in discussions, open to criticism of his own
ideas. We also have, on the other hand, instances of Akbar inflicting punishments on nobles for
breaching the norms of codified behaviour. Hence the rituals of etiquette mandatory for nobles
were no more mandatory for the king, and kingship was not legitimised by such principles
anymore.
As
for symbolic acts, shifting of capital ensured that a particular place was no
more a legitimising factor for kingship.
A bunch of armoured men could not usurp the throne by merely occupying the Imperial palace or winning the
support of public, as kingship stayed and moved
with the emperor. Fatehpur Sikri was erected as the symbol of a new
political setup, where chambers were
designed to restrict entry to subjects, whereas the emperor could move
freely. The choice of Sikri in itself
was shaped by the mystical attachments of the king, and its sacred complex accommodating both the mosque and the
dargah, its seculars complex characterised by
buildings like Ibaadat Khana, hint at Akbar's intent to break the
dominance of orthodox elements by giving
ample space to Sufism and other religious thoughts. The abrupt desertion of
Sikri and the subsequent mobile capital,
with camp-mint as a legitimate production site, further strengthened the fact that the king and
empire were essentially the same.
The shift in Akbar's idea of sovereignty became conspicuous in the late 1570s after he realised that theological principles were inefficacious in managing a largely non-Muslim population. In 1579, prominent theologians were compelled to sign a mahzar drafted by Abul Fazl's father Shaikh Mubarak, which conferred upon Akbar the right to decide on contested points of the law. This marked a change in the earlier notions of kingship, as religious authority was now being appropriated by the emperor's person. A catalyst to this change was his ideological counsellor and friend Abul Fazl, who quickly rose to prominence in Akbar's court. John F Richards credits Abul Fazl with the feat of successfully weaving together several elements into a dynastic ideology.
The
ideas of kingship, which effloresced at the cost of orthodoxy, have been
elaborated in Abul Fazl's works. One can
also corroborate this with Badauni's Muntakhabu't Tawarikh, which is a bitter criticism of the rising decadent and
heretical trends during Akbar's reign. Abul Fazl's depiction of Akbar is based on influential
works of Islamic scholars, the few prominent ones among which are:
●
Ibn 'Arabi's concepts of (i) wahdat-i wujud and (ii) insan-i kamil. Wahdat-i
wujud talks about the unity of
existence. Abul Fazl develops from it a world view, emphasising the false duality of din and duniya. With this,
he frees temporal sovereignty from religious
shackles.6 Arabi describes Insan-i kamil as the perfect man, the spirit
of Muhammad, who
is
identical to Adam and is blessed with all divine perfections. For him, the
dispensation of justice is the best form
of obedience to God. Abul Fazl ascribes many attributes of Insan-i kamil to Akbar, however, deleting the
association with the spirit of Muhammad.
●
Graeco-Islamic scientific tradition of the social contract. As Abul Fazl
disempowers theologians by portraying
religion as illusory, he shifts focus to aql by discussing the traditions of filasafa and hukama. He talks
about a form of social contract, where qahar-i
wahadat was necessary to bring order in a tumultuous world. A theocracy
could not provide the remedy as religion
was already teeming with tricksters. Hence, there was the need for a kar-giya, who, with the aid of his
loyal soldiers, in return for the wages of
protection, would safeguard his subjects' property, life, honour and
religion. The kar giya, different from an unjust ruler, would be conferred the
title of padshah.
●
Shihabuddin Maqtul's Ishraq theory. In this theory, the sun represents farr-i
Izidi, originating from God and
illuminating the objects, i.e., giving existence to all kinds of reality, through a sequence of angels,
according to their place in the natural hierarchy. This theory talks about longitudinal and
feminine order of angels on one hand and
latitudinal and masculine order of angels on the other. Akbar possesses
both the loving and the commanding
characteristics of angels, and the nurturing and punishing roles work together in unison to ensure sulh-i kul.
Abul Fazl adds to this the origin myth of
Mongol where Alanqua is impregnated by the divine light. He traces the
genealogy of Akbar from Adam,
highlighting that the divine refulgence passed through fifty-two generations before illuminating the emperor
in full glory.
Abul
Fazl leaves no stone unturned in portraying Akbar as the being of the highest
order, next only to God. Peter Hardy7
throws light on numerous ostentatious epithets given to Akbar by him, and how these epithets exalt his status to an
untraversed altitude. Akbar is shown as the lord of esoteric as well as exoteric realities. He
also is khuda-i majazi, thus able to lead both the wilayat and the sultanat. As a crowned Sufi, Akbar is
supposed to maintain justice by maintaining the
social order, i.e., looking over the four stations or classes of the
society. He is also a rahnamuni who hesitates in accepting disciples while
thousands line up to seek his guidance. Akbar is a mahdi, as regarded by Shaikh Taj al-Din, who
would guide humankind to salvation before the day of judgement. The list of
ornate designations can go on. What is relevant here is that woven in a highfalutin style is an attempt to
portray Akbar as a unique Padshah without any apparent parallels. Timur had many descendants, but
Akbar was beyond just a descendant of Timur. He
was the reflector of the dazzling radiance of God himself, and thus
could not be compared to other lowly
emperors.
Akbar’s
empire was built upon a baffling diversity; hence, it needed what A Afzar Moin8
calls a lord of conjunction, who would
be a ruler with messianic aura. Akbar ensured that his ideas of sacred kingship were preserved in a
court-commissioned hagiographic composition. Many subsequent rulers emulated the imperial model
constructed by him.
Jahangir
A
Afzar Moin9 contends that Jahangir's transition from a prince to an emperor can
be followed in relation to Akbar as a
transition from opposition to mimesis. Jesuit sources point to Jahangir's sudden shift to the orthodox elements in
order to counter powerful Gentile. Jahangir's memoir also begins with the lunar calendar instead
of Akbar's Ilahi calendar. He renamed himself as the light of religion, Nur-al Din, which was a drastic
departure from Akbar's disassociation with
orthodoxy. These diverse political behaviours of the father-son pair
reflect the strategies employed in the
game of Mughal religiopolitical field, which was shaped by the expectations
of ambitious godmen manifested in omens
and blessings. Once seated in place of Akbar, Jahangir realised that no conventional religion or
order could accommodate multiple, contradictory beliefs and hence, none was a universal political
tool. Jahangir thus resorted to his own institution of imperial discipleship. Like his father, he
presided over debates between Muslim theologians and Christian priests. In Abdus Sattar's
Majalis-i Jahangiri, which was written in the style of malfuzat, Jahangir is referred to as a guide,
spiritual leader and performer of miracles. Jahangir, according to the source, referred to himself
as the ‘universal manifestation’ and went to the extent of allowing conversions.
One
finds an entirely different version of Jahangir in Jahangirnama, dictated by
the ethics of self referential works. In memoirs, one had to embellish others
with praise while reserving extreme
modesty for oneself. In Jahangirnama, Jahangir is a common man, with
unextraordinary fortune and fancies. In
accordance with the concept of inner and outer circles in the institution
of sainthood, Jahangir too demarcated
his surat and zahiri world from the realm of his mani and batin self. Jahangirnama was for a broader
public, and hence, coated with humility. This
distinction was also recognized in his courtly circle.
The
question that follows is how Jahangir expressed his spiritual self to the
world. For this purpose, Jahangir
utilised the medium of images by assimilating various icons from distant cultures. Scholars like Heike Franke, Robert
Skelton and Ebba Koch have tried to examine the
imperial symbolism in those images.
Franke10
looks at the visual representation of Jahangir's ideas on kingship. As Jahangir
had inherited from his father a
fully-operational system of sacred kingship, his painters made great efforts to depict him as the king of two worlds.
He is presented as the new Adam in one of the
paintings, with verses to elucidate further the underlying message.
Another famous double-page painting,
created by Bichitr, shows Muinuddin Chisti entrusting to Jahangir the key of
spiritual world, thus making him the
king of two worlds. Bichitr continued to explore other ways of depicting Jahangir's sovereignty, and in an
unusual painting, he shows Jahangir seated on an hourglass, facing Shaikh Husayn Ajmeri,
Bayezid I, James I, and Bichitr. Several putti are flying in the top corners with broken weapons.
Franke interprets this image as to mean that the Padshah has risen above the world, hence laws of time
do not apply to him, nor does he need weapons.
Skelton11
examines a few imperial paintings from Jahangir's reign. An image showing
Jahangir's dream of meeting Shah Abbas I
of Iran also depicts symbolic animals mentioned in Virgil's The Pastoral Poems. This shows the influence of
European works, ideas and symbols on Jahangir's
mind, and how the representation of the idea of kingship appropriated
utopian concepts of foreign lands. The
painting showing Jahangir shooting at the severed head of Malik Amber is
not merely a representation of the
fulfilment of a desire, but also a representation of the victory of light, represented by Jahangir, over
darkness, represented by the owl, Amber. Koch12, based on her study of various foreign cultural figures
depicted in Jahangir's muraqqa, concludes that
Solomon on account of his power of justice, Majnu of love, and Orpheus
of music, could be seen as representing
the emperor.
What
cannot be denied is that despite the Akbari style of Mughal painting stood on
its own, it was Jahangir who made the
optimum utilisation of this medium to project his ideas of kingship more effectively. Through the paintings, he
assumed a number of characters: thaumaturge,
renewer, seer, and the millennial being.13 In the final form, depicted
by Bichitr, Jahangir has conquered both temporal
and spiritual realms and is gifting a book to a mystic leader, who is accepting it with a shawl in his hands.
Conclusion
Mughal
ideas on kingship evolved from preceding developments in Islamic political
theory. The first significant consolidation
of the theory of kingship occurred during the reign of Akbar, in the last phase of the 1570s, when he took
decisive steps towards sacred sovereignty. Jahangir did inherit this system; however, he chose a
different medium to asseverate his supremacy, and so did Shah Jahan through monumental
architectural masterpieces. The core idea of kingship, however, remained the same, i.e., a mystical
king who was the master of both material and
spiritual worlds.
I
disagree with the statement that Mughal ideas on kingship were designed to
legitimise a dynastic rule. The emphasis
was always on the deification of the reigning emperor, who usually had to rebel for the throne and pacify the
old nobility. He then went on to exalt his status by wresting control of the sacred sphere from
the ulema, primarily with the view to efficiently manage a diverse state. His
successors did follow the basic idea but used their own media and methods.
Bibliography
1. Franke, Heike. "Emperors of Ṣūrat
and Maʿnī: Jahangir and Shah Jahan as Temporal and Spiritual Rulers." Muqarnas Online 31.1
(2014)
2. Habib, Irfan. "A POLITICAL THEORY FOR
THE MUGHAL EMPIRE—A Study Of The Ideas
Of Abu'l Fazl." Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Vol. 59.
Indian History Congress, 1998.
3. Hardy, Peter. "Abul Fazl’s Portrait
of the Perfect Padshah: A Political Philosophy for Mughal India—or a Personal Puff for a
Pal." Islam in India, studies and commentaries 2 (1985)
4. Koch, Ebba. "The Mughal Emperor As
Solomon, Majnun, And Orpheus, Or The Album
As A Think Tankfor Allegory." Muqarnas, Volume 27. Brill, 2011
5. Moin, A. Azfar. The Millennial Sovereign:
Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam.
CUP, New York. 2012.
6. Mukhia, Harbans. The Mughals of India.
Vol. 5. John Wiley & Sons, 2008 •
Richards, John F. "The formulation of imperial authority under Akbar and
Jahangir." Kingship and Authority
in South Asia (1998)
7. Skelton, Robert. "Imperial symbolism
in Mughal painting." Content and context of visual arts in the Islamic world (1988)
Notes
1. Richards, John F. "The formulation
of imperial authority under Akbar and Jahangir." Kingship and Authority in South Asia (1998): 285-326.
2. Franke, Heike. "Emperors of Ṣūrat
and Maʿnī: Jahangir and Shah Jahan as Temporal and Spiritual Rulers." Muqarnas Online 31.1 (2014):
123-149.
3. Richards, John F. 1998.
4. Mukhia, Harbans. The Mughals of India.
Vol. 5. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
5. i.e., not maintaining the supposed
distance from activities, places and people of low status and value. However, by shedding the traditional
character, Akbar was building a more popular persona, which is testified by Banarasidas' unparalleled grief
at the news of Akbar's demise.
6. Habib, Irfan. "A POLITICAL THEORY
FOR THE MUGHAL EMPIRE—A Study Of The Ideas Of Abu'l Fazl." Proceedings of the Indian History
Congress. Vol. 59. Indian History Congress, 1998.
7. Hardy, Peter. "Abul Fazl’s Portrait
of the Perfect Padshah: A Political Philosophy for Mughal India—or a Personal Puff for a Pal." Islam in
India, studies and commentaries 2 (1985): 114-37.
8. Moin, A. Azfar. The Millennial
Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam. CUP, New York. 2012.
9. Ibid.
10. Franke, Heike. 2014.
11. Skelton, Robert. "Imperial symbolism
in Mughal painting." Content and context of visual arts in the Islamic world (1988): 177-191.
12. Koch, Ebba. "The Mughal Emperor As
Solomon, Majnun, And Orpheus, Or The Album As A Think Tankfor Allegory." Muqarnas, Volume 27.
Brill, 2011. 277-312.
13. Moin, A Afzar. 2012.