Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
In the month of Rajab, a.h. 987 (September, 1579), the ‘Ulamā of the Mual Empire issued a joint fatwa (maḥẓar), by which, according to Vincent Smith, “Akbar was solemnly recognized as being superior in his capacity of Imām-i-‘Ādil to any other interpreter of Muslim law, and practically was invested with the attributes of infallibility.” He therefore calls it the “Infallibility Decree”, and he interprets it as the turning-point of Akbar's religious life. He regards it as the “momentous innovation which should extend the autocracy of Akbar from the temporal to the spiritual side, and make him Pope as well as King”. By this step he rendered impossible all opposition to any future developments of his religious policy. This limited interpretation of the maḥẓar, however, in the light of the Dīn Ilāhī, seems to obscure the real policy of Akbar.
page 591 note 2 Munta abu’l-Tawārī , by ‘Abdu’l-Qādir al-Badāōnī (Bibl. Ind.) (cited Bad.), ii, 270–2.
page 591 note 3 V. A. Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul 2 (1919), p. 179.
page 591 note 4 Ib., p. 178.
page 591 note 5 Ib., p. 180, and n. 1. Vincent Smith appears to have been misled by Badāōnī, whose statement (ii, 272) , … does appear to support the view, but it must not be forgotten that the passage was written after the promulgation of the Dīn Ilāhī. Bad. i, 5.
page 592 note 1 For the text (T.) of the joint pronouncement () of the ‘Ulamā of the Mual Empire v. Bad. ii, 271–2, and in the corresponding volume of the translation (Tr.) by W. H. Lowe (B. I). The maḥẓar is in very ornate Persian and translation into English is extremely difficult. Lowe has rendered clear the general sense, but even after E. B. Cowell's revision, there are several misleading passages which are noticed below, reference being made to the lines both of the text (T.) and of the translation (Tr.).
1. —a joint pronouncement, opinion, or declaration, not petition (as Lowe translates it). Cf. Vullers, Lex. Pers.-Lat. ii, 1144, syngrapha, (vulg.) testimonium; also v. J. T. Zenker, Dict. Turc-Arab.- Pers., s.v., and Lane, Arabic Lexicon, s.v. .
2. T. 12, 13. Tr. 15, 16. (martabah) is better translated “standing”, rather than “rank”.
3. T. 15, 16. Tr. 19, 20. … … , Lowe's translation misses the point of these superlatives. The argument is surely, even the just leader (imām-i ’ādil) is greater than a mujtahid, “and ‥ Akbar … is most just, most wise, and most godknowing.”
4. T. 18. Tr. 24. “mankind” not “the nation”, similarly (T. 20, Tr. 27) and (T. 22, Tr. 29); also means “everybody” not “the nation”. The use of the word “nation” in these places obscures the real meaning of the words, which are definitely universal in character, and consequently of the whole document. It is to undue reliance on Lowe's translation that Vincent Smith's misconception can be directly traced.
5. T. 10. Tr. 12. . “The just leader” or “Imām”; Lowe's use of Imām-i ‘Ādil as a technical term is misleading.
page 593 note 1 v. T. P. Hughes, Dictionary of Islām, s.v. alīfah, for a discussion of the Ottoman pretensions from the Indian point of view. The claim, however, was recognized both at Mecca and Aleppo, as contemporary poems of the years 1517–19 show. For this information I am indebted to Professor E. G. Browne.
page 593 note 2 Bad. i, 5; ii, 8, 278. ib., ii, 273. Akbarnāmah (B. I) passim. Also cf. Shāh ‘Ālamnāmah (B. I) passim for uses of ; and Accounts and Papers (H. of C., No. 162 of 25th March, 1859), p. 156. “Vicegerent of God.”
page 593 note 3 This significance, I suggest, underlies Abū'l-Faẓl's comparisons between the horoscopes of Tīmūr and Akbar (AN. i, 25, 42–3), viz. that Akbar revived the glories of Tīmūr. Cf. AN. i, 60, where a hereditary claim to Mual overlordship of Rūm appears to be implied in Arūz ān's victories, while āfī ān emphasizes his lordship over all Turkestān (Munta abu' l-Lubāb (B. I), i, 5 ; cf. AN. i, 79–80). For Abū'l-Faẓl's emphasis of Timurid ancestry and tradition v. AN. i, 6, 16, 22, 25, 42–3, 77–81, 128, 219, 335, 336 ; ii, 171, 279, 307. Cf. N. Manucci, Storia do Mogor, ed. W. Irvine, ii, 349, for Tīmūr's place in the uẗbah; also ii, 129, for Tīmūr's relations with Persia quoted as a refutation of the Ṣafawī claim to hegemony over the Mughals. For the continued interest in Tīmūr and Timurid ancestry by the later Mughals, v. W. Rieu, Cat. Pers. MSS., i, 177b–179, 285.
page 594 note 1 The leading dates of the four stages are :—
(i) Tīmūr and the Ottoman Turks—culminating in the battle of Angora, 1402.
(ii) The Ottoman Turks and the Ṣafawī dynasty, culminating in the cession of the ilāfat by Mutawakkil, the last of the Egyptian Abbāsids, to Salīm the Grim in 1517, by which Salīm becomes. the overlord of the Sunnī vassals of Persia.
(iii) The departure of Humāyūn from Persia to India as an amīr of Shāh ẗahmāsp, under the command of Shāhzādah Murād, aged 6, in 1544.
(iv) The maḥẓar of 1579, by which Akbar achieved a diplomatic victory over both the Ottoman and the Ṣafawī houses.
page 594 note 2 Cf. Bury, J. B., A History of Greece, 2nd ed., 1917, pp. 229–30Google Scholar ; and AN. i, 21. Professor M. ‘Abdu’l Ghanī has drawn my attention to a description of Timur as (B.M. MSS. Add. 23980, fol. 8a.)
page 594 note 3 E. G. Browne, A History of Persian Literature under Tartar Dominion, pp. 196, 204. H. A. Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, pp. 244–6, 250. Farīdūn Bey, Munsha'āt-i Salaẗīn (Constantinȯple, a.h. 1274), i, 116 f. Qarā Yūsuf's appeal (which Professor Gibbons has evidently overlooked, op. cit., p. 245). Tīmūr's demand and Bāyazīd's reply, ib., i, 118–19 ; Bāyazīd's reference to the authority of the alīfah, ib., i, 130. Cf. J. von Hammer Purgstall, Gesch. des Osman. Reiches (Fr. Tr.), ii, 81 ff.
page 595 note 1 Farīdūn Bey, i, 130–2 ; cf. Beveridge, H., Timur's Apocryphal Memoirs (JASB., N.S., xvii (1921), pp. 201–204)Google Scholar. On p. 204 Mr. Beveridge contends that Tīmūr was a Shi'ah. The contention seems impossible in the light of this letter published in an Ottoman, and therefore anti-Mughal, work.
page 595 note 2 E. G. Browne, op. cit., pp. 198–9 ; H. A. Gibbons, op. cit., pp. 251–6 ; AN. i, 79–80; cf. Tr. i, 211, n. 3. I fail to see the reason for Mr. Beveridge's desire to emend the reading from zīr to zabar, for it would seem in accord both with the facts of history and with the general policy of Abū'l-Faẓl to exalt the Tīmūrids above all rivals, particularly the Ottoman Sulẗān.
page 595 note 3 Reference is made to this fact even in the case of Humāyūn in 1544 (AN. i, 206), and repeatedly with reference to Akbar (e.g. AN. i, 21; Bad. ii, 133, 175).
page 595 note 4 Tīmūr recognized Sulaimān as successor to Bāyazīd as a vassal (H. A. Gibbons, op. cit., p. 259). For the Byzantine Emperor's submission to Tīmūr, ib., pp. 259–60.
page 595 note 5 AN. i, 25, 42–3, 80, 128.
page 595 note 6 Cf. G. Finlay, History of Greece, v, 293.
page 596 note 1 E. G. Browne, op. cit., pp. 315, 379, 416 ff. ; Hammer-Purgstall, op. cit., iv, 172 f.
page 596 note 2 E. G. Browne, op. cit., pp. 404 ff., 418–19; Memoirs of Bābur, ed. Sir Lucas King, ii, 68, 362. Cf. Hammer-Purgstall, op. cit., vi, 152 ff. ; vii, 78 ff.
page 596 note 3 Tārī -i Rashīdī, ed. Elias and Ross, 1898, pp. 238, 246–7 and note, for the status of Bābur. Bābur concealed the vassalage (Memoirs, ii. 70–2 and 72, n. 3), and later writers have tended to accept his statement (cf. L. F. Rushbrooke Williams, An Empire Builder of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 102 and notes, 103), and to regard Bābur as equal in status to Shāh Ismā'īl. But, as Amīr of Kābul and Qandahār, he was still an adherent of the Shī'ah sect (Farīdūn Bey, i, 350), and this fact accounts for ‘Ubaidu'llāh Khān's description of him as ān zisht-a tar bad-ba t ḥākim-i Kābul, etc. Mr. Rushbrooke Williams’ somewhat laboured apologia for his hero's conduct in 1512 consequently falls to the ground (p. 108 f.). It is of interest to notice Abū'l-Faẓl's omission of all mention of political relations between Bābur and Shāh Ismā'īl, whose name he mentions but twice, once in an anecdote (AN. i, 295) and the other time in recording the rescue of Bābur's zanāna (AN. i, 85–6).
page 597 note 1 e.g. Memoirs of Babur, ii, 71 ; cf. Abū'l-Faẓl's account of the relations between Humāyūn and Shāh ẗahmāsp (AN. ii, 188 if.), where “friendship” is carefully stripped of political significance. On the use of the word “friend” in the East, v. Charles, R. H., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 1913, ii, 86Google Scholar, 2c, and note at § 45 of the letter of Aristeas. Cf. Xen. Cyrop. iv, 26 et passim; AN. i, 210. The idea of vassaldom is not confined to the East; cf. A.S. wine (meanings 2 and 4) ap. Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. For this reference I am indebted to Mr. B. Dickins, M.A., of Edinburgh University.
page 597 note 2 Memoirs of Bābur, ii, 74 ff. ; Tārī -i Rashīdī, pp. 262–3 ; W. Erskine, A History of India under Baber and Humayan, i, 322 ff.; Rushbrooke Williams, op. cit., pp. 105–9 ; Farīdūn Bey, i, 346 ff.
page 596 note 3 Memoirs of Bābur, ii, 77–8, and notes; Farīdūn Bey, i, 347, 350–1, 360–2. Cf. Hammer-Purgstall, iv, 161–3, vii, 70 ff., for Ottoman intrigue with Persian Sunnī vassals.
page 598 note 1 Hammer-Purgstall, iv, 174, 178, 190–1. T. P. Hughes (op. cit., s.v. alīfah, pp. 264–5) discusses the validity of the transfer from an Indian Muslim standpoint. For acceptance of Salīm as alīfah, E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, ii, 260. Farīdūn Bey, i, 349 ; cf. the aims of Pius V, when, in 1570, he issued the Bull Regnans in excelsis deposing Queen Elizabeth.
page 598 note 2 Memoirs of Bābur, ii, 94–5, 96–7 ; AN. i, 79–80; Bad. i, 336 ; Rushbrooke Williams, op. cit., p. 114.
page 598 note 3 C. J. Brown, Coins of India, pl. x, No. 1.
page 598 note 4 Memoirs of Bābur, ii, 190; Bad. i, 336; Sīdī ‘AlīRa'īs(A Turkish Sailor at the Court of Humāyūn), ed. A. Vambéry, p. 53.
page 598 note 5 AN. i, 190, 205, 206 ; Tabaḳāt-i Akbarī, ap. Elliot and Dowson, History of India …. vol. v (cit. Tab. E. & D. v), p. 217. W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 275.
page 598 note 6 i.e. as a il'at. W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 280, 284–5, 290. Tab. E. & D. v, 218.
page 599 note 1 W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 275 ff., 291–9. This account, when compared with that in the Akbarnāmah, i, 188 ff., shows that Abū'l-Faẓl was careful to omit or to explain away as far as possible all references to acts of homage (particularly i, 203 f.). Where terms of niyābat are unavoidable, he makes them appear as divine delegations (e.g. the implication of nawāb-i kāmyāb) (AN. i, 206, 208), unless it is irony on the part of Shāh ẗahmāsp, whom he depicts as referring to Humāyūn as the ornament of the ilāfat; again, if not irony on the part of the Shī'ah, it must be a gloss on the part of the author (cf. Tr., H. Beveridge, i, xix, n., 136). Abū'l-Faẓl does not disguise the pleasure of the Shāh in his triumph, but interprets it as brotherly love or friendship renewed (i, 205–6); the fact that Humāyūn was forced to render an account of his failure to his suzerain, and as his unsuccessful amīr, he is acquitted on the ground that the causes of failure lay beyond his control (i, 217), this fact Abū'l-Faẓl attributes to the brotherly sympathy of Shāh ẗahmāsp. He also admits the acceptance of robes of honour (ila') on several occasions; (for the significance of the il'at v. my note on “Two instances of il'at in the Bible”, J. Theol. S., Jan. 1922, pp. 197 ff. ; also cf. R. P. A. Dozy, Dictionnaire détaillé des Noms des vêtements chez les Arabes, pp. 14–19). The circumstances of Humāyūn's departure from Persia he discreetly omits (i, 218 f.), and Prince Murād, the nominal commander-in-chief, appears as the most distinguished auxiliary (i, 218). It is significant, however, that Humāyūn does not dare to punish Abū'l-Ma'ālī for the murder of Shīr 'Alī Beg, a deserter from the Shah's court. Abū'l-Faẓl's excuse is so weak that it reveals more than it conceals (AN. i, 334, contra ii, 101–2; Bad. ii, 9–10 ; ef. W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 518–19 : cf. also Tab. E. & D. v, 218–19, 221–2).
page 600 note 1 AN. i, 241, 309; Tab. E. & D. v, 221 ; W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 291. N.B.—Abū'l-Faẓl's concealment of the real reason of Bairām an's appointment (p. 241).
page 600 note 2 For instances see the writer's paper “The Political Theory of the Indian Mutiny” : Trans. R. Hist. S., 4th ser., vol. v, p. 83, n. 1.
page 600 note 3 The translation of the word pādishāh by the word Emperor seems to be a relic of the false identification of pād with the Hindī baṛa. Pād seems to refer to a gift in return for service, and is rather a sub-kingly than an imperial prefix. It seems to be closely connected with the idea of the German volk kōnig and the Latin regulus. This identification makes possible the combination of the term with the word amīr, as in the case of Tīmūr (cf. H. Beveridge, AN. (Tr.) i, 443, n. 2). The philology of the word seems to be obscure, and this argument is based on its historical associations; cf. H. Hübschmann, Persische Studien, pp. 35 (No. 265), 36 (No. 273); Vullers, op. cit., i, 314a, 315a. It is significant that Abū’l-Faẓl uses the term Shāhinshāh as an imperial title for the Mughal, probably as a challenge to Persia (A N. passim); cf. the Roman gift of Consulship to Barbarian kings, e.g. Clovis in 507 (Greg. Tur. Hist. Franc. ii, 38).
page 600 note 4 Tab. E. & D. v, 221–2 ; AN. i, 241 (Tr. ii, 475, n. 1). This note overlooks the fact that Abū’l-Faẓl has spoken the truth by accident. Bairām ān was not merely a persona grata but a friend (i.e. a vassal) of the Shah (v. supra, p. 597, n. 1); cf. AN. ii, 172 (contra, W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 516). It was Shāh ẗahmāsp, not Humāyūn, who conferred the title of an. Yār-i wafādār is a title more typical of Persia than of Dihlī.
page 600 note 5 Tab. E. & D. v, 236; AN. i, 332 (foot of page)—334; cf. Bairām ān's exemption of Shai Gadā’ī from the ceremony of taslīm (AN. ii, 106). W. Erskine, op. cit., ii, 507.
page 601 note 1 AN. ii, 172.
page 601 note 2 AN. ii, 170 ff.; Bad. ii, 52 ; Tab. E. & D. v, 276, cf. 342. The farmān, which Abū’l-Faẓl records, is clearly a recognition, and more than a letter of condolence, as the ẗabaḳāt-i Akbarī bears out. The preceding relations—i.e. of vassaldom—were to be continued (AN. ii, 171). On the custom of the vassal giving his suzerain's ambassador a il‘at cf. The Story of Ahiḳar, ed. F. C. Conybeare and others (Arabic version), p. , fol. 101b, and p. , 102b. It would appear highly probable that the Shāh of Persia regarded the appointment of the ān-i ānān of the Mughal State as within his personal patronage (cf. AN. ii, 237), and that the an's duties were of the nature of Persian resident at the Mughal court. If that is so, the opposition to Bairām ān is still less a matter for surprise.
page 601 note 3 For a summary of these events v. V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 42–44. N.B.—AN. ii, 100. There is strong indication that Bairām ān and his party contemplated rebellion and that it was only rejected after considerable hesitation (Bad. ii, 38–9). When he left for Mecca, Bairām ān must have had a considerable following (Bad. ii, 40–2); cf. AN. ii, 96–9, 104 ff. ; Tab. E. & D. v, 251–8.
page 601 note 4 Bad. ii, 39; Tab. E. & D. v, 265–6; AN. ii, 100–1. The route is quite clear in the light of the second journey, Biyānā, Nagūr, Patan. The contemporary movement of the Mughal forces at this point appear to bear no other interpretation, none of the authorities appears to assign any motive.
page 602 note 1 AN. ii, 96–101 ; Bad. ii, 45. Is there admiration or irony concealed in Badaōnī's chronogram ?
page 602 note 2 v. V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 57–122, for a general account. Jizya, AN. ii, 203–4; Bad. ii, 276.
page 602 note 3 The growth of an anti-Persian policy can be seen in the punishment of Abū’l-Ma‘ālī in 1564, the year of the abolition of jizya (AN. ii, 204 f.; cf. p. 599, n. 1 supra).
page 602 note 4 AN. iii, 39. For an account of the rebellion, V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 117–20.
page 602 note 5 Hammer Purgstall, op. cit., vii, 70 ff.
page 603 note 1 V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 119 ff.; Bad. ii, 249 ff.; cf. Bābur's position in Samarqand, 1510–14.
page 603 note 2 For an additional instance of Mughal antipathy for the Turk v. Tūzuk-i Jahāngīri, Tr. H. Beveridge, p. 2.
page 603 note 3 Hammer-Purgstall, op. cit., vii, 67 f., 70 ff.
page 603 note 4 Ibid., 74 ff.
page 603 note 5 AN. iii, 211; cf. Tab. E. & D. v, p. 407. Bad. ii, 139, 241.
page 603 note 6 AN. ii, 386; Bad. ii, 270.
page 603 note 7 For the state of Turkey, v. Hammer-Purgstall, op. cit., Bk. xxxviii, vol. vii, 1 ff.
page 603 note 8 1577 and 1579 respectively, Tab. E. & D. v, 407, 410.
page 604 note 1 v. ‘Abdu’l-Fattāḥ Fūmanī, Tārīkh-i Gīlān, p. |v| (ap. B. Dorn, Muhammedanische Quellen zur Gesch. der Südl. Küsterländer des Kaspischen Meeres, t. iii)—
The reference is to Jahāngīr in 1612. Cf. N. Manucci, op. cit., ii, 48–54, 128 ff., 146 ff., especially ii, 129.
page 604 note 2 If his views inclined to either side it was towards the Shī‘ah creed, even as late as 1564, when he named his twin sons Mīrzā Ḥasan and Mīrzā Ḥusain (AN. ii, 236 ; Bad. ii, 69). Further, down to 1579 he commanded the loyalty of the Shī‘ah qāẓī of Jaunpur, and as a result of the maḥẓar, he was accused of open acknowledgement of the Shī‘ah faith to alienate those of the Sunnī creed (AN. iii, 273). Further, had he not professed Shī‘ah views, the strongly marked Shī‘ah phraseology of the maḥẓar would have lost its force (v. sub., p. 607). He was probably at heart Ṣūfī, though somewhat vague, but his own vagueness provided his philosophical basis of toleration (i.e. of everything except definition), and ultimately of his schemes of comprehension.
page 604 note 3 Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥakīm and his cousins may be said to represent the Persian element in Mughal politics from the time of Bairām ān's fall. For the extent of orthodox unrest v. Bad. ii, 276–7 ; V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 77 f., 97, 110 ff., 185 ff., 190–7.
page 605 note 1 e.g. the parts played by Rājā Todār Mall and Rājā Mān Singh v. V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 186–7, 192, 201.
page 605 note 2 The combination was roughly the same as that which faced Humāyūn. Bengal which was orthodox Sunnī, Kābul and the Persian frontier, where Persian help could easily be obtained. (V. A. Smith, op. cit., cap. vii.)
page 605 note 3 The Persian faction and the religiosi of the Mughal State.
page 605 note 4 v. V. A. Smith, op. cit., p. 201. Badāōnī is significantly silent (ii, 294–5).
page 605 note 5 i.e. in the Dīn Ilāhī; cf. I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islām, 1910, pp. 310–12.
page 605 note 6 This argument, I submit, meets the criticism and queries raised on religious questions by Mr. S. M. Edwardes against my “Political Theory of the Indian Mutiny” in the Indian Antiquary, lii, 198 ff., particularly p. 203 (q.v.). For more immediate causes I must refer him to The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, ii, 406–9.
page 606 note 1 v. supra, p. 603, n. 8. Also AN. iii, 270 ; Bad. ii, 268 ; Tab. E. & D. v, 412.
page 606 note 2 Cf. Al-Qurān, ii, 28 ; v. AN. 48 f., 53–5, 60, 78 (of Tīmūr).
page 606 note 3 v. supra, p. 593, n. 2.
page 606 note 4 Bad. i, 5 ; ii, 8, 18, 273, 278.
page 606 note 5 AN. i, 6, 17, 24, 30, 75, 78, 99, 111, 117, 120, 183, 206 (bis), 232 (?), 245, 303, 305 (bis), 312, 341, 346, 350, 351, 361, 362, 364, 365; ii, 1, 15, 19, 23, 27, 34, 35, 52, 57, 76, 160, 184, 344, 371 ; iii, 16, 76 (bis), 252, 268, 274. Cf. D. S. Margoliouth, “The sense and title alīfah” : ap. A Volume of Oriental Studies presented to Edward G. Browne, 1922, pp. 322–8, esp. p. 327.
page 606 note 6 AN. i, 15, 19, 21, 203, 232 (?), 284, 306, 322; ii, 14, 305, 352 (?).
page 606 note 7 e.g. AN. i, 1, 365.
page 607 note 1 Cf. V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 416–17, and H. Beveridge (AN. Tr. i, xxx). Neither is really fair, for Abū’l-Faẓl is usually attempting exact definition by means of repeated metaphors instead of by abstract terminology ; further, both overlook the propagandist element.
page 607 note 2 e.g. Muḥammad Yazdī (Bad. ii, 276 f.).
page 607 note 3 AN. iii, 268 ff. ; Bad. ii, 268, 270. On the position of the ‘Ulamā v. E. J. W. Gibb, op. cit., ii, 394 ff. ; for phraseology and arguments, cf. Maverdii, Constitutiones Politicae, ed. M. Enger, pp. .
page 607 note 4 Contra V. A. Smith, op. cit., pp. 178 ff. The opposition of Shai ‘Abdu’l-Nabī, Madūmu’l-Mulk, and other dissentients was probably far more political than religious.
page 608 note 1 A general reference may be made to the writer's paper, “The Political Theory of the Indian Mutiny,” particularly pp. 83, n. 1, and 85, also to the Camb. Hist. Brit. For. Pol, ii, 403–4, 411–12, 415–16.
page 608 note 2 Bad. ii, 274.
page 608 note 3 For a fuller development of this argument v. the writer's article “The Historical Antecedents of the ilāfat Movement” in The Contemporary Review, May, 1922. On Sayyid Jamālu’l-Dīn, v. E. G. Browne, The Persian Revolution, 1905–9, chap. i.