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As far as the Muslims are concerned, he is considered to be a sultan who was religious minded and extremely devoted. In a country dominated by Hindus, Aurangzeb has one of the Muslim leaders. Later on after years, Aurangzeb took over power when the Mughal Empire in India was at its pinnacle. Major part of the Indian subcontinent was controlled by the Mughals.
All across the world, it was one of the wealthiest of empires. It was in that Aurangzeb was born with in a cosmopolitan and powerful state. Shah Jahan, was his father was a legend who had constructed the beautiful Taj Mahal for his wife in Agra. Right from a young age, Aurangzeb was taught by the best of teachers and scholars.
He was well versed with a number of aspects of sciences related to Islam, Hadith and the Quran. He read books with great enthusiasm and wrote in the language of his ancestors in Chagatai Turkic, Persian and Arabic. Aurangzeb was well trained in calligraphy and many of his works are still seen today.
Bringing true Islamic governance to the Mughal Empire was one of the main goals for Aurangzeb. All the previous Muslim emperors did not rule as per the laws of Islam. When somebody asked Truschke — an expert on imperial, cultural and intellectual history of early modern and modern India —to write a biography of one of the many Mughal rulers, she chose Aurangzeb — the most controversial one.
Aurangzeb: the Man and the Myth, which was published in February, is a quick and readable take on the life, rule and legacy of the sixth Mughal emperor. Composed in eight chapters and close to pages, this book can be read from lunch till dinner. Moreover, it is written in a very breezy language. However, the treatment of the subject matter is as serious as it can get. In Indian collective memory, Aurangzeb is one of the cruellest kings ever. He is thought to have either converted or killed millions of Hindus while destroying or desecrating thousands of temples.
He imposed jizya and tried to curb celebration of Holi and Diwali. He did away with syncretic royal practices like daily display of the king at balcony jharokha darshan and yearly weighing of the king in gold and silver to be distributed among the poor. He executed the ninth Sikh guru, Tegh Bahadur. The number of temples razed is in dozens, not in thousands. Moreover, temples were targeted mainly when they became the hub of anti-state activities. For example, Vishwanath temple at Kashi and Keshavdev temple at Mathura were destroyed in and respectively, more for political than religious reasons.
Grand celebration of Holi, Diwali, or Eid, Muharram and Nowruz were discouraged for reasons of public safety, order or morality. Religion, again, played little role in such considerations. The end of jharokha darshan had more to do with imperial strategy and less with puritanical obsession. Later, the procedure was adopted of closing down rather than destroying the newly built temples in Hindu localities.
It is also true that very often the orders of destruction remained a dead letter, but Aurangzeb was too deeply committed to the ordering of his government according to Islamic law to omit its implementation in so significant a matter.
The fact that a total ban on the construction of new temples was adopted only by later jurists, and was a departure from the earlier Muslim practice as laid down by Muhammad ibn Qasim in Sind, was no concern of the correct, conscientious, and legal-minded Aurangzeb.
As a part of general policy of ordering the affairs of the state in accordance with the views of the ulama, certain discriminatory orders against the Hindus were issued: for example, imposition of higher customs duties, 5 percent on the goods of the Hindus as against 2 percent on those of Muslims.
These were generally in accordance with the practice of the times, but they marked a departure not only from the political philosophy governing Mughal government, but also from the policy followed hitherto by most Muslim rulers in India. Aurangzeb has often been accused of closing the doors of official employment on the Hindus, but a study of the list of his officers shows this is not so.
Actually there were more Hindu officers under him than under any other Mughal emperor. Though this was primarily due to a general increase in the number of officers, it shows that there was no ban on the employment of the Hindus.
That Aurangzeb's religious policy was unpopular at the time is true, but that it was an important factor, as usually charged, in the downfall of the empire, is doubtful.
The Hindu uprisings of his reign seem to have had no wide religious appeal, and they were supressed with the help of Hindu leaders. Their significance comes in the following reigns, when the rulers were no longer able to meet opposition as effectively—and as ruthlessly—as had Aurangzeb. His religious policy [[]] aimed at strengthening an empire already overextended in Shah Jahan's time; that it failed in its objective is probably true, but the mistake should not be made of assuming that the attempt was a major element in the later political decay.
It should be seen, rather, as part of an unsuccessful attempt to stave off disaster. Seen in this light, his religious policy is one element, but not a causal one, save in its failure to achieve its intended goal, among the many that have to be considered in seeking an understanding of Aurangzeb's difficulties. The East India Company. The behavior of the English East India Company was another element that has to be added to the complex situation created by internal rebellion, the activities of the Sikhs, and the long-drawn-out war with the Marathas.
The East India Company opened its first factory, or trading post, at Surat on the west coast in , and in the next half century established a chain along the coast.
Trouble first arose in Bengal, where Shayista Khan was trying to introduce some order and regard for the Mughal government in place of the lax administration of his predecessor, Shah Shuja. The foreign settlements of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British, emboldened by their superiority on the sea, had become truculent, and in distant regions considered themselves subject to no checks from the Mughal government. Shah Shuja, partly out of his general indifference to financial considerations and partly to gain support in the coming struggle for the throne, was particularly generous to the foreign traders.
To the English factory which was opened at Hugli in , he gave an order in permitting open trade in Bengal on a payment of three thousand rupees annually in lieu of customs dues. In the succeeding years the Company's trade multiplied many times, but, insisting on the authority of Shuja's order, it refused to increase its contribution or pay any of the normal taxes. When Shayista Khan objected, difficulties arose between him and the English. The attitude of the Company's officers may be judged from a letter addressed to London in The first attempt by the English to wage war against the Mughals was made in when Sir Josiah Child, the powerful governor of the East India Company, persuaded the government to send a small fleet to India to seize and fortify Chittagong.
The expedition was an utter failure; and far from gaining any territory, English traders were expelled from all their factories in Bengal. Meanwhile on the west coast, the English had also angered Aurangzeb. English pirates operating out of Bombay were seizing ships taking pilgrims to Mecca; among them was the Ganj-i-Sawai owned by the emperor himself.
They were also minting coins in Bombay with a superscription containing their own king's name. Aurangzeb ordered the seizure of the Surat factory and the expulsion of all Englishmen from his dominions. He relented because of the English control of the pilgrim trade in the Arabian Sea, and also, it appears, because they had a powerful advocate at court in the wazir, Asad Khan.
After levying a fine of one and a half lakhs of rupees Aurangzeb allowed them to return to their factories; and for the next fifty years, the English merchants refrained from any further attempts to establish themselves as a territorial power. The Enigma of Aurangzeb's Purposes.
In the background of all these events—the struggle for the throne, the annexations of great territories in the South, the wasting struggle with the Marathas, the pacification of the northwest frontier, the consolidation of Mughal power in Bengal, the contemptuous treatment of the East India Company—stands the enigmatic figure of Aurangzeb, surely the most controversial personality in the history of Islamic rule in India.
Held responsible by some for the downfall of the Mughal empire, by others he is praised for maintaining as long as he did the unity of his vast realm. Majumdar writes: "Undaunted bravery, grim tenacity of purpose, and ceaseless activity were some of his prominent qualities.
His military campaigns gave sufficient proof of his unusual courage, and the manner in which he baffled the intrigues of his enemies shows him to have been a past master of diplomacy and statecraft. His memory was wonderful, and his industry indefatigable. His dress, food, and recreations were all extremely simple. He died at the age of ninety, but all his faculties except his hearing remained unimpaired. A well-read man, he kept up his love of books till the end.
He wrote beautiful Persian prose. A selection of his letters Ruq'at-i-Alamgiri has long been a standard model of simple but elegant prose. According to Bakhtawar Khan, he had acquired proficiency in versification, but agreeable to the word of God that "Poets deal in falsehoods," he abstained from practicing the art.
He understood music well but he gave up this amusement in accordance with Islamic injunctions. It is his general attitude to culture that explains why the Mughal court, which under Shah Jahan had been the great center of patronage for the arts, ceased to be so in Aurangzeb's reign.
He disbanded the court musicians, abolished the office of the poet-laureate, discontinued the work of the court chronicler, and offered little encouragement to painters.
On grounds of both economy and fidelity to the Islamic law he criticized the Taj Mahal, the tomb of his mother, remarking: "The lawfulness of a solid construction over a grave is doubtful, and there can be no doubt about the extravagance involved. Although Aurangzeb's attitude toward the arts was one of disapproval, his reign was not culturally barren. Large-scale building activity ceased, but this was as much a reflection of a treasury depleted by war as deliberate policy.
Other forms of artistic life flourished, [[]]. In the case of poetry, where self-expression yields better results without compliance with a patron's wishes or moods, the abolition of the court patronage and the weakening of the court tradition led to some welcome new developments. The greatest Persian poet of the period, Bedil, turned away from the polished love lyrics of the old court poets and concentrated on metaphysical poetry. Often his fancy ran riot. Many of his metaphors are quaint and far-fetched, and his meaning is frequently obscure, but he is unmatched for profundity of thought and originality of ideas and similes.
He is highly popular in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, where his poetry appeals to the serious readers in the same way as does the great Masnavi of Rumi. He paved the way for Ghalib, who followed him in aiming at originality and depth of thought, but adopted the polished diction of Mughal court poets. Perhaps even more important was Wali d.
This replacement of Deccani by Urdu was a direct result of Aurangzeb's conquest of the Muslim kingdoms of the south. So long as the kingdoms of Golkunda and Bijapur existed and patronized the poets and writers of Deccani, "it was fully in vogue and its peculiarities immune from criticism and sneers.
They were forced to shed their peculiarities of dialect, themes, and treatment, while the speakers from the north saw the literary possibilities of the spoken language. The two streams of literary tradition mingled, and gave birth to modern Urdu. These developments owed little to Aurangzeb's deliberate efforts. The cultural activities for which he was directly responsible were the spread of Islamic learning and general diffusion of education. His reign was marked by the extensive grant of patronage and stipends to scholars and students.
There were no religious leaders of the caliber of Shah Waliullah or Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, but there is no doubt that the foundation of the Islamic religious revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were laid at this time. The Islamic academic [[]] curriculum, known as Dars-i-Nizamiya , was begun in his reign, and the emperor was personally responsible for the grant of extensive buildings, known as Farangi Mahal of Lucknow, to the family of Mulla Nizam-ud-din, after whom Dars-i-Nizamiya is named.
Most of the books included in the Dars-i-Nizamiya, other than those of foreign origin, were written during Aurangzeb's reign. They were mainly the work of two scholars patronized by the emperor—Mir Zahid, the qazi of Kabul, and Muhibullah Bihari, the qazi of Allahabad. Compilation of the comprehensive legal digest, known as Fatawa-i-Alamgiri , was also initiated by the emperor.
In turning from Aurangzeb's influence on culture to his work as a statesman, we find that his achievements are obvious, but his final years were clouded by difficulties. Even further, he also seemed to be quite knowledgeable about it himself. This trend actually becomes sharper as you move up the administration. Nevertheless, almost by any standards, Aurangzeb was a pukka upper-class Hindustani a somewhat obvious point, since he was born and raised upper-class Hindustani.
Azam Shah, his son, was keenly interested in Braj poetry and patronised some of the biggest names in the language such as Mahakavi Dev. Moreover — again, this is obvious — the mother tongue of Aurangzeb and the other Mughals by then had become an early form of modern Hindi-Urdu. In a fascinating letter , written by Aurangzeb to his year old son, Azam Shah, the Emperor gifts him a fort and orders that drums be beaten in his name.
Of course, the Mughals still mostly wrote in Persian, which was the official language of the day. Abolished by Akbar and reintroduced by Aurangzeb, the jizya was a tax levied on non-Muslims in the realm over and above all other duties.
It functioned in three slabs depending on income and its rate ranged from 0. It also had a number of exceptions built in and the poor, unemployed and disabled were not expected to pay. The Muslim counterpart to the religious tax of jizya was the zakat, or alms tax, also to be paid over and above normal taxes. Aurangzeb, however, abolished the zakat. From the modern point of view, this is clearly discriminatory and modern nations do not with minor exceptions such as the Hindu Undivided Family provision in India impose taxes on groups based on identity.
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