Humayun’s last scheme for governance was decentralization. Six relatively autonomous governors would each manage one of his newly reconquered provinces—Delhi, Agra, Kanauj, Jaunpur, Mandu, Lahore—while Humayun himself, as paramount ruler, would circulate among them with an imperial army to supervise and reinforce as necessary. In the critical words of Abu-al-Fazl (who later advocated a centralized Mughal state): ‘From the beginning of his [Humayun’s] career till now his mind was exercised in strange inventions and in showing forth recondite truths.’23 Humayun allocated Kabul to his infant second son, Hakim, who nominally governed under a trusted guardian. In addition, Humayun sent Bairam Khan to Lahore to secure strategic and economically crucial but still turbulent Punjab, accompanied by Humayun’s young but eldest son, Akbar. Humayun also betrothed Bairam Khan (whom Humayun entitled Khan-i Khanan, ‘Nobleman among Noblemen’) both to Salima Sultan Begum (a granddaughter of Babur), as well as to Humayun’s new sister-in-law, a Mewati noblewoman.
Sher Mandal, built by Sher Shah, site of Humayun’s library and fatal fall
Only seven months after Humayun’s decisive victory at Sirhind, he tripped while descending a steep stone staircase from his library in Delhi, reportedly when responding to the call to prayer. He died from his injuries days later in January 1556. Bairam Khan then emerged as regent while Akbar began his half-century-long reign that would truly establish the foundations for the Mughal Empire.
Part II
Establishment of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, 1556–1605
4
EMPEROR AKBAR MAKES HIMSELF THE CENTER OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE
[Emperor Akbar] was of middle height, but inclining to be tall; he was of the hue of wheat; his eyes and eyebrows were black, and his complexion rather dark than fair; he was lion-bodied, with a broad chest, and his hands and arms long. On the left side of his nose he has a fleshy mole, very agreeable in appearance, of the size of half a pea. Those skilled in the science of physiognomy considered this mole a sign of great prosperity and exceeding good fortune. His august voice was very loud, and in speaking and explaining had a particular richness. In his actions and movements he was not like the people of the world, and the glory of God manifested itself in him.
Akbar’s eldest son, Emperor Jahangir.1
In May 1562, 19-year-old Emperor Akbar was napping inside his harem when he heard an unprecedented disruption just outside. His maddened foster-brother and prominent commander, Adham Khan Kokaltash, with bloody unsheathed sword, was threatening the eunuch guards. Moments earlier, Adham Khan had led his henchmen into the adjacent imperial offices where they assassinated Shams-ud-Din Ataka Khan, the Empire’s leading minister and head of a rising rival faction of the young emperor’s foster-relations. Immediately, many leading courtiers fled the city, terrified of a bloody succession war. Akbar’s authorized biographer wrote, ‘His Majesty was awakened by the dreadful clamour,’ rushed out, saw the gory corpse, grappled with Adham Khan, and then ‘struck him such a blow on the face with his fist that that wicked monster turned a summersault and fell down insensible.’2 Akbar had his remaining personal attendants toss Adham Khan over the parapet. When he barely survived, Akbar ordered him dragged upstairs by his hair and thrown over again, ‘headlong so that his neck was broken, and his brains destroyed.’ While Akbar forgave Adham Khan’s mother, Maham Anaga (Akbar’s ailing former wet-nurse and thus foster-mother), she died grieving weeks later. Respecting their long, close personal service to him, Akbar built substantial tombs for her and her son, in the architectural style of the preceding Afghan dynasty. Further, Akbar used this traumatic event to empower himself after six years under the domination of his regent-guardians.
Tomb of Maham Anaga and Adham Khan, Delhi, c. 1562
During Akbar’s five-decade reign (1556–1605), he and his key supporters firmly grounded the Mughal dynasty in Hindustan. Akbar’s grandfather, father and their leading supporters had mostly lived outside India, largely oriented toward Central Asia. In contrast, Akbar was born in Sind (western India) and remained within Hindustan throughout most of his life (his longest period away was as a royal captive in Kabul during early childhood).
Map 5: Akbar’s World on Accession, 1556
After Akbar’s succession was eventually secured and he had emerged from regency, he and his close advisors innovated key policies. Akbar expanded his household, court, administration and army through wide-ranging recruitment, particularly through many political marriage alliances and cultural policies that attracted various Muslim and non-Muslim Indians. He and his courtiers reconstituted the Empire by developing more centralized fiscal and administrative systems. Over each phase in his imperial career, based in a different capital, he commanded expanding Mughal armies that remained almost constantly engaged in defensive and offensive warfare against his ambitious relatives, rebellious imperial officials, elite and popular uprisings and neighboring rulers. Most of his life, Akbar personally entered the battlefield and directly commanded military campaigns until just before his death. Thus, Akbar and his supporters established and expanded the Mughal Empire as a complex synthesis of Central Asian, Islamic and diverse Indian processes, cultures and people.
AKBAR’S SUDDEN ACCESSION IN 1556 AND IMPERIAL RIVALS
Using hindsight, many commentators regard the Mughal Empire as Akbar’s birthright. However, his succession was by no means certain following Emperor Humayun’s unexpected death in January 1556. Many leading commanders feared destructive disorder and the collapse of the nascent Empire—frequent outcomes of Central Asian successions and, more generally, of patrimonial conquest states with little local loyalty. More than half of Humayun’s high officers and officials were Central Asians, another third were Iranians, and few were Indian Muslims or Rajput Hindus.3 Some Central Asians and Iranians had migrated to Hindustan due to personal fealty to Humayun, so they prepared to return home. Humayun’s remaining rival courtiers sought to delay the succession crisis by concealing his death for two weeks. They spread false reports of his good health and costumed someone who resembled the deceased emperor in his imperial robes for public display (a deception reportedly recommended by visiting Ottoman admiral, Sidi Ali Rais, as occasionally done in his imperial court).4 Some commanders saw Humayun’s death as an opportunity to follow Timurid tradition by dividing his territories among his sons, other close male relatives, or themselves.
Bairam Khan, Humayun’s most powerful companion, was fortuitously in nearby Punjab. Further, Bairam Khan was personal guardian of 12-year-old Akbar, the most promising claimant: Humayun’s eldest son and clearly intended heir as Padshah in Hindustan. Humayun had groomed Akbar to rule, awarding him at age nine his recently deceased uncle Hindal’s entourage and appanage. Humayun had also appointed Akbar as governor of Kabul and Ghazni, albeit nominally and under the actual charge of trusted and experienced guardians. Thus, Bairam Khan, on receiving secret news of Humayun’s fatal injury, immediately installed Akbar on a makeshift throne, then rushed him to the Agra court, fended off rival courtiers and claimants, and formally installed Akbar as emperor—with himself as controlling regent. Nonetheless, other biological and adopted relatives and favorites of Humayun, evoking the Central Asian tradition of collective sovereignty, would powerfully assert their own claims to parts or all of Akbar’s legacy for three decades, until he had outlived virtually all of them.
At Humayun’s death, the most plausible alternative to Akbar was Humayun’s younger son, Mirza Hakim. But Hakim was in distant Kabul and, at age two, as yet unsupported by a sufficiently powerful faction to claim more than that region, which Humayun had intended for him. For much of Hakim’s early youth, he nominally ruled in Kabul, first under the regency of one of Humayun’s favorite courtiers, Munim Khan, and then under Hakim’s mother, Mah Chuchak Begum. Next, Hakim lived under the control of Shah Abdul Ma‘ali, yet another contender for the Mughal throne. Finally, during Hakim’s teens and twenties, he emerged occasionally as Kabul’s de facto independent ruler, gene
rally recognized by the Safavids and Uzbeks. Emperor Akbar’s court had mixed attitudes and policies toward Hakim: treating him as Akbar’s subordinate but outside the official administrative hierarchy; occasionally supporting Hakim when he was vulnerable but also repeatedly repulsing his martial incursions into India.
Throughout Hakim’s life, he provided a focus for ambitious dissidents within the Empire who resented Akbar’s policies.5 Hakim invaded the Punjab whenever Akbar appeared weak. Among those in north India who periodically proclaimed Hakim’s sovereignty (and denied Akbar’s) were prominent Uzbek, Turkman and Indo-Afghan commanders, members of the ‘ulama, powerful Naqshbandi Sufi pirs and other orthodox Sunni Muslims. Especially dangerously, Uzbek officials entrusted by Akbar with governing Malwa and eastern India periodically rose up during the 1560s, rejected his authority, and declared Hakim’s reign. In 1579–82, a rebellion in Bengal led by the Indo-Afghan Qaqshal clan again evoked Hakim’s sovereignty. Only major military expeditions led by Akbar personally or by his loyalists eventually drove back these recurrent threats from the west and east.
Akbar graciously pardoned Hakim after each betrayal, explaining: ‘Hakim Mirza is a memorial to the Emperor Humayun. Though he has acted ungratefully, I can be no other than forbearing.’6 Only after Hakim’s death (at 31 in 1585 from chronic alcoholism) did Akbar integrate Kabul with the rest of his Empire. This death also weakened conservative Sunni factions and independent-minded commanders, enabling Akbar to innovate administratively and religiously with less overt opposition. Beyond Mirza Hakim’s challenges, other major rebellions by high courtiers marked the first half-dozen years of Akbar’s reign following the regency.
Prominent among Humayun’s leading commanders who challenged Bairam Khan’s regency and Akbar’s authority was Shah Abdul Ma‘ali, Humayun’s adoptive son and a high-born Sayyid (claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad). Although at Humayun’s death he proved unable to rally sufficient force to mount the throne himself, he pointedly rejected participation in Akbar’s enthronement. Subsequently, Bairam Khan had Shah Abdul Ma‘ali imprisoned. But, recognizing his relationship with Humayun and his potential as a focus of dissidence, Bairam Khan then had Akbar allow Shah Abdul Ma‘ali to withdraw honorably on pilgrimage to distant Mecca.
Following Shah Abdul Ma‘ali’s return, however, he mobilized several serious challenges to Akbar. Most dangerously, he seized Kabul and Mirza Hakim, married Hakim’s elder sister, Fakhr-un-Nissa Begum, and had Hakim’s regent-mother assassinated. But then he himself was executed by yet another contender for Humayun’s legacy, Mirza Sulaiman. Even then, Shah Abdul Ma‘ali retained sufficient prestige for burial next to Babur.
Mirza Sulaiman, another of Humayun’s relatives and adoptive sons, held power in politically turbulent but strategic Badakhshan during much of his career, as prince Humayun had done. When Humayun died, Sulaiman besieged Hakim’s Kabul, only retreating after his sovereignty was recognized through the khutba, albeit just once.7 Later, whenever opportunities arose, Sulaiman seized Kabul or the Punjab. During one of his repeated captures of Kabul, Sulaiman assassinated Shah Abdul Ma‘ali, married his daughter to Mirza Hakim, and used Hakim as a puppet. Later, Sulaiman was displaced from Badakhshan by his own grandson, Mirza Shahrukh, who eventually succumbed to the Uzbeks. Ultimately, both Shahrukh and Sulaiman fled to refuge with Akbar. Akbar honored these Mirzas in especially distinguished welcoming ceremonies, reviving for the occasion the court customs of their shared Chingizid and Timurid ancestors. Akbar then incorporated both men into the Mughal imperial hierarchy with high ranks and gave a daughter to Shahrukh in marriage.
Thus, Akbar, especially during his reign’s the first three decades, faced challenges from other claimants to Humayun’s legacy and from dissident imperial commanders. Then, during Akbar’s last decade, his own maturing sons would form foci for fissiparous factions. Most prominently, Akbar’s eldest surviving son, Salim, would reign virtually independently in Allahabad for five years (1599–1604), even claiming the title Padshah, before resubmitting to Akbar and eventually receiving his forgiveness. Throughout the Mughal dynasty, every imperial succession would remain an extended, uncertain and dangerous event. Fortunately for Akbar, Bairam Khan loyally managed Akbar’s accession and administration during his early teenage years.
AKBAR UNDER REGENCY, 1556–62
For four years following Akbar’s enthronement, Bairam Khan acted in Akbar’s name to extend the Empire as well as Bairam Khan’s own power. Although Akbar’s grandfather, Babur, had immediately asserted his independent rule while even younger, Akbar remained largely unengaged in imperial administration until the dramatic 1562 events recounted above. Instead, Bairam Khan governed as Wakil-us-Sultanat (‘Agent of the State,’ effectively regent).
Various Indo-Afghan and Rajput rulers and commanders had recovered following their defeat by Humayun at Sirhind in July 1555. Their forces rallied around Hemu, who had risen up dramatically through the Suri administration to become chief minister. Contemporary sources concur that Hemu came from a Hindu non-Rajput trading community, but identify his early career variously as greengrocer, itinerant trader, or market master.8 In October 1556, just months after Akbar’s accession, forces under Hemu defeated the Mughal army holding Delhi and recaptured that city. Hemu then took the illustrious title Raja Vikramajit, evoking legendary Hindu sovereigns. Responding, Bairam Khan executed the defeated Mughal commander, Tardi Beg Khan (a rival at the Mughal court), and used Akbar as a symbol to rally the remaining imperial troops in desperate fighting at Panipat the next month. The battle only favored the Mughals after an arrow struck Hemu’s head, incapacitating him. His followers panicked. Wounded Hemu was dragged before Bairam Khan and Akbar and decapitated (sources differ about whether Hemu was beheaded by Bairam Khan or by Akbar, who would thus earn his title Ghazi).9 Substantial opposition, especially by Indo-Afghans, continued for decades, repulsing repeated Mughal assaults.
Bairam Khan, strengthening his own control even further, posted his own Central Asian and Iranian supporters as governors of key provinces. He also extended Humayun’s policy of incorporating Indian Muslims, for instance appointing Suhrawardi Sufi Shaikh Gadai Kamboh as chief Sadr (managing revenue-grants for Muslim clerics and other worthies).10 Bairam Khan so generously distributed revenue lands to his supporters that the treasury emptied significantly. The Safavids took advantage of Mughal weakness to retake Qandahar in 1557. But in north India, Bairam Khan expanded the Empire, seizing Ajmer, Jaunpur and Gwalior in 1558. While Bairam Khan governed, Akbar frequently hunted far from court.
Throughout Akbar’s life, he combined hunting with military expeditions. Hunts, besides the pleasure of the chase, effectively honed his virile and martial skills and reputation while simultaneously familiarizing him with Hindustan’s hinterland and rural people.11 One distinctive form of hunting that Akbar savored was the massive Mongol-style qamargha. This required considerable organizational skill since hundreds (or even thousands) of beaters were systematically linked in a great circle, enclosing all the wild animals within. Subordinate officers then maneuvered these beaters simultaneously and evenly inward, concentrating the animals for Akbar and his chosen companions to slaughter en masse with arrows, spears, swords and guns. Another distinctive, dangerous and also productive form of hunting was capturing wild elephants. In Indic royal ritual and iconography, elephants represented sovereignty; they were the distinguishing vehicle for rulers entering battle, prominently displaying inspiring leadership to the surrounding troops. Akbar, throughout his youth, risked his life capturing wild elephants, riding elephants into battle and also taming domesticated bull elephants in mausth—seasonally aggressive behavior associated with testosterone surges in the elephant (and perhaps in the rider as well).
During his hunting tours and also while residing in his main capital, Agra, Akbar met diverse Indians. These ranged far wider than the constricted circle of primarily Central Asians and Iranians surrounding Babur, Humayun and now Bairam Khan. Even
while Akbar was under regency, he appeared to some Hindu Rajputs as a potential ally against Rajput rivals (within their own clan and from other Rajput clans) and also against Bairam Khan’s administrators.
Historically, many Hindu ruling and landholding Rajputs fiercely defended local autonomy, pragmatically combined with degrees of subordination to more powerful rulers. Priding themselves on their Rajput warrior dharma, they often based themselves in commanding fortresses, many dangerously near Delhi or Agra. Rajputs had fought both against and also allied with Delhi Sultans. When Babur arrived, some Rajputs fought him at Panipat. Many more rallied against him under Rana Sanga at Khanua. Many supported Hemu. But various Rajputs eventually joined Mughal armies, seeking better opportunities than those available in their resource-poor homelands. The relatively weak Kachhwaha Rajput clan had been among the earliest to support Humayun during his first Indian reign.
In 1557, Raja Bihari Mal (r. 1547–74), the beleaguered Rajwat dynasty ruler of Amber and disputed head of the Kachhwaha Rajput clan, approached Akbar at Agra, promising personal loyalty to the young emperor. Akbar then supported Bihari Mal in his intra-clan conflicts, in his struggles against more powerful Rajput neighbors in Mewar and Marwar, and against the domineering Mughal governor of nearby Mewat. Their bond later strengthened when Akbar wed Bihari Mal’s daughter. As Akbar developed his own regime, he would continue to incorporate many Hindu Rajputs into his court and army, creating a much wider manpower base than his father or grandfather had attempted.
A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B.Tauris Short Histories) Page 9