Mogul Emperor Akbar: Was He Really Great?

The appointment of Hindus to the important posts in the empire:

Akbar also appointed many Hindus as the chieftains of his far away principalities.Many Hindus like Rajah Todarmal and Rajah Mansingh were appointed as the ministers of revenue and military.The appointment of Hindus to the important posts in the empire created a harmonious atmosphere and paved the way for the Hindu-Muslim unity.

Establishment of marital contact with the Raj put rulers:

Apart from that, Akbar as a true politician also came to the conclusion that to have a long lasting peace in his empire, he also decided in favor of a social intercourse, which meant he had marital relationship with a Raj put princess; by that way Akbar got the friendship of Raj puts and it further added strength to his empire.

The series of above mentioned steps taken by the Emperor Akbar led to the establishment of peace and harmony in his empire.

Ibadat Khana :

Now Akbar had plenty of time to pay attention to a series of religious discourses what is called by the historians as ‘Ibadat Khana.It is interesting to note that in the Ibadat Khana held by the emperor Akbar, scholars hailing from different religious schools like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Jesuits and Islam etc gave a series of lectures on their respective religions, which helped Akbar to absorb all the best characteristics of various religions.

Establishment of Deen-Ila hi:

By holding the Ibadat Khana, Akbar came to the conclusion, each and every religion had its best characteristics.All religions in fact had a common objective of bailing out the human beings from their woes.

Besides, by taking the best characteristic of each religion, in consultation with various religious scholars, Akbar established a religion of his own called ‘Deen-Ila hi and he even launched it formally in an auspicious day.

In a way ‘Deen-Ila hi was a classic religion and its first follower was Abul Fazl..

But, Akbar being a strong believer in religious tolerance, never enforced it on his subjects forcibly.Nor he appointed any preachers or propagators for his religion. Nor he devised any code for its implementation.Hence, very soon ‘Deen Ilahi’had its peaceful demise.

Was Akbar really great ?

No doubt, the Mogul ruler Akbar was hailed as great for more than one reason.

The greatness of Akbar lies in the fact that he ruled over his empire for over a period of 50 years quite peacefully,with minimum resistance from the principalities;he established the Hindu-Muslim unity;won over the Hindus by abolishing Jizya; ruled for such a long period without any major warfare and without any bloodshed; in the result his empire prospered socially and economically. Above all the salient feature of his empire was the religious tolerance, which has become the watch word of the secular India even today.Thus Akbar as the emperor was diplomatic and statesmanlike; most of his policies were aimed at peace, people’s welfare, Hindu-Muslim unity based on religious tolerance.Though he was born as Muslim, he tried to establish a religion of his own by combining the good characteristics of all religions. Above all he had a farsightedness, far ahead of his age. That is why Akbar is hailed as great.