History of India (c.

1526-1600)

Submitted by-

Shikha Singh

III year

BA (H) History

Roll no. : 81

Daulat Ram College

 Assignment Question

Critically analyze the significance of Ain-i-akbari and

Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh as source for the study of Akbar’s
reign.
The Mughal period was pre-eminently an age of official histories or Nama. This type
of history was inspired and stimulated by the influence of Persian in a cosmopolitan
court. The practice of having the official history of the empire, written by the royal
historiographer, was started by Akbar and it continued till the reign of Aurangzeb who
stopped it. The official histories were based on an accumulated mass of contemporary
records, official (waqai) records of provinces and the akhbarat-i-darbar-i-mualla or
court bulletins corrected under royal direction. Often the presentation of history
tended to reflect the bias of the court, social, political and religious as official or court
historians could not afford to be independent in their attitude or critical of the actions
of the ruler or ministers. The court chronicles tended to indulge in nauseating flattery
of their patrons as well as in verbosity.

Akbar’s reign (1556-1605) was prolific in historical literature. Three important

chronicles were written in this period- Abul Fazl’s AkbarNama, Abdul Qadir
Badauni’s Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh and Nizam-ud-din Ahmad’s Tabaqat-i-
Akbari. The works of Fazl and Badauni’s are much more complex and interesting
than Tabaqat-i-Akbari. Fazl and Badauni’s work mark a definite advancement in
medieval historiographical traditions. Although Abul Fazl’s work is seen as the main
source of information for Akbar’s period, Badauni’s Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh together
with Jesuit accounts strengthens Fazl’s work. Badauni’s work is unique and valuable
in terms that he wrote it in secret and without any patron/ official sponsorship.

Mullah Abdul Qadir Badauni was born in 1540 at Badauni was a very learned man,
excelled in music, history and astronomy. He cherished a great love of history from
his childhood and spent his hours in reading or writing some history. Badauni was
introduced to Akbar In 1573-74 who was deeply impressed by the extent of his
theological learning and ability to humble the mullahs, and appointed him as court
imam for his voice and gave him a maad-i-maash of 1000 bighas of land. He was also
appointed by Akbar to translate Arabic and Sanskrit works such as Mahabharata into
Persian. But he grew to be a hostile critic of Akbar, envious of Faizi and Fazl and
dissatisfied with Akbar for his free thinking and eclectic religious views,
administrative reforms and for his patronage of non Muslims. Unable to get the
expected preference and advancement in imperial service and with his mind against
the emperor, he wrote his book in a spirit of frustration and expressed his glee at
Akbar’s troubles. His book is a check on the turgid panegyric of Abul Fazl. Though it
was really an interesting work, it contained so much hostile criticism of Akbar that
was kept hid during Akbar’s lifetime and could not be published until the accession of
Jahangir. Badauni’s book provided an index to the mind of the orthodoxy Sunni
Muslims of Akbar’s reign. According to Prof. S.R. Sharma, it is not very valuable
except for the account of events in which Badauni himself took part. Moreland
describes his work as reminiscences of journalism rather than history. Topics were
selected less for their intrinsic importance than for their interest to the author, who
presented the facts colored by his personal feelings and prejudices in bitter
epigrammatic language, which has to be discounted. The author not only uses
uncommon words, but indulges in religious controversies, invectives, eulogiums
dream, biographies and details of personal and family history which interrupts the
unity of the narrative, yet these digressions are the most interesting portion of the
work. Badauni’s work is divided into three volumes. The first volume deals with the
history of the Muslims rulers up to Humayan. In the preface of “Muntakhab-ut-
Tawarikh”, Badauni acknowledges his sources and admits that he had occasionally
added “something of his own” to the work. The second volume of the Muntakhab
deals with the reign of Akbar. It is annual chronicle where events have been narrated
under the head of the year of their occurrence. If the occurrence of certain events
extended to more than one year, then their narration is spilt into as many places as the
number of years involved. Badauni’s originality in his work lies in the way in which
he analyses the personalities involved and takes into account the impact of Akbar’s
policies upon people in general. The third volume is in form of a tazkira in which he
gives biographies sketches of the mashaikh and ulema of Akbar’s age, as well as the
physicians and poets of Akbar’s court.

The basic form of Badauni’s history is similar to that of Abul Fazl’s work, although
the treatment of history is different. The significance of Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh as a
source of historical study is immense. Apart from the information on wars, rebellions,
conquests etc., Badauni gives detailed information on the administrative organization
of Akbar’s empire. He also gives information on his policies, his religious
experiments and even the architecture of cities like Fatehpur Skiri. However it should
be noted that his account is somewhat biased as it seeks to prove the failure of Akbar.
For instance, the mansabdari system is seen by him as a complete failure, in which
lower groups like tradesmen, weavers, cotton cleaners and carpenters, including
Hindus without any distinguished abilities, received mansabs. Badauni also mentions
in his book that the Dagh system broke the neck of the soldiers, and it is in the context
of these measures that he sees the rebellions in Bengal and Bihar. Badauni also gives a
detailed account of kakori system. He writes that the officers were highly corrupt and
selfish. According to him many cultivators were ruined and the experiment ended in a
disaster. He corroborates such information by accounts of famines and earthquakes
during Akbar’s reign. Although he writes that Akbar had governed the empire well
and was liberal and kind, he says that the constant quarrels of the ulema puzzled
Akbar and he lost faith in Islam. Also, Badauni argues that Akbar believed that since
1000 years of Islam were almost complete, Akbar could now replace Islam.

Being an orthodox man, Badauni did not endorse many of Akbar’s liberal policies and
was severely critical of many of his actions. He wrote that Akbar could not tolerate
opposition from any mullah and would banish anyone whom he was dissatisfied with
and replace him with more compliant people. He was very critical of the Mahzar as he
believed that it gave Akbar the legal power to undermine Islam. However this was an
incorrect assumption as the Mahzar merely empowered Akbar to exercise his power
only in the event of a difference of opinion among the ulema. It did not curtail the
legitimate powers of the ulema but only stopped their indiscreet use of authority.
Badauni is critical of most of Akbar’s innovations or Bidat. He noted a clear
distinction between the principles of Din-i-Ilahi and those in the Najat-ur-Rashid,
which strengthened his belief that Akbar was a heretic who had established a new
religion. He further adds that Akbar replaced the Hijra era with Tarikh-i-Ilahi or
divine era. This kind of an outlook blinds Badauni from understanding Akbar’s
actions in an unbiased light, and he was unable to understand the significance of such
policies in their totality. The introduction of Tarikh-i-Ilahi was done in order to serve
the needs of the cultivator and meet demands of revenue administration. Similarly for
Badauni, the promotion of rational sciences, instead of being a practical measure,
appears to be an undermining of traditional sciences. He is also unable to see that
discouragement of Islamic names was done by Akbar out of respect to the prophet and
saints. This blinkered understanding is a serious limitation of Badauni. It is due to
such inherent biases present in Badauni’s works that in order to effectively use them
for historical purposes, it is essential to compare and corroborate them with the work
of Abul Fazl.

Abul Fazl was close to Akbar and gives an insight into the mind of Akbar. Fazl was
born in 1551 and was the second son of Shaikh Mubarak. Shaikh Mubarak’s family
technically belonging to orthodoxy was liberal and believed that there could be
innovations in Islam, just as there are innovations in other religions. He was severely
criticized by Shaikh Abd-un-Nabi and Abdullah Sultanpuri (makhdum-ul-mulk) who
were the Ulema of the imperial court during the early years of Akbar’s reign. The
reason for the conflict between the Ulema and Fazl was the association of Shaikh
Mubarak’s family with the Mahadawi movement. The Mahadawi sect were severely
attacked by the orthodoxy who were at that time of period dominated the court and
were supported by Akbar. Later Akbar began to understand that in order to continue
his rule, he needs the support of Indian elements and other religion and not just the
orthodoxy. Soon Akbar started changing the composition of nobility and found the
Ibadat khana (just when fazl entered his court) in 1574-75. Akbar appointed Fazl to
the court and gave him a mansabs of 20 and gradually raised it to 2000. Apart from
the role in the discussions at the Ibadat Khana, Fazl also rendered his services to
Akbar on more or less personal nature rather than political or military.

Abul Fazl’s work AkbarNama and Ain-i-Akbari are both part of a large body of
literature. The AkbarNama is Fazl’s monumental work. He had originally intended to
write the same in 5 volumes, of which 4 were to constitute the narrative part and fifth
was to be the Ain-i-Akbari. Of these Fazl was able to write only 3 volumes, two of the
narrative part and the Ain. The first volume covers “The History of Mankind” from
Adam to the first seventeen years of Akbar’s reign. The second volume is the
narrative to the close of 46th regnal year of Akbar. The third volume which is “Ain-i-
Akbari” was written by the end of 42nd regnal year of Akbar’s reign with a small
addition to the conquest of Berar which took place in 43rd year of Akbar’s reign.

Fazl followed a different style of writing. Unlike works that start with the origin of
Islam, he began from Adam and traced it down to the birth of Akbar which is shown
as a divine event and it was also intended to show that Akbar’s patron stood at the
“pinnacle of the progress” of humanity. History for Abul Fazl was “the events of the
world recorded in a chronological order”. Though he adhered to it only in parts except
in sense that AkbarNama is not a record of the events of the world, its commencement
from the fall of Adam does not entitle it to being called a world history because before
coming to the history of Mughal, Fazl picks up some crude notions and presents them
as historical facts and the account prior to that of Akbar’s reign has been written with
the specific objective of setting Akbar’s supremacy against a partly imagined and
largely distorted historical background.

The AkbarNama apart from the Ain contains extensive information on a variety of
subjects within the limitation of narrative of political events. Apart from battles, Fazl
also added occasional notes on subjects such as topography of an area or astrology
etc. The Ain is different from the narrative part; it is some kind of gazetteer of
information. Ain-i-akbari is furthered divided into 3 sections/volumes, which contains
administrative rules of Akbar’s reign. Fazl gives a detailed account of ranks,
schedules, the mansabdari system, the army & armaments, tents, cavalry etc. Ain-i-
akbari is highly detailed account of Akbar’s administration inscribed by Fazl. He has
discussed a wide range of topics in this volume which ends with the significant codes
of Akbar entitled, ‘Sayings of Akbar’. Abul Fazl, while writing the Ain had collected
information from well informed and prudent persons. Apart from these, he used his
own testimonies as well his father’s as evidence. He also cited Akbar as his source of
information in many cases. The servants of court and the family members of royal
courts were also interrogated by Fazl and their testimonies were used in his writing.
Despite collecting information from various sources and from the testimonies and
official records, Fazl rarely acknowledged them in his book which raises a question of
authentication of his writing. At some places, he also makes alterations in either the
words or the nuances of the evidence. For instance, a noticeable omission in the
AkbarNama is the Mahzarnama, an important religious document. Fazl makes no
reference to it at all, despite the fact that Shaikh Mubarak; his father gave Akbar the
idea of Mahzar. Since it was not compatible with his theory of Akbar as a perfect
man, this alteration was done by Fazl to portray Akbar as ‘Insaan-i-Kamil’ (perfect
man) and “Farr-i-Izadi” (divine effulgence). He does not emphasize on Mahzanama
because it ties Akbar to Islam which goes against the image of Akbar as ‘Insaan-i-
Kamil’. However Badauni gives its full text as well as an account of its preparation in
the second and third volumes of the Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh. He also discusses at
length the circumstances that preceded the proclamation of the Mahzar, suggesting
that Akbar wanted to free himself from dependence of Ulema. He says that Ulema
signed it unwillingly, except for Shaikh Mubarak. Abul Fazl’s account is all about/
revolves around Akbar whom he thought that loyalty to Akbar was equivalent to
obeying God. The main contribution of Fazl in writing AkbarNama is the history of
reign of Akbar. Fazl treats history as a collection of an individual persons or
institutions involved in these events. The very style of Fazl’s writing, whereby in the
description of each event he tried to build up a literary climax which is suggestive of
his exaggerations in Akbar’s favor. In most of the battles of Akbar or his men against
rebels or other opponents, Fazl tried to exaggerate the strength and determination of
the latter in order to inflate the significance and the glory of the Akbar’s , or his man’s
victory. In order to play up the light and guidance he received from Akbar, Fazl
overly emphasizes his conceit and unsociableness before he came into contact with
Akbar.
The picture of perfection painted by Abul Fazl for Akbar is an incomplete one and
Badauni’s work is extremely valuable as an alternate perspective in this regard. Being
free from official pressures, Badauni’s work serves to provide a critical, albeit a
slightly prejudices account of Akbar’s reign and his policies. Although it might not be
appropriate to term Badauni’s work as a corrective to Abul Fazl since he suffers from
many limitations too. Thus we see that neither Abul Fazl nor Badauni can give us a
whole picture of Akbar’s reign, since both were motivated equally strong and
contrasting emotions, which colored their narratives. Yet the subjective element apart,
both the historians supply the same data and thus complement each other.
Bibliography

 Harbans Mukhia- Historians and Historiography during the reign of Akbar

 Noman Ahmad Siddiqi- Shaikh Abul Fazl
 K. A. Nizami- On the History and Historians of Medieval India (ch-6, Abul Fazl)

 Treatment of ‘others’ in Muntakhab-ut-tawarikh -

http://indianhistory4scholars.blogspot.in/2009/04/mughal-historian-abdul-qadir-badauni.html

 Relationship of Badauni and Abul Fazl -

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?490849-History-The-Relationship-of-Badauni-and-Abu-
l-Fazl

 Akbar: The Great Moghul -

http://online.sfsu.edu/mroozbeh/CLASS/h-115/Akbar%20The%20Great%20Moghul.pdf