The Taj Mahal, near Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, is the one thing Mughal that most Americans will recognize, even if they don\u2019t know the term \u201cMughal.\u201d \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Below is the eighth installment of an article that I wrote for\u00a0Richard C. Martin, et al., eds., \u00a0Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World<\/em>, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of \u201cMuslim Identity\u201d:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mughal Empire<\/b><\/span><\/p>\nFounded in 1526 and lasting until the mid-eighteenth century, the Mughal empire ultimately dominated the entire Indian subcontinent excepting the south.\u00a0 Yet the existence of a vast subjugated population of Hindus had always posed a problem for India\u2019s Muslim rulers, and continued to do so under the Mughals.<\/span><\/p>\nAcutely aware of the problem, Akbar (r. 1556-1605), arguably the greatest of the Mughal emperors, chose a radical method of dealing with it.\u00a0 He integrated Hindus into all levels of imperial administration, married Rajput princesses, and abolished the jizya<\/i> tax on non-Muslims.\u00a0 Worse, in the eyes of many devout Muslims, he began to experiment with an eclectic blend of Islamic and Hindu concepts.\u00a0 Akbar\u2019s actions, in their view, represented a serious threat not only to the Islamic identity of Muslim India but to Islam itself.<\/span><\/p>\nThe most significant opposition to Akbar\u2019s syncretistic liberalism emerged out of the Naqshbandi Sufi brotherhood, which helped to foster a religious revival among Indian Muslims in the face not only of the emperor\u2019s heresies and the resurgence of local Hinduism, but, as time passed, in opposition to Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French incursions into India.\u00a0 Ahmad Sirhindii (d. 1624), an Indian Sufi who powerfully influenced the development of the Naqshbandi order, is often considered by Muslim admirers to have saved Indian Islam.<\/span><\/p>\nCertainly Sirhindi represented a challenge to Mughal authority.\u00a0 Accordingly, a subsequent emperor, Awrangziib (r. 1658-1707), banned portions of his writing.\u00a0 But as Naqshbandi-inspired Islamic opposition grew, and amid spreading Hindu and Sikh restiveness that many Muslims attributed to Mughal laxity, Awrangziib also found himself obliged to dismiss non-Muslims from government service and to replace them with Muslims.\u00a0 Furthermore, under pressure from the orthodox \u2018ulama\u2019<\/i>, he ordered the restoration of the jizya<\/i> tax and reimposed Islamic shari\u2018a<\/i> law.<\/span><\/p>\nBut Naqshbandi revivalism was by no means limited to the Indian subcontinent.\u00a0 As early as 1603, Naqshbandi emissaries had entered the Arabic lands, and, soon thereafter, texts of the order were being translated from Persian into Arabic.\u00a0 The important Naqshbandi figure Shah Waliullah of Delhi (d. 1765), in fact, sometimes composed his works in Arabic, probably in a (successful) effort to address a much wider Islamic public.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Below is the eighth installment of an article that I wrote for\u00a0Richard C. Martin, et al., eds., \u00a0Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of \u201cMuslim Identity\u201d: \u00a0 The Mughal Empire Founded in 1526 and lasting until the mid-eighteenth century, the Mughal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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