AKBAR. - Sultan of India, third of the Moghul dynasty. He was the son of Humājūn, and grandson of Bāber, the founder of the dynasty. Born at Umarkot in Sind on 15 Oct. 1542, he ascended the throne in 1556, and died at Agra, which he had chosen as his capital in place of Delhi, on 1 Oct. 1605, leaving the throne to his son Selim (Jahāngīr). A.'s personal name (which is nothing but an honorific surname, or reign name) was Abū 'l-Fatḥ Galāl ad-dīn.
His father Humājūn had only just begun the reconquest of his states, of which the usurper Šer Šāh had stripped him, when he came to die: the youthful son, with the help of valiant generals, knew how to bring to a successful conclusion the reconquest of his ancestral domains, so that his kingdom comprised, besides Hindustan properly so called, eastern Afghanistan, Bengal, Kashmir, and a great part of the Deccan, thus reaching the most extensive frontiers that the Moghul empire ever had. But A.'s policy, once his state had been restored, was not directed toward violent conquests, but rather toward wise works of peace. His organization of the administration, and in particular of the finances, with the abolition of the canonical tax weighing upon non-Muslims (gizyah), and the equalization of all subjects, without distinction of caste or faith, in fiscal obligations, is but one of the most conspicuous external aspects of a policy of tolerance and breadth of view, for which A.'s name is famous. It is founded upon the full equalization of Hindus and Muslims (while the dynasty and the ruling class of the state were Muslim), and culminates in A.'s attempt to fuse all revealed religions, and concretely Islam, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, the three religions to which the majority of his subjects belonged, into a single vague and pure non-confessional monotheism (taẓhīd-i ilāhī).
According to this conception, the one God, whose concept was stripped of every dogmatic specification and every cultic ceremonial, was adored and served in purity and simplicity of life, inculcated as the supreme duties of man; and only as a concession to human weakness and its need for symbols were the sun and fire accepted as images of the divinity. This theism seems to have had no followers other than A.'s immediate circle, and never to have penetrated into large masses of the people. At A.'s death, moreover, his son Jahāngīr returned personally as well to Muslim orthodoxy; but the noble syncretistic attempt of the Moghul emperor remains always one of the most singular phenomena of the history of Islam and of Eastern religiosity. Interest in this lofty and original figure of a sovereign, patron and promoter of culture, who lived in a court circle permeated with science and poetry (his prime minister, and court historiographer, was the celebrated Persian man of letters Abū 'l-Faḍl 'Allāmī), is further stimulated by the curious fact that A. remained personally illiterate throughout his life.
With regard to his attitude toward Christianity, one should note the good reception he gave to the Catholic missions of Franciscans and Jesuits, just as in general he showed himself favorable to Europeans, and inclined to establish regular relations with the Christian powers of the West.
Bibliography3 works
Kathol. Missionen, Freiburg im Br. 1920-1921, p. 201 ff.; The Commentary of Father Monserrate on his journey to the Court of A., edition by J. S. Hoyland and S. N. Banerjee, Calcutta 1922; E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul, London 1932; Pastor, XI, pp. 737-41.
Francesco Gabrieli