Aurangzeb's Religious Policies : A Religious Orthodox or a fanatic Bigot

BY : Mohammed Ameen Arimbra

Introduction
Muhiuddin Muhammed Aurangzeb is one among the most debated rulers in the Indian History. No
one is more controversial than the last great ruler of Mughal empire Aurangzeb as he is portrayed as
a religious fanatic, a Muslim fundamentalist, a ruthless tyrant and a bigot. In Indian history, Akbar
and Aurangzeb are generally described as the hero and villain of the Mughal period. Whenever one
thinks of Aurangzeb, the first important thing which comes to our mind is that of an orthodox
fanatic because that is how we were taught. But is it justified in doing so? To answer or attempt
these questions, it is important to dwell on Aurangzeb and his attitude towards Islam. Historians
have taken two sides while writing about Aurangzeb, some were keen to represent him as a fanatic
and others whom represent him as a liberal or non fanatic ruler. So lets try to understand if he was
actually a biased ruler or is it the biased historians as a part of their hidden agenda interpreted him
as a biased fanatic ruler. To understand this, lets try to analyse his rule by looking at various factors
like the functional environment of state as he ascended the throne, his religious policies and his
approach towards the non Muslims from the sources available. Lets begin with looking at the
various scenarios and events that lead Aurangzeb to the throne of Mughal empire. He ascended the
throne after a war of succession with his elder brother Dara Shikoh who was supposed to be the
ruler as per the Mughal tradition. In the battle of Samugarh both the forces of Dara and Aurangzeb
fought in which Aurangzeb came victorious. Even though Dara was considered to be a liberal and
Aurangzeb, a face of orthodoxy, this battle cannot be seen as a battle of religious orthodoxy and
liberal idea because Hindu(rajputs) and Muslim Rajas were equally placed on both sides. After the
victory, Aurangzeb marched towards Delhi with ailing father Shajahan in the throne, he was forced
to surrender and was send to house arrest. But as some sources suggest he was never ill treated, he
lived 8 years lovingly nursed by one of his daughter Jahanara confined to the female apartments in
fort. This marked the beginning of the most controversial rule in the Mughal history.

Aurangzeb then ruled for 49 years from 1658 to 1707 with the Mughal empire reaching its zenith
and territorial climax during his period, stretching from Kashmir in the north to Jinji in the south,
and from the Chittagong in the east to the Hindukush ranges in the west. His rule was strongly
marked by highly personalized approach and he followed an expansionist policy to expand the
Mughal empire to the east, north east and the deccan. When Aurangzeb ascended the throne in
1658, the state was already getting incorporated into the colonial era, with various areas getting
stagnated and it was also a period of various other powers raising with Sikhs and Maratha's coming
into the picture. The royal treasury was also drained due to massive flow of wealth allotted for the
construction of Tajmahal by his father Shahjahan. It was also a period in which many important
cultural religious revivalist movements were gaining ground in India. Now analysing more about
Aurangzeb's religious policies as a ruler, his religious policies can be divided mainly into two broad
phases, the first lasting up to 1679, and the second from 1679 to his death in 1707.
The First Phase- 1658 to 1679
The first phase begins from the year of his succession in 1658 to 1679 spanning over a period of
twenty one years. Shortly after his accession, a number of religious and moral regulations were
issued by Aurangzeb. This includes banning of sijda or prostration before the king something which
the clerics had maintained was reserved for God. But these actions could not be described as
puritanical because according to Islamic belief sijda should be only done in front of the almighty.
There were officers called Muhtasibs appointed in every province and their duty was to keep a
check if people lived according to sharia. Thus it was the duty of these officials to check the
consumption of wine and intoxicants such as bhang in public places. They also had the
responsibility to regulate the houses of ill repute, gambling centres and for checking weights and
measures. Therefore in some way, they were responsible for keeping a check on the forbidden
substances banned by the sharia and the zawabits (secular decrees) , and not to be defied openly in
public spaces. However if we have to believe the sources written by the Italian traveller, Manucci,
who lived in India during the Mughals, he has stated that all these regulations were openly flouted.
In case of appointing Muhtasibs, Aurangzeb also emphasized on the fact that the state was also
responsible in some way to maintain the moral welfare of its citizens. But the officials were strictly
instructed not to intervene in the private lives of citizens. In 1669, in the 11 th year of his reign,
Aurangzeb issued a number of measures which have been called puritanical, but many of which
were actually of social and economic character, or against superstitious beliefs. He is said to have
forbidden singing in the court, with most of the court musicians being pensioned off but
Naubat(Royal band) and instrumental music were allowed to be continued in the court. Singing also
continued to be patronised by individual nobles and the ladies inside the Haram. In this context, it is
also important to note that the largest number of Persian works based on classical Indian music
were written during Aurangzeb's reign, and moreover Aurangzeb himself was an expert in playing
the Veena. During this period he also discontinued the practice of Jharoka darshana which means
showing himself to the public from the balcony, since Aurangzeb considered it to be a superstitious
practice. Similarly, he also banned the ceremony of weighing the emperor against gold and silver
and other goods on his birthdays. Many regulations of related nature, some of a moralistic character
and some to create a kind of austerity, and some to ban practices which was considered to be against
the Islamic beliefs, were issued. Other orders which he issued were that the courtiers were
forbidden from wearing silk gowns, or gowns which had a mixture of silver and cotton. The
expense of furnishing the throne room was asked to be reduced and was therefore furnished in a
cheap and inexpensive manner, clerks were asked to use porcelain ink stands instead of the silver
stands, the gold railings in the Diwani-am were asked to be replaced by those of lapis lazuli set on
the gold railings. Even the official department of history writing was discontinued as a measure of
limiting economic loss. Although some of these measures display a puritanical frame of mind, most
of mentioned above regulations were either personal or related to his royal court as he was not a
supporter of the lavish royal lifestyle. These measures were prompted, as a part of a financial crisis
which Aurangzeb faced around this time. Following the economic loss caused by the civil war, for a
succession of years after 1660, there was meagre rainfall which resulted in crop failure in most of
the provinces. According to the Maasir-i-Alamgiri, which can be considered as a semi-official
history of Aurangzeb, in the 13th year of his reign, it was reported that expenses had surpassed
income during the preceding twelve years. Therefore some of the measures of economy followed by
Aurangzeb were therefore "the retrenchment of many items in the expenditure of the Emperor, the
princes and the Begums" (Chandra,2005). Similarly in the year 1671 he ordered that Karoris of all
crown lands should be compulsively Muslims and also the governors and local officials were
ordered to dismiss their Diwans( accountants) and peshkars(clerks) and replace them by Muslims.
But this decision lead to a massive uproar among the nobles, because they pointed out that there
were not many competent Muslims. According to the famous historian Khafi Khan, the measure
was therefore withdrawn, and this fact remains unnoticed by most of our historians
The controversial Temple destruction and Imposition of Jiziyah
Two famous measures introduced by Aurangzeb which can be termed as discriminatory and which
shows a sense of bigotry towards non-Muslims are destruction of temples, and reintroduction of the
Jiziyah tax. These two allegations are to be the reason why he was framed as a fanatic and
puritanical ruler by the historians. In the initial years of his reign, Aurangzeb reiterated the view of
Sharia regarding temples, churches and synagogues that “ long standing temple should not be
demolished but no new temples were allowed to be built”(Chandra,2005). This is clear from the
sources which shows that he issuing a number extant farmans ( Royal orders) to the brahmanas of
Banaras and Vrindavan. Aurangzeb's order concerning the temples was not a new one. It reaffirmed
the position which prevailed during the Sultanate period and which had been repeated by Shah
Jahan early during his reign. But in practice, the interpretation of the words "long standing", left
wide latitude to the local officials . In 1665, a number of temples in Gujrat which included the
famous Somnath temple, which Aurangzeb as a prince of Gujrat had destroyed, but which was
rebuilt in the interval, were to be demolished. Finally, there is no exact reason to believe that later
Aurangzeb departed from this policy of limited tolerance, going against the sharia law and ordered a
general destruction of temples. No such orders of destruction have been discovered, nor there is any
reference of them in Aurangzeb's letters or the Akhbarat. And reference to such destruction can be
only found in Maasir-i-Alamgiri, which was written after Aurangzeb's death. Moreover, a lot of old
Hindu temples still exist, and there is also written evidences of Aurangzeb renewal of land grants to
famous Hindu temples at Mathura and also of him offering gift to them such as to the Sikh
gurudwara at dehradun, yogis in Pargana Didwana, Sarkar Nagor. Another evidence which suggest
Aurangzeb not to be a fanatic as he was portrayed is that, stone inscription at the historic Balaji or
Vishnu Temple, located north of Chitrakut Balaghat, still shows that it was commissioned by the
Emperor himself. Another evidence of Aurangzeb’s land grant for famous Hindu religious sites such
as the temple in Varanasi can easily be verified from the deed records extant at those sites
However, in later period, Aurangzeb followed a policy of selective destruction or bricking up of
Hindu temples, and this was done either as a warning to local Hindu rajas or as a reprisal for
rebelliousness. Therefore some of the famous temples of Vrindavan, Mathura and Thatta were
destroyed as a part of their policy. This reached its climax when in 1679, following the death of
Maharaja Jaswant Singh, and resistance on the part of Rathors as a protest against bringing Marwar
under Mughal administration pending a decision of succession conflict, a number of old standing
temples in the area were destroyed. Unbiased views on Aurangzeb also suggest that destruction of
temples were also followed by the demolition of mosques. However, when the Mughals attacked
the Maratha territory and over-ran through south India upto Jinji after 1687, the temples in these
areas were left undisturbed except in few isolated cases and many of them were listed in the
memoirs of Bhimsen. Therefore its clear that his so called religious fanaticism or bigotry was
implemented due to a number of political factors and mainly the transformation of Sikhs, Marathas
and Deccani kingdoms into powerful entities which posed a serious threat towards the Mughal
empire. Therefore we can assume that he was not against the religion Hinduism but against the
persons belonging to religion who posed a serious threat to the stability of the Mughal Empire.
Another serious allegation against Aurangzeb's reign was the reintroduction of the Jiziyah or poll
tax which was once stopped by Akbar. It should be remembered that Aurangzeb had come to the
throne in 1658 AD with the support of the Ulemas and as an effect of the political movement
started by a group called Mujaddad-i-Alfi-i-thani that worked for the restoration of orthodox Islam.
Therefore soon after ascending the throne a major problem faced by Aurangzeb was the question of
jizyah. Orthodox clerical opinion had been pushing forwards for its reimposition on the ground that
it was wajib (compulsory) according to the sharia, and also because they felt that jizyah was a
means of asserting the superior status of the theologians and Islam, and emphasising the
dependence and the inferior position of the non-Muslims in an essentially Islamic state. But it was
postponed due to certain political exigencies and was later reintroduced twenty-two years after
Aurangzeb's accession to the throne which is a clear indication that its institution was on account of
'political considerations', and not "to promote the faith and to promote the laws of the sharia". It
should also be taken into consideration that zakat(2.5% of their total savings) and‘ushr(10% of the
agricultural products) were collected from all Muslims, who owned some wealth (beyond a certain
minimum, called the nisab. They also had to pay sadaqah,fitrah, and khums. None of these taxes
were collected from any non-Muslim. According to some English sources and the Italian, Manucci,
Aurangzeb was driven by the need to replenish his treasury, which had been exhausted by constant
wars and expansionist policy, and to compel the poorer Hindus to convert to Islam. Some of the
modern historians justified the imposition of Jaziyah by stating that it was sanctioned by sharia
since he had abolished various taxes which were considered illegal. However, it should be noted
that apart from women, the insane and those in government service who were excused, jizyah was
not collected from the indigent who are defined as one who owned no property, and whose income
from labour did not go beyond his and his family's necessities. In other words, jizyah can be
described as a property tax, not an income tax. The incidence of the tax was light on rich, but it was
burdensome for the poor hindus to pay the tax. The tax collection was administered by Qazis, and it
provided them immense opportunity to amass wealth. Insistence on its personal collection in the
towns was found harassing, specially by the merchants. In a number of Urban centres, there was a
mass protest against this way of collection of Jiziyah and this was severly criticised. However,
though discriminatory, imposition of jiziyah cant be said that it was designed to force non muslims
to convert to Islam. Nor did it fundamenttaly alter the character of the state. Aurangzeb's main idea
behind this reintroduction was politically motivated as he wanted the Ulema's or orthodox
theologian’s support during a political crisis and expected to rally Muslim opinion behind him,
especially in the context of a likely contest with the Deccani Muslim states, but this remained
unfulfilled. Jiziyah was not to the liking of many nobles who repeatedly forwarded requests for
temporary remission, much to the annoyance of Aurangzeb. Finally, Aurangzeb was forced to
Suspend Jiziyah in Deccan,'on account of war and famine in the area' in 1705. Finally in
1712,Jizyah was formally abolished at the instance of Asad Khan and Zulfiqar Khan, two of the
leading nobles of Aurangzeb.
The Second Phase : 1679-1707
Modern Historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar in his biography of Aurangzeb, stated his opinion that
"Neither age nor experience of life softened Aurangzeb's bigotry." However, recent research has
taught us to modify this opinion. Although Aurangzeb tried as far as possible to please the orthodox
clerical elements in his court, even he could not agree completly to some "orthodox" agenda put
forward by theologian like Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi. He refused to remove the Hindu rajas and others
out of the service of the state, making it clear on a petition "What connection does religion have
with worldly affairs"? And what right have matters of religion to enter into bigotry? For you is your
religion, for me is mine. If this rule (suggested by you) were established it would be my duty to
extirpate all (Hindu) rajas and their followers."(Chandra, 2005) In fact, the number of Hindus in the
imperial service increased, both in absolute numbers and proportionately at all levels during the
second half of his reign, as we shall note. And although Aurangzeb considered it lawful to
encourage conversion to Islam, there has been no evidence of systematic or large-scale attempts,
nor were Hindu nobles discriminated against. Another intresting data which Athar Ali's study show
us is that the number of Hindus in the nobility during the second half of Aurangzeb's reign almost
doubled with the Hindus, including Marathas, forming about one-third of the nobility. Aurangzeb
installed a large numbers of Marathas into the service during the second phase of his rule, Of the 96
Marathas who held ranks of 1000 zat and above between 1679 and 1707,16 held ranks of 5000 and
above, 18 held ranks between 3000 and 4000, and 62 from 1000 to 2700, thus for surpassing the
Rajputs(Chandra,2005). However, they were not given important commands or posts, or treated as
integral parts of the imperial service. Therefore, these figures of Hindus and Non Muslims in the
court of a so called puritanical and fanatic ruler is actually surprising .
Another change in Aurangzeb's policy during the second phase is that after the conquest of Bijapur
and Golconda, Aurangzeb was faced with the task of gaining victory over the powerful rajas,
nayaks and deshmukhs of south India mainly of Telengana and Karnataka. This led to change of his
policy of destroying even long standing temples as a method to counter the growing political
opposition. Thus, a Hindu subject of Aurangzeb, Bhimsen, noted in his memoir that "The temples
in Bijapur and Hyderabadi Karnataka are beyond numbering, and each temple is like the fort of
Parenda and Sholapur. In the whole world nowhere else are there so many temples"
(Chandra,2005). Many of the famous temples are specifically named and described in detail by
Bhimsen in his memoir. He goes on to say that, "From the neighbourhood of Adoni and Kanchi and
the kingdom of Jinji and the ocean, there is not a village in which there is no temple, large or
small". But still these destructions are clearly to be seen as politically motivated and was not as a
result of an anti Hindu sentiment but to overcome some of the powerful Hindu kings.
Conclusion
Historians are deeply divided when it comes to Aurangzeb's reign and his religious policies.
According to some, he is known to have turned Akbar's policy of religious toleration and thus
weakening the loyalty of the hindus towards Mughals in turn, leading to communal uproars and
uprisings which eroded the vitality of the empire. But on the other side, some modern historians are
of the opinion that Aurangzeb has been falsely accused, and that the Hindu Maharajas and Diwans
had become disloyal and too powerful due to the slackness of Aurangzeb's predecessors, so that
Aurangzeb as a ruler of an empire had no other way but to go on with harsh methods and to try to
gather the Muslim support on whom, he believed the long run of the empire remained. Recent
writings on Aurangzeb and his reign, there have been efforts made to evaluate Aurangzeb's political
and religious policies in the circumstance of economic, social and institutional developments during
his reign. Based on these researches, there is little doubt about him being orthodox in his beliefs. He
was not a person who was interested in philosophical debates or in mysticism though he
occasionally visited Sufi saints for their blessings, but It would be unfair to see Aurangzeb's
religious policy in a rigid framework, considering his personal religious beliefs. As a ruler,
Aurangzeb had to deal with a lot of political uprisings, economic, social and administrative
problems. Therefore, there is no doubt in Aurangzeb's religious orthodoxy but it would be not right
to depict him as a religious fanatic or a puritanical or as a bigot without considering the political,
economic and social problems and crisis during his reign.

REFERENCES

Chandra,Satish(2005). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals.2. Har-Anand Publications.

pp.267–269.ISBN 9788124110669. Retrieved 29 September2012.
Chandra, Satish(2005) Essays on Medieval Indian History. Oxford India Paperback pp 485-488
Sadiq Ali (1918), A Vindication of Aurangzeb: In Two Parts, p.
Athar Ali, M. (2006).Mughal India: Studies in polity, ideas, society, and culture. New Delhi ; New
York: Oxford University Press
Sarkar, Jadunath (1912).History of Aurangzib. M. C. Sarkar & Sons. Retrieved 31 August2015.