Author: Dr. Harishchandra Shah
Publication:
Date:
A few Muslims, while acknowledging the 'isolate
instances' of suppression of Hindus by the 'handful Muslim tyrants' of the
medieval past like Ghouri, Ghaznavi, Nadir Shah, Aurangzeb, etc., express
no sorrow, remorse, regrets, apologies, etc., for their 'savagery and crimes
against humanity,' but, nevertheless proudly claim themselves along with over
140 million Indian Muslims to be the descendants of the great patriotic Indian!
-- Emperor Akbar (grandson of warlord Babur).
The minute information about virtually any
condition of India under 'Akbar the great' is found in the monumental works
of Abdul fazl's (courtier of Akbar) Ain-i-Akbari and Akbar-nama, and in Badauni's
(another courtier of Akbar) Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh. Babur Ghazi (holy muslim
warrior) Zahiruddin (defender of muslim faith), was on paternal side descendant
of the legendary warmonger Timur Tartar, and on maternal side the 'butcher'
Yunus Khan of Russia -- the 13th in the direct line of descent of the Savage
Mongolian Gengiz (Chingiz) Khan. On 16th March 1527, in the battle of Khanua,
defeating Rajput King Rana Sanga and his army of over 200,000 soldiers, Babur
erected an 'enormous pillar' of the severed heads of the massacred Hindus.
In the battle of Panipat, 5 November 1556,
Raja Hemchandra (Vikramaditya), when deceitfully captured was slain by general
Biram Khan in the presence of coward Akbar (crowned King, 14 years of age,
14th February 1556) -- who was guarded at an elevated hill by over 3000 horsemen;
Vikramaditya's head was sent to Kabul as trophy and his torso to Delhi to
be placed on a 'gibbet'. But, when muslim Sikandar Shah of Punjab was captured,
Akbar showered him generously and assigned him a 'fief' in Bihar!
Akbar owed his very throne to Biram Khan --
his guardian and an intelligent administrator -- who through strenuous efforts,
valor and political strategies was able to achieve the second conquest of
Hindustan. But, when Mahan Anaga -- the superintendent of Akbar's foster mothers
-- poisoned him against Khan, then he threatened to 'abolish Biram Khan from
earth' and ordered his banishment to Mecca, when enroute was tragically ambushed
and stabbed to death in Patan. Akbar even betrayed the person who was instrumental
in building his empire, and had the audacity to marry Biram Khan's widow,
Salma begum.
In 1561, when King of Sarangpur was defeated
and Rani Rupmati was captured by commander Adham Khan, "She bravely quaffed
the cup of deadly and carried her honor, rather than fall prey to Savage Mughals."
The invasion of Malwa was accompanied by general slaughter, and on the day
of the victory, the captives -- troops after troops of them -- were put to
death so that blood flowed river upon river. When Adham Khan intentionally
kept the 'choicest of the spoils' and 'the captured most beautiful women'
to himself, Akbar got infuriated and smashed Adham with his sword, made him
unconscious, shouting: batcha - i - lada (son-of-a-bitch); then, Adham was
bound, and numerously hauled 'up and down' headlong -- so that his neck was
broken and his brains destroyed. In 1564, he invaded Gond Kingdom of Rani
Durgavati, and in subsequent decisive campaigns in Malwa & Bihar, the
soldiers were slain and several chieftains trampled to death under Elephants.
When Rana Udai Singh refused to give Mewar
Princess to Akbar, the furious emperor attacked the fort of Chitor, treacherously
killed the generals Jail Mal & Patta, and ordered a general massacre in
the fort -- which ceased ultimately only for lack of victims. Over 30,000
Hindus, who had taken refuge in the fort were slaughtered, according to Abul
Fazl, and the looted sacred gold-threads of the butchered weighed over 200
Kgs. The 'slaughter', besides being vengeance, had the Mughal policy behind
it: The greater the resistance, the greater the retaliation was the Mughal
Rule, to strike terror in potential adversaries and cripple the Hindus' will
to fight back. When Udai Sing's son Rana Pratap refused to be a 'puppet vassal'
-- Akbar again invaded Mewar, inflicting terrible atrocities on the Mewaris.
The dual policy of his towards Rajputs -- high rewards to the submissive vassals
and 'relentless carnage' of those who opposed -- soon brought almost all Rajasthan
under his control. For the survival of the citizens, the Hindu kings were
forced to offer Princesses to the Mughal's Harem.
After Rajasthan, Akbar, from July 1572 until
October 1573, went on military invasion Gujarat -- alluringly prosperous and
the sea gate for 'pilgrims from the empire going to Mecca'. After pitiless
massacres, Akbar Erected a Tower of Severed Gujaratis' Heads, returned to
Sikri and to commemorate his victories (genocide of Gujarat), he renamed Sikri
as Fatehpur Sikri (city of victory), and constructed the monumental 'Buland
Darwaza', the majestic gateway of Jama Masjid. He then sent Raja Todar Mal
to Gujarat to organize its revenue administration, and soon Gujarat was yielding
more than Five Million Rupees annually to emperor's treasury -- after expenses
-- since October 1573. With an army of over 80,000 Akbar (59 years of age)
attacked Deccan, winning the invasion, and now with the annexations of Punjab,
Kashmir, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Sind, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra,
etc., his empire extended in the North into Kashmir, in the West to Helmand
River in Afghanistan, and in the East to the valley of Brahmaputra River.
Neither a gentle person nor an angel, Akbar
was a driven-possessed man! Although he enjoyed a considerable reputation
as a 'savant,' he was an absolute illiterate, barely able to sign his name,
and hired people to 'read & write' for him -- according to Jesuit Monserrate.
Though a killer of Hindus, Akbar only preferred water from 'The Holy Ganga'
-- the water of immortality, he called It, and arranged to procure Ganga Water
even when he traveled to far-off places. His psychic circuitry was complex,
and often responded to pulses of influence unpredictably, sometimes ludicrously.
Possibly, he had a genetic predisposition towards psychic disturbances --
as there was a strain of eccentricity, even a touch of madness, in his Mother's
family -- his maternal uncle, Khwaja Muzzam was subject to 'violent mood swings'
and had died 'insane', as per Badauni.
From early youth, Akbar had ravenous appetites
-- for adventures, for conquests, for sex, for food, and only his appetite
for conquests remained unabated till his end. As a young man, Akbar was a
'sexual predator', married early, (at 15, took 1st wife Ruqaiya) and, often.
Abdul Fazl lists 7 wives of Akbar through formal 'nikah-marriages' - 3 in
excess of the liberal 4 permitted by Islam. In addition, he had innumerable
illegal wives by informal 'mutah-marriages'. Thus, in his harem, he had several
wives and over 3 Hundred Concubines from many races and different religions.
But, later as an 'arbiter of Islam', when his 'marital excesses' became an
embarrassment, "The Ulema legitimized his illegitimate marriages"
and the compliant mullahs obligingly interpreted that, "Especially only
for Akbar Four Wives could mean Nine or even Eighteen; the Ulema further drew
the distinction between nikah wives and mutah wives, and concluded that --
a muslim man may take as many mutah wives as he so desired!"
Even though a much married man in 1564, at
age of 52, because of insatiable sexual appetite, Akbar would send 'panders
& eunuchs' into the harems of Nobles to procure women for him. Sheikh
Abdul Wasi was forced to divorce his "wonderfully beautiful and altogether
a charming wife without peer" and had to send her to the imperial harem,
for it was the Mughal Custom that "if the emperor cast his lust on any
women", the husband had no choice but to "divorce her and surrender
her over to the emperor (Akbar). Akbar's raids into the households of citizens
caused considerable resentment, says Badauni, and "a great terror fell
upon the city". When in 1571, as a guest in the hermitage of Sheikh Salim
Chisti at Sikri, Akbar roamed into the private rooms, the Sheikh's sons and
nephews had complained "Our wives are becoming estranged from us",
then the worldly-wise Sheikh had to caution and advise them, "There is
no dearth of women in the world! Seek other wives, what does it matter? (He
is the emperor!). On the contrary, Akbar had double standards for his subjects,
and had a specified designated space, outside Fatehpur Sikri, called Shaitanpurrah
(Devilsville), where 'streetwalkers' were confined and the 'patrons' had to
seek special permission of the emperor's government -- the Quarter being administered
by a keeper, a Deputy, and a Secretary -- and when all pertinent requirements
were met, then only special permission was granted to the 'patrons'!
According to laurence Binyon, a modern biographer
of the emperor, "Akbar was possessed with the fever of the hunt, whether
of beasts or of men!; and, all he enjoyed most in sport was hunting, which
was a substitute -- and sometimes a warm up -- for battles. He would invariably
open his military campaign with a hunt, and in 1567 he arranged a battue hunt
near Lahore, in which over 50,000 beaters labored for over a month to "drive
all the game into the slaughter arena of 16 KM circumference." For 5
days, Akbar hunted there, using every conceivable weapon -- sword, lance,
musket, arrows, even the lasso -- slaughtering a prodigious number of animals.
Akbar was a ruthless, medieval warlord, driven
by "earth hunger & blood thirst", engaged in incessant wars
in order to ever widen the frontiers of his empire. He enjoyed wars, as he
enjoyed hunting, a perilous sport and often personally led the charges against
the heathens, as no other Mughal ruler, not even Babur, had done in India.
In 1583, at the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers, he founded
the citadel, and named it Allahabad, city of Allah! He prided himself in being
a just ruler, and said: "Tyranny is unlawful in everyone, especially
in a Sovereign -- who is the guardian of the world; We During the Time of
Our Rule Have Not Hurt Even An Ant." But contrarily, Akbar had himself
handed out 'savage-punishments' even for trivial offenses.
Akbar always maintained: A Monarch should
be ever intent on conquest; the army should always be exercised in warfare,
lest from want of training, they become 'self-indulgent'. As pretexts rather
than genuine reasons for his aggressions, Akbar wrote to Abdullah Khan Uzbeg,
a Central Asian Monarch Warlord, that, "My conquests did not proceed
from self-will and self-indulgence; we had no object except "to be kind
to mortals (muslims!)" and "to obliterate the oppressors (Hindus!);
and, he further wrote: "Places which from the time of the Rise of the
Sun of Islam till the Present Day had not been trodden by the horse hoofs
of the World Conquering Princes ... ... have become the Dwelling-places and
Homes of the (muslim!) faithfuls."
As exaction of jizya tremendous Tax imposed
on Hindus -- was made a Theocratic obligation of the Muslim State, Akbar had
had continued the unbearable "Hindu -Tax", thus leaving no choice
for "majority of Hindus to indirectly convert to Islam, besides the "forceful
conversions". Recorded and Oral History as well as 'authentic historicity'
should never be distorted, and since, as historians also have emphatically
proven Akbar -- through his invasions, aggressions, massacres, savagery, genocidal
progroms of Hindus, etc., -- to be equal or even greater than Hitler, Mussolini,
Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, the Golden Mongol Hordes, etc., it ought to be
"coherently wise and prudent" for conscientious people to refrain
from subscribing to the idiosyncratic ideology that Mughal Emperor Akbar was
Humane-Great-Compassionate-Benevolent-Just Akbar !!??
