Akbar

1. Accession, consolidation and territorial expansion

Akbar inherited an insecure empire rather than an established all-India monarchy. Humayun had recovered Delhi in 1555 but died in January 1556. The thirteen-year-old Akbar was enthroned at Kalanaur under the guardianship of Bairam Khan. Meanwhile, Hemu, a commander serving the Sur successor Adil Shah, occupied Delhi. Mughal victory at the Second Battle of Panipat in November 1556 removed this immediate threat. Bairam Khan guided the early regime until Akbar dismissed him in 1560 and gradually asserted personal control.

Expansion combined military conquest with negotiated submission. Malwa was conquered in 1561. In 1564, Mughal forces attacked Garha-Katanga in central India, where Rani Durgavati died resisting them. Chittor fell in 1568 and Ranthambore in 1569. Gujarat was conquered in 1572–73, giving the empire access to important ports and commercial routes. The defeat of Daud Khan at Rajmahal in 1576 ended independent Afghan kingship in Bengal, although local resistance continued.

Later acquisitions included Kashmir in 1586, Sindh in 1591 and Kandahar in 1595. In the Deccan, the Mughals acquired Berar in 1596 and captured Ahmadnagar fort in 1600; the Nizam Shahi state nevertheless survived. Asirgarh fell in 1601, completing the conquest of Khandesh. Thus, Mughal expansion into the Deccan began under Akbar, not Aurangzeb.

2. Rajput policy and the imperial governing class

Akbar’s Rajput policy integrated influential warrior lineages into imperial service without requiring their conversion to Islam. In 1562, he married the daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber, later known by the title Mariam-uz-Zamani. Calling her Jodha Bai is historically problematic because this name is not securely established for her in contemporary Mughal sources. Marriage alliances supported political cooperation, but marriage was not a universal condition of submission.

Rajput rulers who accepted Mughal supremacy could retain considerable authority in their homelands while serving the emperor. Bhagwant Das and Man Singh of Amber became prominent imperial nobles. Their inclusion broadened a governing class already containing Turani, Irani and Indian Muslim elements. This was a political arrangement based on service and loyalty, not the disappearance of local identities or a modern system of equal citizenship.

Accommodation coexisted with coercion. Mewar resisted Mughal supremacy, and Maharana Pratap fought the imperial army led by Man Singh at Haldighati in 1576. The Mughals held the battlefield, but Pratap escaped and continued resistance, later recovering substantial territory. Mewar’s formal settlement with the Mughals occurred under Jahangir in 1615. Akbar’s reign therefore illustrates both negotiated incorporation and the violence of imperial conquest.

3. Administration, mansabdari and land revenue

Akbar developed a centralised monarchy supported by specialised offices. The diwan supervised revenue and financial administration, the mir bakhshi handled military personnel and mansabdars, and the sadr supervised religious grants and related affairs. In 1580, the empire was organised into twelve subas; their number subsequently increased. The main territorial hierarchy was suba, sarkar and pargana. Provincial governors and diwans had distinct responsibilities, limiting the concentration of military and financial power in one office.

The mansabdari system ranked imperial officers and connected status, remuneration and military obligations. In its developed form, zat indicated personal rank and helped determine personal pay, while sawar specified the cavalry obligation. Mansabdars could hold civil or military assignments; the system was not simply an army hierarchy. Dagh, the branding of horses, and descriptive rolls of soldiers were intended to reduce fraudulent musters. Many officers received revenue assignments called jagirs rather than cash salaries. A jagir was an assignment of revenue, not ownership of the soil; khalisa revenue went directly to the imperial treasury.

Revenue reforms associated especially with Raja Todar Mal refined measurement and assessment. Under zabt, cultivated land was measured and crop-specific rates helped determine demand. The dahsala arrangement, introduced around 1580, used average produce and prices over the preceding ten years to frame assessment rates. It did not mean that revenue was collected only once every ten years. These arrangements worked best in surveyed, stable cultivation zones and were not applied uniformly across the empire. Crop-sharing, estimation and other methods continued elsewhere.

Land was classified as polaj, regularly cultivated; parauti, temporarily fallow; chachar, left uncultivated for several years; and banjar, long uncultivated. These categories concerned cultivation history, not simply soil fertility. Zamindars remained important intermediaries with diverse local rights and claims.

4. Religious policy and imperial ideology

Akbar’s religious outlook evolved over his reign. The abolition of the pilgrimage tax in 1563 and jizya in 1564 reduced discriminatory fiscal burdens on non-Muslims. In 1575, he established the Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri for theological discussion. Initially associated with Muslim scholars, its debates later included representatives of other traditions, including Hindu, Jain, Christian and Zoroastrian participants. The first Jesuit mission from Portuguese Goa reached his court in 1580.

The mahzar of 1579 strengthened Akbar’s authority in disputes among religious jurists by recognising a qualified imperial role in choosing between conflicting interpretations. It should not be understood as an unrestricted declaration of divine infallibility. His broader ideal of sulh-i kul, or universal peace, sought governance above sectarian hostility. Abul Fazl provided its most influential intellectual formulation, linking just kingship with reason, harmony and impartial protection.

Around 1582, Akbar developed a small circle of spiritual discipleship, commonly described in textbooks as Din-i Ilahi and also associated with tauhid-i ilahi. It was not a mass religion with an organised priesthood, a separate scripture or widespread compulsory conversion. Birbal was among its adherents. Jain teachers such as Hiravijaya Suri influenced restrictions on animal slaughter on certain occasions. These measures reveal selective ethical borrowing, while Akbar’s continuing conquests caution against portraying his reign as uniformly non-violent or modernly secular.

5. Literature, art, architecture and historical sources

Although Akbar is generally regarded as having been unable to read and write conventionally, he was an active patron of learning and listened to texts being read aloud. His translation establishment, often called the Maktab Khana, made important Sanskrit works available in Persian. The Mahabharata became the Razmnama, and the Ramayana was also translated. Such projects widened access to Indian intellectual traditions while supporting an imperial culture expressed primarily through Persian.

Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama narrates dynastic history and the reign, while the Ain-i-Akbari records administrative regulations, revenue statistics and information about society. These are indispensable but court-sponsored sources that often idealise the emperor. Badauni’s Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh offers a more critical view, particularly of religious innovations. Reading them comparatively helps distinguish recorded events from ideological interpretation.

Mughal painting expanded through illustrated manuscripts such as the Hamzanama. Artists including Daswant and Basawan helped combine Persian conventions with Indian colour, landscape and narrative detail. In architecture, Akbar favoured red sandstone and combinations of arcuate construction with trabeate elements, brackets and carved pillars. Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri are major examples. Fatehpur Sikri served as an imperial centre from 1571 to 1585 and contains the Jama Masjid, Buland Darwaza, Diwan-i-Khas and Panch Mahal. Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra was completed under Jahangir.

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