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Akbar the Great

Emperor of the Mughal Empire, Founder of the Policy of Religious Tolerance and of Imperial Administration

Those Who First Drew the Borders on the Map · Founders of Civilizations

The Mughal EmpireThe Policy of Religious ToleranceThe Mansabdar System

Who they are

Akbar the Great (reigned 1556–1605) was the third emperor of the Indian Mughal Empire, who through a series of military conquests and marriage politics expanded the Mughal Empire to cover the vast region of northern and central India. As a ruler of the Islamic faith whose subjects were nonetheless overwhelmingly Hindu, he carried out an unprecedented policy of religious tolerance, abolishing the poll tax (jizya) levied on non-Muslims, marrying a Hindu Rajput princess, appointing Hindus to high court office, and even attempting to found a "Divine Faith" (Din-i-Ilahi) fusing elements of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity. The "mansabdar" system of military-civil ranks he established brought the officials and military commanders of the whole realm into a unified hierarchy of management, and this administrative structure thereafter long served as the institutional cornerstone of the Mughal Empire’s governance of a vast and religiously and culturally diverse territory.

Primary sourcesAbu’l-Fazl, AkbarnamaMughal court sources

Key stories

Abolishing the Poll Tax, Practicing Religious Tolerance

After his accession Akbar gradually abolished the "jizya" poll tax the earlier Islamic rulers had levied on non-Muslim subjects, allowed Hindus to hold high office and even military command in the imperial court, and himself married a Hindu Rajput princess; this strategy of governance transcending religious identity was exceedingly rare among the Islamic monarchs of the time, and was key to the Mughal Empire’s long, stable rule over a territory whose main population was Hindu.

The Attempt to Found a "Divine Faith"

In his later years Akbar attempted to fuse the core doctrinal elements of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Jainism into a new faith system called "Din-i-Ilahi" (Divine Faith), seeking thereby to transcend sectarian division and unite the cohesion of the different religious groups within the empire; though this attempt failed to continue after his death, it vividly embodied his strikingly forward-looking idea of religiously pluralist governance.

Relationships

Ally

🧭Ibn Battuta　The two, more than two hundred years apart, were both noted for promoting cultural exchange between the Islamic world and the South Asian subcontinent

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The "Divine Faith" (Din-i-Ilahi)Akbar’s late attempt to found a court religion fusing elements of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and others had very few followers and did not continue after his death, but is often cited in modern accounts as a representative case of a pre-modern monarch’s practice of religious tolerance.

Appears in

The Afterglow of the Old World and the Collision of the NewAkbar and the Religious Tolerance of the Mughal Empire

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