Labour During Mughal India - Rosalind O Hanlon

Kingdom, Household and Body History, Gender and Imperial Service under Akbar
Author(s): Rosalind O'Hanlon

Source: Modern Asian Studies , Sep., 2007, Vol. 41, No. 5 (Sep., 2007), pp. 889-923
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4499806
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Modern Asian Studies 41, 5 (2007) pp. 889-923. ? 2007 Cambridge University Press
doi: 10.101 7/S0026749X06002654 First published online 11 January 2007
Kingdom, Household and Body

History, Gender and Imperial Service
under Akbar
ROSALIND O'HANLON
University of Cambridge
I. Introduction
The history of composite religious cultures in India has ove

decades attracted much more consistent attention than the
of syncretic political and intellectual cultures. During the 19
1980s, when the study of pre-colonial India drew greater numb
scholars than has been the case more recently, a number of his
of the Mughal north concerned themselves with the means b
Akbar and his political allies were able to draw into imperial ser
very disparate range of ethnic groups-Irani, Turani, Afghan
Indian Muslim, high-caste Hindu scribalists-and to gener
them a new corporate and inclusivist ideology of service to empe
state.1 John Richards has described how a powerful dynastic id
formulated by Akbar's close friend and servant Abu'l Fazl
monumental history of the empire the Akbar-Nama, and given d
public expression in the ceremonial of the imperial court, g
Akbar as the living embodiment of the Empire itself, and focus
direct personal devotion of the imperial nobility.2 Stephen B
I am very grateful to Muzaffar Alam, Chris Bayly, Sunil Kumar

Subrahmanyam, and David Washbrook for their constructive criticisms of t
All errors are, of course, my own.
1 There is a very large literature on the construction of Mughal imperial po
an overview, see Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds), The Mu
1526-1750, Delhi: Oxford University Press 1998. See also Catherine B. A
Cynthia Talbot, India Before Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre
2 John Richards, 'The formulation of imperial authority under Akbar and
in John F. Richards (ed.), Kingship andAuthority in South Asia, Madison 1978;
Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officers' in Barbara Daly Metcalf (ed
Conduct and Authority: The Place ofAdab in South Asian Islam, University of C
Press 1984.
889

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890 ROSALIND O'HANLON
drawn out the importance of patrimonial themes in
which Akbar and his successors devised to maintain the sense of
a personal familial bond between the emperor and his servants.
Historians of Mughal administration such as M. Athar Ali h
explored the ways in which the systematisation of mansab grants an
appointments to offices under Akbar provided a common framework
within which imperial servants from different backgrounds could se
advancement.4 With a different emphasis again, Mughal art historian
have drawn attention to Akbar's intense interest in the power of im
ages as a means of communicating new understandings of the nat
of kingship and its place in the natural and social worlds, particularl
through the dazzling illustrations for the Akbar-Ndma produced
Akbar's imperial atelier.5 S.A.A. Rizvi and Peter Hardy have focus
on the role of Abu'l Fazl in helping to project, through the mass
illuminated history of his Akbar-Ndma, a new and more inclusive sty
of rulership for Akbar, which drew on sufi and medieval ishraqi theor
of the divine illumination of kingship.6 This presented Akbar as insa
kdmil, 'the perfect man', whose inner virtues ofjustice, self-control
renunciation of worldly attachments enabled him to attain the divin
blessing ofsulh-i kull, an attitude of universal concord and toleration
Much more recently, and in something of a revival of interest
the longer term history of composite intellectual cultures in Ind
Muzaffar Alam and Christopher Bayly have noted the importan
role of Greek and Persian influenced ethical digests in early mod
north India. These offered a source of norms and values particula
appropriate to a political culture where the need was to build harmon
and cohesion within a very diverse body of imperial servants.8 Su
See Stephen P. Blake, Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-17
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991, and 'The Patrimonial-Bureaucra
Empire of the Mughals' in Hermann Kulke (ed.), The State in India, Delhi: Oxf
University Press 1995.
4 M. Athar Ali, The Apparatus ofEmpire: Awards ofRanks, Offices and Titles to the Mug
Nobility 1574-1658, Delhi: Oxford University Press 1985.
5 Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, Akbar's India: Artfrom the Mughal City of Victor
New York 1985, and Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image. Paintings for the Mug
Court, Freer Gallery of Art: Washington, DC, 1981.
6 S.A.A. Rizvi, Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in Akbar's Reign, N
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 1975; Peter Hardy, 'Abul Fazl's Portrait of the Perfe
Padshah', in Christian Troll (ed.), Islam in India: Studies and Commentaries. vol ii: Relig
and Religious Education, Delhi 1985.
7 Abu'l Fazl, Akbar-Nama, edited by Agha Ahmad Ali and Abdur Rahim, Calcu
Bibliotheca Indica, 1873-1887.
8 Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam. India Iz2oo-180oo, Hurst
Company, London 200oo4. For the longer term significance ofakhliiqT thought on Ind

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KINGDOM, HOUSEHOLD AND BODY 891
ethical digests offered practical and moral advice on acquiring virtu
and avoiding vice, based on a complex understanding of what was
innate disposition or akhlaq, what could be acquired through the
practice of virtue, and the role in this process of self-developmen
of the faculty of reflection and judgement. Central to their vision
was the harmonising figure of a philosopher-king, whose virtuou
government would help bind together all the different classes of
subjects in their quest for wisdom.9 As Bayly has suggested, thes
ethical treatises understood the science of good government to b
an embodied rather than an abstract science. In keeping with much
wider trends in ethical and philosophical thought in the medieval
IndoMuslim world, they presented the individual, the household an
the kingdom as microcosms of each other in a universe of similitudes,
each realm being similarly composed of constituent members, each
with its own nature, wherein the noblest elements ruled over an
regulated the others, and each realm depended for its well being
on the proper balance between members so established. Humoural
theories of bodily health extended to the wellbeing of the kingdom
and the role of the king as its chief physician, whose task was to brin
about equilibrium and harmony between its constituent members
each according to their natures. These natures corresponded to each of
the four elements. Warriors were fiery by nature, scholars phlegmatic
and watery; merchants were like air, in that they were essential t
the maintenance of daily life, and peasants corresponded to the earth.
Evil followed when one or other of these humours grew to dominat
the others such as to destroy the equilibrium of the body politic, and
the real mark of kingship lay in the ability to recognise and treat
this sickness. In their Persian language form, these digests, and th
internal dialogues with aspects of medieval Islamic thought that the
contained, came to figure largely in the lists of reading recommended
to imperial servants at the Mughal court. The Akhlaq-i Nisiri of Nasir
ud-din Tfisi (1201-1274) was the earliest and best known of th
Persian works, and generated a large number of later versions an
recensions.10
political ethics, see C.A. Bayly, Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethic
Government in the Making of Modern India, Delhi: Oxford University Press 1998, 13-17
9 For the history of akhlaqf literature, seeJ.H. Kramers et al (eds.), The Encyclopaedi
of Islam, Leiden 1954-, vol. i, 325-9-
10 Muzaffar Alam, The Languages ofPoliticallslam, 46-80. For these themes in Tuisi
work, see 228-30.

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These approaches have offered a range of insights int
qualities of Mughal political culture. The purpose of
suggest that the perspectives of gender and the bod
much to offer in this field. Contemporary histories
information about the sexual disciplining of imperial s
tions concerning marriage, norms for male bodily c
ceremonial purification and conflicts over the acceptab
sexual love. This is particularly the case in the work
philosopher-historian Abu'l Fazl, whose writing has
cessive generations of Mughal historiography, a remar
to the skill of its author in projecting imperial im
realities." These references, which have often been s
to the 'serious' political history of these contempo
carried an important political purpose of their own
importance both in the formation of imperial ser
projection of the Emperor himself as a divinely aided
man'. Although there were important precedents for m
regulation of this kind, both in the Timurid cultural i
recorded in histories of the Delhi Sultanate, these M
were novel. Akbar and his coterie of reformers, I wan
on a careful selection of akhlaqi themes to construct a
model of masculine virtue which transcended law an
and region. This model emphasised both the natura
the male body, and the possibilities for moral and hum
all three of the homologous worlds that men inhabi
the individual body, the household and the kingdom.
Combined with some key borrowings from sufi and
textual traditions, these themes were politically im
different ways. First, they helped establish a moral
imperial service and for Akbar's own authority th
to depend on religious sanction by Sunni orthodox
Second, they provided a powerful means of cemen
imperial service that was not only ideological in nature
physical in very immediate ways. By this appropriatio
range of norms for ideal manhood, Akbar and the
" The literature on Abu'l Fazl as a historian is large, but of

addition to Rizvi, see N. Siddiqi, 'Shaikh Abul Fazl' in M. Hasa
Medieval India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press 1968; Harban
andHistoriography during the Reign ofAkbar, New Delhi: Vikas 1976
the History and Historians ofMedieval India, New Delhi: Oxford Uni

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were able to present imperial service as the best-indeed the only-
medium for their realisation. Only through imperial service could a
man fully develop his highest virtues as a man. At the same time, this
attractive model of elite male virtue magnified men's own authority
and emphasised their rights to obedience within their own households
and domains. Third, these invocations of male bodily purity and of
men's rightful authority as virtuous husbands and rulers of households
may have had a wider and more deliberately political intent. In Abu'l
Fazl's history, such models of patriarchal and heterosexual male
virtue were strongly contrasted with the sexual transgression and
unrestrained lust of northern Turanians and of the southern, Iranian-
influenced courts of the Deccan. Thus constructions of male sexuality
were used to create a local and 'naturalistic' cultural idiom which
would reinforce Akbar's more general design to construct a form
local north Indian or Hindustani patriotism. Abu'l Fazl presents t
as a unity of virtuous and sexually healthy men each exercising his
rightful powers of moral authority within his own domain: each un
the ultimate governance of a father-ruler who looked on the world
his bride and on all his subjects with the equal eye of paternal favou
In making these arguments, I want to focus on aspects of th
ethical and behavioural codes that have attracted relatively litt
attention from historians. In the main, the akhldaq digests have bee
explored for their significance as important intellectual bases
longer term Indo-Muslim traditions of thinking about ethical gover
ment. Rather less attention has been paid to their concern w
man's perfectibility as a moral and physical individual: as a frie
a lover, practitioner of a craft or profession, a husband, paren
master of household. In fact, only the third discourses of man
works in this genre actually deal with politics and the state. T
the first discourse in Tfisi's work deals with tahzib-i akhldq, '
correction of dispositions': all of these different aspects of
individual's moral and bodily regulation: with the cultivatio
particular inner virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance and equ
and the development of outer physical qualities of hardiness a
strength.'2 The second, tadbir-i manazil, 'regulation of househ
treats men as governors of households.'3 The third, siydsat-i mudun
12 M. Minuvi and A.R. Heydari,Akhlagq-i Nasirf, Tehran 1977, 45. Trisi's work is a
published in translation by G.M. Wickens, The Nasirean Ethics, London: George
1964.
'" Akhlaq-i Na~sirfl, 10 o2.

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'the government of cities', deals with the wider
organisation. 14
Thus in drawing on these traditions to project ne
imperial service, Akbar and his advisers did not focus ex
relationship between the emperor and individual servan
and others have tended to assume. Equally important w
of individual moral and bodily regulation, and the inte
of the household, where virtuous men presided as rule
realms, and where men committed to the social world
towards their own moral and physical perfection an
conditions for their wives, children and servants to do
shall see, moreover, these models of bodily and househ
were important not only for imperial servants, but fo
As the living embodiment of these masculine virtues a
his servants, Akbar appears in Abu'l Fazl's history not
ruler of the kingdom, but also as an active and vigil
and commander of his own extraordinary bodily powe
II. Kingdom, Household and Body: akhldqi Trad

Perfection of Moral Being
Let us look first and in more detail, then, at the akhld

appear as recommended reading at Akbar's court. As
has noted, these digests entered Mughal political cul
of versions and recensions, but Tfisi's Akhlaq-i Ndsi
as most authoritative.15 Abu'l Fazl lists it first of the works from
the imperial library that Akbar had regularly read out to him.16
It is mentioned again as prescribed reading in Akbar's instructions
about personal conduct and duties of work circulated in March 1594
to different classes of imperial officials. As Alam has noted, these
instructions owe much to the precepts of the genre.17 Again, in the
14 ibid., 145. For the internal structure of other akhlaqi works, see Muzaffar Alam,
The Languages of Political Islam, 52. See also Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early
Mughal Wolrd Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005. This important study of
the Mughal harem was published after the present article was written, and so it has
not been possible to engage with its arguments here.
15 ibid., 61.
16 Abu'l Fazl, A'in-i Akbarf, edited by H. Blochmann, Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica
1872, i, d'in tasvirkhane, 115.
17 This circular is reproduced in Mansura Haidar (ed.), Mukatabat-i Allami (Insha'i
Abu'l Fazl) Daftar 1, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 1998, 79.

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late 158os, Tfisi's work was singled out for copying and elaborate
illustration in the imperial library, where books were kept, copied
gilded, illustrated and bound.18 The popularity of the work is als
reflected negatively, as when Abu'l Fazl urged the Khan-i Khanan 'Abd
al-Rahim, embarked in the early 1590os on the conquest of Qandahar,
to read heroic works such as the Zafar-ndma recounting the exploits o
Timur, the Shah-nama of Firdausi and the Chengiz-nama, rather than
works such as the Akhldq-i Ndsiri, which was ascetic rather than hero
in spirit.19
Like other intellectuals in the Mediterranean, west Asian and
IndoMuslim worlds, Tufsi explored the potential of man as an
individual for virtue and the nature of the household and the wider
political order best fitted to help the subjects to realise this potential
most fully. Man as an individual, both in his bodily and his spiritual
aspects, the domestic world of the household and the wider polity were
best understood as communities of constituent members, each with
their own natures. The key to unlocking man's potential for virtue
lay essentially in the proper government of these communities, the
ordering of the base by the nobler elements, such as to bring each into
harmony and equilibrium. Thus Tfisi presented man's inner being as
composed of three differing elements: the rational faculty or angelic
soul, nafs-i malakf, the source of thought and judgement, which was
located in the brain, seat of reflection and reason; the irascible faculty
or savage soul, nafs-i sabu'f, the source of anger, bravery and drive
for dominance, and located in the heart, source of all innate heat
in the body; and the appetitive faculty or bestial soul, nafs-i bahzmf,
the source of lust, hunger and desire for sensual gratification, and
seated in the liver, the body's organ of nutrition and circulation.20
When the second and third were brought into equilibrium under the
proper government of the rational faculty, the two produced virtues
according to their natures, of courage and temperance respectively
When all three were mixed and blended together, a man's moral being
reached its highest state of perfection in the fourth and noblest virtue,
that of equity or justice, 'addlat.21 The man who achieved this state
of perfect self-realisation was a complete and absolute man,
18 Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, Akbar's India, 124.

19 Riazul Islam, A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (I50o-1750) i,
Tehran: Iranian Culture Foundation, 1979, 115.
20 Akhla~q-i Nasirf, 58.
21 ibid., o109.

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insanz-yf tamm-i mutlaq whose invariable accompanime
of sulh-i kull, universal concord.22 From this universa
there were elements of the divine essence in all men; ev
the world arose only within man, and from what was b
in his nature. Since there was thus truth and falsity in
dogmatism and persecution were inimical to the tru
which should seek rather to understand all religiou
than to promote strife between them. Since virtue
discipline, the real struggle lay within a man, in th
his soul of bad customs and his daily life of unworthy
the different faculties composing his moral constituti
bring each of them into proper equilibrium.23
This inner soul regulated and controlled the ph
means of the latter's faculties and organs. The body wa
receptacle for the soul; rather, the body was a tool and
badan alati u adati ast, like the tools and instruments use
craftsmen'.24 For most men, the essential setting for
psychical and bodily regulation was the household.
were furnished the material supports for life; her
essential moral training of children; here a man mi
marital relationship a partner in preserving his pro
companion, a mother for his progeny and a means o
sensual appetites. Again, the key to felicity in house
in the proper governance and regulation of the ho
For Tfisi, the family was like the human body itse
of the household was like one of the limbs of the b
lesser roles and responsibilities, some with greater.
some were ruled, according to their natures, while
household stood in relation to its constituent membe
did in relation to the body, understanding the natur
constituent limbs and seeking to promote the equili
members that ensured its harmonious action as a whol
The rules for a man's conduct of his household
minutely. Most important was propriety in marriage i
there were three means whereby a man assured his
over his wife: to keep her occupied, to inspire respe
22 ibid., 71.
23 ibid., 149-154.
24 ibid., 56.
25 ibid., 108-9.

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show her favour. Part of showing favour was limiting himself to one
wife, for women's capacity for jealousy and their deficiency in under
standing would otherwise necessarily lead them to disorderly ac
that would bring disgrace on the household. Only kings, with th
need for numerous progeny, could be excepted from this rule, b
even here, caution was necessary, for the man in the household w
like the heart in the body, mard dar manzil mandnd dil bashad dar bada
and just as one heart cannot sustain life in two bodies, so one m
could not easily manage two households.26 The moral and physic
education of children was also set out in great detail. Boys a
young men were enjoined to self-control, hardiness and abstinenc
taught veneration for parents and preceptors, propriety in speec
dignity in eating and movement, self-restraint in dress, and th
avoidance of conduct appropriate to women and eunuchs, such a
brightly coloured or embroidered clothes, arranged hair and affected
manners of walking. Daughters should be encouraged in modesty a
continence, prevented from learning to read or write but allowed
acquire such accomplishments as were appropriate to women.27
III. Akbar as Emperor: The Household and the Body
Let us look first, then, at Akbar's own appropriation of these akhlaqi

models, as set out in Abu'l Fazl's history. Commissioned in 1590 from
his minister Abu'l Fazl, to whom the contents of the imperial record
office, as well as the specially commissioned memoirs of longstanding
courtiers and court servants were made available, the Akbar-Ndma an
the A'in-i AkbarT together formed one of the most important means
of conveying to a wider court the nature of Akbar's authority an
its meaning for his imperial servants. Abu'l Fazl made it clear th
not only the detailed imperial regulations of the Ain, but the history
set out in the Akbar-Ndma was philosophy teaching by example.
was intended 'as a lesson book for the instruction of mankind and
as a moral treatise for the practical teaching of subjects in the righ
conduct of life'.28 What conveyed this moral and practical instruction
so vividly was not only Abu'l Fazl's detailed recounting of importan
events in Akbar's rulership, but their illustration in the increasingly
26 ibid., 218.
27 ibid., 200oo-21 4.
28 A'in-i Akbarf, iii, 251.

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lavish paintings produced to accompany the histories. T
both displayed Akbar's individual vitality as warri
commander of elephants, and depicted his dynamic pre
his courtiers, nobles, clerics and subjects, ranked a
important court events, in hunting and battle, or trav
emperor to distant parts of his domains.29
What is also striking about many of these paintings i
sense of place in a north Indian landscape, reflecting A
only as divine king, moral exemplar and dispenser of j
ruler profoundly attuned to the subtle ecological ba
and its people. Nizami rightly suggests that Akbar's
animal as well as the human and the spiritual world
circle of his authority.30 Particularly in the paintings o
Nama, Akbar is portrayed in dynamic interaction w
In some illustrations he himself embodies its energ
intense vitality, as he hunts in scenes swirling with th
game, leaps astride a wild elephant as his terrified reta
its trampling or leaps forward on his horse to plunge h
neck of a ferocious looking tiger emerging from the u
Other hunting scenes depict a different kind of m
landscape, as in the painting of Akbar lost and e
hunting wild asses in Multan in 1571. Here, Akbar
sorrowful under a tree surrounded by the bodies
his still outline following the lines of the rocks ar
gesticulating retainers run frantically towards him.32
the calm pivot around which all activity centres, journ
verdant landscape on pilgrimage to the shrine of Mu
at Ajmer to give thanks for the birth of his son, insp
of Indian artisans constructing the new city of Fatehp
the balance between argumentative divines and lea
29 There are two known major illustrated manuscripts of the

incomplete. The earlier, presented to the emperor in 1596, is
Albert Museum, London; the second, probably initiated in 159
Beatty Library, Dublin. Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Imag
30 K.A. Nizami, Akbar and Religion, Delhi: lAD Oriental1989, 18
31 See, for example, Victoria and Albert Museum Akbar-Na
for Akbar hunting at Palam in 1868; IS 2:21/2-1986 for Akbar
elephant Hawa'i in 1561, and IS 2:17/18-1896 for Akbar's tiger
1561.
32 V and A Akbar-Nlama, IS 2:84-1896.

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new city or calmly commanding a perilous shipboard expedition to
suppress the turbulent in his eastern domains.33
If the new naturalism encouraged in the imperial atelier thus con-
veyed an important political message, so also did the powerful
language of paternity in Abu'l Fazl's text. Akbar appeared at once
as awesome king, a particular kind of divinely inspired father to his
'household', and as the embodiment of a male virtue for which the
body was not just a receptacle, but the direct instrument of the soul.
In his preface to the A'in, and as a continuing theme in the Akbar-
Ndma, Abu'l Fazl makes it clear that it is a combination of divine
illumination and inner attributes which enable a virtuous king such
as Akbar to achieve the state of sulh-i kull, to extend the right kind of
paternal tolerance and conciliation towards his subjects.34 This form
of a king's divinely ordained authority was reflected in the term 'shah'
itself, with its wider connotations of stability, lordship and possession,
but the term was also, he pointed out, applied to a bridegroom, for the
world, as the king's bride, betrothed herself to the king and became
his worshipper.35 Royalty was also a light emanating from God, from
possession of which flowed many of the qualities of the ideal man:
a paternal love for his subjects, a large and courageous heart which
enabled him to see to the needs of all and encounter imperfection with
equanimity; and devotion to God, which helped him to meet success
and adversity with equal self-control, and so to conduct himself with
compassion towards his imperfect subjects.36 These qualities enabled
him to watch over the health of the body politic and to apply remedies
to its diseases. For, as Abu'l Fazl explained, just as the health of an
animal depended on the equilibrium of its different inner elements,
so also did the body politic, such that with the right degree of concord,
a multitude of people become fused into one body.37
Thus perfect in his moral being, at once husband and father to his
realm, Akbar's heavy paternal presence pervaded Abu'l Fazl's work.
He was an all-seeing and omnipresent father minutely supervising
every aspect of his great household and of the behaviour of his children.
"3 V and AAkbar-Ndma, IS 2:77-1896 for the pilgrimage to Ajmer; IS 2:91-1896

for the construction of Fatehpur-Sikri, and the laterAkbar-Nama in the Chester Beatty
Library, Dublin, for Akbar's discussions with clerics and divines and for his shipboard
expedition to the eastern provinces.
34 See, for example, the descriptions inAkbar-Nadma i, 5, and ii, 285.
35 7'in-i Akbarf, i, 2.
36 ibid., 3.
37 ibid., 3-4-

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While some rulers thought the detail of ad

Akbar knew better, supervising every
constant watch on all of the little offices a
household, each one of which was like a ci
displayed the same qualities in his supe
of the household, allotting apartments
down duties and appointing guards.39 T
paternal authority also emerged in the
Akbar-Ndma too. It was, of course, expr
Mughal category of the khana-zdd, the
particularly long-standing and devoted
when Akbar wanted to show servants pa
bestowed on them the titlefarzand, 'child',
Man Singh, despatched with an army aga
1576.41 The same divine authority of fa
Fazl's description of Akbar's own fathe
was divinely ordained: he had to die so t
irresistibly to power, avoided the impro
worldly father.42
In these ways, the image of fatherhood
was central to the construction of Akbar's
carried a wider significance than is sug
account of the patrimonial dimensions t
Abu'l Fazl's emphasis on his paternal
models to create a local and naturalistic idiom for a father-ruler
who would look on all of his numerous dependents with the sam
paternal benevolence, and so justly demanded their obedience. A
form of 'natural' authority, this seemed to be beyond the need f
orthodox endorsement, while its social inclusiveness transcended t
prescriptions of any particular religion. Moreover, this projection
the authority of all fathers and heads of households was likely to have
wider appeal, and particularly to high imperial servants themselves. A
Blake reminds us, the households of imperial nobles were themsel
constructed as miniature replicas of the imperial court, centres bo
of ritual and of economic activity, and these were the foci of nob
38 ibid., T'in manzil abadT, 8-9.

39 ibid., 'in-i shabistan-i iqbal, 4o.
40 John Richards, The Mughal Empire, 148-9.
41 Akbar-Nama iii, 166.
42 ibid., i, 365.

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authority within their wider domains.43 In accepting A

power, imperial servants were provided with a very
which dramatised their own authority and confirmed t
obedience in their own domains.
If Akbar was thus a divinely inspired father and householder, his

bodily being likewise attested to his extraordinary and numinous
qualities. Many historians have remarked on the prominence of mar-
tial themes in Abu'l Fazl's construction of Akbar as emperor: themes
which echoed the codes of martial honour among prospective client
communities, and helped serve the needs of Mughal military expan-
sion. However, the particular form ofAkbar's warriorship and personal
heroism had a more important and particular significance. At crucial
public moments, the emperor's own body became an active instrument
for his soul, when his qualities found real physical embodiment and
demonstrated themselves in the most concrete ways to his awestruck
servants. In presenting himself as a warrior, therefore, Akbar needed
to negotiate in very careful ways between these elements of his self-
construction and other Indo-Muslim and indigenous north Indian
norms for ideal warriorship: the ideal of the individual ghazi or self-
immolating martyr of the Indo-Muslim martial tradition, or Rajput
models of self-sacrifice in the protection of personal or lineage honour.
As Richards has argued, it was important to be able to transmute these
values into those of the disciplined military servant, who could put the
defence of wider imperial interests above that of his own individual or
group honour.44
However, it was also very important for Akbar personally to be
able to incorporate and transcend these models: to demonstrate equal
or superior elements of raw physical courage and strength, but in
ways which dissociated these qualities from unrestrained martial rage
and placed them into the more complex, balanced and self-controlled
context of Akbar's personality as insan-i kamil, 'the perfect man'. It
may have been for this reason, therefore, that in Abu'l Fazl's account
Akbar's physical bravery and martial skills did not emerge so much on
the battlefield, as in hunting and other military sports, and in elephant
fighting. Many historians have observed that these were a way of
honing important battle skills for Mughal heavy cavalry, and provided
the major means by which the Mughal court achieved vital frequent
43 Stephen Blake, Shahjahanabad, 96-7.

44John Richards, 'The formulation of imperial authority under Akbar and
Jahangir', 275.

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contact with its far-flung networks of serva

hunting was also a principal form of self-expr
in which outer bodily action was voice an
spiritual purposes of many different kinds.
to hold direct communion with wanderin
Hunting made it possible to penetrate t
through omens, as when Akbar campaig
Husain Mirza in Surat in 1573, and pred
imperial hunting cheetahs caught a buck
victory over Muhammad Husain would fo
parallels with battle, was also an opportun
qualities of imperial servants.48 As a form
the whole kingdom, testing its men and disco
was itself a means of divine worship.49 It
have seen, that the emperor appeared in cl
north Indian landscape.
It followed on from these connections as Ab
that Akbar experienced his great moment of
while he was hunting. In May 1578, just a ye
with the orthodox Sunni leadership at court,
the banks of the Jhelum River in Punjab
closing around the game, Akbar was suddenly
and drawn by a sense of spiritual commun
for his spiritual illumination, he ordered tha
the thousands of animals caught up by th
free. Here, of course, there are elements
Rajput values as to more Brahmanic Hindu
of life. Thereafter Akbar began to restrai
restrict himself to a vegetarian diet on set
Abu'l Fazl recorded, drew him even more s
withdrawal from the world, but he contente
his hair in the manner of ascetics, and many
his example.50
45 For a general discussion of hunting in Mughal co

'Recreation in Mughal India', BritishJournal of Sports
46 Akbar-Ndma, iii, 241.
A7 ibid., 44-5
48 ibid., ii, 150o.
4 ibid, 348-9.
5o ibid., iii, 241-3.

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The other major means that Akbar employed to dem

courage and strength lay in his use of elephants. Akbar
stable of magnificent animals for military and ceremon
separate A'in being devoted to their classification, food
trappings. The possession of elephants and the staging
combats were, of course, powerful symbols of royalty
setting. One of the first signs of disloyalty in Mughal serva
misappropriation of elephants whose disposal rightfully
the emperor, as when Bairam Khan distributed some
elephants amongst his officers.51 In the illustrations o
Nama, contests between royal and 'rebel' elephants sy
struggle between Akbar's own authority and that of
servants.52 However, Akbar's use of elephants went b
general associations, to suggest a subtle anthropomorphism
emphasised the naturalness of Akbar's identification w
Indian domains. Abu'l Fazl's descriptions suggest th
embodied in the greatest elephants his own qualities a
their combination of overwhelming physical power and
their capacity sometimes for anger and sometimes for
Abu'l Fazl's description of Bal Sundar, one of the eleph
the 1574 expedition against Daud in Bengal, recall the
Akbar as king. Bal Sundar had the strength to pull dow
and break the ranks of armies, but always retained perfec
himself and obedience to his driver, never losing his ju
in the height of mast.54
At one moment Akbar's surrogates, elephants were at
instruments for another kind of self-expression. Abu'l Fa
described Akbar's public riding of powerful elephants in m
formed the subject of some of the most dramatic scene
Akbar-Ndma. These feats were not only a stunning dem
Akbar's personal courage; they also dramatically revealed t
his transcendent proximity to God, who seemed to ho
hands of special divine protection. On one occasion in Delh
of a furious elephant lost his seat and fell to the ground. A
the court onlookers, Akbar seized the elephant's rope and
into it, and fought to gain control of the elephant until lo
5' Akbar-Nadma, ii, 62.

52 See, for example, V and AAkbar-Nama IS 2:115-1896.
3 Akbar-Nama, ii, 72.
54 ibid., iii, 87.

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able to come to his aid. After the elephan

mounted it again serenely and rode it back
such splendid acts, Abu'l Fazl concluded, the
warning, and the loyal were confirmed i
displays could also form a key part of politic
forming, as when Akbar followed up his pres
to his new Rajput ally Bhar Mal Kachwaha, b
mast. The Rajput contingent impressed Akba
their ground when the elephant charged tow
There may have remained moments, howe
the tension between these highly controll
courage and spiritual power, and the simp
personal sacrifice. Abu'l Fazl recounted
drinking party in 1573, the conversation tur
courage of warriors in Hindusthan. Some
asserted that one Rajput method of resolving
was to take up a double headed spear, and th
opposite sides against the points. Stung by
of feud resolution, Akbar fastened the hilt o
prepared to impale himself upon it, declarin
this, so also could he. His companions were
loyal Rajput servant Man Singh ran forward
Thus, Akbar as warrior hero was a very com
the ideals both of individual warrior an
commander. These displays of physical coura
the soul, placed him in a very special inter
God and the world and identified him very
natural worlds of north India. Inwardly he
testing men and discovering the secrets of t
lived in the world and enjoyed its pleasures.
IV. Codes for Imperial Servants: M

Self-government
For Abu'l Fazl, these carefully crafted accoun

tive purpose. Akbar stood forth as a perfect
5 ibid., ii, 73-4.

56 ibid., ii, 45.
57 Akbar-Nama, iii, 31.

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He called them to religious devotion in its highest form,

in outward observance or rigid dogma, but in service t
Thus immersed in worldly concerns, the imperial serva
wise strive to remain inwardly free, having through c
examination and struggle subdued his own inner
appetites. Thus the code for imperial service was not s
loyalty to the emperor, but of constant striving for the
both developed a man's highest nature as a man, and made
the ultimate form of worship: imperial service.
How, then, were these norms and models incorporated i
imperial ethic, and transmitted to imperial servants?
the imperial service was itself a test and a training,
described. Bestowing his trust enabled Akbar to see w
made of. The emperor's trust was like a draught of heady
only strong men could drink.58 For the wider circles o
imperial officers, the dastir al-'amal referred to above wo
one means of disseminating these messages. As Alam h
manual of practical and moral instruction clearly owes
spirit of the akhlaqz tracts. Imperial servants were urged
work, portions of the work of the medieval theologia
sufic poetry of Rumi and the moral fables of Kalila D
should exercise moderation in all things, maintain constan
should consult, should know when to punish and when
should hunt for military exercise; should exercise close su
the towns and neighbourhoods under their authority, and
steps against wine-drinking except where it was for medi
and for intellectual stimulation.59
For the smaller group of Akbar's closer courtiers and adherents,
most important was the presentation of Akbar himself as an exemplar
and moral guide: not only in the daily management of imperial and
courtly affairs, but in the institution of discipleship. Akbar developed
this as a part of his decisive break in late 1579 with orthodox Sunni
opinion at the court, when the key orthodox leaders Makhdumu'l Mulk
and Shaikh 'Abdu'n Nabi were exiled to Mecca after bitter controversy
over the legal standing of Akbar's many marriages. The significance
and wider social consequences of Akbar's new role as 'spiritual
leader' have been the subject of much historical debate.60 Despite
58 ibid., ii, a22.

59 Muka~tabat-i Allami (Insha'i Abu'1 Fazl), 79-87.
60 Akbar's role as spiritual guide, rah-namanf, is set out in a'in rah-namunT, ATin-i
Akbarz, i, 158-161. For an analysis, see K.A. Nizami, Akbar and Religion, 132-49.

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Abu'l Fazl's assertion that many thousands of peop
accepted the principles of this 'new faith', the num
actually named as having done so is relatively small.61
of discipleship itself drew eclectically on akhlaqz no
minationist thinking, the relationship between suf
and Brahmanic Hindu dietary codes. At noon on Sun
neophytes swore to accept four degree of devotion to A
life, property, religion and honour in the service of th
servants undertook to worship Allah directly, without
Abu'l Fazl described the rituals of submission and renewal. The novice
took his turban in his hands and put his head on the Emperor's feet,
indicating that he had cast aside inner conceit and selfishness, and
now came to offer his heart in devotion and seek after truth. Akbar
would then raise the man up and replace his turban on his head,
symbolising the man's entry into a new life of service and devotion.62
Beyond these four degrees of devotion lay a further ultimate goal
for the most inwardly accomplished. This was to realise within
themselves the four cardinal virtues of hikmat, prudence or wisdom;
shajd'at, courage; 'iffat, temperance or chastity; and 'addlat, justice or
equity, virtues that were produced when the three different elements
of akhlaqi tradition-the rational, the savage and the appetitive-
were mixed and blended together in proper equilibrium. Disciples
agreed to observe particular regulations: a special mode of greeting,
alms-giving, periodic abstention from meat and avoidance of those
involved in its slaughter; and to avoid sexual contact with pregnant
women, with the old, and with girls under the age of puberty.63
Although the numbers of those formally admitted as disciples were
small, however, it is significant that even here akhlaqf norms were
central to the path of self-development offered to imperial servants.
How, then, did these emphases on moral disposition fit in with the
other qualities expected of imperial servants? As constituent members
of the realm, imperial servants were each seen as possessing their
own particular aptitudes, depending on their own inner balance of
faculties. This inner balance differed with different classes of men,
but what mattered was the wider structure of a man's moral and
physical disposition, defined by inner akhlaqz qualities of balance and
61 AT'in-i Akbarf, i, 160; for the numbers mentioned in Abu'l Fazl and Badauni, s
Blochmann's translation of the A'in-i Akbarf, 1994 reprint, i, 218-9.
62 A'in-i Akbari i, 160.
63 ibid., i, 161.

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judgement, self-control and perfect paternal care in th

office. Abu'l Fazl identified these vital inner qualities in hi
discussion to the A'in, where he discussed the classes of me
the court. The great lords of state were not only courageo
and efficient in administration, but possessed crucial m
of wisdom, firmness, magnanimity, skill and discretion in
of business, and the ability to deal openly and impartially
and enemies.64 In the description of particular offices,
same emphasis on inner qualities and self-control. Thus
viceroy should be a man prudent, careful and discreet
alike his impulses to wrath and levity, carefully selectin
truthful servants, sleeping and eating in moderation, a
himself in works of philosophy when the duties of his off
The question of self-scrutiny was particularly importan
officers were urged to allow a trusted friend to scrutinise
conduct and learn from their criticisms, since most ass
find it difficult to offer an honest view. Such an officer wa
to observe some of the bodily restraints associated with
in particular periodic abstention from meat and avoida
contact with certain classes of women.65
V. Codes for Imperial Servants: The Body and

Sexual Regulation
The regulations for disciples described above formed a part of Akbar's

wider attempt to use marriage, sexual and bodily regulation in the
effort to disseminate the norm of the devoted and self-controlled
imperial servant. In these well-publicised programmes for social an
moral regulation, Akbar was, of course, following a well-establishe
medieval north Indian tradition. Many of the rulers of the Delh
Sultanate sought to extend their systems of social surveillance,
prohibit intoxicants and gambling, to punish debauchery, to impo
sumptuary laws restraining nobles from too elaborate gold and brocad
dress, and to impose strict regulation on the prices of commodities in
the market. The historian Ziya al-Din Barani, for example, recorde
that 'Ala al-Din Khalji expanded his networks of spies and informe
to detect sedition amongst his nobles, forbade the consumption
64 ibid., i, 4.
65 ibid., ii, aT'in-i sipah-salar, 282.

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alcohol and other intoxicants, suppressed gambling,
penalties for debauchery, limited the ability of nob
entertain one another, punished revenue officers c
and laid down strict controls upon the prices of g
basic commodities in the markets.66 In his Futihdt-i F
Tughlaq also described the regulations he imposed as
He stopped women making religious visits to the t
it was a cause of licentiousness, imposed new sump
banned the decoration of domestic and military item
and portraits, as it was against religious law.67 Contem
describe similar forms of regulation under the Lod
appointment of muhtasahiban, officials to look after pu
prevent the violation of religious law, and the care
prices of commodities in the market.68 These emph
course, unique to the Sultanate, but formed an import
Timurid cultural inheritance that Babur and his successors claimed as
the basis of their legitimacy and prestige.69 Timur's own regulations,

bequeathed to his successors for the conduct of government and
preservation of his kingdom, emphasised that strong kingdoms were
based in morality and religion as well as equity and good understanding
of the subjects and set out the forms of judgement to be passed on
subjects guilty of crimes such as assault, adultery and wine-drinking.70
More broadly, of course, these emphases on bodily regulation drew
on a long tradition of concern with bodily purification and bodily
comportment that permeated the Mediterranean, west Asian and Indo
Muslim worlds. Within the world of medieval Islamic ethics, these
techniques for bodily purification were revived and developed most
extensively in the work of the theologian Ghazali, who elaborated
an exhaustive and meticulous set of techniques for bodily care and
cleansing that would restore the Muslim's body to its proper state
66 Ziya al-Din Barani, Tdrfkh-i Ffrfz Shdhi, edited by Shaikh Abdur Rashid, Aligharh:
Aligharh Muslim University 1957.
67 N.B. Roy (ed.), 'The victories of Sultan Firuz Shah of Tughluq Dynasty', Islamic
Culture 15, 1941. The Persian text is reprinted in N.B. Roy, 'Futuhat-i-Ffruzshaht'
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society ofBengal, VII, 1941, 61-89.
68 Iqtidar Hussain Siddiqui, Waqi'at-e-Mushtaqui ofShaikh Rizq Ullah Mushtaqui, New
Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research 1993, 17-19.
69 Richard C. Folz, Mughal India and Central Asia, Oxford: Oxford University Press
2001, 21-8.
70 W. Davy (ed), Institutes of Timur, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1783, 175 and 253,
Persian and English text.

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of purity.71 As Bouhdiba has described, such technique

a constant attention paid to the physiological life of
the art of experiencing its corporeality and the means of
resacralising it.72
It is possible to see a range of connected rationales
moral and social regulation of the Sultanate period, and
given to it in the accounts of contemporary chronicler
of course, offered a natural way to advertise the Sulta
a pious protector of Islam. These measures themselves
complex economic, military and political challenges fac
of the Sultanate, as they sought to consolidate their t
develop more centralised state forms, to raise tax revenue
a large standing army against the Mongol military threat
a more composite nobility out of local Indian and Turk
Tajik, Afghan and other immigrants.73 Central to the per
drive, under 'Ala al-Din Khalji in particular, to raise
in order to support the burgeoning cities and a very l
army. The means here was to increase the area of crow
which dues came directly in to the treasury, to impose a
taxes, to raise the tax level on the estimated yield, to ens
treasury received its stipulated share of revenues from
to state servants, and to ensure that prices of basic c
were kept stable and low as a means of offsetting th
fiscal burdens.74 These measures meant inevitably that
merchants came under increasingly close supervision,
extending also to elite social connections more general
of detecting sedition and anticipating rebellion. The su
may have been part of the effort to make the new finan
more acceptable, while the regulation of gambling, sex
intoxicants demonstrated the virtues of pious Islamic rule
In many ways, however, the moral regulation devel
Mughal court was different. It was not simply prohibitive
although elements of it were. Its purpose rather was
promote a new set of norms for elite male virtue which em
71 M.M. Sharif, A Hisory ofMuslim Philosophy, i, 581-642.

72 Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam, London: Saqi Books 19
7 Satish Chandra, Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals.
anand Publications 1997, 75-113.
74 Peter Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military Hist
Cambridge University Press 1999, 242-53.

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rights and authority of imperial servan

fathers and rulers of households. In Abu
much more than to punish adulterers or
public worship offered to women. He als
model of ideal and spiritual marriage, tr
around the 'natural' purity of the male
public campaign to discourage overt ho
which he juxtaposed his patriarchal and
Indian male virtue against the corrupt
outsiders on the one hand, and the souther
of the Deccan on the other. Here, again,
account, Akbar viewed the body precisely
enjoined in Tfisi: not as a passive recepta
instrument for the soul.
For evidence in all of these areas, we need to look to the contem-
porary history of 'Abd al-Qadir Badauni, the thwarted and choleric
orthodox opponent of Abu'l Fazl and his coterie of reformers.
Badauni's notoriously vituperative history, written between 1591 and
1595, presents the latter in very different terms, as a clique of
apostates and heretics bent on the destruction of Islam and the found-
ing of a new religion. At the end of his history, he explained that his
own purpose was to set out a true account of the revolution in laws
and in manners that he had witnessed at Akbar's court. Fear, greed,
ambition or ignorance prevented other observers at court from making
such a record. So in secrecy and haste Badauni had put together his
own version, which would expiate his sin in having made translations
of the Sanskrit classics at Akbar's behest, and furnish for succeeding
generations, confused and dissatisfied with official histories, a true
account and a proof that right had been on the side of Islam.75 As
is well known, Badauni's deliberately subversive history thus contains
much illuminating social detail, of a kind which did not find its way into
Abu'l Fazl's reverent account. However, it may be that historians have
overlooked the significance of some of this detail. Studies of Badauni
in recent years have tended rather to invoke a series of cliches to
explain his motives in writing and the kinds of issues which interested
him. Religious dogma, thwarted ambition and personal jealousy of
the more successful Abu'l Fazl impelled him to write. Driven by such
negative and personal motives, he was unable to produce any kind
7 'Abd al-Qadir Badauni, Muntakhab al-Tawar7kh, ed. W.N. Lees and Ahmad Ali,
Calcutta: Bibliotheca Indica 1865, iii, 393-5.

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of constructive critique of the serious questions of sta

political change. He vented his energies instead in pers
and slanderous anecdotes about contemporaries.76
This understanding of Badauni's purposes and interest
what may have been a central part of his political agen
understanding of which Abu'l Fazl himself might have
with its implicit dismissal of many of Badauni's concern
bitterness or cultural marginalia. Much in Badauni that h
as incidental human anecdote or social tittle-tattle may
represented an attempt to record those areas in which Akb
at sexual and bodily regulation encountered resistance,
and ridicule. Badauni's critique here is often fragmenta
this is in part a reflection of his separate treatment of
developments, and it is almost always laced with malic
is striking about it is its sense of the importance of cha
norms at Akbar's court, and hence, from his own perspect
need to subvert respectful official accounts such as those o
Thus documented in Abu'l Fazl's history, the institution o
formed a principal instrument of bodily and sexual reg
its very obvious interconnections between the realms o
the moral disposition and the community. Akbar's ow
marriages with women from leading Rajput families as wel
nobles themselves are, of course, well known to histor
concern with the marriages of his servants was rather diff
at promoting a particular model of ideal marriage, in w
men could realise the ethic of imperial service, women
and companionship and homes fructify with children
worship God. Akbar thus emerged as guardian of thes
ideal marriage. In the d'in concerning marriage, Abu'l F
its importance as a means of preserving stability am
preventing the outbreak of evil passions and promoting th
ment of homes. The ideal marriage had important
dimensions of spiritual union and equality of essence, whic
the consent not only of parents and elders, but of
76 For examples of these approaches, see Muhammad Mujeeb, 'B

Hasan (ed.), Historians of Medieval India; Harbans Mukhia, Historians and
pp. 89-131; and Fauzia Zareen Abbas, Abdul Qadir Badauni, Delhi: Idara
Delli 1987.
77 Norman P. Ziegler, 'Some Notes on Rajput Loyalties during the Mughal Period'
in J.F. Richards (ed.) Kingship and Authority in South Asia, University of Wisconsin,
Madison 1981.

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themselves, who should also be of sufficient m

a sexual as well as an emotional union. Abu'l Fazl asserted that Akbar
strongly disliked marriages that took place before the age of puberty,
as being less likely to prosper when the couple reached adulthood. For
most men, one wife was quite enough; more than this risked damaging
a man's health, and destroying the peace of his home. Abu'l Fazl also
detailed the arrangements Akbar made to enforce them more widely.
Two sober and sensible men had been appointed, one to enquire into
the circumstances of the bridegroom, and the other into those of the
bride. There was a graded tax payable for this service, with differing
amounts stipulated for different ranks of imperial servants, from
the highest officers of state to petty commanders. Ordinary people
were also included, and the officers instructed to pay regard to the
circumstances of the father of the bride.78 It is difficult to know, of
course, how widely these regulations were applied at court. Certainly
in Badauni's account, however, these were not merely paper rules, and
their effects were far-reaching. What they did, in fact, was to open up
great opportunities for corruption, as officials and police officers found
opportunities to extract bribes from those who did not meet the new
standards.79
Viewed from this perspective, Akbar's early and deep divisions in the
mid 1570's with the old guard of court clerics over the legal standing
of his own many marriages may take on a new meaning. Challenges
from the Sunni orthodox here hit squarely at his own self-construction
as guardian of the values of ideal marriage. It may have been this
that impelled him to take up the question with such uncompromising
determination. Our major source for this dispute is again Badauni,
who was prominent in leading the discussions in Akbar's favour. At
one such public discussion, Akbar asked the clerics how many freeborn
women a man was allowed to marry by the nikah form, sanctioned in
Islamic jurisprudence. The clerics replied that it was four, whereupon
Akbar asked what he should do about his own case, given that he had
married many more than that. The clerics were unable to agree, so
Akbar sent for the conservative Shaikh 'Abd al-Nabi, who refused to
sanction the marriages as lawful. After much acrimonious argument,
the orthodox Qdzi Ya'qfib, Abu'l Fazl, Haiji Ibrahim and others were
invited for a discussion, and Abu'l Fazl laid before the Emperor several
traditions regarding mut'ah marriages which his father had collected.
78 Al'in-i Akbarf, i, Book 2, a'in-i kad-khuda'T, 201.

7 Muntakhab al-Tawarikh ii, 391.

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Badauni himself was sent for, and confirmed that auth

be found to support Akbar's view in the Maliki school. Ak
pleased at this: he suspended the orthodox Q-zi Ya'qfib a
a Qazi from the Miliki school in his place, who promptly g
that mut'ah marriages were legal. Badauni identified th
the significant break with what he saw as the proper ortho
past: it was from this day that real differences of opinion
resolved until 1579 when Akbar gained for himself the fo
to arbitrate on controversial matters of law and doctrine.8
the issue of the legality of his own marriages was impo
to push Akbar into an open break with the Sunni cleri
court; it represented a major point of vulnerability in
present himself as a unique exemplar of male virtue.
Akbar also sought to regulate the extra-marital plea
servants: to curb and control sexual activity not chann
controls of marriage and used to fructify a man's home w
with sons who would worship God, but rather than all
freely as mere unrestrained lust. Given the extraordin
sexual opportunities available to any courtier of mean
task of some proportions. Thus, as Badauni recounted, A
to regulate and record the sexual pleasures of his serv
than attempt any kind of prohibition. The numerous p
the imperial capital were compelled to live outside the city
quarter. To ensure proper control, a muhafiz or warden, a
a mushraf or inspector were appointed, to whom men
application if they wanted to patronise the women or
home.81 However, many imperial servants evaded the
by applying under assumed names, so that just as the
trying to bring order to one scene of debauchery, anot
aristocratic pleasure-seekers would push past him. So
took to interviewing prostitutes privately to ask about th
a consequence of which a number of important courtiers w
and punished. Amongst them, Badauni asserted, was Ra
disciple of the new religion, and so virtuous in it, that he k
the company of his own daughters. The raja was on his est
heard about this, and was about to turn resign himself to
life when news of the emperor's forgiveness reached him.
80 ibid., 207-10.
81 ibid., 302.
82 ibid., 303.

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Man's inner moral perfectibility extended t

ways too. Badauni suggested that new meanin
semen. He described how Akbar introduced new norms in ceremonial
ablution, abandoning the usual Islamic convention that emission of
semen produced a state of impurity requiring major ablution. His
reasoning was that 'the effusion of sperm is the best part of man',
khulasa insan nutafmazi ast, since semen was the origin of all that was
good and pure. It would be more fitting, he argued, if men were to
perform the ablution before having connection.83 On this view, semen
represented the origin of all that was good in the world, and the
distillation of an intrinsic male bodily purity. If Badauni was right,
these shifts in meaning may have reflected both akhlazdq belief in
elements of divine essence in all men, and Ayurvedic understandings of
semen as a bodily reservoir of male virtue and vitality, whose retention
could endow a man with extraordinary health and power.84 This, then,
was not only an attractive and socially inclusive model for elite male
virtue: it again generated an independent authority for social practices
previously subject to orthodox supervision. Badauni alleged that some
imperial servants at least followed suit. Abu'l Fazl's brother Shaikh
Faizi, he said, used to write his commentaries on the Qu'ran when he
was in the very height of lust and intoxication.85 The same impulse
may have been reflected in new regulations that Badauni recorded
about circumcision, now to be made a matter for individual mature
decision once a boy had reached the age of twelve.86
Other regulations related to body hair. As Obeyesekere reminds us,
hair was an important personal signifier in South Asia, of particular
significance in the Hindu setting in relation to renunciation and
the bodily concentration of sexual power.87 Islamic tradition usually
emphasised the importance of a beard to a pious Muslim. The Prophet
stated that the moustache should be cut, but the beard flow free, and
took meticulous care of his beard, saying that grooming it increased
83 Muntakhab al-Tawarfkh, ii, 305.

84 For more modern explorations of these significances of semen in the Indian
setting, see G.M. Carstairs, The Twice-Born: A Study ofa Community ofHigh Caste Hindus,
London 1957;James W. Edwards, 'Semen anxiety in South Asian Cultures' in Medical
Anthropology, Summer 1983; Joseph Alter, The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in
North India, University of California Press, Berkeley 1992.
85 ibid., iii, 300.
86 ibid., ii, 376.
87 G. Obeyesekere, Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1981, 33-8.

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vivacity and intelligence and eliminated phlegm.88 In the

north Indian context, the wearing of a beard could exp
significances. Most familiarly, of course, unkempt h
ascetic withdrawal from the world. Facial hair was clos
with warriorship. North Indian folk and literary celebrat
very often depict warriors chewing or twirling their
a sign of martial rage.89 Persian influence further com
situation, since the Safavid court had developed much sho
such that the removal of the beard became associated w
and power. The nineteenth century chronicler Abdul Shar
how nobles at the Lucknow court shortened and finally
beards with the spread of Persian influence from Delhi, g
many new styles.90
Akbar made well publicised moves in relation to body
have seen, Abu'l Fazl described how he cut his hair after t
experience of May 1578. A number of contemporarie
Akbar's interest in styles of hair and shaving to his Hind
Badauni was scathing about the imperial servants who bec
disciples, shortening their hair and removing their beard
of the emperor, and gaining promotion in the imper
a consequence.91 Badauni blamed the Hindu women of
harem, who had turned his mind against the eating of be
and onions, and 'the friendship of people with beards'
rfshddr.92 In his memoirs dictated as part of Abu'l Fa
materials for the new imperial history, Akbar's steward B
recalled Akbar's public jesting with one of his officers
from Punjab, who explained that although he had no
hair cut in the approved fashion, he was actually wearing
local Hindu fashion in Punjab.93 In all contemporary illus
emperor was always portrayed with facial hair on his u
The illustrations of both of the earlier and the later editions of the
Akbar-Ndma represent many courtiers in the same way, in contrast to
88 Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam, 34.

89 See, for example, Willian Irvine, 'Jangnamah of Farrukhsiyar andJahandar Shah
inJournal of the Asiatic Society ofBengal, 1900, 46.
90 Abdul Halim Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture. Tr. E.S
Harcourt and Fakhir Hussain, Oxford University Press 1994, 190.
91 Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, ii, 404.
92 ibid., ii, 3o3.
93 H. Beveridge 'Memoirs of Bayazid (Bajazet) Blyat',Journal of the Asiatic Society o
Bengal, LXVII, pt 1, 1898, 312.

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beardless youths, and clerics, military men and art
often shown with full beards.
There may also have been here a connection here with the new
significances surrounding semen as a distillation of male virtue.
Evidence here is difficult to come by, since Abu'l Fazl does not offer
his usual direct and reverential account. Here, what Badauni offers
us may have been something like the local gossip amongst courtiers
or in the bazaar as to what Akbar was doing and what it meant.
According to Badauni, some of those who supported Akbar in his
preference for shaving sought to invert the traditional association
between masculinity and facial hair, emphasising that far from repre-
senting an absence of masculine qualities, shaving actually intensified
them. When shaving had become a common practice and mark
of special devotion to the emperor, Badauni described how certain
unsavoury people suggested that a further argument for shaving was
that the beard drew its sustenance from the testicles, proved by
the fact that eunuchs were unable to grow beards.94 This idea that
the beard drew its nourishment from semen was quite a common
one, and unsurprising given the association between the beard and
masculine power. The Delhi scholar and intellectual Anand Ram
Mukhlis recorded this connection in his collection of idiomatic phrases
Mirat-ul Istilah, the 'Mirror of Idioms' completed in 1745: 'the beard
is watered by the testicles'.95 Badauni may here have been hinting
at bazaar gossip that linked the court fashion for shaving to a more
worldly concern to promote virility. This is certainly the link that
Qureshi makes in his critique of the 'irrationality' of Akbar's belief
that beards weakened virility by drawing sustenance away from the
testicles.96 On this view, the beard drew its nourishment from semen,
and as the source of male virtue, semen was better conserved in
the body. Thus Badauni may have been right in his sense that
Hindu influences worked powerfully in the close personal context
of the harem: at least at the level of the perceptions that Badauni
reported, Akbar's deference towards Brahmanical forms extended
beyond questions of vegetarianism and calculated displays of restraint
in hunting, to include these intimate constructions of bodily virtue and
power.
94 Muntakhab al-Tawdrfkh, ii, 30o3.

95 Tasneem Ahmad tr,EncyclopaedicDictionary ofMedievallndia, Mirat-ul-Istilah Delhi:
Sundeep Prakashan, 1993, 234.
96 Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi, Akbar: the Architect ofthe Mughal Empire, Delhi: IAD Press,
1978, 163.

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Akbar also promulgated regulations to ensure that wo

conform to these ideals of marriage. On the one hand
seen above, he projected marriage as a spiritual union o
the other, a woman's role within marriage was an ideal
modesty, deference and obedience to her husband. Here
there was not too great a distance to travel between akhlaq
those of many segments of respectable north Indian soc
recorded that any young woman found in the bazaars
not properly veiled, or wives who behaved badly and qu
their husbands were banished to the prostitutes' quart
activity for women should be strictly for the purposes
such that older women should no longer wish for a husb
Fazl also explained that Akbar disapproved of older wo
young husbands, since it was against all modesty: Bada
that husbands were enjoined not to lie with wives more
years older than they were.99
Akbar also made very public efforts to restrain and p
homosexual love amongst prominent nobles of the empire.
it may be possible to see these constructions of elite male
and power employed to identify the court and the imperial
firmly with the indigenous heterosexual idiom of north In
the degenerate practices of outsiders. Various kinds of
love were, of course, a familiar part of north Indian courtly
ties between military servants and their personal slaves
often included strong sexual elements.100 Beautiful you
in contemporary love poetry as familiarly as women, w
manuals warn of the perils of employing handsome young
at drinking parties: one's guests were likely to end up enjo
than the wine.101 Sufi transports of love for everything be
by the Creator could extend to sexual love, as Badauni im
account of the religious teacher Shaikh Muhammad-i Ka
as 'the lover' for his uninhibited expressions.102 Badauni h
97 Muntakhab al-Tawarikh ii, 391.

98 ibid., ii, 356.
99 A'in-i Akbarf, i, Book 2, d'in-i kad-khuda', iol; Muntakhab al-Tawdri
100 See, for example, the early seventeenth century Mughal militar
Mirza Nathan's account of his affection for the eunuch Khwaja Mi
Sa'adat Khan was also his 'boon companion' and trusted military co
M.I. Borah (ed. and tr.), Baharistan-i-Ghaybi, Gauhati, 1936, 228.
o101 See Hidayat Husain, 'The Mirza Nama (The Book of the Perfe
of Mirza Kamran', in Journal of the Asiatic Society ofBengal, 1913.
102 Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, iii, 8.

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in transcendent, almost mystical terms of his love for
whose account he had gone missing from the court for
while his friends told the emperor he was absent th
These varieties of love do not seem to have precluded l
love between men here did not generate anything
self-conscious 'homosexual' identity such as emerg
in eighteenth century Europe.104
At the same time, many contemporary accounts p
of moral ambiguity in attachments of this kind. Again
recalled Timurid themes. In his own memoirs, the
recalled that he had been at the age of 14 attached
youth who showed him much affection. But then an
from Transoxiana, masquerading as a student, took
youth, talking to him in an obscene way and indic
relationship was a sexual one. 'I was quite nettled a
and resolved never to allow such impropriety of co
myself or in others'.105 In his account of his life, the
recalled that as a teenager he had been crazed with lov
youth, roaming the hills and lanes in his distraction, b
that this ever became a sexual relationship.106 At th
made his disapproval of sexual relationships with y
Sultan Muhammad Mirza, late fifteenth century ruler
never missed his prayers, but was addicted to wine and
kept many young boys as catamites. 'During this tim
vice was so widespread that there was no-one at all w
catamites. To keep them was considered a virtue, a
them a fault'.107
What is particularly interesting in this context, then,
that Abu'l Fazl placed on Akbar's early and endurin
homosexual attachments. An early conflict took p
regency of Bairam Khan, and concerned the imper
103 ibid., ii, 296-8.

104 See Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of
Longman, London 1981.
105 Major Charles Stewart (ed.) The Malfuzat Timury orAutobiograp
Mogul Emperor Timur, Oriental Translation Committee, London
106 Wheeler M. Thackston ed., The Baburnama: Memoirs ofBabur,
Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996, 113.
107 ibid., 60. For a general discussion of these tensions, see Ste
Will Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and Literature
University Press 1997.

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Shah Quli Khan Mahram, who had Lucknow and adjoinin

under him. Shah Quli Khan had bestowed his affection
talented in dancing, named Qabul Khan. But Akbar dis
this conduct in his servants and forbade it, because wh
could in principle be pure, yet there were dangers in
sensible men were only too well aware.108
Less easily solved was the attachment of Ali Quli Kha
one of the group of powerful Uzbeg military commande
Humayun and then Akbar during the struggles of the 1550
Afghan forces of the Sur dynasty.'09 In 1558, the Khan
with Shaham Beg, the beautiful son of a camel driver, who
page of Humayun's and was a member of Akbar's specia
Shaham Beg had early established himself as the favouri
of one of Akbar's favourite courtiers. The pair shamele
their mutual affection, following 'the filthy manners of T
khaba'is ma wara'u'n-nahr. This was a deviant form of atta
Fazl emphasised: it was 'neither burning nor melting, neith
friendship'."0 The Khan in turn conceived a passion fo
and succeeded in seducing him. Without respect for th
royalty, the two even engaged in monstrous distortion
ritual: the Khan used to bow down before Shaham Beg
his emperor, and perform the kornish or royal salutati
Akbar's remonstrations, the Khan persisted in his atta
which Akbar was prepared to risk military confrontation.
he put the boy away from him, and made amends by
imperial armies in chastising the Afghans at Jaunpur.112
Another imperial servant,Jalal Khan Qurchi incurred A
in 1566 in the same way. When Akbar heard that he h
an immoderate affection for a beautiful youth, he expr
pleasure and tried to separate them. Jalal Khan tried to fle
108 Akbar-Ndma, ii, 79. Shah Quli Khan, formerly a retainer of

Bairam Khan, acquired his title of mahram, 'one who has access to th
Akbar had favoured him with admission to his women's apartments. Aft
informed Akbar that he had had himself castrated, so that he might c
this special access. Ziyaud-din A. Desai, (ed. and trans), The Dhakhirat
Shaikh Farid Bhakkari, Delhi 1993, vol. 1, p. 132.
109 See Blochmann's biographical notes in A'in i, 319-20.
110 Akbar-NTma, ii, 83
ll Akbar-Nama, ii, 68.
"2 This episode is described in very similar terms in other contempo
see Muntakhab al-Tawar7kh ii, 21, and Brajendra Nath De and Baini P
Tabaqat-i-Akbari, Khwaja Nizamuddin Ahmad, Delhi 1992, ii, 225.

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youth, but Akbar had him seized and brough

confined under the public staircase, so th
by the feet of everyone entering it."3 There
in the following year with Mozaffar Khan
diwan, but who had risen under Akbar to
minister. It came to Akbar's attention that Mozaffar Khan had
developed an attachment to a smooth-faced youth Qutb Khan, s
that he had lost his judgement. To protect Mozaffar Khan fro
himself, Akbar arranged that the boy should be taken away and giv
into the care of keepers.114
As Richard Folz has observed, there was something of a Mug
stereotype associating pederasty with Uzbeg social practice, and
the region north and south of the Oxus river referred to in Per
and Arabic literature as Turan or md ward'u'n-nahr, 'that which
beyond the river'or Transoxiana.115 As we saw above, Babur refe
to the seducer of young boys from Transoxiana. In his accounts of
homosexual attachments of imperial servants, Badauni uses exac
the same phrase as Abu'l Fazl, referring to 'the filthy manner
Transoxiana', ba rang khabd'is md wara'u'n-nahr.ll6 In his histor
India completed in the mid 1590s, the imperial servant Kh
Nizamuddin Ahmad also referred to homosexual attachments as 'in
the wicked manner of Transoxiana'. 117 Central Asia seems to have had
similar associations for the emperor Jahangir, who teased the pious
Samarkhandi traveller Mutribi by asking him to judge the respectiv
attractions of two beautiful slave boys, one dark and the other fair."118
These associations were part of a wider and older Timurid stereotyp
of Uzbegs as good military men but lawless, violent and tyrannical in
their own domains, Timur himself commenting on their cruelties and
oppressions as he 'made clean the land of Transoxiana from the weeds
and the briars of the Uzbegs'.119
At one level, then, Abu'l Fazl was appealing to a familiar stereotype
with his accounts of Akbar's hostility to sexual attachments between
"113 Akbar-Ndma, ii, 271.

114 ibid., 186.
""5 Richard C. Folz, Mughal India and Central Asia, 43.
116 Muntakhab al-TawariTkh, ii, 21.
117 Brajendra Nath De and Baini Prasad (eds), The Tabaqat-i-Akbari, Khwaja
Nizamuddin Ahmad, Delhi 1992, ii, 226.

118 Richard C. Folz, Mughal India and Central Asia, 113.
119 W. Davy (ed), Institutes of Timur, 86, Persian and English tex
stereotypes see also Richard C. Folz, Mughal India and Central Asia, 4o-1

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men. There was clearly also a political dimension to thi

decentralised steppe traditions of clan politics and ent
on key provinces in eastern UP, Bihar and Malwa, the y
Uzbeg allies did not readily settle down within an orde
kingdom. There were tensions also between the Uzb
Muslims and the Shia Persian nobility in the imperial serv
a wider Uzbeg revolt emerged against the young Akb
to consolidate his authority, in which Ali Quli Khan Za
leading role. Searching for external allies, the Uzbegs in
half brother and governor of Kabul, Mirza Muhamma
invade India. Mirza Muhammad Hakim advanced from Kabul into
the Punjab and besieged Lahore, and the Uzbeg rebels form
proclaimed him emperor of Hindusthan, even having his name read
the Friday prayers in the great mosque at Jaunpur.120 Akbar's forc
had crushed the rebels by the middle of 1567, but such a serious th
to Akbar's authority, and the broader Uzbeg reluctance to apprec
the glory of an emperor in the Persian imperial tradition left t
mark in Abu'l Fazl's account. Recounting the sexual tastes of Ali
Khan Zaman in such detail was at once a means of emphasising
moral weakness and emphasising its origins in the disordered Uz
culture of Transoxiana. What is most interesting here is Abu'l F
particular emphasis on the Khan's debasement of the kornish,
imperial salutation itself. Incapable of appreciating the true maj
of imperial power, the Khan could only turn it to the perverted en
of corrupt sexual pleasure.
Although these are clear enough pointers to a strategy of repress
there are nevertheless difficulties of interpretation. In particular,
episodes Abu'l Fazl recounts here took place when Akbar was in
late teens and early twenties. It might seem improbable tha
should so early have developed such a clear hostility to what w
familiar feature of the social landscape, and that his attitude
can be seen as part of the drive for moral and sexual regulation
he developed as a mature ruler. For a number of reasons, howev
it seems possible to argue that this was actually so. Akbar was
helpless minor during Bairam Khan's regency: in the culture of wh
he was a part, a man's teenage years could indeed produce consis
and purposive decisions. The Uzbek challenge to Akbar's power a
occurred soon after his accession, making the association betw
120 John Richards, The Mughal Empire, 18.

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Uzbek turbulence and the alien sexual dep

useful political strategy. The early efforts
describes do actually anticipate the later effo
striking ways: in their concern with a partic
moral purity, with the limitation of sexual p
with the promotion of an ideal of heterosexu
Fazl's account represents, of course, a retrosp
constructed with Akbar's ongoing direction a
What we have in these episodes, then, may
sense of appropriate forms of sexual behav
which was given greater focus and coheren
them in the light of later campaigns. Cle
not fit with the model of self-controlled m
examination and control of the passions held
Sexual pleasure for Akbar was legitimate
framework of marriage, and that too onl
fertile: where homes could be made splendid
of mankind made to flow on, and social c
pleasure between men could have no such
between men was legitimate: the friendsh
men whose families were joined by marri
on the battlefield. But sexual pleasure betw
was 'neither consuming nor melting, neith
blurred the proper boundaries between emot
of desire and pleasure which sapped male m
sensitive point. It could derive only from
north India, where men tolerated base and
expression, and where the path to male virtu
V. Conclusions
This essay has focussed on the manipulation of bodily and

identity, presented through official histories, as an import
neglected part of Mughal imperial strategy under Akbar.
many further questions which constraints of space make it dif
discuss here. In particular, we need to look at the complex
which imperial servants themselves actually negotiated the
The Mughal efforts described here to project an ideal of hon
manliness as the monopoly of the imperial service was an ex
ambitious strategy. Its success was inevitably problema
contested, and while we get some sense of that contest from B

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his information represents only a starting point.121 It i

to look at the way in which these norms changed over t
seventeenth century. While at first remarkably effect
distinctive ethos for an elite imperial service, there is m
suggest that Akbar's model gradually weakened over th
seventeenth century, as more divergent norms eme
to early Mughal norms emerged in the encounter with
normative military masculinity, that were current am
Sikh and Afghan warbands who were drawn into t
military labour market. Challenges also came from t
cultivation of luxury and pleasure in the Mughal c
emperorsJahangir and ShahJahan, and the elaboration
complex codes for courtly forms of masculinity: man
gentleman connoisseur, refined in literary and poe
elegant in person and fastidious in dress.'22 Thus Au
puritanism and his dislike of fashionable affection amo
court may have been in some senses an attempt to retur
of Akbar's court. On the question of male virtue, at
Aurangzeb may have more than the common picture m
Nevertheless, it does seem significant for a range
normative masculinity should feature so strongly
efforts to construct an elite imperial service. For M
these strategies may yield new insights both into th
of that service, and the sense of strain and detach
Richards and others detect in the experience of im
from the later seventeenth century.'24 To develop our
of these dimensions of Mughal social history further,
at what it has meant to be a man across a range of
in the early modern period, to see whether there
the normative constructs discussed here, which sou
political authority and to enhance social honour from '
of masculine identity and meanings imputed to the ma
121 For an example of this kind of negotiation, see R. O'H

Masculinity in north Indian History: the Bangash Nawabs of Farr
Journal of Gender Studies 4. 1. 1997.
122 These emphases emerge very clearly in the genre of Persian 'c
emerged from the mid-seventeenth century. See, for example, H
Mirza Nama', and Aziz Ahmad, 'The British Museum Mirzanama a
century Mirza in India' in Iran 1975. For an analaysis of later s
developments, see R. O'Hanlon, 'Manliness and Imperial Servic
India' in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 42, 1
123 I am grateful to Chris Bayly for this suggestion.
124 John Richards, 'Norms of Comportment', 286-9.

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Labour During Mughal India - Rosalind O Hanlon

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Kingdom, Household and Body History, Gender and Imperial Service under Akbar

Author(s): Rosalind O'Hanlon

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4499806

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Kingdom, Household and Body

The history of composite religious cultures in India has ove

I am very grateful to Muzaffar Alam, Chris Bayly, Sunil Kumar

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" The literature on Abu'l Fazl as a historian is large, but of

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II. Kingdom, Household and Body: akhldqi Trad

Let us look first and in more detail, then, at the akhld

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18 Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, Akbar's India, 124.

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III. Akbar as Emperor: The Household and the Body

Let us look first, then, at Akbar's own appropriation of these akhlaqi

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29 There are two known major illustrated manuscripts of the

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"3 V and AAkbar-Ndma, IS 2:77-1896 for the pilgrimage to Ajmer; IS 2:91-1896

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While some rulers thought the detail of ad

38 ibid., T'in manzil abadT, 8-9.

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authority within their wider domains.43 In accepting A

If Akbar was thus a divinely inspired father and householder, his

43 Stephen Blake, Shahjahanabad, 96-7.

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contact with its far-flung networks of serva

45 For a general discussion of hunting in Mughal co

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The other major means that Akbar employed to dem

5' Akbar-Nadma, ii, 62.

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able to come to his aid. After the elephan

IV. Codes for Imperial Servants: M

For Abu'l Fazl, these carefully crafted accoun

5 ibid., ii, 73-4.

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He called them to religious devotion in its highest form,

58 ibid., ii, a22.

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judgement, self-control and perfect paternal care in th

V. Codes for Imperial Servants: The Body and

The regulations for disciples described above formed a part of Akbar's

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the basis of their legitimacy and prestige.69 Timur's own regulations,

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of purity.71 As Bouhdiba has described, such technique

71 M.M. Sharif, A Hisory ofMuslim Philosophy, i, 581-642.

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rights and authority of imperial servan