21 The Religious [¢« og Ue | war of Successig pany 1, 1658-9 var of succession among Shah J, ea pie When It Vas ats he ug! at called forth a spate of accounts, ‘ i a S wi vl jescribed from all points of view and with al] snot overwhelm the modern student, Sir Tad gre " ihe fist time a coherent description of the i out the aire reliable accounts and jecti iy or later tradition. Great as the value ofthe gr oo, on was, his account suffered from an emphasis on sana’ s work rf pure i pate els. Ye th War of suze Suc. ps more an any other, stands in need of Scientific ira ie wo alysis, ‘e war of succession has been consi a deci: py historians who choose to view the vine elon india 2 feel astrugge between Vo communities, hb pt iva Ini pisgreat authority in favour of this interpretation: The Hindus, cela of from the policy of tolerance of Akbar, were getting out of hand and even persecuting the Muslims. Dara Shukoh was a traitor within the samic political community who sought to open the gates fully to the Hindus. Aurangzeb, therefore, rallied the Muslims together and fought essentially for the faith, not for the throne.! Others who did not share the same partisan feeling for Aurangzeb, mainly looking at his later policy, and Dara’s intellectual eclecticism, hastened to accept this interpretation and declared that the war was @ struggle between two opposite policies, those of religious tolerance and Muslim orthodoxy. Recent work on the subject has te1 With only minor qualifications. On the one only to the extent that religion served as a war cry (0 rl Supporters, Itvas also deemed necessary to find out the cry that was raised was the defence 0! of Dara whether Shah Jahan was alive oF lahan’s s DMS, which ight, by its xtreme hich by th Shook the Y dramatic leit variety of Sof credibili ty lunath Sarkar Prov; ided War of success : ic t wi cession, by snded to assume this interpretation hand, R.P. Tripathi admits it Ily Aurangzeb's an effective slogan forthe War and te law of Islam from the here dead. Should th ———— Scanned with CamScannerMughal India from the thraldom and tyranny we Hes the hoo OF He the dja ig thems' 15 of iy ye supporters Of the Old interpre, i 246 sl fe Di ey WO alive. th ate 0 ' er hand th bly enlarged ¢ ra an considerably enlarged and ern in, cli r it has bee la ath, ane it 7 Proclaimed by so many Writers of tet Oe Wong foots are {HCFCS become a set dogma which, i noth Yet, those \ to ask themsel slam in Dang such statements do not seem to have Nes whether Aurangzeb in fact ever raised thy hed : ex’ in order to gain the throne. This Question, i, rea ered, is quite different from whether Aurangzeb late on remem ij an Islamic state oF persecuted Hinduism, What yo to buil here is whether anew religious policy was the chief, og shy, ore object for which the war of succession was ig : a ee isavery interesting document which has come to lh the Udaipur records. This is a nishan, or Princely order, Whig Aurangzeb sent to Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. This bore the impresig of his palm and it is obvious that Aurangzeb attached Very sre importance to its contents. Assuring the Rana of his Sympathy aj pledging himself to restore the parganas of Mandalgarh, ete, Whig, Shah Jahan had detached from his territory, Aurangzeb makes th following declaration: lea That loyal one (ie. the Rana) has become the recipient of thousands o royal favours. Because the persons of the great kings are shadows of Gol the attention of this elevated class (of Kings) who are the pillars of te great (i.e. God’s) court, is devoted to this, that men belonging to various communities and different religions should live in the vale of peace a! pass their days in prosperity, and no one should interfere with the affuis of another. Any one of this sky-glorious group (i.e. the kings) who reste! ‘o intolerance, became the cause of dispute and conflict and of harm to 8 People at large, who are indeed a trust received from God, In reali (Such a king) thereby endeavoured to devastate the prosperous cretis® of God and destroy the foundations of God’s fabric, which is 2 ime 4 © be rejected and cast off. God willing, when the Trath "sown and the wishes of the sincerely loyal ones are fulfill! when Aurangzeb gains the throne), the benefits of the revered psi and established regulatio Dical-tanbatanncll este ns of my great ancestors, who are so esi") 2 the worsh i ied org ful ones, will east lustre on the four-comered i What is thi » M15 this but a pledge thatthe contender for the hove Scanned with CamScannersae Religious Issue in the ze Religions Issue fh the War of Succession 7 : O87 Would a have condernned m jpous sle he Was anious toavoid itby eget than StF he established imperial policy saa nt? reresting 10 note in this connection tha nis ined the charge of heresy py ee seems to se gat placed victory desl in ae pe FOE that in the preamble to his agreement ie y8 Ue) Dara Shukoh is denounced as oe with st ahi)” Its also stated by a hisoean Gaece je om Burhanpur, Aurangzeb sought the blessingor Shahn 1 Latif of Burhanpur on the ground that he was at a spl Lal were, however, formal declarations creaneab jt! Me Agil Khan Rei didnot ake them ccoisiyteomisthe ile to the ahadnama and nowhere through his accounts refers 7 's heresy a8 4 cause of the war. How serious Aurangzeb himself asin tis allegation is revealed by his own reply to a letter he received ions Ian Ara after the battle of Dharmat. This reply contains gre sheet against his elder brother. The whole consists merely of secusations that Dara had throughout tried to thwart or even kill juangzed. The only possible reference — that is, possible if read alone — to Dara’s religious views is in the statement that ‘his actions ae always contrary to (the principles) of the Empire, faith and religion and injurious to the interests of the country and the people.’ Sandwiched tetween the ‘Empire’ and ‘country and people’ faith and religion can cnly have a formal significance, for a man who violated the interests of tte Empire was supposed ipso facto to have violated the principles of tis ith, That this is really so is shown by the fact that Aurangzeb oveeds to illustrate his statement only by allegations of a political ‘ature, chiefly that, by bringing about the withdrawal of Mughal | fingnts from the Bijapur campaign in 1657, Dara had harmed the | me eet of the Empire and exposed Aurangzeb and his troops to | ger: lic’ purprt to give us a Teter fom Aurangzeb to Murad ied tP him to join in a campaign against Dara, aaa dere as against Shuja ‘a heretic’." But this ne ie his imagination for ‘Aurangzeb and Mura phen h Jahan ee with Shuja, and one of the complaints aginst Shab falas zo the relipious policy of his rising @ religious war ery at the inging (Ones ANY attempt at intoler yon? Whether Aurangzeb w; side the point, What is si faring himself Scanned with CamScanner_ ua Mughal India and Dara that Aurangzeb wi s then raising was that the, grandson of Parwez’ (Sulaiman Shukoh) to destroy Shujay Sen, brother." i Seley It was only after Samugarh, when special reason had to abandon the am tated til then, namely the replacemey been iy counsels of Shah Jahan, that Dara’s heresy was Proclaimeg ih hy chief and unpardonable crime. It was first brought y ing ig interview with Jahan Ara Begam,” It is also noteworthy that the Pivae history of the first decade of Aurangzeb’ reign, the Alamgir Na cig, Mutsmmad Kezim gives its deste account of Dana's for." explain Aurangzeb’s taking Up arms against him, but to j execution." There is also no proof in either the actions of any Contenders o, the behaviour of any section of the nobility, that the war ny success. Was regarded as a war between two faiths, Proofs that h; been offered can by no means command the confidence Student of history. LK. Ghori says, for example, that SY Not ty JUStify hig sion ‘AVE till nowy Of any sober disobey the summons and Joined hands with him.'* In support of this statement Ghori has cited Manucci and Sadiq Khan. The statement is made by neither of them, but by Abul Fazl Mamuri, and he too speaks only of twenty commanders and not of twenty Muslim commanders." The actual facts in this case are these: left for the court along with their contingents.'6 But Najabat Khan and Mir Jumla were sympathetic to Aurangzeb and decided not to leave the Deccan.” Shah Nawaz Khan Safvi, a leading noble of Shah Jahan, was treacherously arrested."* ‘Thus, there is no question of Muslim officers unanimously aligning themselves with Aurangzeb, On the contrary, a plausible case can be rade out that Aurangzeb succeeded in obtaining Support from a very large number of Rajputs.” Aurangzeb's nishans to Rana Raj Singh of Scanned with CamScannerthe Religions Issue in the War of Sy : Hccessio «us in no doubt that the on yr leave us in mi uibt that the head of the n 249 in sympathy with Au most illustrious house yin return for the Rana’ rangzeb. A bargain had been p Ree whereby ee si te pare ost by him in lest rea was to ned to fulfil ‘as soon as he occupied Sela: Arenas nt espondence of Mirza Raja Jai Singh reveals him as ae The “ rane2e? who sabotaged the whole military effort of a partisan ang need alarge/upod this here'becase Onsiage Wie paisted it beyond any reasonable doubt." It only remains Hae has pote the rebel ‘Akbar’s taunt made in a letter to his father in west. . it has not been brought to your (Aurangzeb’ Mp realty prejudiced aginst, and ace ae aes pas Mls of his If he had made fends with them from ae ave fared as he did. = \ first, he he Shias, it is only Bemier and Manucci* e been a special favourite with them. ae ted P Bernier, the Jatter is probably the sole authority for the statement. ra sould be considered suficlent evidence for postulating a ‘ite candidate forthe throne is surprising — more so, when we find historian of RP. Tripathi’s stature doing so2* Iranian nobles like Mir junlaand Shaista Khan were on the side of Aurangzeb and Shah Nawaz khan Safvi on that of Dara. Indeed, Murad Bakhsh himself was popularly suspected of having Shi‘ite leanings2* Where then are the Shias who are supposed to have sided with Shuja? ‘The final test for all this theorization is whether the nobles were actually divided in their loyalties to the contending princes on communal, racial or any other lines. No such study of the jndividual nobles has been so far attempted, although there is sufficient contemporary material to make an adequate enumeration and classification possible. Mere reliance on eighteenth-century works like the Marasir-ul Umara, ot Tackirat-ul Umara will give @ ‘wholly misleading picture, because they cover only the barest fraction of the officers involved. Ihave made lists of the supporters of Aurangzeb, Dara nd Murad before the batle of Samugath, as also those of Shuja, from nll the available sources which are accessible to us. These are the Alamgir Nama by ‘Muhammad Kazim; Alamgir Nama by Hatim Khan; ‘Ma‘asir-i Alamgiri by SA Mustaad Khan; Tarikh-i Aurangzeb bY * bul Faal Mauri; Futuhat Alamgiri by Isar Das Nagar; Wagi'ar ; Alamgiri by Agil Khan Razi; Adab-i Alamgir Amal-i Salih by Salih Kambu; Tufa-Shah Jahan by fH by Bakhtawar Khan; Sidhe Lal gc ean-Nem anc wire la shuja © hav Scanned with CamScanner“SY Kindasat-ut Tawarikh by Sujan Rai Bhandari; Tarikh-i Shap Jahey Sadig K tuskha-i Dilkusha by Bhimsen; Storia Dy Mayol Manueck: Thvel a the Mughal Empire by Denier, te gt?” Umara by Shah Nawaz Khan and Tazkirat-ul Umara by Kewal part! On the basis of this study, the following facts emerge: a There were 87 nobles holding the ranks of 1000 zat and above are known to have supported Dara Shukoh in the War of succ out of these 23 were Tranis, 16 Turanis, 1 Afghan, 23 other M 22 Rajputs and 2 Marathas. Out of 124 nobles holding the ranks of 1000 and above who support Aurangzeb, 27 were Iranis, 20 Turanis, 23 other Muslims, 9 Rajputs 10 Marathas and 2 other Hindus. 7 Shah Shuja is known to have been supported by ten nobles of 1000 and above, out of whom 1 was Irani, 3 Turanis, 1 Afghan and § other Muslims. There were 1] mansabdars of 1000 and above who supported Murad Bakhsh; out of these there was 1 Irani, 1 Afghan, 7 other Muslims and 2 Rajputs. These figures show more conclusively than anything else that all religious and racial sections in the nobility were divided in their loyalties, This is quite clear in the case of both Dara and Aurangzeb who had among their supporters members of all important sections, Twenty- three Hindu nobles (11 Rajputs, 10 Marathas and 2 other Hindus) supported Aurangzeb and Murad, as against 24 Hindu nobles (22 Rajputs and 2 Marathas) backing Dara Shukoh. These figures do not show any alignment of nobles on merely religious lines. Indeed, if. Aurangzeb had made any statement or committed any action hostile to any community, this would have been disastrous for his cause, because amidst a generally apathetic nobility, a big section solidly opposing him could have made all the difference. The absence of any anti-Hindu or anti-Rajput bias in Aurangzeb’s effort to gain the throne may surprise those who concentrate only on Aurangzeb’s later religious policy, with its temple destruction and jizya and his war with Marwar and Mewar in 1680, But a careful student of his reign might look more closely at what immediately followed on the war of succession. Never since the recall of Man Singh from Bengal in 1606 by Jahanagir had an important governor-ship been conferred ona Rajput. Aurangzeb made Jai Singh the nominal, as well as the actual viceroy of the Deccan, perhaps the most important post in the whole Empire, and Jaswant Singh was twice appointed governor of Gujarat. Never since the death of Akbar had there been a Hindu diwan (finance 250 Mughal India Who €Ssion; uslims, ~ Scanned with CamScanner‘me Religious Issue in the War of Succession 061 he Empire. Now A well-known Bena ‘angzeb appointed Raja Raghunath to Fe own B farman** is a testimony to his attempt ins iw his pledge given in the nishan to Rana Raj Singh, which was tll ne that no one interfered in the religion of another. worst peyond the scope of this article to examine why and how yy agzed’s policy changed in later days. Nevertheless, one reason aur ly advanced for this, namely that it began with the war of succession asl to the increasing Rajput or Hindu penetration ofthe imperial ine nder Shah Jahan, can no longer be held, sine in fact there sev no movement against it. And even if there was one, Aurangzeb os fothing to do with it in 1658-9. init NOTES 1, Maulana Shibli, Aurangzeb Alamgir per ek nazar, Aligarh, 1922, In saglsh he has been followed by Faruki, Aurangzeb and His Times (see tspupp. 28-9, 47-8) and by LH. Qureshi in A History of Freedom Movement (being the History of Muslim Struggle of Hind-Pakistan), Karachi, vol. 1. 7.23. 2, CES. Lane-Poole, Aurangzeb, p. 42: ‘Dara might have been a lesser ‘Akbar’ and ef. S.R. Sharma, who declares, ‘when Aurangzeb became the King of India Muslim theology triumphed in him’ (Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, p. 118). 3. Rise and Fall of the Mughal Empire, p. 482. 4. An example of such effort is to be found in Iftikhar Khan Ghori’s attempt to substantiate what was only suggested hitherto by various scholars, that the war of succession was a war not only between Hinduism and Islam, but also between Shi‘ism and Sunnism. Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, i, part , pp. 97-119. 5. See, for example, the two text books so widely used: AL. Srivastava, Mughal Empire, pp. 320, 323, 334, 339; and SR. Sharma, Mughal Empire in India, vol. n, p. 503. 6. Shyamaldas, Vir Vinod, u, pp. 419-20, note. This great history of 7 reproduces in this note the whole text of the nishan; it is followed by Sther nishans as well. 7 é eb Alam iri f.844-85a: printed in Nab Nowe Rag vi Alamgir, - 264-5. Kamwar; Tazkira-i Salatin-i Chaghtai, MS f. 211b-212b. 8. Mamuri, Tarikh-i Aurangzeb, f. 86b; Khafi Khan, up. 11. 9. The whole letter is reproduced in Wagi‘at-i Alamgiri, ed. Zafar Hasan, Scanned with CamScanner