Anuvratha Sooraj K

BA History Honours - 3A
Roll Number - 241

Mughal India Assignment

Q. What were the various issues in the so called war of succession

between Aurangzeb and Dara?
The War of Succession between Shah Jahan's sons, which shook the
Mughal Empire at its peak, is a source of intense dispute. Dara, Murad, Shuja,
and Aurangzeb were Shah Jahan's four sons. Dara, the eldest son, was his
father's favourite, which quickly led to anger from the other three siblings,
who gradually banded together in a sort of coalition against him. There is no
distinct tradition of succession among Muslims, and the right of a ruler to
nominate a successor has grown to predominate over time. Dara Shikoh's
father gave him a miniature throne, implying that he would become Emperor.
On 29 Safar, 10'24 A.H. (Monday, 20 March, 1615 A.D.), Prince Muhammmad
Dara Shikuh, Shah Jahan's eldest son and heir-apparent to the throne, was
horn in the outskirts of Sagartal lake, near Ajmer. Dara received the titles
'Shahi-buland-Iqbal' and 'Wali-ahad' (heir) for being the 'perfect' and most
preferred son. He was involved in significant state decisions, and his mansab
was increased to 60,000/40,000 by 1748. Aurangzeb had many
accomplishments, but Dara was always preferred over him. Coins, firmans, and
seals were all issued under Dara's name, according to the Alamgir Nama, but
they were all falsified by him. This book also accuses him of cutting
communication connections between Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb and of not
allowing anyone near the empire. However, one must consider the biases in
this story because it was written by Aurangzeb. Mir Jumla (a court member)
was expelled because he was close to Aurangzeb. There was no definite
succession tradition among Muslims or Timurids. Some Muslim political
theorists have acknowledged the ruler's prerogative to nominate candidates.
However, it could not be claimed in India throughout the Sultanate
period. .The Timurid tradition of partitioning was also unsuccessful and did not
apply in India.
Shah Jahan became unwell around the end of 1657 in Delhi, and his life was
feared for a time. But, with Dara's loving care, he revived and eventually
regained his strength. This adds to the speculation and confusion regarding his
whereabouts and the succession question, as it was evident that Shah Jahan
had only a short time to live. It was said that Shah Jahan had already died, and
Dara was concealing the truth for his own benefit. Meanwhile, the rulers of
Bengal, Gujarat, and the Deccan, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb, began to plan
for what they viewed as an inevitable succession battle. Dara and Aurangzeb's
feud was worsened further by Aurangzeb's suspicion that Dara had influenced
Shah-Jahan to try to disgrace him. Indore's governor, Shah Shuja, declared
independence. A massive contingent was dispatched to put an end to it. Murad
(Gujarat's Governor) revolted. Meanwhile, Aurangzeb stayed silent and
addressed a letter to Shah Jahan in which he expressed his concern over his
father's condition. In these letters, he kept his true motivations hidden, simply
stating that his main ambition in life was to visit Kaba. He chose to silently back
Murad. As a result, a full-fledged succession struggle erupted, led by Shuja and
followed by Murad. Aurangzeb's success was due to a variety of factors. Dara's
failure was caused by two primary factors: divided counsel and Dara's
underestimation of his opponents. Suleiman Shikoh overcame Shuja, and
Jaswant Singh put down Murad's uprising. Aurangzeb's perspective was that
his participation was only due to his father's illness. He stated that if Murad
won, he would receive two-thirds of the vote and Murad would receive one-
third. Aurangzeb travels to Agra to meet his father, but Jaswant Singh refuses
to let him. This resulted in a fight with Jaswant Singh. Jahanara Begum wrote
to Aurangzeb, assuring him of his father's excellent health and requesting that
the campaign be halted. Aurangzeb, on the other hand, continues his
campaign. Dara, on the other hand, made a critical error. Satish Chandra
mentions that, overconfident in his position, he assigned some of his strongest
troops to the eastern expedition. As a result, he depopulated Agra. The fight of
Samugarh (1658) marked Shah Jahan's first resignation of power; it was a full-
fledged fight between Aurangzeb and Dara. The latter had been vanquished
and had fled. Shah Jahan attempted to mediate a truce between the two. Shah
Jahan invited Aurangzeb and promised him the role of heir, the title Almagir,
and other perks. Aurangzeb, on the other hand, was receptive. When he
arrives in Agra, there is a massive siege. His father, Shah Jahan, retires to the
fort. Aurangzeb captures the fort, and Shah Jahan is compelled to live a'retired'
life in the harem quarters. The widely held belief that Shah Jahan was
kidnapped and mistreated is greatly exaggerated. Dara made frantic efforts to
find allies after Dharmat. Dara was unable to persuade even the most powerful
Rajput rajas to support him. The battle of Samugarh on May 29, 1658, was
essentially a combat of good general ship, with the two sides nearly evenly
matched in troops. Aurangzeb had always maintained that his only reason for
visiting Agra was to see his dying father and free him from the clutches of the
'heretical' Dara. But the conflict between Aurangzeb and Dara was not fought
between religious orthodoxy and liberalism. Both Hindu and Muslim
aristocrats were split in their support for the two competitors. Nobles'
attitudes were influenced by their own interests and associations with specific
rulers. In 1658, Aurangzeb was crowned. His opponents were all eliminated.
Dara Shikoh was beaten once more at the Battle of Deorai in 1659. He was
hanged in 1651.
The War of Succession was not started by Aurangzeb on the spur of the
moment. He simply participates later and wins. It is difficult to pinpoint
particular causes for the succession struggle because there were numerous
elements that contributed to it. Historians who want to interpret medieval
India's whole history as primarily a fight between two communities consider
the succession war to be a key turning point. Shibli supported this
interpretation, claiming that the Hindus, who benefited from Akbar's lenient
policies, had gotten out of hand and were even persecuting Muslims. Dara was
a renegade inside the Islamic political community who wanted to totally open
the gates to Hindus. Aurangzeb rallied the Muslims and fought mostly for Islam
rather than the monarchy. Another faction that did not share Aurangzeb's
partisanship blamed the conflict on his later policy and Dara's intellectual
eclecticism. They declared that the fight was fought between two opposing
policies: religious tolerance and Muslim orthodoxy. Recent authors accept this
interpretation, but with slight qualifiers -RP Tripathi only to the extent that
religion functioned as a rallying cry for Aurangzeb's adherents. This ancient
tradition has been expanded and enhanced with facts and theories. This
understanding has become a fixed orthodoxy with nothing to undermine it. In
Athar Ali's critique, the question was whether Aurangzeb ever used the slogan
'Islam in danger' to acquire the throne. This is not to be confused with the
topic of whether Aurangzeb later attempted to establish an Islamic empire or
persecuted Hindus. The question here is whether a new religious policy was
the primary, or at least the avowed, goal of the war of succession. In this
regard, an intriguing document has surfaced: the Nishan/Princely command
that Aurangzeb sent to Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. Aurangzeb assures the Rana
of his sympathies and promises to restore the Mandalgarh Parganas, among
other things. In loud tones, he condemns any attempt at intolerance and
religious prejudice. It is irrelevant whether he was serious in his declaration;
what is significant is that, rather than emphasizing the religious question, he
was eager to avoid it by proclaiming himself on the side of established imperial
policy. Dara is attacked as the principle of heretics in the preamble to
Aurangzeb's agreement with Murad Baksh (called the ahadnama). According to
another historian, before marching out of Burhanpur, Aurangzeb requested
the blessing of Shaikh Abdul Latif of Burhanpur on the grounds that he was
about to execute a heretic. These were, however, simply official
pronouncements. Even Aurangzeb supporter Akhil Khan Razi did not take them
seriously, and nowhere in his report does he mention Dara's apostasy as a
cause of the war. Dara was accused of trying to assassinate or impede
Aurangzeb in a letter to Jahanara following the Battle of Dharmat--this letter
provides the charge sheet against his brother. Dara's religious beliefs are only
alluded to in the assertion that his activities are always contradictory to
empire, faith, and religion values. As a result, the majority of Aurangzeb's
claims are political in nature.
Manucci has discovered a letter from Aurangzeb to Murad in which the former
invites the latter to join a campaign against Dara (an idolator and infidel) and
Shuja (a heretic). However, since Aurangzeb and Murad were allies, this is
clearly a figment of his imagination. Dara's heresy was declared a major and
unpardonable crime only after the Battle of Samugarh, because Aurangzeb
needed a particular justification to justify Dara's execution. There is no
evidence in the activities of any competitors or the behavior of any segment of
the aristocracy that the succession war was viewed as a conflict between two
faiths. There is no proof that Muslim officials unanimously supported
Aurangzeb. When Ghori fell ill, Shah Jahan (on Dara's recommendation) issued
a number of farmans to the imperial officers serving in Deccan to begin work
for the court immediately. Mahabat Khan and Satar Sal Hada immediately
headed for court. Najabat Khan and Mir Jumla supported Aurangzeb and
refused to leave the Deccan. A major noble of Shah Jahan, Shah Nawaz Khan
Safvi, refused to support Aurangzeb. On the contrary, many Rajputs supported
Aurangzeb, including Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. In exchange for the Rana's
support, Aurangzeb agreed to restore him the parganas he had lost in 1654.
This correspondence demonstrates that Mirza Raja Jai Singh was a covert
Aurangzeb supporter who destroyed Dara's entire military effort. Qanungo has
established this. According to Bernier and Manucci, Shuja was the Shias'
favourite. However, Iranian nobility such as Mir Jumla and Shaista Khan
supported Aurangzeb Shah Nawaz Khan Safvi over Dara. As a result, there was
minimal evidence of Shias siding with Shuja. It was also vital to determine
whether the nobility' sympathies to the warring princes were divided along
communal or racial lines. Before the battle of Samugarh, Athar Ali compiled
lists of classification of Aurangzeb, Dara, and Murad followers from various
sources such as the Alamgir nama, Tarikh-i-Aurangzeb, and Futuhat-i-Alamgiri.
These data demonstrate unequivocally that the nobility's religious and ethnic
sympathies were divided. This is evident in the example of Dara and
Aurangzeb, who had followers from all key factions. Twenty-three Hindu
nobles favoured Aurangzeb and Murad, while 24 Hindu nobles backed Dara.
These numbers demonstrate no grouping of nobles along religious lines. It is
worth noting that the ulama's attitude to Aurangzeb's election was far from
universally positive. For example, because Shah Jahan was still alive at the
time, the chief Qazi refused to read the khutbah in his name. Aurangzeb was
forced to find another Qazi who would read the khutba and thereby legitimize
his succession.

Those who only look at Aurangzeb's later religious policies are surprised by his
lack of anti-Hindu or anti-Rajput bigotry. However, his deeds immediately
following the war of succession depict a different picture. Aurangzeb
appointed Jai Singh as the nominal and practical viceroy of the Deccan--
possibly the most important position in the entire empire. Jaswant Singh was
named governor of Gujarat twice. He also named Raja Raghunath as diwan.
This was significant since there had never been a Hindu diwan since Akbar's
death. Clearly, the use of religious rhetoric refers back to the succession
conflict and was intended to legitimize some of Aurangzeb's more contentious
actions, such as the execution of his siblings and the imprisonment of his
father. It is impossible to determine why Aurangzeb modified his policy in later
years. One school of thought holds that it began with the succession battle in
response to increased Rajput or Hindu penetration of imperial services under
Shah Jahan; however, this perspective is no longer valid because there was no
opposition to it.

Bibliography:

 Satish Chandra; History of Medieval India.

 Bikrama Jit Hasrat; Dara Shikuh, Life and Works.
 Academia.edu
 Britanica.com
 Times of India Article.