Sunday, October 11, 2015
Muslims and Hindus in the Mughal Empire
Two people that were talked about in the reading that I found particularly interesting were emperor Akbar and emperor Aurangzeb. Emperor Akbar made many changes to help integrate the Muslim and Hindu religions. He brought many Hindus into the political-military elite, allowed for the building of Hindu "temples as well as mosques, palaces, and forts", and also tried to ease some of the harsh Hindu restrictions directed towards women, including encouraging widows to get married again, and sati, which was when "a widow followed her husband to death by throwing herself oh his funeral pyre". However, some Muslims disagreed with what Akbar was doing, and were opposed to his new policies. Emperor Aurangzeb completely disagreed with all of Akbar's changes to help with the integration of the two religions. He completely "reversed" all of his changes, which was called the policy of accommodation.
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Which of the two people you wrote about do you think had a bigger impact on the Mughal empire? I also found it interesting that two very important leaders of the Mughal empire had very different views on how the empire should be run. You said that Akbar made changes to integrate the Muslim and Hindu religions, but most of what you talked about majorly impacted the Hindu religion. What, if any, changes did Akbar make for the Muslims?
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