Document – The Ideal of a Muslim Ruler: Excerpt from Rulings on Temporal Government by Barni (ca. 1358)

Abstract and Keywords

The Mughal emperor Akbar ruled northern India, including large parts of present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, from 1556 to 1605,and he is generally considered one of the greatest rulers of India. The founder of the dynasty, Babur (reigned 1526–1530), and his followers were Muslim Turks from central Asia, who had been driven from their homes by invaders. Called Mughals, because they were mistakenly identified with the Mongols, they were militarily very sophisticated, employing both matchlockmen and field artillery. They needed all that sophistication to hold onto their newly won territory. Akbar’s father succeeded Babur after his death. He first lost the territory, then won it back just 0a year before he died.

Though illiterate, Akbar developed a deep knowledge of Hindu and Muslim cultures by having important texts read to him daily. He also sponsored artistic creation and was especially interested in information about different religions. The debates he sponsored among religious scholars apparently distanced him from any of the established religions. He attempted to create a syncretic religion called Din-i Ilahi, based on worship of the sun and light, that he believed could unify Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and others. Characteristically, Akbar never attempted to force anyone to convert to his religion.

The source included here establishes the political ideal of a leader, as elaborated by a Muslim historian of northern India. Zi¯aud-d¯ın Barn¯ı (1285–1358) came from a prominent aristocratic family of Indian Muslims. He was a close associate of a sultan of Delhi, but he fell from favor after that sultan’s death in 1351, and he was arrested and sent into permanent exile. In 1358, he wrote the work Rulings on Temporal Government (Fat¯awa-yi-Jah¯and¯ari), hoping thereby to return to the sultan’s favor. It presents his understanding, formulated from an orthodox Sunni Muslim perspective, of how the ideal ruler should govern.

Document

Whenever the ruler, with truly pious intent, . . . strives with the help of his supporters and followers, and with all the might and power of his office in the conviction that the glory of Muhammad’s religion is the most important task of his own faith and dynasty, [then the following consequences follow]: Obedience to the command to do what is lawful and the prohibition of what is unlawful manifests itself in his capital and in the provinces; the banners of Islam are always exalted; virtue and merit grow and good works and obedience to God arise. . . . Those mandates of true religion are enforced and those forbidden by the Holy Law (Shari’a) sink low and become as if they had never been; love of God and of the Prophets is strengthened in the Muslim community and love of the world . . . lessens, and desire for the next world increases and desire for this world becomes wearisome and vexatious. The virtues of the people prevail over their vices; truth and the truthful obtain glory and honor, lying and liars, dishonor.

Descendants of Muhammad, doctors of Shari’a, mystics, ascetics, devotees, recluses appear great, honored, distinguished, and illustrious in the sight and in the minds of men, while the ignorant, the corrupt, the irreligious, the negligent [in performing their prayers], and the shameless appear contemptible, powerless, and unworthy in men’s sight. In Holy War sincere zeal is manifested, and the desire for martyrdom graces the warriors and strivers for the faith. Truth and honesty become such; perfidyⁱ and dishonesty are reduced to a sorry plight; the good and the just take up occupations in religion and government; the tyrannical and the wicked are left to roam at large “unwept, unhonored, and unsung,” or by a change in their dispositions, to behave justly and well; the rich and propertied discharge their obligations to God, and give alms, and perform charitable good works; the poor and the needy are not left in want and are freed from hunger and nakedness.

[However,] If God Most High views the people of a country and clime with eyes of wrath, and wishes them to remain in toil, trouble, suffering, distress, and disorder, he appoints over them a ruler who is a slave to innate depravity, so that they may be at a loss to know what to do through his evil character and filthy habits, and be utterly confounded through his vicious qualities.

Notes

Review

1. According to Barn¯ı, what precepts should guide a ruler?
2. How do Barn¯ı's views on what makes a just Muslim ruler compare with views on kingship in other parts of the world at this time?

Notes:

(ⁱ) Treachery