Hindu-Muslim Relations in Mughal India

The relations between the Hindu and Muslim communities of India are among the most important themes of South Asian history, and the Mughal period — between the founding of the dynasty by Babur in 1526 and the effective end of imperial authority with the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 — was the most extensive and consequential phase of the long engagement between the two traditions. Over these two centuries, the Mughal court developed, refined, and at times retracted a series of policies and practices that shaped the religious life of the empire, the position of the Hindu majority, the relations between the imperial establishment and the regional Hindu polities, the development of the syncretic religious traditions of the period, and the long-term character of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (the composite culture of North India). The arrival of Muslim communities in India in the centuries before the Mughal conquest, the early Sultanate period, the policies of Babur, Humayun, and the early Mughals, the integrationist policies of Akbar, the conciliatory policies of Jahangir, the more rigorous policies of Shah Jahan, and the controversial policies of Aurangzeb together constitute the political history of the question. The development of the syncretic traditions of the Bhakti and Sufi movements, the rise of the Sikh community, the development of the Satnami and other syncretic movements, the position of Hindus in the imperial bureaucracy and the mansabdari hierarchy, the development of Urdu as a composite language, and the composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of North India constitute the cultural history of the question. The history of these relations, the policy of the imperial court, the principal episodes of conflict and accommodation, and the lasting influence of the period on the modern politics and culture of South Asia are treated in detail below.

The Arrival of Muslims in India and the Early Sultanate Period

The Muslim communities of India had a substantial presence in the subcontinent long before the Mughal conquest. Arab merchants and traders had established settlements on the western and southern coasts of India in the early centuries of the hijra, and the Malabar and Konkan Muslim communities were well established by the eighth and ninth centuries. The conquest of Sindh by Muhammad bin Qasim in 711 established the first Muslim political authority in the subcontinent, and the subsequent establishment of the Ghaznavid, Ghurid, and Delhi Sultanate polities extended Muslim rule over much of North India between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries. The Delhi Sultanate, in particular, was the principal political framework within which the relations between the Muslim ruling elite and the Hindu majority population were worked out in the centuries before the Mughals.

The Delhi Sultanate was, like most pre-modern states, a confessional state in which the political authority was monopolised by the Muslim ruling class. The ulama of the Sultanate developed a body of juridical literature on the position of the zimmi (the non-Muslim subjects of the Muslim state), and the jizya (the poll tax on non-Muslim adult males), the kharaj (the land tax), the harbi (the restrictions on non-Muslim public worship), and the various other legal institutions of the Sultanate defined the formal position of the Hindu majority. The jizya was imposed, with variations, throughout the Sultanate period, and the demolition of temples, the construction of mosques on the sites of demolished temples, the harbi of the zimmi, and the restrictions on the construction of new temples were all elements of the legal and political framework of the period. Yet the Sultanate was also marked by substantial accommodation. The Hindu zamindars, the raiyat, the merchants, the caravan traders, the Brahmin scholars, the bhakti and jnana yogis, the Rajput rajas (many of whom entered into alliance with the Sultanate), and the various Hindu religious establishments all continued to function within the broader political framework, and the composite culture of the period was already well established by the time of the Mughal conquest.

Babur, Humayun, and the Early Mughals

The Mughal dynasty, founded by Babur (r. 1526–1530), was in many respects the heir to the Sultanate tradition. Babur, a Central Asian prince of Timurid and Chinggisid descent, came to India with a small army of Turko-Mongol followers, defeated Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, and established the foundations of the Mughal Empire. Babur’s attitude towards the Hindu population of the empire was in some respects traditional: the jizya was maintained, the harbi was in force, the construction of new temples was restricted, and the demolition of temples, particularly those associated with political opposition, was practised. Yet Babur was also a man of literary and cultural refinement, deeply attached to the Timurid heritage, and his relations with the Hindu population were marked by a number of significant accommodations. The Babar-nama contains a number of observations on the Hindu population, the natural environment of India, and the cultural traditions of the country, and Babur was not generally hostile to the Hindu religious establishments that did not pose a political threat to his authority.

Humayun (r. 1530–1540, 1555–1556), Babur’s son, was principally concerned with the consolidation of the dynasty and the recovery of the territories lost to Sher Shah Suri, and the policy of his reign was largely shaped by the exigencies of the political situation. The Hindu mansabdari nobles, including the Hindu rajas of the Rajput houses who entered into alliance with the Mughals, were already a presence at the court, and the early foundations of the policy of religious integration that would later be developed by Akbar were already being laid. Humayun’s exile at the Safavid court in Iran in the 1540s and 1550s reinforced the Shia and Persianate orientation of the dynasty, and his early death in 1556 left the consolidation of the empire to his son Akbar.

Akbar and the Policy of Religious Integration

The reign of Akbar (r. 1556–1605) was the most consequential period for the relations between Hindus and Muslims in the Mughal period. Akbar’s policy of religious integration, developed gradually over the course of his reign, was attempts at religious synthesis in the early modern world, and it set the framework within which the question of Hindu-Muslim relations was debated for the next century.

The Matrimonial Alliances with the Rajput Houses

The most visible element of Akbar’s policy was the matrimonial alliance with the Rajput houses. Akbar’s marriage to Mariam-uz-Zamani, a princess of the Kachhwaha house of Amber-Jaipur, in 1562, was the first of a series of marriages between the Mughal emperor and the Rajput princesses. Subsequent alliances were contracted with the Rathor house of Marwar, the Sisodia house of Mewar, the Bundela house of Orchha, and other Rajput and regional ruling families. The marriages were not merely personal alliances but political and ideological statements: they signalled the integration of the Rajput aristocracy into the imperial establishment, the recognition of the Rajput houses as legitimate partners of the Mughal dynasty, and the symbolic incorporation of the Hindu warrior tradition into the broader imperial polity.

The matrimonial alliances with the Rajput houses were accompanied by a substantial incorporation of the Rajput mansabdari nobles into the imperial service. Man Singh I, the Raja of Amber-Jaipur and a cousin of Akbar’s wife, became nobles of the empire, holding the mansab of sih-hazari (7,000 cavalry) and serving as the governor of Bengal, Bihar, and the Deccan. Raja Bhagwan Das, Raja Todar Mal, the famous revenue administrator who served as the diwan-i-kul of the empire, and a substantial body of Rajput and other Hindu mansabdari nobles were integrated into the imperial establishment. The Kachhwaha, Rathor, Sisodia, and other Rajput houses became the most reliable military and political allies of the dynasty, and the Rajput tradition of loyalty to the throne (bhakti to the maharaja) was an important element of the imperial authority.

The Abolition of the Jizya and the Pilgrim Tax

The abolition of the jizya in 1564 was the most significant formal act of Akbar’s religious policy. The jizya, the poll tax on non-Muslim adult males, was a fundamental institution of the pre-modern Muslim state, and its abolition was a major departure from the Sultanate tradition. The decision was not uncontested: the ulama of the court, particularly Mulla Muhammad Yazdi and the more conservative members of the religious establishment, opposed the move, and the question was debated at length in the Ibadat Khana of Fatehpur Sikri. The abolition was accompanied by the abolition of the pilgrim tax on Hindu pilgrimages, the removal of the restrictions on the construction of new temples, the abolition of the harbi (the formal restrictions on non-Muslim public worship), and a number of other measures of religious conciliation.

The Ibadat Khana and the Debates on Religion

The Ibadat Khana (the “House of Worship”) at Fatehpur Sikri, established in the 1570s, was the formal setting for the religious debates of the period. The Ibadat Khana was originally a forum for the discussions of the ulama of different schools of Islamic law, but it was progressively expanded to include the mashayikh (Sufi masters) of the various orders, the Hindu scholars and pandits of the various sampradaya, the Jains, the Zoroastrians, the Christians, and the Jews. The discussions in the Ibadat Khana were recorded in detail by Abu’l Fazl in the Akbarnama, and they provide a remarkable window into the religious and philosophical life of the late sixteenth century. The most famous episodes include the discussions between the Jesuit missions and the ulama in the 1580s and 1590s, the discussions between the Chishti Sufi masters and the orthodox ulama, and the discussions between the pandits of the Hindu tradition and the scholars of the Muslim establishment.

The Din-i-Ilahi and the Imperial Spiritual Fellowship

The Din-i-Ilahi (“the Religion of God”), promulgated by Akbar in 1582, was the most ambitious expression of the syncretic religious policy. The Din-i-Ilahi drew on elements of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Christianity, and it was presented as a kind of imperial spiritual fellowship centred on the person of the emperor. The Din-i-Ilahi was never a formal religion in the conventional sense: it did not have a scripture, a clergy, or a fixed ritual, and it was more an expression of the personal religious vision of Akbar than a new religious system. The historical status of the Din-i-Ilahi is debated: some historians have seen it as a sincere attempt at religious synthesis, while others have viewed it as a political instrument designed to neutralise the religious opposition of the ulama to Akbar’s policies. The Din-i-Ilahi attracted only a small number of adherents, and it effectively ended with the death of Akbar in 1605. Yet it remains one of the most discussed episodes in the history of Mughal religious policy, and it has been subject to very different interpretations in the modern period.

Jahangir and the Policy of Conciliation

The reign of Jahangir (r. 1605–1627) continued the policy of religious conciliation developed by Akbar, although with somewhat less emphasis on the formal syncretic institutions of the previous reign. Jahangir maintained the matrimonial alliances with the Rajput houses, the integration of the Hindu mansabdari nobles, the patronage of the Hindu religious establishments, the celebration of Hindu festivals at the court (the Raksha Bandhan and the Holi of Jahangir’s reign are particularly noted), and the general framework of religious tolerance that had been established by his father. Yet Jahangir was also a Muslim of conventional piety, and he did not pursue the formal syncretic project of the Din-i-Ilahi. The reign was marked by the continued development of the mansabdari of Hindu nobles, the consolidation of the Rajput alliance, and the patronage of the Hindu, Jain, and other religious establishments.

Jahangir’s reign also saw a number of episodes of conflict with the Sikh community. The execution of Guru Arjan (the fifth Sikh Guru) in 1606, on the orders of Jahangir, was a major event in the history of the Sikh tradition. The circumstances of the execution are debated: the traditional Sikh account holds that Guru Arjan was executed for refusing to convert to Islam and for his support of the rebel prince Khusrau; the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri records the execution as a punishment for alleged sedition. The execution marked the beginning of a more critical Sikh attitude towards the Mughal state, and the relationship between the Sikh Gurus and the Mughal court remained tense throughout the seventeenth century.

Shah Jahan and the More Rigorous Policy

The reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) marked a partial reversal of the integrationist policy of Akbar and the conciliatory policy of Jahangir. Shah Jahan, a more conventionally pious Muslim, presided over a number of episodes of temple demolition, particularly in the early years of his reign. The most famous of these was the demolition of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple at Varanasi in 1632, the construction of the Gyanvapi Mosque on the site, and the demolition of a number of other temples in Varanasi, Mathura, and elsewhere. The temple demolitions of Shah Jahan’s reign were accompanied by a partial reimposition of the jizya in some provinces, the harbi of the zimmi, and a more rigorous enforcement of the legal restrictions on the construction of new temples. The policy of the early years of Shah Jahan’s reign was, however, partially reversed in the later years, and the integration of the Hindu mansabdari nobles, the marriage alliances with the Rajput houses, and the general framework of religious conciliation continued.

Aurangzeb and the Reimposition of the Jizya

The reign of Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) is the most controversial period in the history of Mughal religious policy, and the reimposition of the jizya in 1679 and the substantial programme of temple demolitions in the later years of the reign are the most discussed episodes of the period. Aurangzeb was a deeply pious Muslim, an alim of considerable accomplishment, and a ruler who took seriously the formal obligations of the Muslim state. The reimposition of the jizya in 1679, after a gap of more than a century, was a major departure from the policy of Akbar, and it was accompanied by the demolition of a number of major temples, including the Keshav Dev Temple at Mathura (replaced by the Shahi Eidgah of Mathura), the Somnath Temple in Gujarat (rebuilt by Aurangzeb), and a number of other major Hindu religious establishments. The temple demolitions of Aurangzeb’s reign were particularly extensive in the Deccan, where the campaigns of the late seventeenth century were accompanied by substantial religious violence.

The reimposition of the jizya and the temple demolitions of Aurangzeb’s reign were not uncontested. The Hindu mansabdari nobles of the court, the Rajput allies of the dynasty, the ulama of the more liberal Sufi orders, the mashayikh of the Chishti and Naqshbandi establishments, and the pandits of the Hindu religious establishment all expressed opposition in different ways. The Rajput houses of Mewar and Marwar, in particular, broke with the Mughal alliance in the early eighteenth century, and the Maratha, Sikh, and Jat polities that emerged in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were in part a response to the religious policies of the later years of Aurangzeb’s reign.

Yet the religious policy of Aurangzeb was more complex than the simple reversal of the policy of Akbar. The Mughal court continued to employ a substantial body of Hindu mansabdari nobles, the Rajput alliances with the Kachhwaha and other houses were maintained, the celebration of Hindu festivals at the court continued, and the langar and the public waqf of the imperial establishment continued to be distributed without regard to religion. The jizya was collected with varying rigour in the different provinces, and the temple demolitions of the later years of the reign were concentrated in the Deccan and the newly conquered territories rather than in the older provinces of the empire.

The Position of Hindus in the Imperial Bureaucracy

The integration of Hindus into the imperial bureaucracy was elements of the policy of religious integration. The mansabdari system, the formal hierarchy of the imperial service, was open to Hindus, and from the reign of Akbar onwards, a substantial number of Hindu nobles, both Rajput and non-Rajput, were incorporated into the imperial establishment. The Hindu mansabdari nobles of the highest rank, including Man Singh I, Raja Bhagwan Das, Raja Todar Mal, Raja Ram Das Rathor, Raja Rup Singh Bundela, and a number of others, held the highest mansabs of the empire and served as governors of major provinces, commanders of the imperial army, and members of the diwan of the imperial council.

The Hindu mansabdari nobles of the higher ranks maintained their own religious establishments, patronised the Hindu temples, Brahmins, and religious teachers, celebrated Hindu festivals in their own households, and transmitted the mansabdari position to their descendants in accordance with the Rajput and regional customs. The Hindu and Muslim mansabdari nobles served together in the imperial army, the diwan of the imperial council, and the provincial administrations, and the mansabdari system served as a major instrument of integration.

The Hindu presence in the imperial bureaucracy was not limited to the mansabdari rank. The diwani offices of the imperial establishment, the qazi courts, the sadr-us-sudur (the religious establishment), the kitab khana (the library), the mushairas (the poetry gatherings), the karkhanas (the workshops), and the various other institutions of the empire all employed Hindus in substantial numbers. The Hindu karakhanas (scribes) of the diwani offices, the Hindu sahukars (merchants) of the mandis (markets), the Hindu raiyat (peasants) of the agricultural hinterland, and the Hindu karigars (artisans) of the urban workshops were all part of the wider imperial establishment.

The Syncretic Traditions: The Bhakti and the Sufi Movements

The syncretic religious traditions of the Mughal period were among the most important cultural developments of the era. The Bhakti movement, the devotional movement of Hinduism that had been developing since the twelfth century, reached its mature form in the Mughal period, particularly in North India and the Deccan. The principal Bhakti poets of the period, including Tulsidas (author of the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi), Surdas (author of the Sur Sagar in Braj Bhasha), Malik Muhammad Jayasi (author of the Padmavat in Awadhi), Kabir (the great weaver-poet of Benares), Ravidas (the chamar saint of Varanasi), Mirabai (the Rajput princess and Krishna devotee), Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (the Bengali Vaishnava saint), and Namdev (the Marathi Bhakti poet), developed a devotional idiom that drew on the Hindu, Sufi, and Nathpanthi traditions of the period.

The Sufi movement, the mystical tradition of Islam that had been developing in India since the eleventh century, also reached a mature form in the Mughal period. The principal Sufi orders of the empire, including the Chishti, the Naqshbandi, the Qadiri, the Suhrawardi, and the Shattari, maintained substantial establishments in the principal cities of the empire, and the dargah of the great Sufi masters was a major focus of popular devotion. The most prominent Sufi masters of the period, including Khwaja Mu’in-ud-din Chishti of Ajmer, Shaykh Salim Chishti of Fatehpur Sikri, Ahmad Sirhindi (the Mujaddid of the Naqshbandi order), Shah Waliullah of Delhi, and the various other mashayikh of the period, were major figures in the religious life of the empire.

The encounter between the Bhakti and the Sufi traditions was particularly significant. The Sufi-Bhakti synthesis, the convergence of the two devotional traditions, was cultural developments of the period, and the works of poets like Kabir, Ravidas, and Dadu Dayal (the lalit of the composite tradition), and the mela and urs of the various dargahs and temples, were major events of the religious calendar. The mela of the Sufi and Bhakti establishments, the qawwali of the Sufi orders, the bhajan and kirtan of the Bhakti tradition, and the langar of the dargahs and gurdwaras were all elements of the composite religious culture of the period.

The Rise of the Sikh Community

The Sikh community of the Punjab, founded by Guru Nanak (1469–1539) in the late fifteenth century, developed into a major religious tradition during the Mughal period. The Sikh Gurus, including Guru Angad, Guru Amar Das, Guru Ram Das (the founder of Amritsar), Guru Arjan (the compiler of the Adi Granth), Guru Hargobind (the Miri-Piri Guru), Guru Har Rai, Guru Har Krishan, Guru Tegh Bahadur (executed by Aurangzeb in 1675), and Guru Gobind Singh (the founder of the Khalsa in 1699), developed a distinctive religious tradition that drew on elements of Hinduism and Islam but maintained its own identity.

The relationship between the Sikh Gurus and the Mughal court was a defining feature of the period. The early Gurus, including Guru Nanak, Guru Angad, and Guru Amar Das, were generally on good terms with the Mughal state, and the Sikh community was recognised as a major religious tradition of the Punjab. The accession of Guru Arjan in 1581 and the consolidation of the Sikh establishment at Amritsar marked the beginning of a more complex relationship with the state. The execution of Guru Arjan in 1606, the Miri-Piri doctrine of Guru Hargobind, the development of the Sikh military tradition in the seventeenth century, the execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur by Aurangzeb in 1675, and the founding of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 were all major events in the history of the Sikh-Mughal relationship. The Sikh tradition, while drawing on elements of both the Hindu and the Muslim traditions, developed its own distinctive identity in the context of the Mughal state, and the Adi Granth (later Guru Granth Sahib), the scripture of the Sikh tradition, includes compositions in Punjabi, Braj, Sanskrit, Persian, and several other North Indian languages.

The Satnami, the Bhakti, and the Other Syncretic Movements

The Mughal period saw the development of a number of other syncretic religious movements that drew on both the Hindu and the Muslim traditions. The Satnami movement, founded by Birbhan in the 1650s, drew on elements of the Vaishnava, Nath, and Sufi traditions, and the Satnami uprising in 1672 in the Agra region was a major episode of resistance to the Mughal state. The Ramanandi tradition, centred on the Ramanand establishment of Varanasi, was a major Bhakti tradition that drew on the Vaishnava devotional idiom and provided the religious framework for a substantial body of North Indian religious life. The Vaishnava tradition of the various sampradaya, the Shaiva tradition of the various math, the Shakta tradition of the various peeth, and the various other Hindu religious establishments all continued to function within the broader Mughal state. The Jain community, concentrated in western India and Rajasthan, maintained its own distinctive religious, mercantile, and cultural establishment, and the Shravanabelagola, the Dilwara temples of Mount Abu, and the other Jain establishments of the empire were major religious centres.

The Development of Urdu and the Composite Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb

The development of Urdu as a distinct literary language, treated in greater detail on the Mughal literature and languages page, was linguistic events of the Mughal period, and it was closely tied to the composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of North India. The term Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, the “culture of the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna,” refers to the composite culture of North India, in which the Hindu and Muslim traditions have been intertwined for centuries and in which the language, the cuisine, the music, the festivals, the religious practices, the family customs, and the broader social life have been shaped by the long engagement of the two traditions. The development of Urdu as a composite language, drawing on the Persian, Arabic, and Turki vocabulary of the Muslim tradition and the Braj, Awadhi, Khari Boli, and Sanskrit vocabulary of the Hindu tradition, was a major expression of this composite culture.

The Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb also expressed itself in the mela of the various religious establishments, the langar of the Sufi and Bhakti establishments, the mushaira of the urban Muslim culture, the bhajan and kirtan of the Bhakti tradition, the qawwali of the Sufi establishments, the urs of the Sufi masters, the jatra of the Hindu temples, the bazaar of the imperial cities, the mehfil of the urban culture, the taziya of the Shia mourning, and the basant of the spring festival. The composite culture of the period was expressed in the biryani and kebab of the Mughlai cuisine, the sari and salwar kameez of the composite costume, the mehndi and the bindi of the female decoration, the rakhi of the Raksha Bandhan festival, the muharram of the Shia mourning, the milad of the Sunni festival, the diwali of the Hindu festival, the holi of the spring festival, and the eid of the Muslim festival. The composite culture of the Mughal period has been a major element of the cultural identity of modern North India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and it has been subject to very different interpretations in the modern period.

The Lasting Influence of Mughal Hindu-Muslim Relations

The relations between Hindus and Muslims in the Mughal period have been a major theme of modern South Asian politics and culture. The British colonial period, the independence movement, the partition of 1947, and the post-Independence politics of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have all engaged in different ways with the Mughal heritage of religious interaction, and the question of whether the Mughal period was one of religious tolerance, religious conflict, or both has been a major element of the political debate of the modern period. The abolition of the jizya and the integrationist policy of Akbar have been celebrated by some historians as a major expression of the syncretic Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, while the reimposition of the jizya and the temple demolitions of Aurangzeb have been condemned by others as expressions of religious intolerance. The development of Urdu as a composite language, the rise of the Sikh community, the development of the Bhakti and Sufi traditions, the rise of the Maratha, Sikh, and Jat polities in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the formation of the modern religious communities of South Asia are all part of the wider history of Hindu-Muslim relations in the Mughal period.

Sources

Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India, c. 1500–1800 (Permanent Black, 2004).
Audrey Truschke, Aurangzeb (2017), ch. 1.

For the broader context of Mughal cultural life, see the Mughal culture overview. The development of the religious traditions of the period is treated in greater detail on the Mughal literature and languages and the Mughal art and miniature painting pages, which examine the literary, philosophical, and artistic expression of the syncretic traditions. The festivals and ceremonial of the religious communities are treated on the Mughal festivals and entertainment page. The political context of the religious policy is treated in the entries on Akbar, whose policy of religious integration was the most extensive, on Jahangir, whose policy was generally conciliatory, on Shah Jahan, whose reign saw a partial reversal, and on Aurangzeb, whose reign saw the reimposition of the jizya and the programme of temple demolitions. The rise of the Maratha, Sikh, and Jat polities in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, partly in response to the religious policies of the later Mughals, is treated on the decline of the Mughal Empire and the decline - religious pages. The development of the composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb is treated in the broader context of the Mughal cuisine and the Mughal costumes and personal adornment pages, which examine the culinary and sartorial expressions of the composite culture.