Akbarnama

Also called: Akbar Nama · Topic: The Mughal Empire: Babur to Aurangzeb · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"

Meaning

The Akbarnama ("Book of Akbar") is the official history of Akbar's reign. His court historian Abu'l Fazl wrote it in Persian, in three books. The first two books tell the story of events, year by year. The third book, the Ain-i Akbari, describes how the empire was run.

It matters because it is the main court record of Akbar (1556–1605). It is also the source of many ideas we link with him, such as sulh-i-kul (tolerance of all faiths). Because the court ordered it, UPSC often asks how far we should trust it.

Explanation

Background: why Akbar ordered it

• Akbar asked Abu'l Fazl to write the history of his reign around 1589.
• Abu'l Fazl was Akbar's court historian and biographer, and one of his closest advisers.
• Mughal emperors wanted their rule written down in a grand way. The book had several jobs:
• record the emperor's wars and decisions
• show that he had the right to rule

• leave a model for the rulers who came after him

• According to NCERT, Abu'l Fazl worked on the book for about thirteen years and rewrote the draft many times.

Its three books

• Book I: Akbar's ancestors, going back (as the court told it) to Adam. It then covers Akbar's birth and early life. It ends around the first 30 years of his life (one full "cycle" in the book's own way of counting).
• Book II: the events of Akbar's reign, year by year. It ends in his 46th regnal year (1601). A regnal year is a year counted from the start of a king's rule.
• Book III, the Ain-i Akbari: a huge report on how the empire worked, not a story of events. It covers:
• the court and the household
• the army and the mansabdari system (every officer held a rank that fixed his pay and how many soldiers he kept)
• land revenue (the tax on farmland), crops, prices and wages
• the provinces (subas) and the people, faiths and customs of Hindustan
• NCERT says the Ain was finished in 1598, after five revisions.

How Abu'l Fazl wrote it

• Sources: he gathered:
• day-to-day court records (waqai, written reports of events)
• official letters and orders

• spoken accounts from people who saw the events

• Style: rich, ornate Persian. Each event is dated and placed in a set order.

• Image of the king:
• Akbar is shown as a ruler lit by divine light (farr-i izadi, light passed from God to the king).

• He stands above all religions and gives justice and sulh-i-kul ("peace with all") to every group.

• Akbar's change of heart: Abu'l Fazl recorded Akbar saying that he once "persecuted men into conformity" with his faith but later felt "shame". His point was that faith forced on people is not real faith.

• Pictures: the court made illustrated copies of the Akbarnama. Mughal court painters showed battles, sieges and court scenes in them.

What it led to

• It became the official version of Akbar's reign, and later historians built on it.
• The Ain-i Akbari is still the best single source on Mughal land revenue, farming and administration. That is why NCERT uses it in "Peasants, Zamindars and the State".
• The book stopped in 1601. Abu'l Fazl was killed in 1602, before Akbar died, so the last years of the reign are missing.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: written c. 1589–1598 and later, under the Mughal emperor Akbar (ruled 1556–1605).
• Place: the Mughal court in north India.
• Author: Abu'l Fazl, court historian and biographer.
• Patron: Akbar himself.
• What it covers:
• Akbar's crowning at 13 in 1556, after Humayun's accidental death
• the early wars, such as the siege of Chittorgarh, which fell in February 1568 [2]

• the later turn to marriage alliances, Rajput nobles at court, the end of the jizya (a tax non-Muslims had to pay) and sulh-i-kul

• How we know it:

• Persian manuscripts of the text survive, including illustrated copies.

• Henry Beveridge translated the Akbarnama into English.

• Checking it against other evidence:

• Akbar's own victory letter after Chitor boasts of destroying temples "all over Hindustan". It shows the harsh side that the polished chronicle tends to play down.
• Badauni was another historian at the same court. In his Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh he criticised Akbar's religious policies, so he gives a different view.

Don't confuse with

• Ain-i Akbari: this is not a separate book by a different author. It is the third book of the Akbarnama, also by Abu'l Fazl. The Akbarnama tells the story of events; the Ain describes how the empire was run.
• Baburnama: Babur's own memoir, written by the emperor himself in Turki. The Akbarnama was written about Akbar, by his court historian, in Persian.
• Badshahnama: the official history of Shah Jahan's reign, written by Abdul Hamid Lahori. It is not about Akbar.
• Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh (Badauni): also from Akbar's time, but critical of Akbar. The Akbarnama praises him.

Prelims Hooks

• Akbarnama: written by Abu'l Fazl, in Persian, in three books.
• The Ain-i Akbari is the third book of the Akbarnama. It covers administration, the army, revenue and the provinces.
• Book II ends in Akbar's 46th regnal year (1601). The Ain was finished in 1598 (according to NCERT).
• Trap: the Akbarnama is not Akbar's own memoir. The only emperor here who wrote his own memoir was Babur (Baburnama, in Turki).
• Correct pairs: Akbarnama – Abu'l Fazl; Badshahnama – Abdul Hamid Lahori; Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh – Badauni.
• Henry Beveridge translated the Akbarnama into English.

Mains Points

• A record of how the court wanted to be seen:
• The Akbarnama shows Akbar as a ruler lit by divine light who gave sulh-i-kul to everyone.
• Akbar's confession of shame survives only through Abu'l Fazl, a court insider whose job was to praise him.

• A good answer reads it beside other evidence: the victory letter after Chitor (1568) [2] and Badauni's critical account.

• A source for the state, not just the king:

• Through the Ain-i Akbari, the Akbarnama tells us about mansabdari, land revenue, crops, prices and provinces.

• Even a book written to praise the king keeps hard facts about how the empire worked. This is why NCERT uses it for agrarian (farming) history.

• Writing history as a way to rule:

• The book linked Akbar to a famous family line and to divine favour, and it named his tolerance as policy.
• Writing history was part of how the Mughals ruled a large empire where most people were not Muslim.
• It fits with the other ways Akbar showed his right to rule: marriage alliances, a mixed nobility and planned cities like Fatehpur Sikri [3].

Related concepts

• Akbar
• Sulh-i-kul
• Mahzar
• Abul Fazl

Read more

• Akbar: conquest to conciliation (1556–1605)