Akbar

Akbar (i.e. 'the great,' his proper name being Jelal-ed-din-Mohammed), Mogul emperor of India, the greatest Asiatic monarch of modern times. His father, Humayun, was deprived of the throne by usurpers, and had to retire for refuge into Persia; and it was on the way thither, in the town of Amarkot, that Akbar was born in 1542. Humayun recovered the throne of Delhi after an exile of twelve years; but died within a year. The young prince at first committed the administration to a regent-minister, Beiram; but finding his authority degenerating into tyranny, he shook it off at the age of eighteen, and took the power into his own hands. At this time only a few of the many provinces once subdued by the Mongol invaders were actually subject to the throne of Delhi; in ten or twelve years, Akbar's empire embraced the whole of India north of the Vindhya Mountains, but in Southern India he was less successful. He conquered and conciliated all the independent Mohammedan and Hindu princes of Northern India from Cashmere to Behar; and although a great conqueror, was yet a greater ruler. The wisdom, vigour, and humanity with which he organised and administered his vast dominions are unexampled in the East. He promoted commerce by constructing roads, establishing a uniform system of weights and measures, and a vigorous police. He exercised the utmost vigilance over his viceroy of provinces and other officers, to see that no extortion was practised, and that justice was impartially administered to all classes of his subjects. For the adjustment of taxation, the lands were accurately measured, and the statistics taken, not only of the population, but of the resources of each province. For a born Mohammedan, the tolerance with which he treated other religions was wonderful. He gave the Hindus freedom of worship, though he prohibited cruel ordeals and the burning of widows. He was fond of inquiries as to religious beliefs; and Portuguese missionaries from Goa were sent at his request to give him an account of the Christian faith. He even attempted to promulgate a new religion of his own, an eclectic kind of deism or natural religion; but it never took root. Literature received the greatest encouragement. Schools were established for the education both of Hindus and Mohammedans; and numbers of Hindu works were translated from Sanskrit into Persian. Abul-Fazl, the able minister of Akbar, has left a valuable history of his master's reign, entitled Akbar-nameh. After a memorable reign of nearly fifty years, Akbar died in 1605, and was buried in a noble mausoleum at Sikandra, near Agra. See Malleson's Akbar (1890).