Religious Movements during the Mughal Period:
The Mughal period witnessed conflicting trends of liberalism and Catholicity on the one hand and rigid exclusiveness and conservatism on the other. However, there emerged a broad consensus that placed religion above Puritanism and class exclusiveness.
- The Bhakti Movement.
- The Sikh Religion.
- Islam.
The Sikh Religion:
The legacy of Guru Nanak and the institution of Guruship was carried forward by the first four Gurus. The fight Guru, Arjan Das (1581-1606), was a great organizer. His great achievement was the compilation of a holy book known as Adi Granth and popularly called Granth Sahib. The book compiled in 1604, marked by systematic arrangement is known as Adi Granth, the old book, just to distinguish it from the latest Dasam Granth, the book of the tenth Guru. It is popularly referred to as Granth Sahib as a mark of respect, and as Guru Granth Sahib to indicate that ‘it enjoys the status of the Guru’. Granth Sahib contains more than 900 of Nanak’s compositions and yet the biographical details are negligible. The hymns of the holy book- a source of divine wisdom and bliss inspired the devotees to lofty ideas of plain living and high thinking.
Islam:
The struggle between liberalism and conservatism was more pronounced among the Muslims than the Hindus. The strife between Shariat (Muslim Law) and tariqat (Sufism) became manifest in India. The official ulama, usually attached to the royal court, was hostile towards any religious movement.
Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, was a devout Sunni, but tolerant towards the Shia faith. Akbar was confronted on the one hand by the bigoted Sunni ulama as well as the Sufis of the Chishtiya school. Akbar freed himself from the orthodox ulama and declared himself to be the spiritual and as well as secular head of the state. He promulgated a new religion called the Din-i-Ilahi in which the emperor appeared as a prophet. However, according to Abul Fazl, the emperor claimed neither to be a prophet nor an incarnation of God, but he was only a mujaddid (religious reformer).
Akbar’s belief in the concept of Wahdat-al-Wujud (unity of being) was accepted by many Sufi saints. But it was opposed by a group of orthodox thinkers, like Baqi Billah, who belonged to the orthodox Naqshbandi Sufi Sect. His spiritual successor was Shaikh Ahmad who denounced the religious practices of Hinduism. He believed that he was the renewer or the Mujaddid and he was ordained to restore Sunni orthodoxy to its pristine glory. But Aurangzeb was not an advocate of this belief, despite being enrolled in the Naqshbandi order in 1665.
The Qadiriyya order, popularized in the Punjab by Shaikh Abdul Qadir, strongly supported the doctrine of Wahdat-al-Wujud. Its disciple Miyan Mir (1635) emphasized the mystical element in Sufism. Both Dara and Jahanara enrolled as disciples of Miyan Mir. Daar declared the Vedas to be ‘heavenly books in point of time’ and ‘in conformity with the holy Koran’.
Aurangzeb’s reign heralded the triumph of Shariat against Tariqat. He laid special emphasis on theological studies which led to the compilation of Fatawwa-i-Alamgiri. With Aurangzeb’s death, the liberal and the orthodox trends in Sufism reappeared with some vigor. The Chishtiyya order reappeared under Sheikh Kalimullah.
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