"Akbar wished to assert his strong belief in God, but his concept of the way God is to be worshipped was independent of either orthodox Islam or Hinduism". Comment.

Answer:

Akbar was a deeply religious man whose faith grew steadily more personal and less sectarian. His mature religious position, expressed in sulh-i-kul and the Din-i-Ilahi, was indeed independent of both orthodox Islam and orthodox Hinduism, resting instead on reason and a universal conception of the divine.

The evolution of his outlook

• Discussions at the Ibadat Khana from 1575 brought together scholars of every faith.
• Debate with Jesuits, Jains, Zoroastrians and Hindus widened his sympathies.
• The mahzar of 1579 made him the final arbiter in disputed religious questions.
• Abolition of jizya and the pilgrim tax removed the legal disabilities of non-Muslims.

The independent position

• Sulh-i-kul, universal peace, made tolerance the governing principle of the state.
• The Din-i-Ilahi of 1582 was less a religion than a small ethical order of disciples.
• It prescribed no scripture, priesthood or ritual, requiring devotion, purity and loyalty.
• Its practices, sun veneration and abstinence, drew on several traditions without belonging to any.
• Badauni, an orthodox critic, denounced these innovations bitterly.

The comment is thus well-founded. Akbar's faith in God was never in doubt, but his understanding of worship was consciously freed from the forms of both Islamic and Hindu orthodoxy. As historians recognise, his position is best read as a political theology of tolerance suited to ruling a plural empire rather than as the founding of a new religion.