November 24, 2007
A lesson in humility for the smug West
William Dalrymple in The Times Literary Supplement:
About 100 miles south of Delhi, where I live, lie the ruins of the Mughal capital, Fateh-pur Sikri. This was built by the Emperor Akbar at the end of the 16th century. Here Akbar would listen carefully as philosophers, mystics and holy men of different faiths debated the merits of their different beliefs in what is the earliest known experiment in formal inter-religious dialogue. Representatives of Muslims (Sunni and Shi’ite as well as Sufi), Hindus (followers of Shiva and Vishnu as well as Hindu atheists), Christians, Jains, Jews, Buddhists and Zoroastrians came together to discuss where they differed and how they could live together. Muslim rulers are not usually thought of in the West as standard-bearers of freedom of thought; but Akbar was obsessed with exploring the issues of religious truth, and with as open a mind as possible, declaring: “No man should be interfered with on account of religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to any religion that pleases him.” He also argued for what he called “the pursuit of reason” rather than “reliance on the marshy land of tradition”.
All this took place when in London, Jesuits were being hung, drawn and quartered outside Tyburn, in Spain and Portu-gal the Inquisition was torturing anyone who defied the dogmas of the Catholic church, and in Rome Giordano Bruno was being burnt at the stake in Campo de’Fiori. It is worth emphasising Akbar, for he – the greatest ruler of the most populous of all Muslim states – represented in one man so many of the values that we in the West are often apt to claim for ourselves. I am thinking here especially of Douglas Murray, a young neocon pup, who wrote in The Spectator last week that he “was not afraid to say the West’s values are better”, and in which he accused anyone who said to the contrary of moral confusion: “Decades of intense cultural rela-tivism and designer tribalism have made us terrified of passing judgment,” he wrote.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 07:07 AM | Permalink
Comments
From Wikipedia:
Multi-faceted, this one was.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 24, 2007 9:23:13 PM
Carlos, you completely misunderstand the situation: Akbar's construction of piles of heads was purely in the interests of science - he was attempting to "put their heads together" to produce the world's first Think Tank, in order to accellerate thinking on inter-faith dialog. Akbar's idea is a direct precursor of today's multiprocessor arrays, used in advanced supercomputers.
Another example of typical Western/Hindu arrogance in casting doubt on Islamic Science.
Posted by: aguy109 | Nov 25, 2007 4:44:19 AM
Now that Carlos has joined forces with "aguy" in finding flaws in conventional wisdom, we can look forward to twice the fun here at 3QD.
Leaving aside opportunistic nit-pickery, which can cut both ways, what exactly is factually wrong in Dalrymple's overall argument?
As for Akbar piling up heads to build a victory tower, he was no less ruthless than other powerful military rulers of his time - anywhere. But the description of his open mindedness regarding religion is perfectly true. While Jews, Muslims and other heretics were being roasted like marshmallows in Spain and Portugal and other religious atrocities were rampant almost everywhere, Akbar indeed organized those inter-faith councils which amazingly enough also included atheists. The leading luminaries of Akbar's royal court came from both Muslim and Hindu backgrounds. Akbar married a Hindu woman (his chief consort) who by all accounts did not convert to Islam and continued to worship according to her own faith. The son of this alliance, Salim (later Jehangir) went on to become the next Mughal emperor. Akbar wished to see a faith of "reason" replace ancient orthodoxies and to that end, he tried to promote an integrated faith named "Din-i-Ilahi". Akbar's attitude towards other faiths went beyond tolerance - it amounted to respect.
Posted by: Ruchira | Nov 25, 2007 3:52:40 PM
Ruchira, this happens so often: I am about to write a comment pointing out something I think is important regarding a certain post, and you get there first with essentially the identical observation better supported by facts than mine would have been. This is just uncanny. While it can be proven we are not the same person, I don't believe everything that can be proven any more than I disbelieve everything that cannot be, so I'm experiencing some ontological insecurity on this account. Then there are the times I merely read what you have written and strongly agree, without having anticipated you. At some point, we will have to diverge in our points of view -- let's plan together over what...
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Nov 25, 2007 4:38:13 PM
Point taken, Ruchira, great opportunity to read up about the Emperor.
Posted by: aguy109 | Nov 25, 2007 5:26:15 PM
Ruchira
There is nothing factually wrong with Dalrymple's overall argument. But his assumptions: that there is not wide understanding of the eastern underpinnings of western civilization; that there is a western exclusiveness to nationalistic smugness or arrogance does not quite ring true. In fact, it may betray a certain smugness of his own, that he feels in on something the rest of us just can't seem to grasp. To the contrary, it seems to me we in the west hold the philosophies of the ancient east in a kind of reverence. Certainly we have always looked that way for flavor.
Regardless, I agree that the reign of Akbar was interesting. He even abolished the jizya tax on non-believers. Too bad it lasted such a brief time before Sunni traditionalism shut it down. His was also not the only jewel in a long history of cultural high points embracing openness throughout the Islamic world.
But I don't feel my additions to the portrait painted of Akbar are ill-considered, particularly given the political underpinnings of much (but not all) of the western intolerance Dalrymple uses for comparison. If you can dig deeper than I into Akbar's dispensation of Sharia and punishment for treason, perhaps you can reveal that his softer side extended also to enemies of the state. Surely he had them, as those hapless Jesuits surely were so defined, gibbeted in Merry Old. And that specific dispensation would be a fairer point of comparison.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 25, 2007 5:34:52 PM
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