Akbar, the great Mughul: his new policy and his new religion

Written by a Pakistani historian in the 1960s tells us a great deal about the liberal intellectual milieu then prevalent in the newly created nation. In that milieu historians like I.H. Qureshi and Moinul Haq were seeking legitimacy for the creation of Pakistan in medieval history and blaming emperor Akbar for the fall of Mughal Empire who, according to them had diluted the purity of Islam by inducing an interface between it and other religions, especially Hinduism – all denounced as kufr.Bashir’s is a rebellious book, a challenge to the sort of history the state was patronising and its official historians were hurriedly writing. Again and again he is led by his evidence to be ‘fair’ to Akbar and give him credit for being ‘great’.