Over the past few years, it has been increasingly apparent to me that Islam and Islamic culture developed very differently in India as compared to other lands ruled by Muslims. The pervasive nature of ancient Indian culture affected Muslim idioms and developed a creative version of Islam enriched by its Indian experience. In my research, I have investigated the development of the Indian Muslim nature of kingship which has been largely shaped by its Indian experience.

Early modern and modern concepts of kingship for Muslims in India were strongly influenced by Mughal thinking. The Mughals, as the descendants of Timur, shared Timur’s conception of sovereignty in that ‘since God is one and hath no partner, therefore, the Viceregent (King) over the land of the Lord must be one.’ Therefore, the king [later emperor] was not constrained by any earthly power and was supreme in all respects, subject only to God.

As scion of the Timurid line, Babur, the first Mughal Emperor of India, also believed in the superiority of the ruler as well as the hereditary right of rule. Babur, for example, could not understand the practise of the Bengalis whereby anyone who killed a ruler and usurped the throne was accepted as king.

Though Muslim, the Mughals did not see themselves subordinate to the Ottoman Caliph in any way. After the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate of Egypt in 1517, there was no Muslim ruler who could lay legitimate claim to the Caliphate and therefore the Mughals did not recognise the Ottoman claim to the title. After all, the title of ‘Caliph’ was the most exalted of Muslim titles and denoted leadership of the whole Muslim community [Ummah], and the Mughals were not prepared to concede such a title to the Ottomans when the humiliation suffered by Sultan Bayazid-I at the hands of their ancestor Timur was still fresh in their minds. All Mughal emperors, even the deeply religious Aurangzeb, had the Friday sermon [khutba], the ultimate sign of authority, read in their name and did not recognise any Ottoman superiority.

Mughal emperors thought of themselves as higher beings, even greater than Caliphs. As Abu-al Fazl noted in the Ain-e-Akbari, "Kingship is a refulgence from the incomparable distributor of justice…and a ray from the Sun, the illuminator of the universe and the receptacle of all virtues. The contemporary language calls it Farr-i-Izid [the divine effulgence] and the tongue of antiquity calls it Kigan Khuro [the sublime halo]. It is communicated by God to the holy face [the King] without the intermediate assistance of anyone; and men, in its presence, bend the forehand of praise towards the ground of submission."

Combining the hereditary right and divine inspiration, Humayun’s official historian, Khawand Mir, called him Jam ai Suntanati Haqiqi va Majazi [personification of spiritual and temporal sovereignty] and His Majesty the King, the Shadow of God, i.e., Hazrati Padshah Zill-e-Illahi. The Mughal emperor was, therefore, a pure and perfect example of sovereignty -- the ‘Perfect Man’ who embodied in himself the perfection of the universe. So Abu al-Fazl’s brother Fayzi’s view of Akbar was that, "Although Kings are the Shadow of God on earth, he is the emanation of God’s light. How then can he be called a shadow?"

This conception of kingship related closely to the model of Hindu kingship expressed in the Rajyabhiseka, which, according to Streusand, ‘facilitated Hindu acceptance of the Mughal ruler as an actual (i.e., legitimate) ruler.

Jehangir’s conception of rulership was also in keeping with his father and he noted that "sovereignty and world rule are not things to be arranged by the worthless endeavours of defective intellects. The just Creator bestows them on whom He considers fit for gracious and exalted duty." He had no qualms about being addressed as the ‘visible God.’

This notion of kingship based on a ‘superior being, existing close to God, to true reality,’ was what led to the development of a master-disciple relationship between the Mughal emperors and their noblemen. John Richards further defines three different types of this relationship. The first is based on the notion of military slavery. Thus, "the slave solider vowed obedient submission and profound loyalty to his military commander as long as the latter met minimal standards of good treatment and sympathy for his men." The second type was the relationship between a Sufi master and his disciple -- the Pir-Murid relationship. While the exact terms of such a relationship differed between orders, in general, "devotees placed the responsibility for their physical and spiritual well-being completely in the hands of their chosen Sufi Shaikh." The third variation was the Indo-Persian courtly culture of submission to the king by the nobles.

Richards notes: "Court ritual with its rigid protocol was designed to evoke feelings of awe, unworthiness, and to emphasise the distance between the ruler and even the grandest of his subjects. The discipline of movement, speech and etiquette demanded in public audiences reinforced obedience to the royal will." Akbar combined all these three models in developing his relationship with his courtiers. Akbar was the benevolent military commander, the Sufi Skaikh to whom even prostration [Sajida] was due, and ultimately the political head of the country -- the emperor. Akbar’s worship of the Sun, with its obvious connections to the origins of Rajput Hindu nobility, made it easier for both Muslims and Hindus to become his disciples.

Jahangir kept the discipleship relationship with this subordinates, and it was only with Shah Jehan that the perception of the emperor -- hence the nature of kingship -- began to change. Shah Jehan’s religious inclinations also led him to curtail the syncretic politics of his predecessors and he began to employ aspects of Sharia law in his rule. It was during this reign that "the relationship of the ruler to his elite became less fervent, and more formal -- expressed more in the idiom of quasi-kinship than of discipleship."

Shah Jehan ended the prostration before the emperor by his disciples, thereby placating orthodox Muslim sentiments which considered prostration before anyone except God sacrilegious. Shah Jehan also promoted the idea of Khanazadgi -- ‘being of the household,’ as the preferred model of relationship between the emperor and his nobles. Thus, the people closest to the emperor were the ‘Khanazads’--‘born to the household.’

As noted by Richards, Khanazadgi retained most of the components of discipleship i.e., "loyalty, devotion and sacrifice in the Emperor’s service, but lacked its intensely emotional aspect." Further, Richards comments: "Khanazadgi, in contrast to discipleship, evoked loyalty and obedience but did not exact expressions of dramatic personal loyalty to the charismatic leader." This change in the nature of the relationship is perhaps best explained by the fact that the Mughal Empire was by that time relatively stable and so extraordinary devotion to the emperor was no longer required, as was the case during Akbar’s reign. Loyalty to the person of the emperor, whoever that might be, was enough to become a part of the inner circle.

The reign of Emperor Aurangzeb sharply altered the notions of kingship espoused by Akbar. Aurangzeb was a deeply religious man, and understood his role only in the Islamic context. Therefore, the main objective of a Muslim ruler for him was to rule the people under the Sharia and further the cause of Islam. Non-Muslims could be tolerated under the payment of the Jizya tax, but were to be encouraged to convert. Cultural syncretism, celebrated by his predecessors Akbar and Jahangir, was to be discouraged in favour of purely Islamic forms of culture, art, and education. So all benefactions of Hindu establishments, and of those Muslim endeavours which did not clearly correspond to his strict Hanafi interpretation of Islam, were discontinued.

Aurangzeb broke with the idea of a divinely inspired kingship and only saw himself as one in the line of Muslim conquerors of India of the Timurid line. Even though he ruled over a vast empire, Aurangzeb understood his legitimacy emanating from him being a Muslim rather than a ruler.

Aurangzeb saw himself as a Muslim first, and so he did not shy away from assuming purely Muslim titles. Even though earlier Mughal emperors saw themselves as caliphs in their own realms, and even superior to the Ottoman caliphs, Aurangzeb began to officially use the title ‘Amir al-Momineen’ i.e., Commander of the faithful, on all state documents. This was a clear indication that he saw himself as the caliph and asserted that he was both the temporal and spiritual ruler of his people.

Only with the decline of the Mughal Empire did the Ottoman Caliph gain some importance in the political consciousness of Muslim Indians. Tipu Sultan of Mysore was the first Muslim ruler who acknowledged the Ottoman Sultan as Caliph and received a letter of investiture from him as a means for legitimising his rule. Thereafter a number of Muslim princes in the successor states began to recognise the Ottoman Caliph as their leader, though with the onset of British rule these ties became more sentimental and then eventually faded away with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924.

The decline of the Mughal Empire after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 coincided with the emergence of the Ghilzais of southern Afghanistan as a powerful force. Benefiting from the crumbling Safavid dynasty, the Ghilzais sacked Isfahan, the Persian capital in 1722 and plundered it beyond repair. However, the brutal Ghilzai rule led to a series of revolts which ultimately brought Nadir Shah to the helm of power in 1736.

After sweeping through Afghanistan, Nadir Shah turned to India and led a campaign against the ailing Mughal Empire, sacking Delhi in 1739. However, Nadir Shah did not keep his vast empire together beyond plundering it and made off with the famed peacock throne, the Koh-i-Noor diamond and several Mughal heirlooms from Delhi. The brutal policies of Nadir Shah finally resulted in his mysterious murder in 1747 while at camp.

The murder of Nadir Shah left a power vacuum with a large conquered territory but no government. Therefore, a tribal jirga of the powerful Afghan Abdali tribe elected Ahmed Khan [later Shah] as their ruler. It was said that "a holy man, Sabir Khan, announced that Ahmed was the greatest man among them and placed a sheaf of wheat on his head as a symbolic crown." The same holy man then pronounced Ahmed as ‘Durri-Duran,’ i.e., ‘Pearl of Pearls,’ and from then onwards the Abdali tribe began calling themselves Durranis and Ahmed Khan became Ahmed Shah Durrani.

On assuming power, Ahmed Shah quickly pacified Herat in 1750 and then sought control of Meshad and Nishapur. His main area of expansion, however, was the crumbling Mughal Empire and he made no less than eight expeditions to India. Ahmed Shah occupied Lahore in 1749, but curiously left Mir Mannu, the Mughal governor, still in charge as long as he forwarded revenues from the rich province to him. This arrangement proved unsatisfactory and when in 1752 Mir Mannu rebelled, Ahmed Shah again invaded the Punjab. This time, however, Ahmed Shah conquered Kashmir and parts of Sind and made the Mughal emperor recognise his control of these areas.

Mismanagement of the Punjab by Mir Mannu’s widow led to another expedition by Ahmed Shah, but this time he went ahead and sacked Delhi. Significantly, Ahmed Shah Durrani did not depose the Mughal Emperor Alamgir-II but allowed him to retain the throne subject to the formal transfer of the Punjab, Kashmir and Sind to the Durranis.

This retention of Alamgir-II on the Mughal throne clearly signified that the Mughals were still held in high esteem long after they had ceased to be important military or political figures. Barfield notes: "The necessity of preserving the Mughals was a fine example of the power of dynastic charisma. No matter how great a hero he was in Afghan eyes, Ahmed could not see himself as a replacement for such and old prestigious lineage, and chose to cloak himself in its aura rather than risk the consequences of abolishing it."

Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Durrani both hailed from humble backgrounds. Both leaders had worked for the governments they took over, but neither of them came from a princely background and had not been raised in one either. Both were military men and conquerors and had little time for imperial fanfare. Therefore, both the Nadir Shah and Durrani empires were characterised by strong military control but little administrative and even political cohesion.

As commented by Barfield: "From a military perspective the Empire [Durrani] was highly centralised…But provincial governors handled local administration and were practically independent of Qandahar in most non-military matters. Such position gave them so much autonomy that they were virtual mini kingdoms."

Following the death of Ahmed Shah, the weak rule of his son Timur [1772-93] allowed the loosely-bound provinces of the empire’s periphery to gain such a degree of autonomy that by the end of Timur’s reign and the subsequent internal Durrani struggle for power, principalities like Kalat, Bahawalpur and Khairpur were only nominally under Durrani suzerainty. What were later known as the frontier states, however, were still in a state of purely tribal government and emerged fully fledged as princely states only in the stability of British rule in the latter half of the nineteenth century.