Neoplatonism and the Pax Mongolica in the making of ṣulḥ-i kull. A view from Akbar's millennial history

Abstract

This article argues that ṣulḥ-i kull (peace for all) as a specific term was introduced in the 1590s by a small group of avant-garde Neoplatonists who worked at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. It was only in the following century that ṣulḥ-i kull developed into the ethos that became the ideological mainstay of Mughal rule both internally, for its administrative elites, and externally, vis-à-vis their main rivals: the Uzbeks in Central Asia and the Safavids in Iran. The early stages in the making of this ideology can be followed in some detail by studying Akbar's neglected millennial history, the Tarikh-i Alfi. In fact, this vast Mughal world history demonstrates that apart from Neoplatonic akhlāq, there was another important building block that so far has been missing altogether in the making of ṣulḥ-i kull, that is, the practical model of the Pax Mongolica, as established under Chinggis Khan, the most famous of Mughal ancestors. Most crucially, it is in the Tarikh-i Alfi that we find the legacies of Persianate akhlāq and Mongol yasa (law) married to each other. In fact, it was through akhlāq that the peace of the Mongols became the Mughal peace for all.

Let not merely the enveloping body be at peace, body's turmoil stilled, but all that lies around, earth at peace, and sea at peace, and air and the very heavens.

(Plotinus, The Enneads, V, 1, 2)

The whole world is the house of God. One can reach Him from anywhere, and the path to reality (ḥaqq) is everywhere.

(Chinggis Khan in the Tarikh-i Alfi, 6, 3722)

Introduction

In this article we will argue that ṣulḥ-i kull (peace for all) as a specific term was introduced in the 1590s by a small group of the most avant-garde Neoplatonists who worked at the court of Mughal emperor Akbar. It was only in the following century that ṣulḥ-i kull developed into the ethos that became the ideological mainstay of Mughal rule both internally, for its administrative elites, and externally, vis-à-vis their main rivals: the Uzbeks in Central Asia and the Safavids in Iran.¹ What made the term so attractive was that it epitomized the highly cosmopolitan mode of kingship that derived from the works of Nasir al-Din Tusi and Jalal al-Din Dawwani, which have already been extensively studied under the label of akhlāq. ² The latter ultimately derived from Hellenic (mostly Platonic) thought to become the dominant model of kingship in Iran in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions and, more particularly, under the Timurid rulers of Central Asia.³ Our contention here is that, under the influence of Iranian immigrants, this Neoplatonist-Persianate brand of kingship was thoroughly resourced at the court of the emperor Akbar and, as such, underwent a true renaissance that was to remain in India for at least another century.

The building process of this Neoplatonist renaissance can be closely followed in the genesis of its two foundational literary achievements written in Persian: the Tarikh-i Alfi and the Akbar Nama. The first was a Mughal world history that aimed to expound the past as well as to herald the end of the millennium and the coming of the messiah. As such, it culminated in the Akbar Nama, a Mughal ‘New Testament’ that set out a new post-Islamic era under the majesty and glory of that messiah, the ultimate philosopher-king, Akbar. As we will see, it is in the Alfi particularly that we can witness the process of reconstructing this ideology in the decades leading to the end of the first millennium. Indeed, the Alfi enables us to detect another important building block that so far has been missing altogether in the making of ṣulḥ-i kull, that is, the practical model of the Pax Mongolica as established under Chinggis Khan, the most famous of Mughal ancestors. Most crucially, it is in this Mughal ‘Old Testament’ that we find the legacies of Persianate akhlāq and Mongol yasa (law), married to each other under the still ‘pagan’ Ilkhanids. Far from being part of a secular or even proto-modern agenda, ṣulḥ-i kull itself was constructed on the basis of Neoplatonic and Mongol building materials, to which some monistic Indic elements were added later.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of an English translation, its complex authorship, and its sheer vastness, the Alfi has attracted much less scholarly attention than its successor, the Akbar Nama.⁴ But like the latter, the Alfi was meant to be a foundational contribution to official Mughal historiography. It was primarily conceived during the 1580s at the very birth of the making of the new Akbari constitution. Since we have already highlighted its Neoplatonic aspects elsewhere,⁵ in this article we will concentrate on the chronicle's extensive treatment of Mongol history, which was written in the late 1580s by one of its authors, the historian Mulla Ahmad Thattavi. But before engaging with the Mongols, we will begin by highlighting the Neoplatonic spirit of the Alfi to demonstrate that, for almost all its authors, ṣulḥ-i kull was indeed a core value in its actual philosophical content. It was an essential element of the Nasirean akhlāq tradition, which itself was part of an even more comprehensive Neoplatonic package designed by a collective of philosophers who authored the Alfi.

Neoplatonic soul

The Tarikh-i Alfi: A Neoplatonic chronicle

Before dealing with the Alfi we should highlight the millenarian craze that conditioned its very genesis. In 1591 the first millennium of the Islamic era would come to its conclusion. Also ominous were signals in the sky, the appearance of comets as well as the occurrence of a qirān (a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter) in 1583. In Iran, the comets were associated with the fate of emperors. As the first comet in November 1577 was linked to the death of Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576), Shah Abbas (r. 1588–1629) wanted to avoid the same happening to him when another comet was seen in the sky in August 1592. Hence, he simply vacated the throne for a couple of days and afterwards executed his stand-in—who was the same person who had predicted the Shah's death. This Yusufi Tarkashdoz was a prominent Nuqtawi, that is, a member of an originally Hurufi sect that combined witticism and broad-mindedness with a deep knowledge of the occult meaning behind letters, numbers, and other cosmic signs. Increasingly prosecuted in Safavid Iran (especially in the mid-1570s and the early 1590s), a number of Nuqtawis had moved to India, many of them—often via the Deccan sultanates—ultimately finding asylum at Akbar's court. The subsequent prominence of the Nuqtawis at the Mughal court in the 1580s is illustrated by the official Safavid chronicle of Iskandar Beg Munshi who even labels Abul Fazl a Nuqtawi who ‘with his absurd words created the king's inclusive manner that led the king astray from the right path of the Islamic law’.⁶ Although we should be wary of taking the Iranian munshi's judgement for granted, it does raise the intriguing question of the extent to which Abul Fazl—co-author of the Alfi and author of the Akbar Nama—was indeed influenced by Nuqtawi ideas and to what degree the Nuqtawis themselves were behind the Mughal millennial programme as expressed in these two chronicles. Quite tellingly, the Akbar Nama was launched in 990, the year the Nuqtawi sage Sharif Amuli had predicted that a king would come to eradicate falsehood. Using his Hurufi skills, following the lettrist system of Abjad, it was indeed Akbar whose name represented that ominous year.⁷

The Alfi was designed as a Mughal world history that would cover the events of the previous millennium. Unlike most Islamic histories, it starts neither from Creation nor from the Prophet's birth; instead it begins at the latter's death (riḥla), which occurred ten years after his migration to Medina in 622 ce (that is, the conventional start of the Islamic era). The Alfi was designed to be superior in scope and content to all other historical works that had been compiled previously and was to include the histories of all Muslim rulers, along with an analysis of their rise and fall.⁸ It was loosely conceived to be in three parts. The first part deals with events from the death of the Prophet to Chinggis Khan's conquests. The second continues the chronological narrative to cover the Mongol conquest and its aftermath. The third begins with the reign of the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan (r. 1295–1304) and ends with events related to the beginning of Akbar's rule and the consolidation of the Mughal empire.⁹

Akbar initiated the Alfi project by putting together a committee of seven members. First were four immigrant scholars from Safavid Iran: Naqib Khan (d. after 1610), Shah Fath Allah Shirazi (d. 1587), Hakim Humam Gilani (d. 1595), and Hakim Ali Gilani (d. 1619). From Herat, there was Nizam al-Din Ahmad Haravi (d. 1594), whose family had been loyal supporters of the earlier Timurid rulers. The other two were Indian-born Muslims: Abd al-Qadir Badaʾuni (d. 1615) and Haji Ibrahim Sarhindi (d. 1584). As well as these seven, Abul Fazl, the prime ideologue of the empire, was to coordinate the project, and he also wrote the (now-lost) introduction and epilogue to the book. According to Badaʾuni, the plan was that each author would take a week to write the history of one year. After 35 years, however, Akbar appointed Mulla Ahmad Thattavi, a Shi‘i convert, to be the only compiler. Before his assassination in 1588, he had finished the first two volumes. It was Jafar Beg (d. 1612)—another Iranian who also served as an administrator and even vizier under Akbar's successor Jahangir—who subsequently finished the third volume. In 1000/1591–92, Badaʾuni was commissioned to edit the project, apparently taking care of the first two volumes, while Jafar Beg oversaw the third volume.¹⁰

At first sight, the background of the authors seems quite diverse, but they were all polymaths, knowledgeable in a wide array of fields such as theology, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, metaphysics, and the occult sciences. Most of them held practical administrative positions and participated in the religious discussions organized by the emperor. At least five of them—Naqib Khan, Badaʾuni, Abul Fazl, Nizam al-Din, Mulla Ahmad, and Jafar Beg—were experienced historians, and Naqib Khan was the grandson of the celebrated Safavid historian Mir Yahya (1481–1555) and the son of Akbar's tutor Mir Abd al-Latif Qazvini. He is described by Jerome Xavier, the Jesuit missionary at Akbar's court, as one ‘whose office is to read histories’.¹¹ But Hakim Ali, for example, was not a historian and was primarily known as a medical scholar and an expert on Ibn Sina.¹² He was also Akbar's physician. In addition to Arabic and Persian, at least four of them—Naqib Khan, Fath Allah, Badaʾuni, and Sarhindi—had been involved in Akbar's Sanskrit translation project which had started as early as the mid-1570s and which included an extensive collection of data that would also characterize the Alfi project.

If we look at the group as a whole, most of the authors seem to have been connected to the Neoplatonic philosophical tradition. Indeed, at least three of them can be linked to the Ishraqi or Illuminationist school through the important figure of Shaykh Mubarak Nagori (d. 1592), who was not only Abul Fazl's father but also the venerated teacher of at least two other authors, Naqib Khan and Badaʾuni.¹³ Crucially though, Shaykh Mubarak himself studied Ishraqi philosophy in Ahmadabad (Gujarat) under Kazeruni, the latter even adopting him as his son.¹⁴ Later on, in Agra, the Shaykh married into the family of Rafi-al Din Safavi, further strengthening the bond between the Mubarak family and the Ishraqi school.¹⁵

The author with the most impressive Ishraqi credentials was Fath Allah Shirazi. Abul Fazl calls him ‘the Learned of the Age, the Plato of all times’ and even appointed him to be his sons’ tutor.¹⁶ He was a pupil of another influential Ishraqi scholar from Shiraz, Mir Ghiyas al-Din Dashtaki, who had served as the chief religious figure (ṣadr) at the Safavid court but was dismissed by Shah Tahmasp in 1533, due mainly to his apparent disregard for Islamic law. Considering the traditional Ishraqi disregard of jurists, religious jurisprudence (fiqh), and Quranic exegesis (tafsīr), this is hardly surprising. What Fath Allah tried to achieve with his patron Akbar in the 1580s should be seen as a repetition of what his teacher Dashtaki had tried to do with his patron Shah Tahmasp about 50 years earlier.¹⁷ At his death, Faizi, Abul Fazl's brother and Akbar's poet laureate, fittingly compared the duo of Akbar and Fath Allah to that of Alexander and Plato:

The world-emperor's eyes were full of tears at his death,

Sikander shed tears of grief when Plato left the world.¹⁸

As a typical Ishraqi scholar, Fath Allah's training was not only in philosophy and theology but also in more practical disciplines, which—apart from astrology, mathematics, and the occult sciences—also included statecraft.¹⁹

With the Safavid court closed to the more radical Ishraqi scholars, Fath Allah followed in the footsteps of his colleagues by moving to the Deccan, where he entered the service of Afzal Khan, one of his former pupils, who had migrated to India to become an important adviser to Ali Adil Shah of Bijapur. As a prelude to the later religious discussions under Akbar, the Bijapur sultan organized debates between Muslim scholars and Hindu sages.²⁰ After the death of Ali Adil Shah, Fath Allah moved to the Mughal court where he reformed the prevailing madrasa education and helped rationalize revenue collection, partly by confiscating the waqf properties of North Indian ulama. In line with these fiscal reforms, he also facilitated the collection of revenues by devising a new solar (ilāhī) calendar to replace the Islamic lunar one, while also introducing old Persian months and feast days. He completed this transition in 1584, just two years after Akbar had instructed Fath Allah to make his contribution to the Alfi.²¹ It is known that at least one other author of the Alfi, the physician Hakim Ali Gilani—the Galen of his time (Jalinus-i zamān)—was also considered a student of Fath Allah.²² More of a question mark in this respect is the historian Nizam al-Din Ahmad, although we know that his son Muhammad Sharif was also associated with Ishraqi philosophy because he wrote a Persian translation and commentary of Suhrawardi's most important work, Hikmat al-Ishraq (The Philosophy of Illumination). In this book, he openly discusses various aspects of Hindu religious thought and practice. His work furnishes another example of how Ishraqi thinking provided a means for recognizing the validity of Hindu religious thought and how Illuminationism may have contributed to Akbar's policy of inclusion and universal peace.²³

Looking beyond the immediate Ishraqi circle, at least one author, Hakim Humam Gilani, can be associated with the so-called Nuqtawis. This was another philosophical movement from Iran that failed to impress the Safavids but found a home at the Mughal court in India. But perhaps equally important for the making of the Tarikh-i Alfi is the supportive role of Humam's brother Hakim Abul Fath Gilani.²⁴ The Gilani brothers had fled their home country of Gilan to arrive at the Mughal court in 1575. Although not an author of the Alfi himself, Abul Fath played a crucial role in its genesis, not only through his brother but also by advising Akbar to appoint Mulla Ahmad as its single author after the experiment with the multiple authors had failed.²⁵ He became a close friend of Abul Fazl who said that he ‘really had his finger on the pulse of the age, was an excellent judge of persons, and possessed a large share of humane qualities’.²⁶ Part of Abul Fath's success at the court derived, like Hakim Ali's, from his being a yunāni physician. According to Badaʾuni, Abul Fath gained surprising ascendency over the emperor, attaining the highest level of proximity to him. He also accused him, as well as Abul Fazl and the court jester Birbal, of turning Akbar away from Islam.²⁷ Instead of stressing their credentials in Islamic theology and law, it seems that the members of this circle highlighted their universal, philosophical identity and associated themselves with ancient Greek archetypes. Faizi, for example, who had previously compared Fath Allah to Plato, does the same with Abul Fath, while his own brother Abul Fazl becomes Aristotle.²⁸

From a philosophical point of view, the monist Nuqtawi movement was part of the same Neoplatonic family since it held that the universe was created through emanations from a ‘point’ (nuqṭa). As mentioned already, the movement, founded by Mahmud Pasikhani (d. 1427), was an extension of the Hurufi ideology introduced by his teacher Fazl Allah Astarabadi (d. 1394).²⁹ Although the Nuqtawis focused on Pasikhani as the promised Mahdi, these millennial expectations could easily be transferred, through the transmigration of the soul, to someone else who was willing to embrace their ideas. Indeed, it was Akbar who, just after Abul Fazl's entry into the court in 1574, invited various Iranian Nuqtawi refugees to his court, among them the Gilani brothers and Sharif Amuli, in 1575 and 1576 respectively.³⁰

The millennial frenzy of the Nuqtawis linked up well with the millenarian expectations of the sons and disciples of Shaykh Mubarak, who was considered a Mahdavi (one who considered Sayyid Muhammad of Jaunpur (d. 1505) to be the Mahdi). The brothers Abul Fazl and Faizi were prominent Mahdavis, but they also may have corresponded with the neo-Zoroastrian Azar Kayvan (1533–1618), another author from Shiraz who had attempted to construct a millennial ideology of cosmic and solar kingship for the Safavids along Islamo-Zoroastrian and astrological lines.³¹ Like the Nuqtawis, this Azari movement was very close to Ishraqi thinking; one disciple of Azar Kayvan, Farzanih Bahram bin Farshad, made another Persian translation of Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-Ishraq when in India.³² After being rejected by the Persian ruler Shah Abbas (r. 1588–1629), who became quite anxious about this millennial agitation, it appears that Azari thinking, like that of other ‘exaggerated’ Neoplatonists, found a home in Mughal India. The amalgam of millennialist-Neoplatonist movements—Ishraqi, Nuqtawi, Azari, and Mahdavi—provided the main ingredients for Akbar's imperial ideology as set out in the combined Alfi and Akbar Nama.³³ Together with the emperor himself, the patrons and authors of these two chronicles should be seen as the Neoplatonic founding fathers of Mughal universal harmony, soon to be framed as ṣulḥ-i kull.

Akhlāq and ṣulḥ-i kull

An important genre within the Neoplatonic political tradition was akhlāq, the so-called Persianate wisdom tradition. Muzaffar Alam has shown already how important this tradition has been for the making of Mughal kingship.³⁴ More so than Alam, we would like to stress the Hellenic—that is, Neoplatonic—background of the post-Mongol akhlāq tradition. Its main building blocks were Plato's Republic, Timaeus, and Laws; Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; and the medical works of Galen, all of which were primarily transmitted through Hellenic (Porphyry) and Islamic Neoplatonists like al-Farabi and al-Razi.³⁵ Later on, akhlāq spread beyond philosophical circles and became integrated into mainstream Islamic society, especially after it was shown to be in agreement with Islamic ethical teaching. This integration was the achievement of the eleventh-century historian and philosopher Miskawayh, who in his akhlāq work repeatedly stressed the concordance of Greek thought with Islam. The philosopher-cum-astronomer-cum-politician Nasir al-din Tusi (d. 672/1273–74) based his own Akhlāq-i Nasiri on Miskawayh's work, while also adding parts on economics and politics. After Tusi, we find two more fifteenth-century works in the genre: Akhlāq-i Jalali by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Dawwani and Akhlāq-i Muhsini by Husain Waʿiz Kashefi. Both books build on Tusi, but they use a more popular literary style with emphasis on practice rather than theory. All these philosophical advisers wrote their works for kings and/or served in the highest positions at court: Miskawayh worked for the Buyids, Kashifi for Sultan Husayn Bayqara and his family in Herat, and Dawwani for the Aq Qoyunlus. Although Tusi had written his work for the Ismaili prince Nasir-al-Din Abd-al-Rahim b. Abi Mansur—as we will see at the end of this article—he also came to advise the ‘pagan’ Ilkhanid rulers Hulagu and Abaqa.³⁶

The question remains: why were Neoplatonism in general and akhlāq in particular such highly attractive propositions for monarchs? The former provided one of the most sophisticated philosophical systems to resolve the relationship of the one and the many: an ideal instrument for ambitious rulers on the lookout for an overarching ideology to create imperial cohesion beyond more specific religious or ethnic denominations. Neoplatonism was a strictly monist system that accounted for plurality. Unity and plurality are reconciled to different degrees at all levels of the Neoplatonic system and nowhere with greater ingenuity than at the level of the so-called Intellect: the celestial realm (nous) of Platonic forms between God and the material world as mediated by the soul (psyche) and illuminated by the divine light. In terms of its psychology, or science of the soul, Neoplatonism exhorts us to become ‘a soul of the All’, to shake off our material attachments, and, in various stages of ascent, to return to and find union with God, the ultimate cause, the One. Plotinus himself asks us to lead a contemplative life: ‘let not merely the enveloping body be at peace, body's turmoil stilled, but all that lies around, earth at peace, and sea at peace, and air and the very heavens’.³⁷

In addition, the akhlāq tradition provided more practical tools of how one could rule without taking recourse to the Islamic religious apparatus of sharia and ulama. Akhlāq started from the Platonic tripartite division of the soul and envisioned that the soul should free itself from the influence of the body, and, as such, it is reason that should dominate the lower parts of the soul (desire and spirit). It also carried over the Galenic medical analogy from ethics to politics, in which the ideal ruler was compared to a doctor who looks after the souls of his people. Hence the state itself becomes compared to a body, with the ruler analogous to the heart.³⁸ As in Neoplatonism in general, in akhlāq, psychology and politics become deeply entangled: it teaches one to become a philosopher-king of both the self and the state.³⁹

Indeed, the Neoplatonic prescription of personal self-awareness and enlightenment comes very close to the way our Mughal Neoplatonists perceive ṣulḥ-i kull. In his letters, Abul Fath Gilani often stressed his self-discipline (iṣlāḥ-i khwīsh) and the purification of his soul, in one of them specifically referring to the prescriptions of akhlāq as provided in the works of Nasir al-Din Tusi and Jalal al-Din Dawwani.⁴⁰ Indeed, as in the Neoplatonic tradition, akhlāq linked the equipoise (iʿtidāl) of the individual soul to that of the state. Following Alam, in akhlāq texts,

justice in the ideal state is defined as social harmony and the coordination and balance of the conflicting claims of diverse interest groups that may comprise people of various religions. The ruler, like the good physician, must know the diseases that afflict society, their symptoms and the correct treatment. Since society is composed of groups of diverse interests and individuals of conflicting dispositions, the king must take all possible care for ʿadl [justice] to work smoothly, to maintain the health of society and the equipoise (iʿtidāl) within it.⁴¹

The supremacy of the Mughals was exactly this exaggerated concern for social harmony (mashrab-i iʿtidāl), an ideal almost synonymous with ṣulḥ-i kull. What is crucial in Nasirean ethics, though, is this linkage between micro- and macrocosms, also expressed in the idea of siyāsat or politics, denoting discipline, control, and management in which the king is advised to discipline his own self first, thereby acquiring the moral authority to control and discipline others.⁴²

Notably, the first time that the term ṣulḥ-i kull is used is in another letter of Abul Fath written to his Nuqtawi friend Sharif Amuli. In this letter, written circa 1588, Abul Fath praises the latter for the fact that he had searched for ‘the struggle of humanity’ (iqdām-i insāni) to reach the real beloved (maʿshūq-i ḥaqīqī) without having to await the Last Day. What is more, Mir Sharif had achieved this stage due to his innate knowledge (jauhar-i aṣli), without formal education (ʿūlūm-i rasmīyya) or external guidance. All this had widened his view to such an extent that it included both friends and enemies, wisdom and foolishness, knowledge and ignorance, good and bad. Abul Fath mentions that, in the bazaar of this world, there is no loss; all is gain (sarāsar sūd ast). Then he suddenly introduces the term ṣulḥ-i kull which requires one to live with good and evil, accepting one's shortcomings as a necessity of this world. Thus, one should not blame oneself but praise and spend one's precious life coming to an acceptance of one's full being. One should not waste one's time engaging with other issues; one should know oneself and keep oneself busy meditating on this. Abul Fath ends his letter with a hemistich from Najm al-Din al-Razi that once again stresses this importance of self-consciousness.⁴³

Looking at these early references, it seems as if ṣulḥ-i kull is still more about the individual than about the society. This is confirmed by another instance where we find the term associated with both Plato and Indic yoga. In the Shariq al-Maʿrifa (The Sunrise of Gnosis), a rare work attributed to Faizi, something close to ṣulḥ-i kull is described as a means to achieve the gnosis of God through the realization of truth and complete unity. Faizi links the very idea to Plato and the Ishraqis and adds the story, also to be found in his brother's Akbar Nama (its Ain-i Akbari), that Plato was a disciple of one Tumtum the Indian, who himself was a student of the chain of disciples of one Swami Vyasa whose ‘rank of greatness cannot be imagined’. After making Plato a student of these ancient sages of India, Faizi moves on with his own rough Persian translations of some of Vyasa's teachings, written in Sanskrit, in order to help people on the path of gnosis. After discussing the way Krishna may help us in recognizing unity, Faizi turns his attention to breath control as a spiritual exercise and self-meditation, which he compares with the Sufi practice of dhikr. By reciting the name of the essence, one meditates on their innate universal knowledge and realizes that the heart comprehends all, thereby reaching the level of universal intellect (ʿaql-i kull) that comprehends God. These practices receive an Ishraqi flavour when the achieved state of ‘stability and peace’ (qarār wa arām) is associated with the heart that beholds the pure light of the soul as an attribute of the absolute essence which comprehends all. As Carl Ernst summarizes it, ‘in a very Neoplatonic mode, Faizi contrasts the degrees of light to such an extent that the lower realms of existence appear to be darkness in relation to the higher sources of light’.⁴⁴ But apart from the light metaphor, even Faizi's ‘stability and peace’ may not be that far removed from the Neoplatonist idea of inner peace and self-awareness.

For Neoplatonists in general, without light, it would not make any sense to speak of darkness. In the same way as darkness is a by-product of light, so too is matter nothing but a by-product of the dynamic emanation of God. Intimately associated with matter was evil, which arises when human beings direct their attention towards the material world below instead of the intelligible world above. The regard downwards, as it were, rather than upwards towards the intellect and the divine essences is what contaminates the soul and renders it morally evil.⁴⁵ As it ontologically includes good and evil, human existence represents the cosmos, a microcosmos in which all levels of being are combined into one organic individual. A human being is therefore not a social or political being, but a divine being whose purpose was, according to Plotinus, ‘to bring back the god in us to the divine in the All’. Hence, the moral precepts of the Neoplatonists concerned the individual person, the goal being nothing less than deification, eudaimonia in its most expansive sense. The route to salvation was a sincere and arduous effort of the mind to return to God and forever abrogate any concerns for the body.⁴⁶

Abul Fath and Faizi's ideas appear similar to the way in which Daniel Sheffield⁴⁷ describes how Azaris combined bodily practices and celestial venerations to achieve harmony between the body and the cosmos, preferable under circumstances of extreme plurality in the society. This also requires that one must take a detached attitude to partake in ‘peace with all’ or sulh bā hama. This, together with spiritual and bodily exercise, in addition to improving the body's humoral balance through diet, was to achieve the ascent of the soul to the divine presence. Like Faizi, Sheffield connects all this to Plato and the Iranian Neoplatonists, the latter creating a kind of intermediate level, a mesocosm, being the society between the body and the cosmos. In other words, bodily harmony corresponded closely with societal and cosmic harmony.⁴⁸

Neoplatonic notions of personal self-enlightenment and deification bring us finally to Abul Fazl. Looking at his letters, it seems that he started to use the term ṣulḥ-i kull near the same time, around 1587, as his friend Abul Fath, albeit in a more philosophical sense. Only three years later, Abul Fazl began to link this to the idea of political tolerance.⁴⁹ The Neoplatonic idea of ascending personal enlightenment clearly emerges when Abul Fazl recounts his own philosophical Werdegang in the Akbar Nama. Abul Fazl considered his decision to join Akbar's retinue a second birth (wilādat-i thānī). Hence, he describes how his mind had detached itself from worldly concerns and travelled to ‘the world of archetypes’ which had suddenly opened a window into the unseen realm. The night that it happened, Abul Fazl had suddenly seen how Akbar had triumphed over the Afghans in far-off Bengal. Later on, the reborn Akbarian continued to improve himself and passed various stages of enlightenment. He had already passed the third stage of universal peace (ṣulḥ-i kull) to achieve the fourth stage of universal love (muḥabbat-i kull), all thanks to ‘divine assistance and the enlightenment of the monarch of fortune’. Wanting to improve himself even further, he then longed for ‘the rays of imperial attention’ to maybe achieve a fifth birth, to ‘attain the felicity of universal acquiescence (riḍāʾ-i Kull) whereby the confusion of duality of desire might perish’. But Abul Fazl looked beyond that as he hoped to achieve a sixth, seventh, and even an eighth birth, the latter in the land of the transmigration of souls where there will be nothing more to wish for.⁵⁰

It is quite obvious that all this could only be achieved with the help of Akbar, the ‘possessor of universal intellect’.⁵¹ In Neoplatonism, God or the One is not simply a passive object of desire; rather, the One exercises a causal attraction over us. Again, using Plotinus: ‘the soul taking that outflow from the divine is stirred; seized with love … its very nature bears it upwards, lifted by the giver of that love … there is some glow of the light of the Good and this illumination awakens and lifts the soul’.⁵² Thus, Akbar himself should not be seen as the very source of light. Akbar is not God but he is the Soul of the World—or to use the appropriate Sufic idiom: the insān-i kāmil—in guiding us towards unity or, like the sun, towards the creator of the sun.⁵³ As in the case of the Prophet himself, Akbar's task of enlightenment, rather than his elevated self, should be seen as truly divine. Going back to Abul Fazl's rhetoric, it was Akbar, the world of the soul and the soul of the world, who was begotten in the chamber of light, who increased light in the hidden recesses of the divine presence, who knew the ways of all paths, who was the achiever of universal peace (ṣulḥ-i kull).⁵⁴ Akbar was the great unifier, whose eyes were with the origin of emanation, who had made unity and multiplicity playmates, who displayed variety but had chosen unity. In other words, an array of worldly involvements did not keep him from spiritual unity.⁵⁵ The Akbar Nama is full of dualities between the seen and the unseen, the material and the spiritual, the inner and the outer spheres which Akbar, knowing both, brings together in harmony. The awareness of this all-encompassing unity leads to maturity, foresight, impartiality, and calm—in other words, to ṣulḥ-i kull, which stood in sharp contrast to the fanaticism (taʿaṣṣub) and blind tradition of the ulama.⁵⁶

As we have seen, the idea of self-awareness was far from new and arrived from Neoplatonic psychology that splendidly combined with politics, as shown in akhlāq.⁵⁷ Although not yet under the label of ṣulḥ-i kull, these psychological-cum-political ingredients are prominent in the writings of all the Neoplatonic founding fathers of the Akbari constitution, who also happened to be the authors of the Alfi.

Ṣulḥ-i kull and akhlāq in the Tarikh-i Alfi

In the year 1000 ah (1591–2 ce) Faizi wrote a poem in which he uses the term ṣulḥ to refer to Akbar's religious tolerance shown towards believers and unbelievers alike.⁵⁸ This was done when Akbar asked Badaʾuni to revise, and Mir Jafar to continue, the Alfi. Abul Fazl had started to write the Akbar Nama in 1588, eventually presenting the first volume in 1596. Only in this period does ṣulḥ-i kull become fully developed to combine the philosophical notion of self-awareness with that of religious tolerance, the synthesis of which eventually became the universal civility at the foundation of the Mughal administrative ethos. As such, Abul Fazl subsequently inscribed the term into his chronicle.

The term ṣulḥ-i kull is not mentioned at all in the Alfi. This suggests that at the time of its production (1582–1590), it was not yet seen as the central tenet of the Akbari constitution. Nonetheless, the philosophical ideas regarding personal self-awareness mentioned above are implicitly addressed in the Alfi when referring to Akbar's so-called ‘inclusivist temper’ or mashrab-i wilāyat. It is essentially about accepting all people as they are, believing that all truths are true, seeking unity in diversity, and looking at all creeds with a divine eye (naẓar-i ḥaqq). There is a way to reach God for every individual. In Akbar's inclusive temper, disagreement represents differences and diversity represents unity (ikhtilāf ʿayn-i itifāq wa kithrat ʿayn-i waḥdat mi namāyad). In contrast, the prophet's temper or mashrab-i nabuwwat made a rigid distinction between true and false (ḥaqq wa bāṭil). By comparing these two tempers, the Alfi considers Akbar's mashrab-i wilāyat superior to that of prophets.⁵⁹

Abul Fath, in a letter from circa 1588 uses the same notion, now called mashrab-i qadīm (the old temper), which should be combined with self-awareness to understand the natural world (ʿālam-i ṭabīʿat) and the human body (jismānīyyat).⁶⁰ This ‘temper’, or simply ‘way’, is the product of a deep understanding of oneself and accepting the reality of the world. It was this ‘broadmindedness’ (wasīʿ al-mashrab) that the Safavid historian Iskandar Beg rejected so fiercely when he was reflecting on Akbar's religious policy. At any rate, whether they used the term ṣulḥ-i kull or not, it is clear that both Abul Fath and the authors of the Alfi were perfectly aware of the connection between internal self-consciousness and external acceptance of worldly realities, as also known in Nasirean akhlāq. All this was hardly new; rather, it was another Mughal variation of a well-known Neoplatonic theme in which the inner harmony of the soul is connected to the universal harmony of the world. In this same Neoplatonic temper, kings looked for ancient, universal wisdom to counter the doctrinal criticism of jurists and keepers of sacred law derived from just one monotheist truth.

Returning to akhlāq, it should be stressed that, like many Persianate chronicles, the Alfi itself ought to be seen as an ethical work that is very much akin to the more general objectives of akhlāq. But even in its more specific meaning, akhlāqi counsels for kings, especially via references to Alexander the Great and Aristotle, figure quite prominently in the Alfi.⁶¹ The Alfi gives a summary of Alexander's testament in which the two elements—reason (ʿaql) and justice (ʿadl)—are highlighted, with justice being a manifestation of reason as divine quality. The first instrument (ʾālat) of reason is love and good name (muḥabbat wa nīknāmi). The existence of the world depended on justice, and through justice one can rule over the people and their hearts.⁶² Another example of specific akhlāqi advice is the Alfi's story of a meeting that took place between a certain qadi Saʿid of Nishapur and the Seljuq Tughril Beg (r. 1037–1063). Since he ‘came from the desert’, the nomadic Seljuq sultan asked the qadi to teach him the civilized manners of the sedentary world. The qadi replied that ‘God's grace/favour (faiḍ-i ʿām) reaches people according to their capability (istiʿdād). Since the Sultan is bestowed with the right ethics (akhlāq-i ḥamīda), he finds the capability to rule. As long as the king keeps this situation and his good manner, he will receive divine's favour.’⁶³ Hence, divine favour directly depended on the king's personal, intuitive knowledge of what was good; as such, the text conveys yet another important Neoplatonic quality of the ideal philosopher-king whose wisdom is innate and not achieved through learning.

At this point, it is important to stress that Akbar was certainly not the exceptional figure for which he is often taken when one only looks at him from a purely South Asian point of view. He was, first of all, following a Timurid legacy of occult-scientific imperialism staged by the post-nomadic rulers who had already concocted their own version of millennial kingship using Neoplatonic (including Neopythagorean) and Sufic ingredients.⁶⁴ Secondly, Akbar's court was no more nor less than the most successful case of an almost global, long sixteenth-century Renaissance of Platonic thought which connected his court with various courts—from that of James I in England to Iskandar Muda's in Aceh. As in Europe, where translations of Greek texts had helped to engender this Neoplatonic Renaissance, translations of Sanskrit works, especially from India's rich monist tradition, played another stimulating role at the Mughal court.⁶⁵ Of course, equally important for the Mughals was their Central Asian background as descendants of both Timur and Chinggis Khan. Different from later Mughal sources, including the Akbar Nama, the Alfi pays little attention to Timur as the limelight is clearly focused on Chinggis Khan and his immediate successors. For the Mughals, it was neither the Semitic prophets, nor the ancient Iranian kings, but the Mongol khans who provided the model which, one way or the other, also had to be aligned with the Neoplatonic ideals of akhlāq and ṣulḥ-i kull.⁶⁶

Mongol archetype

The Mongols in the Tarikh-i Alfi ⁶⁷

The Neoplatonic ingredients of the Alfi receive their fullest coverage in the history's first volume.⁶⁸ As important, though, is the Alfi's elaborate focus on the history of the Great Mongol empire. The Alfi is the earliest Mughal source that offers extensive information on the Mongols and their religious views. More importantly, it provided them with a historical, practical model of kingship, later to be epitomized in the notion of ṣulḥ-i kull. The paradigmatic importance of Mongol history can be detected in the Alfi's many explicit and implicit comparisons between the Mongol rulers and Akbar. As we will see, many of these comparisons directly address the idea of religious tolerance.

As mentioned already, the Alfi's Mongol section was compiled by just one author: Mulla Ahmad. At a young age the Mulla had been converted to Shi'ism and for the rest of his life he retained a reputation for misusing Akbar's ṣulḥ-i kull to express his beliefs a little too enthusiastically, for which reason a Sunni fanatic assassinated him in 1588. More than a Shi'a, though, Mulla Ahmad was, like the other authors, a true polymath. Apart from being an experienced historian, he wrote books on medicine, mathematics, ethics, and lettrism. He was clearly part of the Neoplatonic circle surrounding Abul Fath. Sometime in the mid-1580s, after Akbar became displeased with the progression of the author collective, it was at Abul Fath's suggestion that Mulla Ahmad was assigned the task of writing the Alfi, now fully on his own and revising the parts that had been written already.⁶⁹ For the extensive Mongol section of the Alfi, he used a selection of Ilkhanid and Timurid texts. Most of the information derives from the two earliest Persian works on the early Mongols: Ata Malik Juvaini's Tarikh-i Jahangusha and Rashid al-Din Fazl Allah's Jamiʿ al-Tawarikh. Juvaini's work is based on his own observation of the Mongol operations in both Central Asia and Iran. It provides a fresh view of the Mongols just after their conquests of the Persianate regions. Rashid al-Din's work, too, provides an early, Ilkhanid view of the Mongols after their conquests. In many ways, both Juvaini and Rashid al-Din represent the closest, most contemporary view of the way in which the early Mongols, and the Ilkhanids in particular, fashioned themselves as kings. For writing the history of the early Mongols, Mulla Ahmad also used a selection of Timurid sources, most prominently Hafiz Abru's Majmaʿ al-Tawarikh, Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi's Muqaddima, and Mirkhwand's Rauzat al-Safa.⁷⁰ Far from being a mere copy-cat, Mulla Ahmad compares and criticizes his sources to create his own narrative to fit the wider universalist agenda of the Alfi.⁷¹

Although they obviously were not part of the Islamic world, the Mongols occupy a very substantial part of the Alfi. Starting after the death of the Ghurid Sultan Shahab al-Din (r. 1173–1206), the history of the Mongols is presented as an important new era that requires thorough analysis.⁷² Indeed, the narrative before the rise of the Mongols depicts a world that is unsafe and unstable, oppressed by unjust tyrants and plagued by natural disasters. As the Alfi stresses more than once, it was the Mongols who ended the chaos and created a new world order based on law (yasa).⁷³ Written in 995/1587, the Mongol history is given in three chronological parts before and after the major events that happened during the reign of the great Chinggis Khan.⁷⁴

The Mongol account starts with a brief discussion on the Mongols’ genealogy. As in other Mongol sources, we find that their ancestry can be traced to Noah via his son Yafith, thus claiming a line distinct from that of the Iranians and the Arabs, the descendants of Noah's other two sons. It is said that Yafith inherited the stone of rain (jada tāsh) as well as Turan from Noah. Later, Yafith's descendants—both Mongols and Turks—conquered Iran, thereby making the Mongols the kings of Iran and Turan at an early stage. By following Yafith's line, the Alfi is able to discuss the Mongols without having to engage with the Semitic prophets, including the Prophet, whose biographies are conspicuously lacking in the Alfi.⁷⁵ Notably, the Alfi adds Alexander the Great to Yafith's line, thus making him part of the Turco-Mongolian category of kings who were able to rule over both Iran and Turan.⁷⁶ Hence, the Mughals of India could claim an autonomous non-Islamic legacy of imperial rule, not only over the Islamic but, as we will see, the entire world.

Chinggis Khan and his law

The biography of Chinggis Khan depicts him as a unique, charismatic person under the mandate of Heaven. His personal ancestry included two outstanding figures in Mongol history: Oghuz Khan and Alanquwa. It is claimed that Oghuz was born a monotheist (muwaḥḥid) who worshipped the God of the Sky and the Earth (khudā-yi āsmān wa zamīn). He was also known for his eloquence, and it was said that he could say his own name when he was just a year old.⁷⁷ Alanquwa, a descendant of Oghuz, was impregnated by a light (nūr) that entered her mouth, and that light ennobled her three sons and their descendants, called nīrūn. The Alfi follows Yazdi's Muqaddima by saying that the light entered her mouth while she was sleeping and also repeats Yazdi's poem in which Alanquwa is compared to the Virgin Mary—a comparison that was repeated by Abul Fazl's praise of Akbar's mother. Coming to Chinggis Khan's birth itself, his horoscope was considered highly auspicious since all seven planets gathered in the month of Mizan.⁷⁸ Astrologers had previously announced that the coming of Chinggis Khan would be accompanied by a devastating storm. Although there was not even the slightest of winds to accompany his birth, Mulla Ahmad quickly adds that Chinggis Khan was himself that storm since he proved to be as effective in destroying people.⁷⁹

In discussing Chinggisid kingship, Mulla Ahmad builds primarily on Juvaini and Rashid al-Din to stress the importance of reason (ʿaql) and justice (ʿadl), apart from kindness (mihrabāni), security (amn), and benevolent action (iḥsān).⁸⁰ More specific for the Mongols, though, are notions like absolute obedience (iṭāʿat), gratitude for what is given (dar niʿmat shākir), and patience when experiencing difficulties (dar miḥnat ṣābir)—these are all well-known qualities in the akhlāq genre. Similarly, it is said that the law (yasa), respect for each other (iḥtirām-i kuchaki wa buzurgi), and conformity (muwāfiqat) were old Mongol qualities that Chinggis Khan brought to the highest stage.⁸¹ Another crucial characteristic of Chinggisid kingship was the close relationship between king and God. To support the Chinggisid worldview, the Alfi again and again repeats the claim of Mongol world rule as formulated in a yarligh issued by Chinggis Khan: ‘God has bestowed the entire world from the east to the west to Chinggis Khan. Hence, anyone who submits to the Khan remains safe and anyone who resists is destroyed.’⁸² As mentioned by Rashid al-Din, although there is room for both sun and moon in the sky, on earth there can be no place for two kings (dar zamīn chigūna du pādshāh dar mulki bāshand). As there is only one God who rules heaven, there can only be one king who rules the world.⁸³ Before his death, Chinggis Khan reminded his children that he conquered the world by the power of God (qūwwat-i yazdāni) and the confirmation of heaven (taʾīd-i āsmāni).⁸⁴

To reach this point, Mulla Ahmad follows the narratives of Juvaini and Mirkhwand on the enthronement of Chinggis Khan. On that occasion a Mongol shaman called Teb Tengri brought a message in which the eternal God (khudā-yi jāwīd) bestowed ‘the inhabited quarter and the seas’ (rubʿ-i maskūn wa ʿarṣa-yi hāmūn)—or, elsewhere, ‘the world’ (rūy-i zamīn)—on Chinggis Khan and his progeny.⁸⁵ Likewise, God bestowed on him the title of Chinggis Khan, meaning king of kings (shāh-i shāhān). Following Mirkhwand's words, the book adds that ‘the simplehearted Mongols’ believed that Teb Tengri ascended to heaven by horse and spoke to God, coming to know all peoples’ secrets. Obviously, all this was conspicuously reminiscent of a similar experience of the Prophet, making the latter less unique. But perhaps more characteristic for the Mongols’ down-to-earth temper regarding such prophets was the fact that Teb Tengri was later to be killed by Chinggis Khan's brother, probably anticipating the saint's interest in claiming political power for himself.⁸⁶

The intermediate position of Chinggis Khan between God and creation, without the interference of prophets, was also illustrated in the story about Chinggis Khan's war against Altan Khan of Khita (China). Before starting the campaign, Chinggis Khan went up on a mound (pushta) alone, uncinched his belt and put it on his neck, opened his garment, and knelt to call the eternal God (khudā-yi qadīm) for help. He asked God to send him help from above (az bālā) with angels, humans (ādamiyān), and fairies (parīyān), and demons (dīwān) from beneath.⁸⁷ A similar ritual took place when Chinggis Khan started the campaign against the Khwarazm Shah, wherein we see Chinggis Khan ascending a hill, fasting, and staying alone there for three days and nights without sleep. He removes his crown (kulāh-i sarwari) and, as before, opens his belt (kamar-i salṭanat) to ask God for help. On the fourth day, he hears a formidable voice from the sky announcing his victory over the Khwarazm Shah. These words, copied from Yazdi, were meant to demonstrate once again that Chinggis Khan was supported by God—‘he who knows the secret and the unseen’ (ʿālim al-sirr wa al-khafīyyāt)⁸⁸ or, in the words of Rashid al-Din, ‘the creator of Turks and Tajiks’ (āfarīnanda-yi Turk u Tazhig), which here implies humanity as a whole.⁸⁹

The Mongols in the great assembly (quriltāy) felt such awe for Chinggis Khan that they removed their hats, put their belts on their shoulders, and knelt before the Great Khan. Juvaini is the only source who mentions that the Mongols knelt before the Khan inside the tent before going outside to kneel together before the sun.⁹⁰ The Alfi narrates this event and stresses that the ritual was performed for God, the sun, and the Khan.⁹¹ The reference to the sun links up nicely with the more elaborate discussion on sun worship that is given in the Alfi's first volume, another reflection of the work's Neoplatonic leanings.

What does the Alfi tell us about Chinggis Khan's own faith? According to most sources, he believed in the eternal God (khudā-yi qadīm) and respected God's name in any of the religious traditions.⁹² In discussing Chinggis Khan's trust in God, the Alfi more specifically draws a distinction between those kings who trust God while possessing worldly power and wealth, and those kings who trust God simply out of necessity. Implicitly making a comparison with his patron Akbar, Mulla Ahmad confirmed that Chinggis Khan's trust was definitively of the first type⁹³ and, due to the Khan's trust, God protected the Khan in his wars.⁹⁴ It appears that the Alfi is the only Persian source that emphatically connects Chinggis Khan's capacity (istiʿdād) to his kingship, saying that because of his God-given ability, Chinggis Khan deserved (mustaḥaqq) his dominance over the whole world.⁹⁵ As breaking promises was such an unfortunate phenomenon among kings, one of the Khan's most important characteristics was his extraordinary trustworthiness.⁹⁶ But still, it is also clear that even Chinggis Khan remained a simple man of flesh and blood: among his greatest joys was the hunt, plundering, and captivating women.⁹⁷ It is also stressed that he himself disliked panegyric rhetoric and preferred to use simple words in all his letters or orders.⁹⁸ Hence in Chinggis Khan we meet a fairly unassuming and charismatic king who intuitively rules the world under the mandate of heaven.

Selecting from the works of Juvaini, Rashid al-Din, and Mirkhwand, in a separate section the Alfi lists various ‘wise sayings’ (sūkhanān-i ḥikmat āmiz) and ‘admirable actions’ (afʿāl-i pasandida) of Chinggis Khan. These highlight, for example, Chinggis Khan's policy of creating unity through the arrangement of marriages and cultivating the seeds of love (tukhm-i muḥabbat) in the hearts of his sons.⁹⁹ The importance of unity (ittiḥād) under the leadership of one leader (yak kas) is further illustrated by stories like that of the many-headed snake that dies in the cold because it cannot enter into a hole or the proverb that explains that, although one can break a single arrow quite easily, one cannot do the same to a quiver of arrows.¹⁰⁰ Here the Alfi stresses that through unity alone the Mongols were able to conquer the world, and that they could only lose the empire when disagreement (mukhālifat) and hypocrisy (nifāq) appeared.¹⁰¹

The Alfi agrees with all the other sources that strict laws and regulations were key for creating and maintaining Mongol unity. The Tarikh mentions that Chinggis Khan created regulations (qāʿida) and laws (qānūn) for every action, and punishment (jazāʾ) for every crime.¹⁰² The Alfi also says that no one had ever organized an army in the way the Khan did, and it gives details of the splendid organization of the Mongol army. Here the book quotes Chinggis Khan saying that ‘how bad a situation where the army is not afraid of its kings, and the subjects disobey’.¹⁰³ To make sure that the laws (yāsā wa qānūn) were obeyed over the generations, the Khan ordered the Mongols to allow their children to learn the Uyghur script to record the laws.¹⁰⁴ For Chinggis Khan, power and law were two sides of the same coin: since the ruler kept to the law, the comfort (āsāyish) and pleasure (ʿaysh) of the Mongols could reach the highest level.¹⁰⁵ By contrast, the state cannot survive without laws. When people are uninstructed (bī tarbīyat) and undisciplined (bī sāmān), the government will become unstable and collapse (pādshāhi mutazalzil wa munqaṭiʿ gardad). It was the Khan's strong law(s) that made for disciplined people (yāsāq-i sakht wa muḥkam-i u ishān rā yāsāmīshi kard).¹⁰⁶ In sum, the happiness of God and the comfort of the people are related to the actions of the king, and the king's actions must be based on the law—that is, the rules and regulations established by the king himself.¹⁰⁷ For the Alfi, it was the law that made Chinggis Khan so distinct from both his divisive predecessors and many of his successors. Among the latter, there was Ghazan Khan, who regrettably neglected the old law (yasa-yi qadīm) after his conquests of Syria. For Mulla Ahmad, the message is altogether clearer: even after their conversion to Islam, the Mongols should have stuck to their law and ancestral ideals.¹⁰⁸ Of course, this was not the full story. Like all good rulers, the Chinggisids paid a great deal of attention to the ideals of justice (ʿadl) and reason (ʿaql), two other ingredients of the Chinggisid kingship that were very much in line with Alexander the Great and in full conformity with the rules of akhlāq.¹⁰⁹ But what really made Chinggis Khan exceptional was his law!

Mongol peace for all?

As repeatedly stressed by the Alfi, an integral part of Chinggisid law was that it did not discriminate against people because of their religion. As mentioned earlier, Chinggis Khan himself was not a follower (tābiʿ) of any specific religion, but he understood that religious tolerance was an important issue before God.¹¹⁰ Different from many of his Buddhist and Muslim colleagues, Chinggis Khan allowed everyone in his conquered territories to ‘follow the tradition and keep the religion of their father and ancestors’.¹¹¹ Some more detail on Chinggis Khan's understanding of religions is given in the form of a conversation between the Khan and a certain Ashraf, a qadi of Bukhara. The story is not mentioned in the other sources, except for Mirkhwand. In Mulla Ahmad's version, the content is slightly adjusted to stress Chinggis Khan's religious tolerance even more.

According to the Alfi, Chinggis Khan asked for a scholar who would be able to help him investigate the Muslim tradition (ṭarīqa-yi musalmānān). Thus, this Ashraf and another scholar were nominated for this task. After carefully listening to the qadi, Chinggis Khan agreed on the truth of monotheism and with the need for praying and fasting. He also liked the idea of giving charity to the poor, saying: ‘The provision given by God to the people is different. However, the poor's deficiency in provision is compensated by the charity given by the rich.’¹¹² But he also objected to the idea that the Prophet was the messenger of God (nabi īlchī ast). For the Khan, the Prophet was, like himself, the servant of God (banda-yi khudā), who—apart from commanding armies—sent messengers (īlchīyān) to different regions and their peoples. Chinggis Khan also disagreed with qadi Ashraf on the issue of the hajj, saying: ‘the whole world is the house of God. One can reach Him from anywhere, and the path to reality (ḥaqq) is everywhere.’¹¹³ Agreeing with the Khan, qadi Ashraf argued that the reality of the hajj is to pay respect to God's messenger and give charity to the needy people who live there. The Alfi ends this story by saying that qadi Ashraf declared the Khan to be a Muslim, but the ignorant preacher (wāʿiẓ-i nāqiṣ-i maḥḍ) who accompanied him rejected the qadi's words because of the hajj issue. Finally, the Alfi deliberately ignores Mirkhwand's statement that the path to reality goes through that house which is the Kaʿba.¹¹⁴ Here Mulla Ahmad seems to agree with Chinggis Khan—and implicitly also with Akbar—that there is a path to God from everywhere.¹¹⁵

If we leave Chinggis Khan to see how the Alfi deals with his successors, it continues strikingly to celebrate the religious tolerance of his eastern successors Ögedei (r. 1229–1241), Möngke (r. 1251–1259), and Kublai (r. 1260–1294). Of course, this mostly concerned Muslims, but the key message is one of tolerance for all religions. Starting with Ögedei, his rule is highly praised for its generosity, justice, kindness, modesty, and good governance. It says that he sent orders to announce that: ‘no creature (āfarīda) has the right to disturb others and the strong should not suppress the weak’.¹¹⁶ As far as his religious policy is concerned, the book mentions that Ögedei punished a Turk for lying about a dream in which Chinggis Khan had urged the killing of Muslims.¹¹⁷

The Alfi is equally positive about the religious policy of Möngke who heavily punished those who acted against Muslims.¹¹⁸ It shows that Möngke's policy was perfectly in line with the laws of Chinggis Khan and he could, like his grandfather, be trusted on the heavenly mandate. The Alfi depicts Möngke almost as a scholar-king deeply interested in Euclidian mathematics (ūṣūl-i Oqlidus) and astronomy, who even attempted to bring Nasir al-Din Tusi to his court to erect an observatory there.¹¹⁹ Although it failed, Tusi was eventually able to build the famous one at Maragha, albeit not for Möngke but for the Ilkhanid ruler Hulagu. Indeed, also in connection to Möngke, the Alfi mentions that astrologers (munajjimān) had managed to set an auspicious day for the enthronement, but cloudy weather and non-stop rain threatened to spoil the event. Suddenly, however, the weather improved, the rain stopped, and sunshine allowed the enthronement ceremony to take place exactly as predicted.¹²⁰ At his enthronement, Möngke expressed his wish that all creatures (jumla-yi aṣnāf-i maujūdāt) should live in comfort (āsāyish) and security (amnīyyat), just like human beings. To enact that wish, he ordered that no one should participate in fights (munāziʿāt) or show hostility (khuṣūmat) towards each other, but that everyone should spend their time in social gatherings and enjoyments (tamāshā wa ʿishrat). Sounding almost like a radical modern-day environmentalist, Möngke even ordered that minerals (jamādāt) and plants (nabātāt) should be safe, declaring that no one should cut trees, disturb the earth, or pollute the flowing water.¹²¹

In the rare instance where the Mongol narrative is directly linked to that of the chronicle's patron, Akbar, we find a comparison of Möngke's order with a similar, but more durable, one by Akbar possibly from 987/1579.¹²² Mulla Ahmad wonders why people endowed with reason (arbāb-i ʿaql) and perceptiveness (kiāsat) should be astonished by this story because Möngke's order was only valid for one day, whereas Akbar's order, which was also for the security and comfort (amn u āsāyish) of all creatures, lasted much longer as he earmarked several days (chand rūz-i mūtabarrik) when no one was allowed to shed the blood of animals. Subsequently, the Alfi invites intelligent people (ʿuqalāʾ) to look at this issue with fairness (inṣāf) to see who would be superior: the Mongol Khan, who dedicated only one day to the ‘comfort/repose for all’ (āsāyish-i ʿām), or Akbar, who enforced and observed this āsāyish for all time? Then it concludes that if the Khan is praised after 400 years for appropriating only one day for the comfort of all, then Akbar should be praised until eternity by all creatures in all kinds of praises. It then finishes by praying for Akbar's health, long life, and victory over his enemies.¹²³

Ali Anooshahr takes up this example to suggest a possible precedent for ṣulḥ-i kull in the roughly synonymous term āsāyish-i ʿām. The latter term, however, is not peculiar to the Alfi as it derives from Rashid al-Din's earlier narrative. Indeed, Rashid al-Din uses the word in the context, mentioned above, of nonviolence towards animals. Rashid al-Din himself, though, probably got the wording from Juvaini, who gives the same details on Möngke's decree but adds that it was an example of Möngke's concern about spreading justice and his ‘compassion with all’ (raʾfat-i ʿām)—Rashid al-Din also using raʾfat, but without ʿām or ‘for all’. Thus, it seems that Mulla Ahmad used Juvaini's wording of raʾfat-i ʿām and translated it into āsāyish-i ʿām. Now one wonders why Mulla Ahmad would not have rendered Juvaini's raʾfat-i ʿām straight away into ṣulḥ-i kull. The obvious answer would be that at the time of writing this part of the Alfi was either not yet that current at the court or, alternatively, that it simply meant something different. Here we assume both: although this Mongol instance of nonviolence towards animals may certainly have contributed to the making of the later ṣulḥ-i kull, the latter was yet to become that more general ideal of Mughal kingship. As such, it is part of our wider argument that the Mongols provided a practical, historical model for ṣulḥ-i kull, but that its deeper philosophical meaning derives from Neoplatonism, following a distinct trajectory.

On a more practical level, Mulla Ahmad continues to praise the policies of Möngke. For example, following the arrangement under Chinggis Khan, Möngke gave special privileges and tax exemptions to certain religious specialists, from Muslim Sayyids, scholars (ʿulamāʾ), and saints (mashāyikh), to officials, priests, and monks from Christian and Buddhist denominations. Hence, like Chinggis Khan, as a ruler Möngke did not differentiate between religious groups.¹²⁴ Similarly, the Alfi praises Möngke for introducing at court a class of experts, scribes (kātibān), and secretaries (munshiyān) from various peoples living in the empire—among them Persian, Uyghur, Khitay, Tibetan, and Tangqut—so as to have all these groups represented and to enable the court to communicate with these people in their own languages and scripts. The Alfi stresses that this policy was unprecedented and that it was an ‘admirable tradition (rasm-i pasandida) that all kings should emulate’.¹²⁵

Staying in the Far East, Kublai poses another interesting model of Chinggisid rule. If we are to believe the Alfi, Kublai believed the best religion was obedience to the Khan. This is the message behind the story taken from Rashid al-Din about some Muslim traders who visited the Khan and presented their gifts. Once when the Khan offered them food, they refused to eat it as it was the same meat prepared for the Khan. An Uyghur minister called Senge, who was hostile to the Muslims, took this as an opportunity to upbraid them. Angry with the Muslim merchants, the Khan ordered that people must slaughter animals in the Mongol tradition (ṭarz-i Mughul) by making a hole in the animal's chest. The order was to execute and confiscate the property of anyone who refused to do so.¹²⁶ Later, however, the Khan abolished this order after finding out that it would negatively affect trade. More interesting than the story itself is that the Alfi takes this as an opportunity to criticize the Muslim traders for disobeying the Khan's order. It particularly denounces the Muslim jurists who legitimized such stupid behaviour. As the Alfi argues, the reason for the Mongol way of slaughtering a sheep was to let its blood flow away, which is exactly the ritual slaughter prescribed by Islamic custom. Thus, the idea was the same but performed differently. This is clearly one of the Alfi's attempts to square Mongol custom with Islam, but, at the same time, it offers a welcome opportunity to publicly censure the main representatives of the latter—the ulama—whose resistance to Kublai's rule was rooted in stupidity (ḥimāqat), bigotry (taʿaṣṣub), and corrupted belief (iʿtiqād-i fāsid) in the guise of religion (dīn). They should have known that to show obedience to the king of the time, the ulu al-ʾamr, was the most important commandment of Islamic law.¹²⁷ In other words, it is perfectly clear, for the Alfi, that the king's orders stand above religion.

In another story involving Kublai, we find that the Alfi can be read as an attempt to further synchronize Islam with the Mongols. The latter are neither Muslims nor unbelievers but monotheists, a category that actually incorporates both. At one time, Kublai was informed about a Quranic verse in which God ordered the killing of non-believers (mushrikīn). Becoming angered, the Khan gathered together some Muslim scholars to demand an explanation and to give some clarification about who was to be considered an unbeliever. When a good explanation was not forthcoming and Kublai threatened to execute all Muslims, a young Hanafi student advised the Khan that if he looked at all the Muslim law schools (madhāhib) he would find that they all disagreed with him on this issue. In the end, it was the Shafiʾi and Samarkandi scholar Maulana Hamid al-Din who saved the day by giving a new interpretation of the Quranic verse that was in line with the Chinggisid understanding. According to him:

an unbeliever is someone who does not write the name of God above official orders (yarligh). If we find such a person, we will kill him. And anyone who writes the name of God above the official orders, he is a monotheist (muwaḥḥid) and his killing is not mentioned in any place in the Qurʾan, but his life and properties are protected by God.¹²⁸

The Khan found this interpretation utterly convincing: the Mongols believed in God, and writing His name above the royal orders was a good Chinggisid tradition.¹²⁹

The last Mongol ruler whose religious views are discussed in the Tarikh-i Alfi is Kublai's son Timur.¹³⁰ Based on Rashid al-Din's narrative, it tells the story that during the reign of Timur, a certain Mongol prince named Ananda became Muslim because he grew up in the house of a Muslim aristocrat. Ananda's father did not object to the conversion and, once he succeeded his father as the ruler of Tangqut, many of his Mongol subjects also converted to Islam. When Ananda visited Timur, the latter asked him the reason for his conversion and even showed interest in converting himself. In his answer to the Khan, Ananda explained the central position of human beings in the hierarchy of creation and the fact that nothing can be compared to them since they are judged according to their deeds. Ananda added that the Mongols themselves were monotheists (muwaḥḥid) and, as a result, God elevated them to become the kings of the world. At that stage, the Alfi breaks in on Rashid al-Din's narrative by praising Timur's mother, presented as a very intelligent woman (ʿāqiltarīn) who told her son that the Khan must not interfere in people's religion and referred to some Mongol rulers who had already converted to Islam. Quoting her: ‘the kings need supporters (daulat khāhān) and not people of the same religion (ham madhhab)’. She added that the supporter who follows another religion is a thousand times better than the enemy who follows your religion. The Alfi ends this story by saying that Timur was interested in Islam as he found it a good religion, and he announced that anyone who wished to do so could convert and that no one would object to it.¹³¹

Conclusion: Mongol akhlāq

In its discussion of various Mongol imperial models, the Alfi also tells the story of the Ilkhanid ruler Abaqa Khan (r. 1265–1282).¹³² Although not a Muslim himself, he allowed the Muslim scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi, that most famous of akhlāq authors, to stand before the throne and read out his advice for the king on the occasion of his enthronement.¹³³ Although this happened, the Alfi assures us, Abaqa knew all Chinggisid laws by heart.¹³⁴ Two aspects of the story exemplify the assimilative agenda of the Alfi as a whole. First, the story poses Tusi as a wise Persianate philosopher who is perfectly able to combine his knowledge of astrology with akhlāq and other, deeper kinds of wisdom by quoting an unknown philosopher: ‘the mind of the just king is the mirror of the invisible (mughayyibāt) that become visible in the light that rays from the divine’ (khāṭir-i padshāh-i ʿādil ʾāyina-yi mughayyibāt ast ki az ashaʿa-yi anwār ʿālam-i quds ʿaks pazīr mishawad).¹³⁵ So we find Tusi giving Abaqa advice grouped in two sets of ten which offer a selection from the traditional akhlāq literature involving issues of unity (ittifāq), strong will (ʿazimat), high mindedness (ʿuluww-i himmat), patience (ṣabr-i ziyād), and meritocracy (bar qadr-i istiḥqāq wa istiʿdād).¹³⁶ These injunctions confirm what we have already noticed above: by speaking the language of akhlāq, the Mongols become ex post facto Persianized. For the patron and the authors of the Alfi, this was necessary in order to make the Mongols comprehensible and acceptable as kingly models.

Secondly, looking at Tusi's counsel, it is even more remarkable that not only do the Mongols speak akhlāq, but that Tusi speaks Mongol! The first set of advice roughly represents the words of Chinggis Khan. This becomes notable in the advice for the king to uphold his father's tradition and pay attention to those who were trusted by his father and reward them accordingly. Most of all, the advice admonishes the reader to respect everything that relates to the great yasa and to punish those who act against it and those who disobey the Khan.¹³⁷ What we see before our eyes is the marriage of Nasirian akhlāq, as represented by a Mongolized Tusi, with Chinggisid yasa, as represented by a Persianized Abaqa. Only at the very end of the episode, when the Alfi itself prays for the Khan in words (pādshāh-i miskīn nawāz) more befitting a Mughal Padishah than a Mongol Khan, do we become aware of the contemporary relevance of this marriage.¹³⁸ Once again, it reminds readers of the Alfi that the history of the Mongols will repeat itself under the Mughals. As in the case of Abaqa, Akbar will build his kingdom on a marriage between Persianate akhlāq and Pax Mongolica. In fact, it is through akhlāq that the peace of the Mongols will become the Mughal peace for all.