Description
Conventional historical accounts tend to paper over seemingly minor events related
to Akbar’s life, to the detriment of a comprehensive appreciation of one of the most
important figures of Indian history. Shazi Zaman fills the gap with this remarkable
novel rooted in history.
Akbar’s writ ran from the Hindukush in the west to the Bay of Bengal in the east,
an empire his father Humayun and grandfather Babur had only dreamed of. And
his religious policy, boldly unorthodox, was as fierce a contest with the clergy,
particularly Islamic, as were his military campaigns with his political opponents. Most
histories give us Akbar the commander who never lost on the battlefield, and the
fearlessly iconoclastic ruler. But we rarely come across the restless, questing soul who
wished to reconcile a sensitive and compassionate heart to the sometimes ruthless
obligations of statecraft; and the man who, in his struggle for sulh-i-kul, peace with
all, could dare to treat as equal not only all faiths—Hinduism, Islam, Christianity,
Jainism, Zoroastrianism and others—but all life as well—human or animal.
With a scholar’s rigour and a storyteller’s insight, Shazi Zaman, in this transcreation
of his acclaimed Hindi novel, sifts through fact and many an anecdote to paint
a complex yet enchanting portrait of one of the world’s great monarchs. There
isn’t another book, as vast in scope and as layered, to help us fully understand the
phenomenon that was Akbar: the unsparing pragmatist and benevolent ruler; the
austere leader and indulgent friend; the unlettered prince and philosopher-mystic.