How Akbar Governed
1In 1556 a thirteen-year-old named Akbar became emperor of the Mughal Empire. The Mughals were Muslim rulers whose family had come to India from Central Asia. During Akbar's long reign, which lasted until 1605, his armies conquered much of northern and central India. Historians estimate that his empire held about 100 million people, though estimates vary, and most of them were Hindus. They spoke many languages and lived under local princes, village headmen and old customs. Akbar needed a way to rule them all from his court.
2Akbar placed his officers on one ladder of ranks. Each officer, called a mansabdar, held a rank, or mansab, written as a number. The number showed his status and how many horsemen he had to keep ready for the emperor. Ranks ran from commanders of 10 up to 5,000 for the greatest nobles, and higher for princes. Only the emperor could appoint, promote or demote a mansabdar. A rank was not inherited: when a mansabdar died, his sons had to win their own places. Akbar gave ranks to Persians, Central Asians, Indian Muslims and Hindu Rajput princes, and some Rajputs became leading generals.
3Most mansabdars were paid with a jagir, the right to collect the land tax from a certain area. Jagirs were usually moved from one area to another every few years, so an officer could not build up his own power in one region. The tax itself was organized by Akbar's finance minister, Raja Todar Mal. Officials measured the fields and recorded the harvests and crop prices of the past ten years. From those records they set the tax on each field, often about one-third of an average harvest, usually paid in coins. Officials could lower the tax when floods or drought ruined the crops.
4Akbar also changed how the empire treated its many faiths. In 1564 he ended the jizya, a tax that non-Muslims had paid under many Muslim rulers. At his new capital, Fatehpur Sikri, he invited Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian and Christian scholars to debate in a hall built for the purpose. His policy came to be called sulh-i-kul, "peace with all." Some Muslim religious leaders at court objected to these changes.