17 reasons why akbar is called as akbar the great

Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar is the third Mughal emperor of India who reigned from 1556 to 1605 and he was the son of Humayun and Akbar became the king at the age of 13 with the help of Bairam Khan who was his chief military commander.

Akbar was the direct descendant of the Genghis Khan and his grandfather babur who was the first Mughal emperors of the Mughal dynasty but,

his father humayun lost a battle with Sher Shah Suri and went exile when Akbar was born and after the death of Sher Shah Suri and the ending of Suri dynasty and after the death of king hemu in the second battle of Panipat Akbar came into power with the help of Bairam Khan as his chief military commander and removed Bairam Khan and became the emperor of Mughal Dynasty.

What’s special about him is that Akbar is considered as the greatest Mughal emperor of India for a majority of reasons and some of the most important reasons are which we will discuss in this blog.

So let’s get started.

17 reasons why Akbar was and is called as Akbar the Great.

1. He was the main Mughal emperor who removed the jaziya tax in 1564 which was a form of tax imposed by Mughal rulers on non muslim population like Hindu religion and other religious people.
2. In 1563 he has also removed The pilgrimage tax that was imposed on Hindu people when they visit pilgrimage sites in India and this was done so that the Hindu religious people could convert into Islamic religion but Akbar removed such tax which shows us that he was very much tolerant of other religions unlike most other Mughal emperors.
3. There are also various other examples like navratnas where Akbar appointed majority of Hindu especially Rajput rulers like Mansingh and Raja todarmal in higher positions of his ministry and court which also shows that he was very much tolerant of other religions and also respected other kings.
4. Akbar is also one of the greatest Mughal emperor because he actually banned the child marriage and increased the age for 14 years for girls and 16 years for boys as the minimum age to get married.
5. Akbar made a lot of efforts and also banned the sati practice to some extent.
6. Akbar is the first Mughal emperor to get married with Rajput queen Jodha and Akbar also had many wives but most of them were belonging to other religions apart from Muslim when he was trying to build matrimonial alliance with other rulers while expanding his Empire.
7. Akbar has also introduced marriage registration policy in his rule and anybody who gets married has to register in the local Kotwali which was a local police station at that time.
8. Akbar was the first Mughal emperor to introduce mansabdari system and he also divided his empire in 15 groups called and Subhas and each such group has had a governors called subedar, this has made the Akbar to rule his Empire peacefully without any conflicts.
9. Akbar is also the Mughal emperor who also tried to ban the slavery in his Empire & also try to ban other things like killing of birds and reptiles, etc and he also banned cow slaughter completely in his Empire.
10. Akbar also introduced public hospitals in majority of cities in his Empire so that the people can get free and good treatment.
11. Akbar in 1565 near Fatehpur Sikri started ibadat Khanna as a religious debate where people from other religious like Jain’s, Hindus Muslims and Sikhs could share their ideas.
12. Akbar has also promoted widow marriage and also provided lots of grants for such marriages.
13. Akbar even though being a dyslexic and uneducated person, he always shown a great interest in education and also loved to get company of religious Scholars and he also established lots of schools at it made both Muslims and Hindus children to study together not just religious text but also other subjects including maths and accounting.
14. Akbar had a liberal attitude towards other religions which helped him immensely during the expansion of his empire and he also introduced a new religion called the Din-i Ilahi gathering the teachings of the religion from various religions including Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities showing that Akbar as a prophet but Akbar never forcefully tried to convert other religious people into this religion and he also tried to bring all these communities together removing the differences between them to establish unity so that they could worship all gods and religions.
15. Akbar also made several attempts to ban gambling but it was impossible to do so he helped all those people who lost their money and wealth in gambling by giving them loans to start life again.
16. Apart from being religious tolerant and making lots of amazing changes and introducing new policies in his rule, he also expanded the Mughal Empire to various places and also extended the borders by embarking on lots of military campaigns, Akbar was despite being strong and great leader he was also very intelligent person and his toughest opponents who were rajputs actually fought between themselves and Akbar using this as his opportunity to defeat Rajput rulers and Akbar made many deals with Rajput rulers individually rather than confronting them and even in wars he did not kill the rulers rather used diplomacy and married Rajput queens and also included many Rajput rulers like man singh in his navratnas who were appointed as chief ministers and other higher positions in his court and this is how he slowly expanded his Empire from current Afghanistan to Jharkhand and some places in Rajasthan & gujarat but all those rulers who opposed the Supremacy of Akbar like Mewar then Akbar conquered them through battles and massacre them like the Fortress of Chittor and such cruelty and ruthlessness from Akbar was also one reason why many rulers accepted his supremacy and then Akbar showed a lot of respect to them through diplomacy by acknowledging their territories or building matrimonial alliance.
17. Under the rule of Akbar many important religious texts of Hindu like Ramayana Mahabharat, Bhagwat Gita were translated into other languages like Persian and Urdu.

Because of all these amazing reasons that you have learnt it is definitely worth calling Akbar as the great and it becomes no surprise that Akbar is the greatest Mughal emperor in the history of the Mughal Empire in india.

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