Aurangzeb - Personality | Assessment

Hi friends,

I never thought, that you all will take so much interest in the last topic of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb which i posted randomly, after having a brief discussion with Radhika in the comments section.

Here is the last topic :
Aurangzeb - Succession to Mughal throne | An alternate Story

Here is the topic, the comments in which made this topic of Aurangzeb possible.!!
The Mughal Culture Connection

Anyways, as many of you have raised almost similar points about the personality of Aurangzeb. Here is another post dealing with the same topic. This may satiate those queries. This relates to Aurangzeb's personality, mainly.

Aurangzeb was the last of the notable names of the Khandan-i-Timuri. In spite of his religious intolerance, narrow-mindedness and lack of generosity and statesmanship, he had some good qualities. He would have made a successful general, minister, expert in theology or school-master, and an ideal departmental head. But the critical eminence of a throne on which he was placed by a freak stroke of Fortune, led to his failure and the blighting of his fame.
 
He was simple and abstemious like a hermit, he had a zeal to work and hated pleasure. European travelers observed with wonder this grey-headed Emperor holding open Court every day, reading every petition and writing orders across it with his own hand.


 

In matters of official discipline and Court etiquette he was a martinet and enforced the strictest obedience to rules and established usages: “If I suffer a single regulation to be violated, then all of them will be violated,” was his frequent remark. But this punctilious observance of the form must have led to neglect of the spirit of institutions and laws.

His passion for doing everything himself and dic­tating the minutest particulars to far off governors and generals, robbed them of all self-reliance and power of initiative, and left them hesitating and helpless in the face of any unexpected emergency. His suspicious policy crushed the latent ability of his sons, so that at his death they were no better than children though turned of fifty years of age. Alike in his passion for work, distrust of the men on the spot, preference for incompetent but servile agents, and religious bigotry, he makes one think of his contemporary in Europe, Louis - The XIV. Isn't it ?

His was a courageous fighter. He was known for this throughout India. He was never tired of fighting and fighting. He was a great scholar of Turki, Arabic and spoke fluent Hindustani. From the strict path of a Muslim king's duty as laid down in the Quranic Law nothing could make him deviate in the least. And he was also determined not to let others deviate too! No fear of material loss or influence of any favourite, no tears or supplication could induce him to act contrary to the Shariat (though, this man also has exceptions, for he too fell in LOVE with someone in his early life. Yes, this is true.!!).

His flatterers styled him “a living saint” (zinda pir). Indeed, from a very early period of his life he had chosen the strait gate and a narrow way ; but the defects of his heart made the gate straiter and the way narrower.

He lacked that kindness needed in the heart of a ruler, that sense of forgiveness and chivalry to his fallen foes, and that easy familiarity of address in private life, which made his ancestor - Mughal Emperor Akbar win the love and admiration of many. Aurangzeb drew his inspiration from the old law of relentless punishment and vengeance and forgot that mercy is an attribute of the Supreme Judge of the Universe.

His cold intellect, his suspicious nature, and his fame for profound statecraft, chilled the love of all who came near him. Sons, daughters, generals, and ministers, all feared him with a secret but deep-rooted fear, which neither respect nor flattery could disguise.

Art, music, dance, and even poetry (other than religious quotations) were his aversion, and he spent his leisure hours in hunting for legal precedents in Arabic works on Jurisprudence. {Note that there are exceptions here, as i mentioned, he too loved someone at a point of his life.! 
See this post:
Aurangzeb's Love Affair at First Sight - Valentine's Day Special
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Scrupulously following the rules of the Quran in his own private life, he considered it his duty to enforce them on everybody else; the least deviation from the strict and narrow path of Islamic orthodoxy in any part of his dominions, would (he feared) endanger his own soul. His spirit was therefore the narrow and selfish spirit of the lonely recluse, who seeks his indivi­dual salvation, oblivious of the outside world. A man possessed with such ideas may have made a good fakir —though Aurangzeb lacked the fakir's noblest quality, that is charity - but he was the worst ruler imagin­able of an empire composed of many creeds and races, of diverse interests and ways of life and thought.

Aurangzeb utterly lacked sympathy, imagination, breadth of vision, elasticity in the choice of means, and that warmth of the heart which atones for a hundred faults of the head. These limitations of his character completely undermined the Mughal empire, { whose roots were so strongly nourished by Akbar } so that on his death it suddenly fell in a single downward plunge. Its inner life was gone, and the outward form could not deceive the world long. 

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