Headline, July27, 2013

'''EMPEROR - AKBAR- THE GREAT :

 THE MASTER OF THE 

NECESSITY OF REASON'''

Occasions such as the turn of a century. Occasions such as these fleeting times,  have appeared to many people to be appropriate moments to engage in critical examinations of what is happening and what needs to be done. The reflections are not always as pessimistic and sceptical of human nature and the possibility of reasoned change as those of Nietzsche or of Glover.

An interesting contrast can be seen in the much much earlier deliberations of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar The Great, in India, at the point of 'millinnial' , rather than merely centurial, interest. As the first Millennium of the Muslim Hijri calendar came to an end in 1591 -2 , Akbar engaged in a far reaching scrutiny of social and political values and legal and cultural practice. He paid particular attention to the challenges of inter-community relations and the abiding need for communal peace and fruitful collaboration in the already multicultural India of the sixteenth century.

We have to recognize how unusual Akbar's policies were for the time. The inquisitions were in full swing and Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600 even as Akbar was making his pronouncements on religious tolerance in India. Not only did Akbar insist that the duty of the state included making sure that  ''no man should be interfered with on account of his religion, and any one was to be allowed to go over to any religion he pleased'', he also arranged systematic dialogues in his capital city of Agra between Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsees, Jews and others, even including agnostics and atheists.

Taking note of the religious diversity of his people, Akbar laid the foundations of secularism and religious neutrality of the state in a variety of ways: the secular constitution that India adopted in 1949, after independence from the British rule, has many many features that this great Emperor championed in the 1590s. The shared elements include interpreting secularism as the requirement that the state be equidistant from different religions and must not treat any religion with special favour.

Underlying Akbar's general approach to the assessment of social custom and public policy was his overarching thesis that 'the pursuit of reason   -rather than what he called the ''marshy land of tradition''. -is the only only way to address the difficult problems of good behaviour and the challenges of constructing a just society. The question of secularism is only one of a great many cases in which Akbar insisted that we should be free to examine whether reason does or does not support any existing custom, or provides justification for ongoing policy.

For example, he abolished all special taxes on non-Muslims on the ground that they were discriminatory since they did not treat all citizens as equal. In 1582 he resolved to release  -''all the imperial slaves''- , since it is 'beyond the realm of justice and good conduct to benefit from force'.

This magnificent wise and great Emperor of India himself remained a devout and practising Muslim, he argued for the need for everyone to subject their inherited beliefs and priorities to critical scrutiny. Indeed, perhaps the most important point that Akbar made in his defense of a secular and a tolerant multicultural society concerned the role that he gave to reasoning in this entire enterprise. Akbar took reason to be supreme, since even in disputing reason we would have to give reasons for that disputation.

With most respectful and loving dedication to Abdul Sattar Edhi/Pakistan. Ever since he was summoned to care for his ageing mother, at an early age, he has spent,  over 66 years in the honor of caring for humans: the dead, the abandoned, the sick, the ageing, the widows, the torn, the destroyed, the orphans, the laughed and scorned at!

Alas! The work of this Sage and  farsighted Emperor and Abdul Sattar Eidhi, the likes of which the world has never known, never blossomed. The present world has absolutely no idea,

''What We Owe to Each Other''

The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless has the honor to name a module as a humble monument to Abdul Sattar Edhi.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless