Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Failed Successor: The Tragedy of Prince Muhammad Akbar
Transcript
- Lucas: For anyone coming with us through these conversations about South Asia's most controversial emperor, we've covered a lot of ground — his wars, his taxes, his building projects. But one figure keeps surfacing in the margins, and I think he deserves his own episode: Prince Muhammad Akbar, Aurangzeb's own son who raised an army against him and then fled to the Marathas. Luna: The son who rebelled — that was during the Rathore war, right? Lucas: Exactly. It's 1681. Aurangzeb is in the middle of his long, grinding campaign in the Deccan. He's already crushed the Rathore rebellion in Marwar, but Durgadas Rathore is still at large, and the Rajput princes are restless. And then Prince Akbar — his third son, the one everyone thought was his favourite — decides he's had enough. Lucas: Akbar was about twenty-four years old at this point. He'd been given command of the Mughal forces in the Deccan, but he was deeply frustrated with his father's micromanagement and his endless wars. Some contemporary writers like Niccolao Manucci claim Akbar was also influenced by his sister Zeb-un-Nisa, who had been imprisoned by Aurangzeb. There was a lot of family tension simmering. Luna: So he actually marched against his own father? Lucas: He did. Akbar formed an alliance with Durgadas Rathore and other Rajput chiefs who were sick of Aurangzeb's policies. They proclaimed Akbar as emperor, had a formal coronation ceremony at Ajmer, and then marched south to confront Aurangzeb near the town of Gwalior. It was a serious threat — Akbar had thousands of Rajput cavalry and his own Mughal troops. Luna: What was Aurangzeb's reaction? He must have been furious. Lucas: Aurangzeb was in his sixties by then, and he didn't panic. He did what he did best: he played politics. He sent messages to the Rajput chiefs, offering them favourable terms if they abandoned Akbar. And it worked. Many of the Rathore and Kachwaha leaders slipped away, leaving Akbar isolated. The rebellion collapsed before a major battle could even be fought. Lucas: But here's where the story gets even more dramatic. Akbar, now a fugitive, fled south with just a handful of followers. He sought refuge with the Marathas — the very people his father was trying to destroy. Sambhaji, Shivaji's son, welcomed him. There's a famous account in the maasir i alamgiri that describes how Sambhaji treated Akbar with full royal honours, probably hoping to use him as a political pawn. Luna: So the Mughal prince is now living in the Maratha court. That must have been incredibly awkward. Lucas: It was. Akbar stayed with Sambhaji for about two years. They planned joint campaigns against Mughal outposts, but nothing major came of it. Then in 1689, Sambhaji was captured and executed by Aurangzeb. That changed everything. Akbar realised he was no longer safe. He fled again — this time all the way to Safavid Persia. Lucas: He arrived at the court of Shah Suleiman in Isfahan, hoping to get Persian support to reclaim his throne. But the Safavids were suspicious — they didn't want to antagonise the Mughals. They gave him a pension and a residence, but no army. Akbar spent the rest of his life in exile, dying in 1704, three years before Aurangzeb himself. Luna: Did he ever have any hope of returning? Or was it basically over once he left India? Lucas: There were occasional rumours. In the 1690s, some Mughal nobles in the Deccan still remembered him fondly, and there were even plots to invite him back. But Aurangzeb's spy network — the barids — was too effective. One intercepted letter from Akbar to a general named Khwaja Abul Hasan sealed any chance of a comeback. Aurangzeb had learned from his own rebellion against Shah Jahan: never trust a prince with ambition. Luna: It's almost poetic — the emperor who took the throne by crushing his brothers ended up crushing his own son too. Lucas: Exactly. And the longer Aurangzeb lived, the more paranoid he became. In his later years, he kept his remaining sons on a very short leash, never giving them real military command. That didn't stop them from fighting each other after his death — the War of Succession in 1707 was just as brutal as the one in 1658. But Muhammad Akbar's rebellion set a precedent: it showed that even the emperor's own blood could turn against him. Lucas: There's a poignant detail from the Persian chronicles. When Akbar died in Persia, he was buried there. To this day, his grave is in the town of Behzad Shirazi, far from the Mughal gardens of Agra and Delhi. He never saw the Peacock Throne, never heard the qawwalis in the Red Fort. Luna: That's really sad. He was just a pawn in a bigger game. Lucas: In a way, yes. But he also made choices. He could have bided his time like his brother Bahadur Shah did, but he gambled on the Rajputs and the Marathas and lost. It's a story that helps us understand why Aurangzeb's empire started to crack — not just from external enemies, but from within his own family. Lucas: You know, if this story today was worth a coffee to you, there's a link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's where listener support keeps these episodes ad-free and independent. Luna: Yeah, we really appreciate it. It's a small gesture that makes a big difference. Lucas: So Akbar's rebellion — it's another piece of the puzzle of why the Mughal Empire, for all its power, was always unstable at the top. The succession system that Aurangzeb himself used to seize power was the same system that eventually tore his family apart. And that pattern continued right up to the British takeover. Luna: Do you think Akbar could have been a better ruler than Aurangzeb if he'd actually taken the throne? Lucas: That's the great what-if. Some writers like François Bernier thought Akbar was more liberal, more inclined towards the syncretic policies of his namesake Akbar the Great. But we'll never know. The only record we have is of a man who tried and failed, and then vanished into exile. His story is a reminder that history isn't just about winners — it's also about the people who almost won, and then disappeared. Luna: Well, thanks for bringing his story to light. It's a side of Aurangzeb's reign I hadn't really thought about. Lucas: Glad we could. Next time, we might look at another figure who slipped through the cracks of the official histories. Until then, keep stepping into history with us.