Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Chief Justice: The Man Who Wrote the Fatwa-i-Alamgiri
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's policies — the jizya tax, the temple destructions, the music ban. But one of his most lasting legacies is something far less flashy: a legal code. I'm talking about the fatwa i alamgiri, a massive compendium of Islamic law that became the standard reference for Mughal courts. Luna: Right, we've mentioned it in passing a few times. But who actually wrote it? Lucas: Great question. The man behind it was Shaykh Nizam Burhanpuri, Aurangzeb's chief justice — the qazi ul quzat. Unlike a lot of the figures we've covered, he wasn't a warrior or a courtier. He was a quiet scholar from Burhanpur, a city in the Deccan that was a major center of Islamic learning. Lucas: Aurangzeb personally chose him for the job in 1667. The emperor wanted a definitive guide to Hanafi jurisprudence — the school of law followed by most Indian Muslims — that would settle disputes and standardize rulings across the empire. So Burhanpuri assembled a team of dozens of jurists, and they worked for years. Luna: That sounds like an enormous undertaking. Was it like a legal encyclopedia or something? Lucas: Exactly. The fatwa i alamgiri is organized by topic — purity, prayer, marriage, trade, criminal law, everything. It's about 30 volumes in Persian, though later translations condensed it. And it doesn't just state the law; it cites earlier authorities, including the Hidaya, a 12th-century Central Asian text that was the gold standard for Hanafi law. Lucas: Burhanpuri was meticulous. He made sure the rulings were practical, not just theoretical. For example, there's a section on irrigation disputes — very relevant for Mughal agriculture. And he included opinions from different Hanafi schools, sometimes noting which one Aurangzeb preferred. Luna: But didn't this code cause some controversy? I remember you mentioning that Aurangzeb used it to justify the jizya. Lucas: That's the tricky part. The fatwa i alamgiri does include the classic Hanafi position on jizya — that it should be collected from non-Muslims in exchange for protection. But Burhanpuri himself was uneasy with how Aurangzeb implemented it. He actually wrote a letter to the emperor arguing that the harsh collection methods were against the spirit of the law. Lucas: That letter cost him. Aurangzeb was furious. He accused Burhanpuri of overstepping his bounds as a jurist. The chief justice was dismissed from his post in 1680 and spent his last years in obscurity in Burhanpur. Luna: So even the author of the empire's legal code couldn't rein in Aurangzeb's religious zeal. Lucas: Exactly. But the code itself outlived both of them. It remained the authoritative reference for Mughal courts until the empire fell, and it's still used today in some Islamic legal contexts. It's a reminder that beneath all the warfare and politics, there was this immense scholarly project that tried to bring order to a chaotic empire. Luna: What happened to Burhanpuri after he was dismissed? Lucas: He retired to Burhanpur and died in 1685. His tomb is still there, though it's not grand — just a simple grave. He was never rehabilitated. But his legacy is the Fatwa itself. It's a window into how the Mughals understood justice, and how even a loyal scholar could clash with an emperor who saw himself as the ultimate interpreter of God's law. Lucas: And that's the tragedy of Aurangzeb's reign, isn't it? He had brilliant minds like Burhanpuri, but he couldn't tolerate dissent from anyone, not even his chief justice.