Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Ramadan: The Sultan of Fasting at War
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb the politician, the conqueror, the one who banned music and copied the Quran. But there's a side of him that I think we haven't really touched, and it's the emperor as a man of ritual, particularly when it comes to Ramadan. Luna: Oh, like how he actually observed the fasts while running an empire at war? Lucas: Exactly. And it's not just a footnote. For Aurangzeb, fasting wasn't a private devotion. It was a public performance of kingship. He took Ramadan so seriously that even in the middle of the Deccan campaigns—when he was in his eighties, sleeping on the ground, eating barely anything—he would still fast every single day from dawn to sunset. Lucas: The chronicler Bhimsen Saxena, who was actually in the Deccan with the army, he records these details. He notes that Aurangzeb would rise before dawn for a light meal, sometimes just barley bread and water, and then he'd spend the whole day leading prayers and hearing petitions, all while the sun beat down on the tents and the soldiers around him were dropping from heat. Luna: That's intense. How did the army even function during Ramadan? Lucas: Well, that's the thing—it didn't stop. The Mughal war machine just kept grinding. The soldiers, many of them Hindu, many Muslim, they weren't all fasting, of course. But the emperor's own abstention became a kind of moral lever. He'd use it to shame his commanders into extra vigilance, saying, 'If I can fight the flesh, you can fight the enemy.' Lucas: And he didn't just fast from food. He also intensified his night prayers, the taraweeh, and he would personally lead long sessions of Quran recitation. Some nights he'd pray until the small hours, then get up again for suhoor and start the cycle over. It's a punishing schedule even for a young man, let alone someone pushing ninety. Luna: So was this just personal piety, or did he have a political reason for being so visible about it? Lucas: Both, I think. On the one hand, he genuinely believed in it. His letters are full of references to the 'sweetness' of fasting, and he saw it as a way to purify his soul before God. But he also knew that his subjects—Muslim and Hindu alike—were watching. By embodying the fast so publicly, he was reinforcing his legitimacy as a devout Sunni ruler, especially in contrast to his more worldly predecessors like his father Shah Jahan. Lucas: And he wasn't shy about using Ramadan to send a message to his enemies. In 1703, during the siege of some Deccan fort—I think it was one of the Maratha strongholds—he ordered that the cannons be fired only at certain hours, so as not to disturb the fast. Can you imagine? The enemy probably thought they were getting a reprieve, but really it was just so his soldiers could pray in peace. Luna: That's almost comical. 'Let's pause the war for iftar.' Lucas: Exactly. But there's a deeper layer. Aurangzeb's Ramadan wasn't just about abstaining—it was about controlling time itself. The entire imperial schedule would shift. The court would hold hearings after the evening prayer, and decisions would be made late into the night. Even the royal kitchen had to adapt, preparing special dishes for iftar that were lighter but still fit for an emperor. Lucas: And he also used Ramadan as a time for clemency. Often he would free prisoners or grant pardons during the month, to show that his piety made him merciful. But he could also be strict: he once refused to see a delegation of Hindu nobles because they arrived during the afternoon, when he was resting for the evening prayers. It was a way of saying, 'My devotion comes before your politics.' Luna: So he was micromanaging even his fasting. That sounds like him. Lucas: Oh, absolutely. And he wrote about it too. In his letters, he often mentions the exact moment he breaks his fast, sometimes even the date and weather. He even composed a short treatise on the virtues of fasting, which later ended up in the fatawa e alamgiri, that massive legal code he commissioned. So his personal practice became codified law for the entire empire. Lucas: But there's a darker side to all this. Some historians argue that Aurangzeb's extreme asceticism was a tool of psychological warfare against his own soldiers. By fasting while they were marching and fighting, he set an impossible standard. And if a soldier complained of hunger or thirst, Aurangzeb would point to himself and say, 'I am eighty, and I still fast. You have no excuse.' Luna: That would have been brutal to hear. Lucas: It was. There are accounts of soldiers fainting from heat exhaustion during Ramadan marches, and Aurangzeb would sometimes order them to be given water, but only after sunset. It was a strange mix of compassion and rigidity. He wasn't a tyrant in the sense of being cruel for its own sake—he genuinely believed he was saving their souls by making them endure. Lucas: And this connects to something we've touched on before, his banning of music. For Aurangzeb, religious orthodoxy wasn't just a personal choice; it was a state project. Ramadan was the peak of that project, a time when the entire machinery of the empire had to conform to his vision of Islamic purity. Luna: So when did he actually die? Was he fasting then too? Lucas: He died in 1707, and yes, he was fasting. In fact, the maasir i alamgiri, the official court history, says that on his last day he was too weak to even lift a spoon, but he still insisted on reciting the shahada. He broke his fast that evening with a sip of water, and he died that night. It's almost too perfect a story—the emperor who fasted to the very end. Lucas: But here's what strikes me. His devotion didn't save his empire. Within decades of his death, the Mughals had lost control of the Deccan, and the very soldiers who had marched with him in Ramadan were fighting for new masters. So what was the legacy of his piety? Luna: Maybe it's that he became a symbol of a certain kind of Islamic kingship, even if it wasn't sustainable. Lucas: Yeah, and that symbol is still alive today. People argue about whether Aurangzeb was a saint or a bigot, but nobody denies that his fasting was real. It's one of the few things both his admirers and critics agree on—that he was utterly sincere in his faith. Lucas: And you know, that sincerity is something I've been thinking about a lot as we've done these episodes. It takes a certain kind of person to give up everything—comfort, pleasure, even basic needs—for what they believe in. And whether you agree with what he believed or not, you have to respect the commitment. Luna: Yeah, I think that's a fair way to look at it. Lucas: And that brings me to something personal. We're able to make these deep dives because of a small group of listeners who support us monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big thing, but it pays for the research, the audio editing, the subscription to the archives we use. And it keeps the whole show free, with no ads, for everyone else. Luna: Yeah, it's genuinely what keeps us going. We don't have a corporate sponsor or anything, just listeners who care about history like this. Lucas: Right. So if you've been enjoying these conversations, and you want to help us keep digging into the corners of the past, that link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a few people chipping in makes a real difference. Lucas: Anyway, back to Aurangzeb. After all those years of fasting and fighting, he was buried in a simple, open-air grave at Khuldabad, near the tomb of a Sufi saint. He wanted no grand mausoleum, just a plot of earth where the sunlight could fall on his grave. And to this day, visitors go there and see that grave, and it's a reminder that even the most powerful emperor is ultimately just a man. Luna: That's a really human end. So what do you think we should take away from all this? Lucas: I think it's that even the most ruthless political calculations are often intertwined with genuine belief. Aurangzeb wasn't just using religion as a tool—he was a true believer, and that made him both more principled and more dangerous. His Ramadan was a window into that complexity, and I hope it gives you something to think about the next time you see the crescent moon.