Aurangzeb was a man of his time, not ours. Hareem Feroz Ahmed, hf04097. Habib University Mohi-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir I (1618-1770), the sixth Mughal emperor, whose reign lasted for 49 years, from 1658 until his death in 1707 is often considered the last viable Mughal Emperor as well as one of the most controversial Mughal kings. This intricate individual is noted for his profound dedication to the religion of his progenitors, Islam. Nowhere but in the modern subcontinent, itself are the feelings for Aurangzeb more grounded where many years of religious doctrine have inflicted significant damage on Aurangzeb's eminence. Such is the level of intensity of those feelings that often Aurangzeb is held responsible when an act he did more than two thousand years ago is practiced today. This paper will exhibit that the charges against Aurangzeb, that still carry a ‘message’ for people today, are in truth exaggerated and wholly misconstrued. This paper will present a comprehensive reassessment of Aurangzeb by explaining him as a product of his age rather than past research that commits the rudimentary error of deciding about Aurangzeb by modern sensibilities. In 2015, a Shiv Sena MP was reported abusing an on-duty officer, who in view of the high court orders flattened a few sanctuaries amid a pulverization drive in Aurangabad, as “Aurangzeb ki aulad” (a descendant of Aurangzeb) (Anon, 2018). In 2001 when the Taliban became determined to annihilate the two ancient statues of the Buddha, carved into the cliffs above Bamiyan, Afghanistan, the Indian and international media drew parallels between the Taliban and Aurangzeb Alamgir (BROWN, 2006). Is it to link the contemporary destruction of non-Muslim’s holy sites to the demolition of the temples perpetrated more than three hundred years ago? To answer this question, it is essential to study the relationship between temples destroyed in Aurangzeb’s reign and the characteristics of the Mughal Empire and that time. Aurangzeb is accused of constraining conversions, demolition of temples, restoring the jizya tax and mass scale murder of non-Muslims. Nevertheless, the examples of such instances are few, and analyzation of those instances conclude that these acts, which seem brutal or are centered on religion, were merely and simply political acts. Although the present-day governments state the number of sanctuaries destroyed by Aurangzeb to be in thousands, authentic examination puts the substantial amount at just 16 (Murdoch, 2018). According to Truschke, Aurangzeb's inspiration for sanctuary devastation was not principally religious; political contemplations were the deciding element (Truschke, 2017, pg 78). At that time, particularly in India, temples acted more than places of worship. Temples had a religious bent, and the rulers reached specific individuals, usually priests who were employed by the government, to gain the support of or to connect to the local population (Alkhateeb, 2013). As per the Mughal convention, these individuals would go, now and again, into disobedience in endeavors to compel choices by the sovereign. Subsequent to smothering defiance, Aurangzeb rebuffed the pioneers by eradicating the markers of their power (Murdoch, 2018). No chronicled records demonstrate that Aurangzeb had an indiscriminate strategy of sanctuary devastation across the subcontinent. Working in line with historical maps produced by Irfan Habib of the Aligarh Muslim University, from his 1982 publication, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire, Monarch states that there is just a bunch of examples of the development of mosques by Aurangzeb as Aurangzeb believed in the renovation of the old ones (Habib,1982). Subsequently, at only three of the obliterated sanctuary areas were mosques developed after the ruination of the first structure (Murdoch, 2018). Monarch further says that a few temples were destroyed because they became related with adversaries of the royal state for different reasons (Murdoch, 2018). An example of this was a 1669 defiance in Banaras driven by a political adversary, Shivaji, who utilized the nearby sanctuary to rally support his cause. In response, Aurangzeb obliterated a sanctuary in Banaras that was being used as a political ground against his rule. The fact that is often forgotten about Aurangzeb that he was also the king who not only imposed a ban on the celebration of Holi but also on the celebration of Eid and Muharram (Truschke, 2017, chp 2). What often is neglected about Aurangzeb’s rule is that during his regime there were the highest numbers of non-Muslims working under him than in the regime of any other Mughal king (Alkhateeb, 2013). It can be inferred from the stated instances that the surmise of the religious ardor of Aurangzeb as the convincing factor in temple destruction erroneous. Aurangzeb is often portrayed as an inhuman religious scoundrel, symbolized by the repression of Dara Shukoh’s, Aurangzeb's oldest sibling, extra-judicial execution. On considering Aurangzeb, we see an emperor who in order to acquire the majestic royal position swims through blood. Little do we see that his act of Dara’s execution is not on account of he being a reprobate, instead was following the Mughal custom that acknowledges fratricide on one's way to the crown. Aurangzeb seems to support the Mughal mantra of kingship, "ya Takht ya tabut" (either the absolute position or the grave) (Truschke, 2017, chp 2). Ridiculous wars of progression that hollowed sibling against siblings, and child against father, were an ordinary component of Mughal lead and not an initiation by Aurangzeb as intensified by his cutting-edge spoilers. In his book, Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Controversial King, Audrey Truschke, appropriately brings up, that if their jobs were turned around, Dara and his significant opponent for the position of royalty, would not have proceeded distinctively (Truschke, 2017, chp 2). The exercised Mughal ritual of the struggle for power would always result in triumph for one and loss of life for the other; hence, it seems unjust to claim Aurangzeb anything near barbarous. For Niccolao Manucci, an Italian writer and traveler who also worked in the Mughal court, the Taliban's abandonment of the adulterating impacts of music, the gutting of sound and video tapes, the dangers and beatings allotted to musicians and performers, the consuming and crushing of melodic instruments are conspicuous redolent of Aurangzeb's prohibition on music (Brown, 2016). Manucci seems to draw a parallel between two bans one of which took place in the 21st century while the other three centuries ago by Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb, the man in whose life music and love entered in 1653 in shape of a women Hira Bai Zainabadi (Nawaz,1999) and all women who are believed to come in his life after Hira Bai were also musicians such as Udaipuri Bai (Musta’idd Khan and Sarkar, 2008). Many anecdotes are often presented to establish not only the ‘very religious’ Aurangzeb placed a ban on music but as Katherine Butler Brown says “Listening only to the voices of the actors in the drama it would be possible to conclude that even the stories of Aurangzeb’s personal abstinence from music have been exaggerated reasons” (Brown, 2016). By taking in account the historical narrative we are given of Aurangzeb, whose rule was full of ‘Muslimness’ along with his personal writings, like the one he wrote to his son Muhammad Azam Shah in 1690 in which he praised the presence of musicians in Shah Jahan’s private chamber, and the gatherings with music being their significant component, like the presence of musicians and dancers at anniversary celebration of Aurangzeb’s carnation we realize there is a difference between his private and personal life (Brown, 2015). It can be said while taking these accounts in mind that the face Aurangzeb demonstrated to the world was obvious; devout yet sensible, somebody whose duty to the Islamic conventionality was exhibited in his prohibition of music. Secretly, nevertheless, his convictions were, largely, less high contrast. I would contend it is conceivable to accommodate the two countenances of Aurangzeb. According to Audrey Truschke, what makes Aurangzeb extraordinary is maybe his high political aspiration. Amid the last ten years of his life, his yearning turned in something uncommon for a man of Mughal line; for he vanquished the Deccan, "a prize" that had been pined for by the Mughals for ages. Nevertheless, his desire additionally turned into his Achilles heel, for it had extremely depleted the assets (Truschke, 2017, pg 85). Aurangzeb's inebriation with expanding his kingdom, rattled him a slip-up that finds a resound in the actions he took in the last ten years of his life and in his private compositions where he says in the letter written he wrote in the verge of his death, “I came as a stranger, and I leave as a stranger.” (Truschke, 2017, pg 11). According to Satish Chandra, there were various variables that make it vital for Aurangzeb to introduce himself as the protector of the sharia, and to attempt and prevail upon the religious scholars. A crucial factor was the well-known aversion to his treatment of his siblings, Murad and Dara, both of whom had the notoriety of being liberal supporters of poor people and destitute (Channdra, 2005). Hence, we have to see two different faces of Aurangzeb-the public and the private one. The public one which was motivated to compile Fatwa-e-Alamgiri (the Religious Decrees Of Alamgir), a book with collected Islamic Hanafi law, the one which executed Dara claiming him an apostate (dara, apostate), the one which banned drinking of alcohol (Truschke, 2017, pg 41) and the one which imposed jizya by going against the decision of his grandfather Akbar who abolished such tax. Then we get to see the private face of Aurangzeb, the one that was ready to have wine on the request of Hira Bai (Brown, 2016), the one which enjoyed the ‘private pleasure’ of being a prince as shown in the portraits by Anup Chhattar and Attributed to Ruknuddin and his Bikaneri Workshop (Ramos, 2104) and the one who enjoyed Brajbhasha verse, which was far less unequivocal as to the sexual demonstration itself, however was worried about sentimental romance. There were Braj writers in Aurangzeb's escort, and it appears to be likely that he specifically supported a few (Ramos, 2104). Then we also get to see the face where the great Mughal ruler’s at most concern was his rotten mangoes and had deep laments about it (Truschke, 2017, pg 86). As opposed to the rearranged story customarily upheld by not only India and Pakistan but around the world, the truth of Aurangzeb's rule and inspirations is significantly more unpredictable than is frequently perceived. 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