India's Justinian

It's been awhile coming, but yesterday I finished Richard M. Eaton's India in the Persianate Age. It's had plenty of favourable reviews including some desire by reviewers that more people had read this than, say, Dalrymple's The Anarchy. I am here for Aurangzeb 'Alamgir.

I've read Dalrymple too. That was done over August and early September - at a library. I had to read it, to steel myself to finish Eaton.

The best hit on Eaton isn't from the Europeans; it's from the Hindus in India. The magazine Open has several hits on 'Alamgir - one hitting Eaton's take.

Whilst this is all fresh in mind, I'll say this: I first heard about Aurangzeb from an Indian Muslim, going by the moniker "Ibn Warraq". This man did not approve Aurangzeb. Eaton, to me, was a "corrective". It may be that Eaton corrected too hard. 'Twas difficult to read him on Aurangzeb without reading, between the lines, that Aurangzeb actually was a devout Sunni who took seriously the Sunni approach to law, especially.

Aurangzeb reads to me as a parallel life of a similarly-controversial king amongst us orthodox Christians. This was Justinian, king of Constantinople and a true Man Who Would Be Emperor. Both men believed in the Law as Divine so transcendent over king and commoner. The Church or the Mosque, by contrast with the Court, was something they hoped to control. Both fought wars against Iran, Sasanid or Safavid, if on opposite frontiers; neither wars ended to satisfaction. Both men lived long - longer, we might admit, than was good for their régimes. Where Italy wrung out Justinian, the Maratha did for Aurangzeb.

Overall the dance which Eaton dances around Aurangzeb's sincerity as a Sunni Muslim leads me against Eaton's take as, in fact, apologetic. As of the late 2010s no Western academic dared the "Islamophobe" label. I suppose nowadays matters might be different.