In today’s world, where conversations about gender identity, norms, and the dynamics of power are ever-evolving, examining historical precedents becomes crucial for understanding the roots and implications of these issues. The reign of Akbar, one of the most illustrious rulers of the Mughal Empire, provides a rich case study in the regulation of masculinity and gender norms. Akbar’s reign has been interpreted and studied by different scholars through myriad lens, focusing on the nature and composition of the ruling elite, institutions of governance, religious ideology, structures of revenue collection, the economy of the empire, networks of power sharing, and the role of normative texts, often taking references from Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama. However, only a few scholars have explored the notions of masculinity in the imperial court, which has the potential to broaden the propensity of the period. The norms of masculinity in the imperial court give us information about sexual disciplining of imperial servants, regulations concerning marriage, norms for male bodily comportment and ceremonial purification, and conflicts over the acceptability of homosexual love. Through a critical reading of courtly literature, historians draw out the ideals of manhood articulated through the person and body of the king. In this essay, we will attempt to comprehend and discuss the representation of imperial norms of masculinity in Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama.

In the imperial court of Akbar, a great deal of effort and justification were expended to establish the codes of masculinity and establish a setting where those norms could be regulated for imperial servants. Their constant pursuit of the qualities that both developed a man’s highest nature and qualified him for the highest form of worship, which is imperial service, went beyond just trying to defend their allegiance to the emperor.

Certain kinds of norms were to be followed by a man to get the opportunity to serve at the imperial court. In Abul Fazl’s language, elevation in the imperial service was itself a test and a training. He mentioned in the Akbarnama, ‘The emperor’s trust was like a draught of heady wine, which only strong men could drink’. The statement shows how the notion of strong man or masculinity decides the status and power of man in the court. Muzaffar Alam in his work, in the same context, mentioned the instructions one needed to follow to win the trust of the emperor. Imperial servants were urged to read Tusi’s work, work of Ghazali, the sufic poetry of Rumi; they should exercise moderation in all things, maintain constant vigilance, should hunt for military exercise, should exercise close supervision of the town and neighbourhoods under their authority and should take steps against wine-drinking except where it was for medical purposes and for intellectual stimulation.

Abul Fazl also identified some inner qualities of men that need to be within men who serve the court and these qualities are also mentioned in the description of particular offices. Such as a provincial viceroy should be a prudent, careful and discreet man, controlling his impulses to wrath and levity alike, carefully selecting honest and truthful servants, sleeping and eating in moderation and schooling himself in works of philosophy when the duties of his office allowed.

During his reign, in an effort to disseminate the norms of masculinity, Akbar also attempted to regulate the marriage, sexuality and body of a man. Bodily regulation drew on a long tradition of concern with bodily purification and bodily comportment that permeated the Mediterranean, west Asian and Indo Muslim worlds. This moral regulation which aimed to promote a new set of norms for elite male virtue was quite different in this period. Though the purpose was creative, it was repressive and prohibitive. Even new norms were formulated around the natural purity of the male body and conducted a very public campaign to discourage overt homosexual attachments which indicated the patriarchal and heteronormative attitude of the authority behind these norms of male virtue.

The institution of marriage was the primary instrument through which Akbar tried to regulate the body and sexual desires of men. The emperor promoted a model for ideal marriage in which mature men could realise the ethic of imperial service and women enjoyed peace and companionship. While validating the model, Abul Fazl stressed how important it is because it was preserving stability amongst men, promoting the “establishment of homes” and preventing the “outbreak of evil passions”. Along with it, Akbar also sought to regulate the extra-marital pleasures of his servants to curb and control sexual activity not channelled into the controls of marriage. Therefore, numerous prostitutes of the imperial capital were compelled to live outside the city in a special quarter.

Not only through marriage, the body and sexual desires of men were regulated in various other ways. In Badauni’s text we see how new meanings were attached to semen. It was discussed that the emission of semen produced a state of impurity requiring major ablution. Regulation of body hair was the other way where the importance of a beard to a pious Muslim was emphasised. At the same time, some ideas such as the beard drew its nourishment from semen were being introduced which built an association between the forms of regulations.

Here it would be interesting to understand how it has been projected in the new norms that homosexual love did not fit with the model of self-controlled masculinity. Akbar made attempts to restrain and punish male homosexuality. In the social scenario, homosexual love was not precluding love for women because love between men did not generate anything like a fixed, self-conscious homosexual identity like we know of it today. To understand Akbar’s stance on homosexual love, let us take an example of homosexual love of that period.

Ali Quli Khan Zaman, one of the military commanders, fell in love with Shaham Beg who was a member of Akbar’s special bodyguard. The two even engaged in monstrous distortions of imperial ritual where Khan used to bow down before Shaham Beg and call him his emperor and perform kornish or royal salutation. Akbar did warn them but they persisted in their attachments, at which Akbar was prepared to risk military confrontation. In this context, we also cannot oversee the political dimension of this opposition. In 1565 a wider Uzbeg revolt emerged against the young Akbar’s attempts to consolidate his authority, in which Ali Quli Khan Zaman played a leading role. Though Akbar’s forces had crushed the rebels, Akbar was shocked by the revolt and that is why when he came to know about the sexual taste of Khan, he emphasised it so that to highlight latter’s moral weakness and accentuate its origin in the disordered Uzbeg culture of Transoxiana (modern-day lower Central Asia).

Thus, sexual pleasure for Akbar was legitimate within the strict moral constraints of marriage, and that too only with women. Sexual intercourse among men, according to Abul Fazl, was ‘neither consuming nor melting, neither love nor friendship’.

So, we have seen how the imperial court of Akbar espoused these stringent and prohibitive norms of masculinity in order to constrain the male virtue. The manipulation and regulation demonstrate how Akbar’s patriarchal perspective sculpted men’s masculine traits and how this had an impact on the entire social context of that time. Even though it is the least talked about part of Akbar’s reign, Abul Fazl’s account of how these evocative norms were used to manipulate body and gender identity is intriguing. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to these codes as we study Akbar’s reign in order to fully comprehend its complexity and how it shaped the broader context of the time.

In contemporary discussions on gender and power, examining the norms of masculinity in Akbar’s court offers valuable insights into how historical precedents shape modern perceptions of male identity and authority. The regulation of masculinity in Akbar’s reign, as detailed by Abul Fazl, underscores how patriarchal and heteronormative values were systematically enforced to maintain social order and control. These historical norms resonate with ongoing debates about toxic masculinity, gender roles, and the suppression of sexual diversity in various cultural contexts today. Understanding Akbar’s efforts to regulate male behaviour, sexuality, and body image provides a historical framework for critiquing similar mechanisms of control in contemporary societies. It highlights the persistence of certain power structures and the importance of challenging restrictive gender norms to foster more inclusive and equitable communities. By drawing parallels between the past and present, we can better appreciate the complexities of gender dynamics and the continuous evolution of masculine ideals.