Akbar never learned to read, yet built the Mughal Empire
Akbar, greatest of the Mughal emperors, could neither read nor write. Born to a refugee father in a desert fortress, he was crowned at 14 on a hastily built platform that still stands in Punjab. Over half a century he expanded a precarious foothold into an empire spanning most of the Indian subcontinent.
His father, Humayun, had lost northern India to Sher Shah Suri after defeats in 1539 and 1540 and fled west to Sindh, where he married 14-year-old Hamida Banu Begum. Their son was born on 15 October 1542 in the fortress of Amarkot, where a local Hindu ruler, Rana Prasad, had given them refuge. During his father's long exile the boy grew up in Kabul with uncles and aunts, learning to hunt, run and fight. He never became literate, but each evening he had someone read to him. At nine he was made governor of Ghazni and engaged to his cousin Ruqaiya.
Humayun retook Delhi in 1555 with Persian help and died months later. His general Bairam Khan hid the death until the succession was secured, and on 14 February 1556 Akbar was proclaimed King of Kings at Kalanaur, with Bairam ruling as regent. Mughal rule was fragile; the Sur dynasty took back Delhi and Agra, and Hemu, a Sur general, proclaimed himself emperor. Bairam overrode nervous chieftains, marched on the enemy, and the Mughals soon held Delhi, Agra, Lahore, Multan and, in 1558, Ajmer, the gateway to Rajputana.
At eighteen Akbar wanted to rule for himself and pushed Bairam aside. The regent rebelled, lost, and was forgiven; he chose to go on pilgrimage and was assassinated on the way. Akbar then spread authority across specialised ministries so no single noble grew too strong, and personally stripped his foster brother Adham Khan of command after atrocities in Malwa. He put down Uzbek chiefs and rebellious cousins and faced down his half-brother Muhammad Hakim, ruler of Kabul, in 1566.
His armies ran on a reorganised mansabdari system of ranked military and civil officers, and on guns: he sought cannon and matchlocks from Ottomans, Portuguese and Italians, and historians describe the Mughals as a gunpowder empire. Marriage mattered as much as muskets. His union with a Rajput princess, Mariam-uz-Zamani, bound Hindu nobles to his court, and their son Jahangir succeeded him. Akbar died on 27 October 1605.
Source: Akbar
