KARACHI: Mr Mumtaz Hasan, Managing Director of the National Bank, called for a scientific study of the life and works of the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir.

He was inaugurating the “Alamgir Day” function organised by the Dairah-i-Muin al-Marif. He said Alamgir was an important personality of our history.

He is not to be studied as an abstract subject, but we must examine his work in detail, so that we might be able to accept for our guidance, whatever was good in his policies and take lessons from his failures.

Delivering his Presidential address, Dr. Moinul Haq, Secretary, Pakistan Historical Society, said that the Indian and Western historians had tried to create a wrong impression by wrongly interpreting the benign policies of Aurangzeb Alamgir, which he had initiated for the welfare of his people and the progress of his empire.

He said it was not true that Jizyah was a poll tax or that its incidence was heavy. This twist was given by the so-called impartial Indian and Western historians to taint the reputation of Aurangzeb, he added.

Tracing the history of Din-e-Elahi, started by Akbar to undermine the social order founded on Islamic concepts of life, Dr. Haq said that had this insidious trend of subversion of the Islamic social order not been checked by the counter movement started by Muslim divines, notably Mujjadid Alf Sani, the process of undermining would have been largely successful.

Aurangzeb was also a worker for restoring the Islamic ideal of life.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play