Emperor revisited | Munis D. Faruqui's book on Aurangzeb

Historians like to be revisionists, and the stronger the conventional wisdom being challenged, the higher a work of history is regarded. Munis D. Faruqui challenges deeply ingrained notions about the most reviled of the great Mughals. His aim is to dislodge the prevalent view of Aurangzeb, or Alamgir (his regnal name) as Faruqui prefers calling him, as a hopeless bigot. His alternative thesis is that Alamgir “drew on Islam-inspired solutions to run the Mughal empire not because he aimed at wholesale conversion or religious cleansing of non-Muslims”, but because he believed integrating Islamic values would “benefit all his subjects”.