Message
I am happy to learn that Maulana Azad Library, AMU is launching a Website on Dara Shikoh, which will act as an online database and repository of all his literary works, along with all research and publications related to him.
This Project is pursuant to the recommendations of AMU Centenary Dara Shikoh Conference, held in Dec 2021, at New Delhi. Through this Project, the University aims to promote interfaith understanding, strive for National Integration by bringing religious communities closer and peace-building efforts among the followers of different faiths. By fostering a culture of liberal views and tolerance, developing the ideals of peaceful co-existence and pluralism among the young, particularly students, the University through its undertakings, such as this, wishes to promote peace and harmony.
Dara Shikoh, eldest son and heir-apparent of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, was one of the first personalities who started movement for interfaith understanding and highlighted commonalities among religions. Dara Shikoh is widely renowned as an enlightened paragon of the harmonious coexistence of heterodox traditions on the Indian subcontinent. He was an erudite champion of mystical religious speculation and a poetic diviner of syncretic cultural interaction among people of all faiths. He is known as a pioneer of the academic movement for interfaith understanding in India, who had a deep understanding and knowledge of major religions of the Indian subcontinent. He acquired proficiency in Sanskrit and Persian, which enabled him to play a key role in popularising Indian culture.
Dara Shikoh is also credited with the commissioning of several exquisite, still extant, examples of Mughal architecture – among them the tomb of his wife Nadira Begum in Lahore, the Shrine of Mian Mir also in Lahore, the Dara Shikoh Library in Delhi, the Akhun Mullah Shah Mosque and the Pari Mahal garden palace, in Srinagar, Kashmir.
At the age of twenty-five, Dara wrote his first book ‘Safinat-ul-Awliya’, a concise document detailing the lives of the Prophet and his family, the Caliphs and of saints belonging to the five major Sufi orders then popular in India. He was a great patron of the arts and is widely considered to represent the pinnacle of Indo-Islamic cultural assimilation.
I am confident that this website, through its database, will further the cause of Interfaith Understanding, promote harmony and tolerance, which will be immensely beneficial for academicians, students and researchers.
(Prof Tariq Mansoor)
Vice Chancellor