A Meaningless Title

In the Christian calender, today is the Feast of the Epiphany, marking the day the wise men arrived in Bethlehem and visited the baby Jesus. It's not a particularly significant date in the western world, leaving many people baffled by the term 'twelve days of Christmas'. In the Orthodox church, though, Epiphany is considered one of the most important feast days of the year, after Easter and Pentecost. My best friend's Serbian, which is the main reason I'm aware of the date's significance.

What always amuses me about the wise men is that they're not really mentioned much in the bible itself - even the number is speculation, based on the fact that they bring three different gifts. But in Christian tradition, there's names and backstories for all of them - a lot of detail that has no canonical basis whatsoever...

Basically, they're the Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina of Christianity... :)

Religion is one of my interests, despite not being religious myself. I'm familiar with the basic philosophies and beliefs of the world's major religions, and also with many minor faiths and now extinct belief systems.

One belief system I wasn't aware of until recently was the Divine Faith of Akbar the Great. That's mainly because it never took off; it probably never had more than a dozen adherents, and died with its founder. It must surely rank as one of the least successful religions ever founded. Still, it's an interesting footnote to history.

Akbar the Great was the third ruler of the Mugal Empire, grandson of Babur the Tiger. He inherited an empire in 1556 that encompassed modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India. Islam was the state religion, but Hindus made up a significant percentage of the population. Akbar implemented policies of religious tolerance, ending the taxes imposed on non-Muslims, marrying into Hindu royal families and placed Hindus in positions of authority throughout his empire.

Presumably inspired by being exposed to two religions as different as Islam and Hinduism, Akbar decided to resolve the whole 'religion' issue once and for all, by encouraging debates between different religious authorities to try and resolve the differences. He built a meeting house called the Ibadat Khana, "The House of Worship" and invited religious leaders to debate each other there. Initially only Islamic leaders participated, but after a series of debates turned violent, other faiths were encouraged to participate. Why, exactly, Akbar thought inviting more religions to participate in a debate would result in increased civility is a mystery...

Akbar made efforts to hear from holy men of all religions. In addition to Muslims and Hindus, he also spoke with Jesuit missionaries, Jews, Zoroastrians and Jains. After discussions between all these people had mysteriously failed to resolve all religious differences once and for all, Akbar came to the obvious conclusion: he'd have to found his own religion.

Founded in 1581, Akbar's religion was known as Din-i-Ilahi, or the "Divine Faith". Fittingly for such a generically named religion, it was a synthesis of practically every religion Akbar had been exposed to. Prayer times were the same as in Islam, and various elements of Sufi mysticism were also adopted. The slaughter of cattle was outlawed, but consumption of pork was allowed. Sun worship and the divine authority of kings were taken from Zoroastrianism. The Jain belief that all living things possess souls was also adopted. Akbar took up the title of "Revealer of the Internal and Depicter of the Real", and made Din-i-Ilahi the new state religion, though he continued his tolerance of other belief systems.

Needless to say, the Divine Fath was not popular. Only a handful of Akbar's ministers converted to the new faith, and all renounced it on Akbar's death. It is unclear if Akbar's son Jahangir ever converted to the religion; he certainly made no effort to sustain it after his father's death, restoring Islam as the state religion. Akbar's universal faith died with him in 1605.

Despite his complete failure to unite all religions, Akbar is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers of India, a wise and tolerant Emperor who expanded Mughal territory, tolerated all beliefs, and was a patron of literature, architecture and music. Akbar may not have been wise enough to realise that just grabbing random bits from existing religions does not a theology make, but nor was he foolish enough to try and impose his new religion on his subjects by force. If you're going to found a new religion, Akbar may not be the worst prophet to emulate...