List of Illustrations; List of Tables; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; Note on Transliteration; 1. INTRODUCTION: ISLAM AND THE MILLENNIUM; 2. THE LORD OF CONJUNCTION: SACRALITY AND SOVEREIGNTY IN THE AGE OF TIMUR; 3. THE CROWN OF DREAMS: SUFIS AND PRINCES IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY IRAN; 4. THE ALCHEMICAL COURT: THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MUGHAL IMPERIAL CULT; 5. THE MILLENNIAL SOVEREIGN: THE TROUBLED UNVEILING OF THE SAVIOR MONARCH; 6. THE THRONE OF TIME: THE PAINTED MIRACLES OF THE SAINT EMPEROR; 7. CONCLUSION: THE GRAFFITI UNDER THE THRONE; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX
Summary
At the end of the sixteenth century and the turn of the first Islamic millennium, the powerful Mughal emperor Akbar declared himself the most sacred being on earth. The holiest of all saints and above the distinctions of religion, he styled himself as the messiah reborn. Yet the Mughal emperor was not alone in doing so. In this field-changing study, A. Azfar Moin explores why Muslim sovereigns in this period began to imitate the exalted nature of Sufi saints. Uncovering a startling but widespread phenomenon, he shows how the charismatic pull of sainthood (wilayat)?rather than the draw of
