Mansabdar

The 'Mansabdari system 'was the administrative system of the Mughal Empire introduced by Akbar in 1595-96 CE. The word mansab is of Arabic origin meaning rank or position. The system, hence, determined the rank of a government official. Every civil and military officer was given a ‘mansab’ and different numbers which could be divided by ten were used for ranking officers. It was also meant for fixing the salaries and allowances of officers.

It was a system whereby nobles were granted the rights to hold a jagir, which meant revenue assignments (not land itself) for services rendered by them but the authority bestowed upon them was not unbridled but with the direct control of these nobles in the hands of the king. Abul Fazl has mentioned 66 grades of mansabdars but in practice there were not more than 33 mansabs. During the early reign of Akbar, the lowest grade was ten and the highest was 5,000.

Towards the end of the reign it was raised to 7,000. According to Badauni, it was fixed at 12,000. Higher mansabs were given to princes and Rajput rulers who accepted the suzerainty of the emperor.

The system was common to both the military and the civil department and is believed to have originated in Mongolia. It was prevalent during the reign of Babur and Humayun as well. Akbar made important changes to the system and made it more efficient.

The 'mansab' of a noble implied the following:

(a) Salary of the officer

(b) Status of the officer

(c) Number of soldiers, horses and elephants etc., maintained by an officer.

Two grades delineated the mansabdars. Those mansabdars whose rank was one thousand or below were called the Amir, while those above 1,000 were called the Amiral Kabir (Great Amir). Some great Amirs whose ranks were above 5,000 were also given the title of Amir-al Umara (Amir of Amirs).

Zat & Sawar

During later years of his reign, Akbar introduced the rank of ‘Zat’ and ‘Sawar’ in the Mansabdari system. Different views have been expressed regarding these terms. According to Blochmann, every mansabdar had to maintain as many soldiers as were indicated by his rank of Zat’ while the rank of ‘sawar’ indicated the number of horsemen among them. Irvin expressed the view that Zat indicated the actual number of cavalry under a mansabdar besides other soldiers while sawar was an additional honour.

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Wikipedia