Naseeruddin Shah: 'Akbar never attempted to start a new religion, have checked this with authoritative historians'

Naseeruddin Shah, who plays Mughal emperor Akbar in Zee5’s TAJ: Divided By Blood, spoke about what drew him to the character of Akbar, and spilled a lot more details about his history in an interaction recently. When asked about the emperor and how he was and how he would have looked, the actor said, “The picture drawn of Akbar was always that of a benevolent, kind-hearted, broad-minded, progressive ruler… Akbar was not only a soft hearted, vulnerable man, he was also very passionate, sexually driven, ferocious, merciless warrior. And must have been a great lover.” He added, “I mean, he had hundreds of concubines and to keep each of them happy must have been some job! I don’t know if all of them were happy though. But I played him, to find the human being within this grandeur.” Talking about the one misinformation about Akbar, Shah clarified, “The one fly in the ointment being his desire to start a new religion. We read about this in history books, which is absolute nonsense. I have checked this with authoritative historians and Akbar never did attempt to start a new religion. This is a fact which was in our history books called the Din-e Elahi. But Akbar never used the word Din-e Elahi, ever.” He continued, “He called it Wahdat-e Elahi, which means oneness of the creator. That no matter who you worship, in what form you worship him, you’re worshipping the creator. You may worship a stone, you may worship a crucifix, you may bow your head to the Kaaba, you may worship the rising sun and do what you like, but you are worshipping one and the same thing. That was his belief. This is what I found out.” The show also stars Dharmendra, Aditi Rao Hydari, Shubham Kumar, and Taaha Shah. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.