Mahakala in Baghdad: How Buddhism and Tantra reshaped Islamic thought

Early Muslim rulers in the 13th century referred to themselves as Sultans. But Mughals, in the 16th century, called themselves Badshah. This is because early Turkish rulers claimed power through the Caliph. Mughals claimed royal authority very differently, directly from God, almost like Sufi mystics without the Caliph's intervention. This little detail is often missed. And this shift has to do with Buddhism. Specifically, Tantrik Buddhism of Tibet.

Mughal founder Babur was a 10th generation descendant of Genghis Khan on his mother's side. "Mughal" is Persian corruption of "Mongol", highlighting this shared lineage. The pagan Mongols had destroyed Baghdad, centre of Islam, in the 13th century. After this, Islam had changed, becoming less legal, more mystical.

Mongols who destroyed Baghdad led by Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, carried with them the image of the Tantrik Buddhist deity Mahakala. This deity, based on the fierce manifestation of Hindu god Shiva, was even taken to China by Kubali Khan, another grandson of Genghis Khan. In China, Mahakala was worshipped by the imperial household until the rise of Communism in the 20th century.


For five decades in the 13th century, Mahakala-venerating Buddhists served Mongol kings of Baghdad before they were finally driven out by Islamic clerics. But Buddhist influence persisted.

The most striking transformation involved the Buddha himself. In Rashid al-Din's Compendium of Histories, composed at the Ilkhanid court around 1310, Buddha was refashioned into a monotheistic prophet sent to India. He was the latest in a chain of messengers who arrived periodically to renew their religion, a structure that closely paralleled Islamic prophetic history. Buddha was given revelatory scriptures (Abhidharma and nom), an idol-smashing mission, and the role of demoting India's gods to the rank of angels or "people of the devil". This "hierarchical inclusion" was a way of acknowledging Hindu and Buddhist deities - Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma - without compromising monotheism: they were retained as subordinate angelic figures serving a Buddha who, in turn, pointed forward to Muhammad.

Lexical and mystical translation went further still. Buddhist nirvana was rendered as the Sufi fana, the mystic's annihilation of the Self in the divine; Buddhist disciples became murids; demon Mara was identified with Iblis; and Buddha's footprint on the mountain of Sarandib was merged with the site of Adam's Fall. Popular traditions reimagined India as the birthplace of Arabian idolatry, with idols of Ka'ba described as resembling images of Buddha before Muhammad destroyed them. Here Buddhism became the archetype of paganism that Islam was destined to overcome.

Buddhist Cakravartin - wheel-turning king whose worldly authority rests on moral perfection - offered viziers like Rashid al-Din a template for domesticating the divinized Mongol ruler. Mongol concept of heavenly "good fortune" was reshaped into Islamic righteous rulership, tying the legitimacy of the sovereign to ethical conduct rather than raw charisma. This was Buddhism's quietest but most durable contribution: a model of sacral kingship that filtered into post-Mongol Islamic political thought.

Barmakid viziers of the early Abbasid period (800 AD), descended from Buddhist abbots of Central Asia, sponsored translations of Sanskrit works on medicine and science. Life of Buddha became the popular Muslim tale of Bilawar and Budasaf, especially treasured by Shia and Ismaili readers who recognised in its theme of gradual initiation a structure resembling their own.

In post-Mongol Iran (1400 AD), Sufi masters drew on Tibetan logic of incarnation to declare Ilkhan an incarnation of 'Ali'. Material culture carried its own traces: Arabic block-printed amulets adopted the long, narrow pustaka format of Indic and Tibetan manuscripts, and Buddhist use of visual pedagogy - Wheel of Life and similar didactic images - appears to have prompted Sunni and Shia groups in Mongol Iran to develop their own representational art for theological persuasion.

What this record suggests is that Buddhism shaped Islam less by transmitting doctrine than by lending forms. Prophet, mystic, king, idol, image, page - each became, in Muslim hands, a recognisably Islamic thing built on a Buddhist scaffold. The two traditions eventually grew apart as both became more theocratic, but the borrowed scaffolding remained.

We often forget that medieval India was sandwiched between Muslim world of West Asia and Buddhist world of East Asia. Mughals came with both influences. Like the Great Genghis Khan, who lived 300 years before him, Akbar was pragmatic and had no qualms about collaborating with Rajputs, which earlier Muslim rulers were unable to do. This ability to collaborate with other ways of thinking is what made him the Great. We can say this great shift had much to do with Mahakala's entry into Baghdad.