In seeking cross-cultural intuition on law and justice, few juxtapositions are as arresting as that between the courtroom dramas of William Shakespeare and the legal traditions of the Mughal Empire. Though separated by genre and geography, both traditions portray adjudication as a theatrical manifestation of sovereign authority.

By Abdul Qadim, Barrister, 25 Canada Square Chambers

Remarkably, they coexisted in time. While Shakespeare staged legal dramas in the theatres of Elizabethan London, emperors such as Akbar and Jahangir presided over imperial darbars and dispensed justice across a vast and deeply complex subcontinent. In both traditions, the judge – be it a Duke or a Padshah – stood as both arbiter and the living embodiment of the state’s moral order.

This article explores three core areas of convergence:

(i) The performative nature of justice and its public spectacle.

(ii) The sovereign’s role as final arbiter.

(iii) The treatment of cultural identity in the courtroom.

Justice as Theatre

Performance has long animated the administration of justice. In Shakespeare’s plays, trials unfold as public spectacles. They dramatise legal conflict while drawing attention to the ethical and political forces that stimulate adjudication. In the Mughal Empire, too, the imperial darbar – though formally a site of governance – often functioned as a judicial theatre; a space in which law was both administered and staged. Here, sovereignty was often expressed through ritualised and visible acts of judgment, rendered before an open audience in front of subjects who often came seeking redress in disputes over land, tax, money and other matters.

The Merchant of Venice, it can be forcefully argued, offers the first sustained courtroom drama in English literature. Its trial scene is unmistakably theatrical. Shylock, the relentless claimant; Antonio, the unspeaking object of sympathy; Portia, the veiled adjudicator and bastion of justice who, through a display of forensic eloquence, reshapes both the outcome of the proceedings and the moral direction of the play. The Duke, though formally presiding, is quickly eclipsed by Portia’s intervention. The courtroom, thus, becomes a stage for ethical confrontation, where the deeper question is not necessarily whether the judgment aligns with procedure, but whether it aligns with justice (as it is framed by Portia).

The Mughal emperors understood this tension instinctively. In the Diwan-i-Aam – the Hall of Public Audience – emperors such as Akbar and Jahangir received oral petitions and dispensed rulings in full ceremonial presence. Decisions were made either summarily or following counsel from legal scholars of varying traditions. Jahangir famously installed the Zanjir-i-Adl, the Chain of Justice, outside his palace – a literal and physical symbol of access to justice. Though it may not have been used so frequently, its very presence proclaimed that justice could be summoned directly from the sovereign, and that power was not immune to appeal.

To the modern eye, it may well seem paradoxical that an autocratic empire could practise justice in ways that feel more direct, more visible, even more emotionally legible than the systems that prevail in contemporary democracies. Yet such a view misses the essence of what was at stake. The Mughal model was not democratic in the structural sense, but it did make genuine attempts to preserve certain democratic instincts – accessibility, immediacy, visibility, accountability. These instincts are not, unfortunately, always visible today, in our system, despite our best attempts. Within the sometimes procedural and linguistic impenetrability of modern legal systems, many litigants – especially the unrepresented (or Litigants in Person, as we refer to them in the UK) – experience justice as something not so much as a thing that is performed for them, but rather as a thing that is performed around them.

This comparative lens conveys a deeper truth. That is that justice does not, and indeed, cannot only reside in rules or outcomes, but in how it is seen and felt.

The Mughals – despite their faults – understood intimately that the legitimacy of law rests not just on formality, but on intelligibility. It must be comprehensible. It must be heard. And above all, it must be seen.

The Sovereign as Judge Supreme

In early modern legal traditions, the sovereign did not stand apart from the judiciary, but rather at its summit. In both Shakespeare’s legal dramas and Mughal practice, the ruler was a political leader and a living vessel of justice.

In The Merchant of Venice, the Duke of Venice formally presides over Shylock’s claim. Yet his role is not defined by legal constraint but by latitude. He may judge directly or delegate. His decision to entrust the case to Portia – disguised as a jurist (Balthazar) -reflects sovereign choice rather than an abdication or dereliction. His act is one that recognises the need for legal form to be guided by ethical instinct, even if that ethical instinct, as it transpires to modern, more reflective audiences, is deeply flawed.

In Measure for Measure, a similar dynamic plays out. The Duke of Vienna departs the city and entrusts law enforcement to Angelo, only to then return in disguise when strict legality yields plainly intolerable results. In both plays, Shakespeare confronts a question fundamental to all systems of justice. When should the law be enforced and when should mercy prevail?

The Mughal model tended to make such discretion explicit. Emperors such as Akbar and Jahangir routinely sat in open court and resolved disputes themselves. Rulings could draw upon Islamic jurisprudence, local tradition or the emperor’s own ethical judgment – his discretion.

Closer to home, in England, this fusion of roles began to erode. The early 17th-century clash between King James I and Chief Justice Coke – who famously asserted that the King could not judge cases himself, whether criminal or civil – marked the start of a shift toward the modern principle of the rule of law. By contrast, in Mughal India, personal sovereign adjudication remained entrenched arguably throughout the entire life of the Mughal Empire.

Today’s legal systems – particularly those in modern liberal democracies – have largely separated judicial and executive power. Yet, remnants of the sovereign’s discretionary function remain. The prerogative of mercy, the discretionary nature of sentencing and the capacity of courts to apply equitable principles all reflect this legacy, however imperfectly.

These tools, in the author’s contention, present as safeguards against legalism devoid of humanity. The law is, ultimately, a living and breathing thing. It is more than ink set on cold and hard sheets of paper. The law, surely, more than anything, is the mechanism that society has collectively agreed shall constitute the basis upon which we engage in social relations. If it is, then the notion that justice must be tempered by compassion (an instinct that is so deeply embedded within our DNA), and that the sovereign’s conscience must remain present, even in institutional form, remains no less relevant now than in the court of Venice or the Mughal darbar.

Cultural Identity and the Law

If the sovereign embodies law’s authority, the courtroom becomes the crucible where identity, morality and legality intersect. Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock’s trial in The Merchant of Venice demonstrates how cultural and religious difference can shape legal proceedings. In the Mughal Empire, by contrast, the judicial culture arguably exhibited a pluralistic ethos – an ethos that, however unevenly, sought to acknowledge and accommodate the cultural and religious diversity of its subjects.

Shylock enters the Venetian court trusting in the neutrality of the law. Yet his identity – as a Jew within a Christian society – colours the interpretation of his actions. His legal entitlement is reframed as a form of cruelty; his insistence on the terms of a lawful agreement is cast as moral deficiency. The trial becomes, in effect, a performance in which justice and bias intertwine. Shakespeare invites the audience to question not just whether the judgment is legally sound, but whether it is morally just – and whether identity itself has tilted the scales.

In Mughal India, the challenge of adjudicating across lines of faith and culture was addressed directly. Islamic judges (qadis) worked within a wider framework that permitted Hindu litigants to be judged according to their own customary laws. In cases involving such parties, imperial officers often consulted Hindu legal experts. This flexible arrangement reflected, at least in part, the broader philosophy of sulh-i-kul – “absolute peace” or “peace for all” – which underpinned Akbar’s policies of religious and administrative inclusivity. While far from perfect, and not immune from pressures of statecraft, sectarianism, corruption and hierarchy, the Mughal legal order tried to make space, both formally and institutionally, for multiple traditions to coexist within a single imperial system.

Again, bringing this matter closer to home, there remains an inescapable tension between legal uniformity and cultural complexity in England and Wales today. In some modern trials, questions have arisen as to how far cultural expression – particularly in music or speech – can or should be considered in legal proceedings. When courts are presented with forms of expression unfamiliar to the majority culture, questions emerge:

• Is the meaning of those expressions being fully understood?

• Are the values or aesthetics of a particular group being interpreted through a different lens?
• Is justice being applied evenly across difference?

These are not new dilemmas. From Shylock’s Venice to the Mughal darbar, the relationship between identity and judgment has always necessitated clarity, a recognition of one’s own capacity for bias, and conscience. The task of justice cannot be only to treat all equally under the law, but to ensure that the structures and assumptions of the law do not, however subtly, work to the disadvantage of those who stand outside its cultural mainstream.

The challenge remains ongoing. But so too does the opportunity. Before us in England and Wales lies an immense prospect with utterly profound implications. That is to continue to develop a legal system which, while remaining anchored in the very principles that make it unquestionably the most coveted and respected means of obtaining justice in the world, is also alive to context and alert to the fact that behind every case stands a human being, whose dignity must be neither overlooked nor misread whomsoever they embody, howsoever they present and whatsoever their identity.

Conclusion

The convergence between Shakespearean drama and Mughal jurisprudence lies in their shared recognition that justice is never purely mechanical. It is always, to some degree, a performance – not necessarily in the sense of artifice or pretence, but of presence and symbolism. Whether through the spectacle of the Venetian courtroom or the custom of the Mughal darbar, justice derived its authority from being seen. In both the Shakespearean and Mughal tradition, although distinct (one being fictional and the other not) the idea that sovereign discretion functioned as a check on legal rigidity and a reminder that law must serve not only order, but conscience, howsoever flawed that conscience may well be, was intensely present.

This comparative lens is not, in the writer’s contention, merely of historical interest. It compels us to ask whether today’s legal institutions remain legible to those they are meant to serve and whether justice is intelligible, truly visible, and, above all, humane. There are no easy answers to these questions, but, as our own system grapples with questions of access and perceived bias, it may do well to consider heeding at least some of the lessons of both the Bard and the Badshah.

 By Abdul Qadim, Barrister, 25 Canada Square Chambers