Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/163

156 of the value of his Hindu subjects, he had resolved when pensively sitting in the evenings on the solitary stone at Fatehpur-Síkrí, to rule with an even hand all men in his dominions; but as the extreme views of the learned and the lawyers continually urged him to persecute instead of to heal, he instituted discussions, because, believing himself to be in error, he thought it his duty as ruler to "inquire." These discussions took place every Thursday night in the Ibádat-Khána, a building at Fatehpur-Síkrí, erected for the purpose.

For a time Abulfazl took but a subordinate part in the discussions, simply spurring the various Muhammadan sectaries to reply to and demolish each other's arguments. The bigotry, the narrowness, evinced by the leaders of those sectaries, who agreeing that it was right to persecute Hindus and other unbelievers, hurled charges of infidelity against each other, quite disgusted Akbar. Instead of 'unity' in the creed of Islám he found a multiplicity of divisions. He was further disgusted with the rudeness towards each other displayed by the several sectaries, some of them holding high office in the State, and he was compelled on one occasion to warn them that any one of them who should so offend in the future would have to quit the hall. At last, one memorable Thursday evening, Abulfazl brought matters to a crisis. Foreseeing the opposition it would evoke, he proposed as a subject for discussion that a king should be regarded not only as the temporal, but as the spiritual guide of his subjects.