Page:Akbar and the Rise of the Mughal Empire.djvu/182

Rh and spitting into their mouths is to prove the obedience of infidel subjects under protection, and to promote the glory of the Islám, the true religion, and to show contempt for false religions.' That the officials who acted in the manner here described contravened the true spirit of Islám, I need not stop to argue. There is not a religion which has not suffered from the intemperate zeal of its bigoted supporters; and Muhammadanism has suffered at least as much as the others. But the extract proves the extent to which it was possible for the agents of an unusually enlightened prince to tyrannise over and to insult the conquered race in the name of a religion, whose true tenets they perverted by so acting.

Akbar recognised not only the inherent liability to this abuse in the collection of such a tax, but also the vicious character of the tax itself. The very word 'infidel' was hateful to him. 'Who is certain that he is right?' was his constant exclamation. Recognising good in all religions, he would impose no tax on the conscientious faith of any man. Early then, in the ninth year of his reign, and in the twenty-third of his life, three years, be it borne in mind, before he had come under the influence of either of the two illustrious brothers, Faizí and Abulfazl, he, prompted by his own sense of the eternal fitness of things, issued an edict abolishing the jizyá. Thenceforth all were equal in matters of faith before the one Eternal.

The dealings of Akbar with the Hindus were not confined to the abolition of taxes which pressed hardly