Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/71

Rh to the principles of Islám. For religion he persecuted the Hindús and destroyed their temples, while he damaged his exchequer by abolishing the time-honoured tax on the religious festivals and fairs of the unbelievers. For religion's sake he waged his unending wars in the Deccan, not so much to stretch wider the boundaries of his great empire as to bring the lands of the heretical Shí'a within the dominion of orthodox Islám. To him the Deccan was Dár-al-Harb: he determined to make it Dár-al-Islám. Religion induced Aurangzíb to abjure the pleasures of the senses as completely as if he had indeed become the fakír he had once desired to be. No animal food passed his lips, and his drink was water; so that, as Tavernier says, he became 'thin and meagre, to which the great fasts which he keeps have contributed. During the whole of the duration of the comet [four weeks, in 1665], which appeared very large in India, where I then was, Aurangzíb only drank a little water and ate a small quantity of millet bread; this so much affected his health that he nearly died, for besides this he slept on the ground, with only a tiger's skin over him; and since that time he has never had perfect health .' Following the Prophet's precept that every Muslim should practise a trade, he devoted his leisure to making skull-caps, which were doubtless bought up by the courtiers of Delhi with the same enthusiasm as was shown by the ladies of Moscow for Count Tolstoi's boots. He not only knew the Korán by