Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/36

6 uddin Auliya near Delhi. Others were sold in his lifetime by this puritan Emperor, who deemed it sinful to eat the bread of idleness, and used to ply the trade of copyist and cap-maker in his leisure hours in order to earn his livelihood. Copies of these Qurans are known to exist here and there in India.

"His nastaliq and shikasta styles of writing were also excellent," says Saqi Mustad Khan, and this we can readily believe, for Aurangzib was the author of a vast number of letters, and made it a point to write orders across all petitions in his own hand The princes of the house of Akbar were taught handwriting with great care, as the signatures of Shah Jahan and Dara Shukoh on some Persian MSS. of their libraries, and the autograph remarks of Jahangir in his book of fate (a copy of the Diwan of Hafiz), look remarkably clear and beautiful.

In his letters and speeches, he frequently quotes verses to point his remarks. But these "familiar quotations" were a part of the mental equipment of every cultured Muhammadan, and do not prove any special taste for poetry. Indeed his historian remarks, "This