Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/65

Rh terms that the authority of the just king was higher than that of a Mujtahid (or sublime doctor of the faith), and that, should a religious question arise regarding which the Mujtahids were at variance, the emperor's decision should be binding on the Moslems of India, and any opposition to the imperial decrees should involve the loss of goods and religion in this world, and ensure damnation in the world to come. In other words, Akbar's judgment was set above every legal and religious authority except the plain letter of the Koran. It was a promulgation of a doctrine of imperial infallibility.

After thus breaking sharply with the principles of Mohammedan tradition, Akbar went, as of old, on pilgrimage to a saint's tomb. Badauni smiled grimly and said "it was strange that his Majesty should have such faith in the good man of Ajmir while rejecting our Prophet, the foundation of everything, from whose skirt hundreds of thousands of first-class saints had sprung." With the same superstitious bent, oddly contrasting with his philosophic theory, Akbar is said to have varied the colours of his clothes in accordance with the regent planet of the day, to have muttered spells at night to subdue the sun to his will, to have prostrated himself publicly before the sun and the sacred fire, and to have made the whole court rise respectfully when the lamps were lighted. On the festival of the eighth day after the sun entered Virgo, the emperor came forth to the audience-chamber with his brow marked in Hindu fashion and with jewelled strings tied by Brah-