The Institutes of Akbar 2.3.5

2.3.5

Akbar was at that time busily engaged with his preparations for the conquest of Bihár and Bengal. Faizi accompanied the expedition; but Abul Fazl naturally stayed in Agrah. But as Faizi wrote to his brother that Akbar had enquired after him, Abul Fazl attended Court immediately on the emperor’s return to Fathpúr Síkrí, where Akbar happened to notice him first in the Jâmi’ Mosque. Abul Fazl, as before, presented a commentary written by him on the opening of a chapter in the Qorán, entitled ‘Súrat ul Fath,’ ‘the Chapter of Victory.’ The party of the learned and bigoted Sunnis at Court, headed by Makhdúm ul-Mulk and Shaikh ’Abdunnabí, had every cause to feel sorry at Faizi’s and Abul Fazl’s successes; for it was now, after Akbar’s return from Bihar, that the memorable Thursday evening discussions commenced, of which the historian Badáoní has left us so vivid an account. Akbar at first was merely annoyed at the “Pharaoh-like pride” of the learned at court; stories of the endless squabbles of these pious casuists had reached his ear; religious persecutions and a few sentences of death passed by his Chief-Justice on Shí'ahs and “others heretics” affected him most deeply; and he now for the first time realized the idea that the scribes and the pharisees formed a power of their own in his kingdom, at the construction of which he had for twenty years been working.