The Institutes of Akbar 2.5.5

2.5.5

How deeply Abul Fazl loved his elder brother, is evident from the numerous passages in the Akbarnámah and the Ain in which he speaks of him, and nothing is more touching than the lines with which he prefaces the selections in the Ain made by him from his brother’s poems. “The gems of thought in his poems will never be forgotten. Should leisure permit and my heart turn to worldly occupations, I would collect some of the excellent writings of this unrivalled author of the age, and gather, with the eye of a jealous critic, yet with the hand of a friend, some of his poems. But now it is brotherly love alone, which does not travel along the road of critical nicety, that commands me to write down some of his verses.” Abul Fazl, notwithstanding his onerous duties, kept his promise, and two years after the death of his brother, he collected the stray leaves of Faizi’s Markaz ul-Adwár, not to mention the numerous extracts which he has preserved in the Akbarnámah. It was about the same time that Abul Fazl was promoted to the post of a Commander of two thousand and five hundred horse. Under this rank he has entered his own name in the list of grandees in the Áín-i Akbarí, which work he completed in the same year when he collected his brother’s literary remains (1596-97). In the following year, the forty-third of Akbar’s reign, Abul Fazl went for the first time on active service.