The Institutes of Akbar 2.7.6

2.7.6

Abul Fazl’s influence on his age was immense. It may be that he and Faizi led Akbar’s mind away from Islam and the Prophet—this charge is brought against them by every Muhammadan writer; but Abul Fazl also led his sovereign to a true appreciation of his duties, and from the moment that he entered Court, the problem of successfully ruling over mixed races, which Islam in but few other countries had to solve, was carefully considered, and the policy of toleration was the result. If Akbar felt the necessity of this new law, Abul Fazl enunciated it and fought for it with his pen, and if the Khan Khanans gained the victories, the new policy reconciled the people to the foreign rule; and whilst Akbar’s apostacy from Islam is all but forgotten, no emperor of the Mughul dynasty has come nearer to the ideal of a father of the people than he. The reversion, on the other hand, in later times to the policy of religious intoleration, whilst it has surrounded in the eyes of the Moslems the memory of Aurangzib with the halo of sanctity and still inclines the pious to utter a rahimahu-llahu (May God have mercy on him!) when his name is mentioned, was also the beginning of the breaking up of the empire.