The Institutes of Akbar 353.3

353.3

157) and Muḥammad Qāsim (No. 32). Akbar deposed Mançūr and appointed temporarily Shāh Qulī Maḥram (No. 45); but having satisfied himself of the justice of Mançūr’s demands, he reinstated him in his office, to the great anxiety of the courtiers. In the same year, Mirzā Muḥammad Ḥakīm, at Ma’çūm Khān i Kābulī’s instigation, threatened to invade the Panjāb, and Akbar prepared to leave for the north. Mançūr’s enemies charged him with want of loyalty, and shewed Akbar letters in the hand-writing of Mirzā M. Ḥakīm’s Munshī, addressed to Mançūr. Accidentally Malik Sānī, Ḥakīm’s Dīwān, who had the title of Vazir Khān, left his master, and paid his respects to Akbar at Sonpat. As he put up with Mançūr, new suspicions got afloat. Several words which Mançūr was said to have uttered, were construed into treason, and letters which he was said to have written to M. M. Ḥakīm were sent to Akbar. Another letter from Sharaf Beg, his collector, was likewise handed to the emperor, in which it was said that Farīdūn Khān (maternal uncle to M. M. Ḥakīm) had presented the Beg to the Mirzā. Akbar, though still doubtful, at the urgent solicitations of the grandees, gave orders to arrest Mançūr: he should remain in arrest till any of the grandees should stand bail for him; but as none dared to come forward, they ordered the Khidmat Rāi (p. 252) to hang Mançūr on a tree near Sarāi Kot K’hachwah (beginning of 989).