The Book of Akbar 236: Unveiling the mysteries of Design in the strife-stirrings of M. KamrAn, and account of his rule over Kabul.

236

'Tis an ancient canon and an established ordinance that when God the Creator of the world wills to set an elect one on the throne of sway over mortals and by establishing him on a kingdom-adorning seat to place in his mighty hand the bridle of men's hearts, He maketh him in the beginning of his course the alighting-place of divers difficulties and the receptacle of sundry afflictions to the end that he may the more fully appreciate the force of the unending favours which stand ready for him in the hidden world; so that by becoming conversant with the varied stages of existence he may come to know personally Grace and Wrath, expansion and contraction, joy and sorrow. All this is clear to those who are familiar with ancient records, and are cognisant of old stories. But inasmuch as the personality of the holy product of the meeting of the two seas of the Divine Power (Jalāl) and the Divine Beauty (Jamāl), his Majesty the Shahinshah, to wit, is by virtue of the Eternal Decree designated for all the stages of knowledge, and as the world-adorning Deity created him a wise-hearted Teacher and an illuminated, farseeing soul needing not the instruction of any of the sons of men, the apparition of those calamities was not to acquaint him with Grace and Wrath, nor to burn away carnalities and mortalities. Rather did the order of the manifestations of the glories of opposing qualities and the notes of conflicting attributes unveil themselves as of course and in their full perfection. And there was an illustration