The Book of Akbar 376.3.2

376.3.2

In the same manner the principle of this world-adorning Shahinshah is that when he desire to know the calibre of anyone’s talents and disposition he primes him with the man-overthrowing wine of the world (i.e., prosperity) and makes him mad with the world’s inebriety, and then reads with the eyes of insight the nature of his character. Short-sighted men, whose eyes do not fall on the object and are whirled round in the trough of error shoot out the tongue of reproach saying, "Why was such confidence reposed without inquiry?" While they who know the degrees of perfection recognise in this practice the use of the mirror of characters and eulogise such testing. An instance of this testing is M. Sharafu-d-din Husain, who was of very exalted lineage, and whom H.M. looked upon with the eye of promoting, and to whom he gave lofty rank in order that he might be a prop of the Sultanate. As the high connections and the reputation of the Mirza were visible to all the world, some of the imperial servants, who only looked to external rank, judged him to be sound inwardly as well as externally, and gave him in marriage the cupola of chastity, the holy fruit of the Sultanate, Bakhshi Banu Begam, who was H.M. the Shahinshah's pure sister. By this alliance the position of the Mirza was enormously exalted. Soon afterwards he obtained leave to go to Sarkar Nagor which was his fief. One of the occurrences of this year was the sending M. Qara Bahadir Khan, the brother of M.