History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c45.s5.5

v3.c45.s5.5

The settled principle of Islam ended by making the Muslims a privileged class, nourished on State bounties, naturally prone to indolence in peace times and unable to stand on their own legs in the arena of life. Brave and active as the hungry first conquerors were, their sons merely lived on the paternal fiefs without feeling any incentive to exertion, and soon began to look on military service as a hateful tax payable for their lands.* Public office came to be regarded as the birthright of the faithful, and so every inducement to display superior ability or exertion was taken away from them. The enormous areas of land given away by the kings as religious and service grants, nourished thousands of Muslim families in a life of slothful ease, while the natural increase of every succeeding generation turned their competence into deepening squalor. The vast sums* spent by the State in maintaining pauper houses and in scattering alms during Ramzan and other holy days and joyous ceremonies, were a direct premium on laziness. It was more lucrative and comfortable to be a *faqir* at the capital than to earn an honest living as a cultivator, subject to the caprices of the seasons and the worse caprices of the revenue underlings and officials on tour. Thus a lazy and pampered class was created in the empire, who sapped its strength and was the first to suffer when its prosperity was arrested. Wealth bred indolence and love of ease; these soon led to vice; and vice finally brought about poverty and ruin.