History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c86.s1.7

v5.c86.s1.7

In addition to possessing constitutional courage and coolness, he had early in life chosen the perils and labour of kingship as his vocation and prepared himself for this sovereign office by self-reverence, self-knowledge, and self-control. Unlike other sons of monarchs, Aurangzib was a widely read and accurate scholar, and he kept up his love of books to his dying day. Even if we pass over the many copies of the Quran which he wrote with his own hand, as the mechanical industry of a zealot, we cannot forget that he loved to devote the scanty leisure of a very busy ruler to reading Arabic works on jurisprudence and theology, and hunted for MSS. of rare old books like the *Nehayya*, the *Ahiya-ul-ulum*, and the *Diwan-i-Saib* with the passion of an idle bibliophile. His extensive correspondence proves his mastery of Persian poetry and Arabic sacred literature, as he is ever ready with apt quotations for embellishing almost every one of his letters. In addition to Arabic and Persian, he could speak Turki and Hindi freely. To his initiative and patronage we owe the greatest digest of Muslim law made in India, which rightly bears his name,—the *Fatawa-i-Alamgiri** and which simplified and defined Islamic justice in India ever after.