The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c16.s3.8

c16.s3.8

This rendering would convey the sense fairly accurately, though not literally, but for the fact that the word ريع has been used which really means ‘produce’. Only recently in the Arabic-speaking countries the word has figuratively come to mean ‘revenue’; in Abū-l-Faḍl’s days it could only have meant ‘produce’. I am inclined to believe that the word is used in its original sense. Akbar accepted Sher Shāh’s figures regarding average produce only, and fixed his own demand. If ريع is taken to mean ‘produce’, the translation would be: “The (figures of mean) produce adopted by Sher Shāh, lower than which cannot be found throughout the provinces, were accepted, and for the convenience of etc. etc.”