The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s9.t4.40

c14.s9.t4.40

According to the *Maasir-ul-Umará* quoted in Blochmann's *Ain-i-Akbari* (pp. xxvii-xxviii), Abul Fazl is reported to have been "an infidel." "Some say, he was a Hindu, or a fire-worshipper or a free thinker, and some go still further and call him an atheist; but others pass a juster sentence, and say that he was a pantheist, and that like other Sufis he claimed for himself a position above the law of the prophet." All these descriptions, repugnant naturally as they are to an orthodox Mussalman, are however quite in keeping with an academically high placed or philosophically-minded Hindu or Hinduized scholar. And since Prince Salim in his *Memoirs* describes Abul Fazl as a "Hindusthani Shaikh by birth, who was well known for his learning and wisdom"⁶ we may not be far from the truth when we surmise that this Indian-born Shaikh was well up in the Hindu *smriti* and *nīti śāśtras* and at any rate had grown up by assimilating the contributions of the Hindu cultural tradition.