Mughal Administration c13.s4.6

c13.s4.6

This basic idea of the Turkish State could not be reconciled with the more modern notions of the sacredness of private property and the responsibility of the king before God to see that none was robbed of his heritage,—which are a part of Islamic private law. And Aurangzib’s regulations represent an attempt at a compromise between the two, and the final abandonment, in outward profession at least, of the nomad idea of communal property and the adoption of the modern idea of individual private possessions,—i.e., the conversion of mere agents of the State into private owners. It would, in my opinion, be unhistoric to suppose that these escheats were originally due to a wicked desire of the autocratic sovereign to seize his subjects' rightful property when they were no longer alive to defend it.