Mughal Administration c5.s2.2

c5.s2.2

By its nature it was a military rule and therefore necessarily a centralized despotism. To the Muslim portion of the population the sovereign was the head of both Church and State, and therefore for them he undertook socialistic functions. But towards his non-Muslim subjects he followed the policy of the individualistic minimum of interference, *i.e.*, he contented himself with discharging only the police duties and the collection of revenue. The support of public education was not a duty of the State,—indeed it was recognized as a national duty even in England as late as 1870. According to Hindu and Muhammadan political thought alike, education was the handmaid of religion. If the king spent anything on education, it was not an act of State, but a private religious benefaction for acquiring personal merit in the next world. Some schools were subsidized by the Padishahs, but it was only because they were attached to mosques or taught by families of holy men already in receipt of imperial bounty, or, in other words, because they served as seminaries for training ulema (theologians) for the service of the State Church. [Cf. Ency. Islam, iii. 170.]