Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c17.22

c17.22

and out-door amusements, and that he would not learn his lessons. This is corroborated by Jahāngīr’s description of him as an unlettered man, and one who in his youth was fond of the pleasures of the table. It seems probable, too, that Akbar never knew how to read and write. This seems extraordinary in the son of so learned a man as Humāyūn, but apparently the latter was not to blame for this. We are told that A’ẓamuddīn, the first teacher, was removed for his addiction to pigeon-flying. This was a taste he communicated to his pupil, if indeed the boy did not inherit it from his great-grandfather ’Umar Shaikh.”—*Akbar-Nāmah*, vol. i, (Beveridge), p. 518 n.