Towards the middle of A.H. 1000 (begining of 1592, AD.), Akbar promoted Abul Fazl to the post of Dúhazárí, or commander of two thousand horse. Abul Fazl now belonged to the great Amírs (umará i kibár) at court. As before, he remained in immediate attendance on the emperor. In the same year, Faizí was sent to the Dak'hin as Akbar's ambassador to Burhán ul-Mulk and to Rájah 'Alí Khán of Khándesh, who had sent his daughter to Prince Salím. Faizí returned after an absence of more than sixteen months.

Shaikh Mubárak, who after the publication of his famous document had all but retired from the world, died in the following year at Láhor, (Sunday, 17th Zí Qa'dah, 1001, or 4th September, 1593). He had reached the age of ninety, and had occupied himself in the last years of his life with the compilation in four volumes of a gigantic commentary to the Qorán, to which he had given the title of Manba'u Nafáis ul 'Uyún. He completed it, in spite of failing eyesight, a short time before his death.

The historian Badáoní speaks of him as follows:—

Shaikh Mubárak belonged to the most distinguished men of learning of the present age. In practical wisdom, piety, and trust in God, he stood high among the people of his time. In early life he practised rigorous asceticism; in fact, he was so strict in his views regarding what is lawful and unlawful, that if any one, for example, came to a prayermeeting with a gold ring on his finger, or dressed in silk, or with red stockings on his feet, or red or yellow coloured clothes on him, he would order the offending articles to be removed. In legal decisions he was so severe as to maintain that for every hurt exceeding a simple kick, death was the proper punish­ment. If he accidentally heard music while walking on the street, he ran away, but in course of time he became, from divine zeal, so enamoured of music, that he could not exist without listening to some voice or melody. In short, he passed through rather opposite modes of thought and ways of life. At the time of the Afghán rule, he frequented Shaikh 'Aláí's frater­nity; in the beginning of his Majesty's reign, when the Naqshbandís had the upper hand, he settled matters with that sect; afterwards he was attached to the Hamadání school; and lastly, when the Shí'ahs monopolized the court, he talked according to their fashion. ‘Men speak according to the measure of their understanding’—to change was his way, and the rest you know. But withal he was constantly engaged in teaching the religious sciences. Prosody also, the art of composing riddles, and other branches, he understood well; and in mystic philosophy he was, unlike the learned of Hindústán, a perfect master. He knew Sháṭibí* by heart, explained him properly, and also knew how to read the Qorán in the ten different modes. He did not go to the palaces of the kings, but he was a most agreeable companion and full of anecdote. Towards the end of his life, when his eyesight was impaired, he gave up reading and lived in seclusion. The commentary to the Qorán which he composed, resembles the Tafsír i Kabír [the “Great Commentary”], and consists of four thick volumes, and is entitled Manba'u Nafáis ul 'Uyún. It is rather extraordinary that there is a passage in the preface in which he seems to point to himself as the renovator of the new century.* We know what this ‘renovating’ means. About the time he finished his work, he wisely committed the Fárizí Ode (in t) which consists of seven hundred verses, and the Ode Bardah, the Ode by Ka'b ibn Zubair, and other Odes to memory, and recited them as daily homilies, till on the 17th Zí Qa'dah, 1001, he left this world at Láhor for the judgment-seat of God.

I have known no man of more comprehensive learning; but alas! under the mantle of the dervish there was such a wicked love of worldly preferment, that he left no tittle of our religion in peace. When I was young, I studied at A´grah for several years in his company. He is indeed a man of merit; but he committed worldly and irreligiousdeeds, plunged into lust of possession and rank, was timeserving, practised deceit and falsehood, and went so far in twisting religious truth, that nothing of his former merit remains. “Say, either I am in the correct path or in clear error, or you” [Qorán, xxxiv, 23]. Further, it is a common saying that the son brings the curse on the head of his father; hence people have gone beyond Yazíd and say, ‘Curse on Yazíd,* and on his father, too.’

Two years after Shaikh Mubárak's death, Abul Fazl also lost his brother Faizí, who died at the age of fifty after an illness of six months on the 10th Safar, 1004 (5th October, 1595). When in his last moments, Akbar visited him at midnight, and seeing that he could no longer speak, he gently raised his head and said to him, “Shaikh Jío, I have brought Hakím 'Alí with me, will you not speak to me?” But getting no reply, the emperor in his grief threw his turban to the ground, and wept loud; and after trying to console Abul Fazl, he went away.* How deeply Abul Fazl loved his elder brother, is evident from the numerous passages in the Akbarnámah and the A´ín in which he speaks of him, and nothing is more touching than the lines with which he prefaces the selections in the A´ín made by him from his brother's poems. “The gems of thought in his poems will never be forgotten. Should leisure permit and my heart turn to worldly occupations, I would collect some of the excellent writings of this unrivalled author of the age, and gather, with the eye of a jealous critic, yet with the hand of a friend, some of his poems. But now it is brotherly love alone, which does not travel along the road of critical nicety, that commands me to write down some of his verses.”* Abul Fazl, notwithstanding his onerous duties, kept his promise, and two years after the death of his brother, he collected the stray leaves of Faizí's Markiz ul-Adwár, not to mention the numerous extracts which he has preserved in the Akbarnámah.

It was about the same time that Abul Fazl was promoted to the post of a Commander of two thousand and five hundred horse. Under this rank he has entered his own name in the list of grandees in the A´ín i Akbarí, which work he completed in the same year when he collected his brother's literary remains (1596-97).

In the following year, the forty-third of Akbar's reign, Abul Fazl went for the first time on active service. Sultán Murád* had not man­aged matters well in the Dak'hin, and Akbar now despatched Abul Fazl with orders to return with the Prince, whose excessive drinking caused the emperor much anxiety, provided the officers of the imperial camp made themselves responsible to guard the conquered territory. If the officers were disinclined to guarantee a faithful conduct of the war, he was to see the Prince off, and take command with Sháhrukh Mírzá.* The wars in the Dak'hin, from their first com­mencement under Prince Murád and the Khán Khánán, are marked by a most astounding duplicity on the part of the imperial officers, and thou­sands of men and immense stores were sacrificed, especially during the reign of Jahángír, by treacherous and intriguing generals. In fact, the Khán Khánán himself was the most untrustworthy imperial officer. Abul Fazl's successes, therefore, were chiefly due to the honesty and loyalty with which he conducted operations. When he arrived at Bur­hánpúr, he received an invitation from Bahádur Khán, king of Khándesh, whose brother had married Abul Fazl's sister. He consented to come on one condition, namely, that Bahádur Khán should vigorously assist him and thus aid the cause of the emperor. Bahádur was not inclined to aid the imperialists in their wars with the Dak'hin, but he sent Abul Fazl rich presents, hoping that by this means he would escape the penalty of his refusal. Abul Fazl, however, was not the man to be bribed. “I have made a vow,” said he in returning the presents, “not to accept presents till four conditions are fulfilled—(1) friendship; (2) that I should not value the gift too high; (3) that I should not have been anxious to get a present; and (4) necessity to accept it. Now supposing that the first three are applicable to the present case, the favour of the emperor has extinguished every desire in me of accepting gifts from others.”