The result was that, a few days later, Mauláná Jaláluddín of Multán a profound and learned man, whose grant had been transferred, was ordered from A´grah (to Fathpúr Síkṛí,) and appointed Qází of the realm. Qází Ya'qúb was sent to Gaur as District Qází.
From this day henceforth, ‘the road of opposition and difference in opinion’ lay open, and remained so till His Majesty was appointed Mujtahid of the empire.” [Here follows the extract regarding the formula 'Alláhu Akbar, given on p. 166, note 3.]
“During this year [983], there arrived Hakím Abulfath, Hakím Humáyún (who subsequently changed his name to Humáyún Qulí, and lastly to Hakím Humám,) and Núruddín, who as poet is known under the name of Qarárí. They were brothers, and came from Gílán, near the Caspian Sea. The eldest brother, whose manners and address were exceedingly winning, obtained in a short time great ascendancy over the Emperor; he flattered him openly, adapted himself to every change in the religious ideas of His Majesty, or even went in advance of them, and thus became in a short time, a most intimate friend of Akbar.
Soon after there came from Persia Mullá Muhammad of Yazd, who got the nickname of Yazídí, and attaching himself to the emperor, commenced openly to revile the Çahábah (persons who knew Muhammad, except the twelve Imáms), told queer stories about them, and tried hard to make the emperor a Shí'ah. But he was soon left behind by Bír Baṛ—that bastard!—and by Shaikh Abulfazl, and Hakím Abulfath, who successfully turned the emperor from the Islám, and led him to reject inspiration, prophetship, the miracles of the prophet and of the saints, and even the whole law, so that I could no longer bear their company.
At the same time, His Majesty ordered Qází Jaláluddín and several 'Ulamás to write a commentary on the Qorán; but this led to great rows among them.
Deb Chand Rájah Manjholah—that fool—once set the whole court in laughter by saying that Allah after all had great respect for cows, else the cow would not have been mentioned in the first chapter (Súrat ul baqarah) of the Qorán.
His Majesty had also the early history of the Islám read out to him, and soon commenced to think less of the Çahábah. Soon after, the observance of the five prayers and the fasts, and the belief in every thing connected with the prophet, were put down as taqlídí, or religious blindness, and man's reason was acknowledged to be the basis of all religion. Portuguese priests also came frequently; and His Majesty enquired into the articles of their belief which are based upon reason.”
“In the beginning of the next year [984], when His Majesty was at Dípálpúr in Málwah, Sharíf of A´mul arrived. This apostate had run from country to country, like a dog that has burnt its foot, and turning from one sect to the other, he went on wrangling till he became a perfect heretic. For some time he had studied Çúfic nonsense in the school of Mauláná Muhammad Záhid of Balkh, nephew of the great Shaikh Husain of Khwárizm, and had lived with derwishes. But as he had little of a derwish in himself, he talked slander, and was so full of conceit, that they hunted him away. The Mauláná also wrote a poem against him, in which the following verse occurs:
In his wanderings he had come to the Dak'hin, where he made himself so notorious, that the king of the Dak'hin wanted to kill him. But he was only put on a donkey and shewn about in the city. Hindustan, however, is a nice large place, where anything is allowed, and no one cares for another, and people go on as they may. He therefore made for Málwah, and settled at a place five kos distant from the Imperial camp. Every frivolous and absurd word he spoke, was full of venom, and became the general talk. Many fools, especially Persian heretics, (whom the Islám casts out as people cast out hairs which they find in dough—such heretics are called Nuqṭawís, and are destined to be the foremost worshippers of Antichrist) gathered round him, and spread, at his order, the rumour that he was the restorer of the Millenium. The sensation was immense. As soon as His Majesty heard of him, he invited him one night to a private audience in a long prayer room, which had been made of cloth, and in which the emperor with his suite used to say the five daily prayers. Ridiculous in his exterior, ugly in shape, with his neck stooping forward, he performed his obeisance, and stood still with his arms crossed, and you could scarcely see how his blue eye (which colour* is a sign of hostility to our prophet) shed lies, falsehood, and hypocrisy. There he stood for a long time, and when he got the order to sit down, he prostrated himself in worship, and sat down duzánú (vide p. 160, note 2), like an Indian camel. He talked privately to His Majesty; no one dared to draw near them, but I sometimes heard from a distance the word 'ilm (knowledge) because he spoke pretty loud. He called his silly views ‘the truth of truths,’ or ‘the groundwork of things.’
The whole talk of the man was a mere repetition of the ideas of Mahmúd of Basakhwán (a village in Gílán), who lived at the time of Tímúr. Mahmúd had written thirteen treatises of dirty filth, full of such hypocrisy, as no religion or sect would suffer, and containing nothing but títál, which name he had given to the ‘science of expressed and implied language.’ The chief work of this miserable wretch is entitled Bahr o Kúzah (the Ocean and the Jug), and contains such loathsome nonsense, that on listening to it one's ear vomits. How the devil would have laughed into his face, if he had heard it, and how he would have jumped for joy! And this Sharíf— that dirty thief—had also written a collection of nonsense, which he styled Tarashshukh i Zuhúr, in which he blindly follows Mír 'Abdulawwal. This book is written in loose, deceptive aphorisms, each commencing with the words mífarmúdand (the master said), a queer thing to look at, and a mass of ridiculous, silly nonsense. But notwithstanding his ignorance, according to the proverb, ‘Worthies will meet,’ he has exerted such an influence on the spirit of the age, and on the people, that he is now [in 1004] a commander of One Thousand, and His Majesty's apostle for Bengal, possessing the four degrees of faith, and calling, as the Lieutenant of the emperor, the faithful to these degrees.”
The discussions on Thursday evenings were continued for the next year. In 986, they became more violent, in as far as the elementary principles of the Islám were chosen as subject, whilst formerly the disputations had turned on single points. The 'Ulamás even in the presence of the emperor, often lost their temper, and called each other Káfirs or accursed.
“Makhdúm also wrote a pamphlet against Shaikh 'Abdunnabí, in which he accused him of the murder of Khizr Khán of Shirwán, who was suspected to have reviled the prophet, and of Mír Habshí, whom he had ordered to be killed for heresy. But he also said in the pamphlet that it was wrong to say prayers with 'Abdunnabí, because he had been undutiful towards his father, and was, besides, afflicted with piles. Upon this, Shaikh 'Abdunnabí called Makhdúm a fool, and cursed him. The 'Ulamás now broke up into two parties, like the Sibṭís and Qibṭís, gathering either round the Shaikh, or round Makhdúm ulmulk; and the heretic innovators used this opportunity, to mislead the emperor by their wicked opinions and aspersions, and turned truth into falsehood, and represented lies as truth.