[Text, vol. ii. p. 252.] In A.H. 985 the King, after visiting the shrines of the holy saints in the neighbourhood of Dehlí, went towards Pálam on a shooting excursion. At the close of the blessed month Ramazán, news reached me at Rewárí, that at Basáwar* a son had been born to me, of which happiness I had been a long time in expectation. On this occasion I presented an offering of a gold ashrafí to the King, and requested he would be good enough to name the child. After reading a prayer, he inquired the name of my father and grandfather. I replied, “Mulúk Sháh was my father, and he was the son of Hámid.” He said, “I call your son 'Abdu-l Hádí,”—Hádí being a name which at that time he had, night and day, upon his lips. Notwithstanding that Háfiz Muhammad Amín, the preacher, was constantly citing the seven imáms, urging me in high-flown language not to commit this absurdity, and to invite some learned men to my house to read the whole Kurán, in order to secure a long life to my son, he could not persuade me, and at the end of six months my son died. May God be pleased on his account to pardon me in the day of judgment!
From Rewárí I took five months' leave, and went to Basáwar, on account of sundry affairs of consequence, but I unavoidably extended my absence to the period of a year. This unwarranted neglect of duty and the machinations of my enemies made me fall in the King's estimation, and by degrees I was entirely forgotten. To this day even, although eighteen years have since elapsed, I still perform my duty, but am not honoured with an interview; and I can neither go in search of other employ, nor maintain a firm footing in my present position.
[Text, vol. ii. p. 254.] Kází 'Alí Baghdádí, grandson of Mír Kází Husain Maibazi, was deputed to the Panjáb to make inquiries respecting the lands held in rent-free tenure, under the name of madad-m'ásh and ayma. He was directed to resume the old tenures, to measure them, and to include them all in one district. The greatest anomalies had been perpetrated in this department, which were all to be attributed to the perversity of Shaikh 'Abdu-n Nabí and the dishonesty of his subordinates.
[Text, vol. ii. p. 255, A.H. 986.] [His Majesty used frequently to go to the 'ibádat-khána, and converse with the 'ulamá and the shaikhs, especially on Sabbath evenings, and would sometimes pass the whole night there. The discussions always turned upon religion, upon its principles, and upon its divarications. The learned doctors used to exercise the sword of their tongues upon each other, and showed great pugnacity and animosity, till the various sects at length took to calling each other infidels and perverts. * * * Innovators and schismatics artfully started their doubts and sophistries, making right appear to be wrong, and wrong to be right. And so His Majesty, who had an excellent understanding, and sought after the truth, but was surrounded by low irreligious persons, to whom he gave his confidence, was plunged into scepticism. Doubt accumulated upon doubt, and the object of his search was lost. The ramparts of the law and of the true faith were broken down; and, in the course of five or six years, not one trace of Islám was left in him. The state of affairs was changed.
There were many reasons for this. But as “small things are suggestive of great ones, and fear betrays the culprit,” I will only mention a few. Learned men of various kinds and from every country, and professors of many different religions and creeds, assembled at his Court, and were admitted to converse with him. * Night and day people did nothing but inquire and investigate. Profound points of science, the subtleties of revelation, the curiosities of history, the wonders of nature, of which large volumes could only give a summary abstract, were ever spoken of. His Majesty collected the opinions of every one, especially of such as were not Muhammadans, retaining whatever he approved of, and rejecting everything which was against his disposition, and ran counter to his wishes. From his earliest childhood to his manhood, and from his manhood to old age, His Majesty has passed through the most diverse phases, and through all sorts of religious practices and sectarian beliefs, and has collected everything which people can find in books, with a talent of selection peculiar to him, and a spirit of inquiry opposed to every (Islámitic) principle. Thus a faith, based on some elementary principles, traced itself on the mirror of his heart, and, as the result of all the influences which were brought to bear on His Majesty, there grew, gradually as the outline on a stone, the conviction in his heart that there were sensible men in all religions, and abstemious thinkers, and men endowed with miraculous powers, among all nations. If some true knowledge was thus everywhere to be found, why should truth be confined to one religion, or to a creed like Islám, which was comparatively new, and scarcely a thousand years old? Why should one sect assert what another denies, and why should one claim a preference without having superiority conferred on itself?
Moreover, Samanís* and Brahmans managed to get frequent private interviews with His Majesty. As they surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals, and on physical and religious sciences, and reach a high degree in their knowledge of the future, in spiritual power and human perfection, they brought proofs, based on reason and testimony, for the truth of their own, and the fallacies of other religions, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly, and so skilfully represented things as quite self-evident which require consideration, that no man, by expressing his doubts, could now raise a doubt in His Majesty, even if mountains were to crumble to dust, or the heavens were to tear asunder.
Hence His Majesty cast aside the Islámitic revelations regarding resurrection, the Day of Judgment, and the details connected with it, as also all ordinances based on the tradition of our Prophet. He listened to every abuse which the courtiers heaped on our glorious and pure faith, which can be so easily followed; and eagerly seizing such opportunities, he showed, in words and gestures, his satisfaction at the treatment which his original religion received at their hands.]
[Text, vol. ii. p. 260.] In A.H. 986 the missionaries of Europe, who are called Pádrís, and whose chief Pontiff, called Pápá (Pope), promulgates his interpretations for the use of the people, and who issues mandates that even kings dare not disobey, brought their Gospel to the King's notice, advanced proofs of the Trinity, and affirmed the truth and spread abroad the knowledge of the religion of Jesus. The King ordered Prince Murád to learn a few lessons from the Gospel, and to treat it with all due respect, and Shaikh Abú-l Fazl was directed to translate it. Instead of the inceptive “Bismillah,” the following ejaculation was enjoined: “In nomine Jesu Christi,”* that is, “Oh! thou whose name is merciful and bountiful.” Shaikh Faizí added to this, “Praise be to God! there is no one like thee—thou art he!” The attributes of the abhorred Anti-Christ were ascribed to our holy Prophet by these lying impostors.
[Text, vol. ii. p. 260.] The accursed Bírbal* tried to persuade the King, that since the sun gives light to all, and ripens all grain, fruits and products of the earth, and supports the life of mankind, that luminary should be the object of worship and veneration; that the face should be turned towards the rising, not towards the setting, sun; that man should venerate fire, water, stones and trees, and all natural objects, even down to cows and their dung; that he should adopt the frontal mark and the Bráhminical cord. Several wise men at Court confirmed what he said, by representing that the sun was the chief light of the world, and the benefactor of its inhabitants, that it was a friend to kings, and that kings established periods and eras in conformity with its motions.* This was the cause of the worship paid to the sun on the Nau-roz Jalálí, and of his being induced to adopt that festival for the celebration of his accession to the throne. Every day he used to put on clothes of that particular colour which accords with that of the regent-planet of the day. He began also, at midnight and at early dawn, to mutter the spells, which the Hindús taught him, for the purpose of subduing the sun to his wishes. He prohibited the slaughter of cows, and the eating of their flesh, because the Hindús devoutly worship them, and esteem their dung as pure. Instead of cows, they sacrifice good men. The reason was also assigned, that physicians have represented their flesh to be productive of sundry kinds of sickness, and to be difficult of digestion.