Abul Fazl was so completely taken up with study that he pre­ferred the life of a recluse to the unstable patronage of the great and to the bondage which attendance at court in those days rendered inevitable. But from the time Faizí had been asked by Akbar to attend the court, hopes of a brighter future dawned, and Abul Fazl, who had then completed his seventeenth year, saw in the encouragement held out by the emperor, in spite of Mubárak's numerous enemies at court, a guarantee that patient toil, on his part, too, would not remain without fruit. The skill with which Faizí in the meantime acquired and retained Akbar's friendship, prepared the way for Abul Fazl; and when the latter, in the very end of 981 (beginning of 1574, A. D.), was presented to Akbar as Faizí's brother, the reception was so favorable that he gave up all thoughts of leading a life among manuscripts. “As fortune did not at first assist me,” says Abul Fazl in the Akbarnámah, “I almost became selfish and conceited, and resolved to tread the path of proud retirement. The number of pupils that I had gathered around me, served but to increase my pedantry. In fact, the pride of learning had made my brain drunk with the idea of seclusion. Happily for myself, when I passed the nights in lonely spots with true seekers after truth, and enjoyed the society of such as are empty-handed, but rich in mind and heart, my eyes were opened and I saw the selfishness and covetousness of the so-called learned. The advice of my father with difficulty kept me back from outbreaks of folly; my mind had no rest, and my heart felt itself drawn to the sages of Mongolia or to the hermits on Lebanon; I longed for interviews with the lamas of Tibet or with the pádrís of Portugal, and I would gladly sit with the priests of the Pársís and the learned of the Zendavesta. I was sick of the learned of my own land. My brother and other relatives then advised me to attend the Court, hoping that I would find in the emperor a leader to the sublime world of thought. In vain did I at first resist their admonitions. Happy, indeed, am I now that I have found in my sovereign a guide to the world of action and a comforter in lonely retirement; in him meet my longing after faith and my desire to do my appointed work in the world; he is the orient where the light of form and ideal dawns; and it is he who has taught me that the work of the world, multifarious as it is, may yet harmonize with the spiritual unity of truth. I was thus presented at Court. As I had no worldly treasures to lay at the feet of his Majesty, I wrote a commentary to the A´yat ul-Kursí,* and presented it when the emperor was at A´grah. I was favourably received, and his Majesty graciously accepted my offering.”

Akbar was at that time busily engaged with his preparations for the conquest of Bihár and Bengal. Faizí accompanied the expedition; but Abul Fazl naturally stayed in A´grah. But as Faizí wrote to his brother that Akbar had enquired after him, Abul Fazl attended Court immediately on the emperor's return to Fathpúr Síkrí, where Akbar happened to notice him first in the Jámi' Mosque. Abul Fazl, as before, presented a commentary written by him on the opening of a chapter in the Qorán, entitled ‘Súrat ul Fath,’ ‘the Chapter of Victory.’*

The party of the learned and bigoted Sunnís at Court, headed by Makhdúm ul-Mulk and Shaikh 'Abdunnabí, had every cause to feel sorry at Faizí's and Abul Fazl's successes;* for it was now, after Akbar's return from Bihár, that the memorable Thursday evening discussions commenced, of which the historian Badáoní has left us so vivid an account. Akbar at first was merely annoyed at the “Pharaoh-like pride” of the learned at court; stories of the endless squabbles of these pious casuits had reached his ear; religious persecutions and a few sentences of death passed by his Chief-Justice on Shí'ahs and “others heretics” affected him most deeply; and he now for the first time realized the idea that the scribes and the pharisees formed a power of their own in his kingdom, at the construction of which he had for twenty years been working. Impressed with a favourable idea of the value of his Hindú subjects, he had resolved when pensively sitting in the mornings on the solitary stone at Fathpúr Síkrí, to rule with even hand men of all creeds in his dominions; but as the extreme views of the learned and the lawyers continually urged him to persecute instead of to heal, he instituted the discussions, because, believing himself to be in error, he thought it his duty as ruler to ‘enquire.’ It is not necessary to repeat here the course which these discussions took.* The unity that had existed among the learned disappeared in the very beginning; abuse took the place of argu­ment, and the plainest rules of etiquette were, even in the presence of the emperor, forgotten. Akbar's doubts instead of being cleared up only increased; certain points of the Hanafí law, to which most Sunnís cling, were found to be better established by the dicta of lawyers belonging to the other three sects; and the moral character of the Prophet was next scrutinized and was found wanting. Makhdúm ul-Mulk wrote a spiteful pamphlet against Shaikh 'Abdunnabí, the Sadr of the empire, and the latter retorted by calling Makhdúm a fool and cursing him. Abul Fazl, upon whom Akbar from the beginning had fixed as the leader of his party, fanned the quarrels by skilfully shifting the disputes from one point to another, and at last persuaded the emperor that a subject ought to look upon the king not only as the temporal, but also as the only spiritual guide. The promulgation of this new doctrine was the making of Abul Fazl's fortune. Both he and Akbar held to it to the end of their lives. But the new idea was in opposition to Islám, the law of which stands above every king, rendering what we call a constitution impossible; and though headstrong kings as 'Aláuddín Khiljí had before tried to raise the law of expediency (<Arabic>, maçlahat i waqt) above the law of the Qorán, they never fairly succeeded in separating religion from law or in rendering the administration of the empire independent of the Mullá. Hence when Abul Fazl four years later, in 986, brought up the question at the Thursday evening meetings, he raised a perfect storm; and while the disputations, bitter as they were, had hitherto dwelt on single points connected with the life of the Prophet, or with sectarian differences, they henceforth turned on the very principles of Islám. It was only now that the Sunnís at Court saw how wide during the last four years the breach had become; that “the strong embank­ment of the clearest law and the most excellent faith had been broken through”; and that Akbar believed that there were sensible men in all religions, and abstemious thinkers and men endowed with miraculous power among all nations. Islám, therefore, possessed in his opinion no superiority over other forms of worship.* The learned party seeing their official position endangered, now shewed signs of readiness to yield, but it was too late. They even signed the remarkable document which Shaikh Mubárak in conjunction with his sons had drafted, a document which I believe stands unique in the whole Church History of Islám. Badáoní has happily preserved a complete copy of it.* The emperor was certified to be a just ruler, and was as such assigned the rank of a ‘Mujtahid’, i. e. an infallible authority in all matters relating to Islám. The ‘intellect of the just king’ thus became the only source of legislation, and the whole body of the learned and the lawyers bound themselves to abide by Akbar's decrees in religious matters. Shaikh 'Abdunnabí and Makhdúm ul-Mulk signed indeed the document against their will, but sign they did; whilst Shaikh Mubárak added to his signa­ture the words that he had most willingly subscribed his name, and that for several years he had been anxiously looking forward to the reali­zation of the progressive movement. “The document,” says Abul Fazl in the Akbarnámah, “brought about excellent results,—(1) The Court became a gathering place of the sages and learned of all creeds; the good doctrines of all religious systems were recognized, and their defects were not allowed to obscure their good features; (2) perfect toleration (çulh-i-kul, or ‘peace with all’) was established; and (3) the perverse and evil-minded were covered with shame on seeing the disinterested motives of his Majesty, and thus stood in the pillory of disgrace.” The copy of the draft which was handed to the emperor, was in Shaikh Mubárak's own handwriting, and was dated Rajab, 987 (September, 1579).