spect all
consciences and all methods of worshipping the Almighty. To carry out
this plan he availed himself to a modified extent only of the
Muhammadan ritual. Instead of the formula under which so many
persecutions had been organised, 'there is but one God, and Muhammad
is his Prophet,' he adopted the revised version: 'there is but one
God, and Akbar is his {197} vicegerent on earth.' The prophet, he
argued, came to preach the oneness, the unity, of God to an
idolatrous people. To that people Muhammad was the messenger to
proclaim the good tidings. But the precepts that messenger had laid
down and had embodied in the Kuran had been interpreted to teach the
propagation of the doctrine of the oneness of God by the sword.

The consequences of acting upon that mis-reading, as Akbar considered
it, had been failure, at least in India. To that failure he had
before him the witness of upwards of four centuries. He had but just
entered his twenty-first year when he recognised that government
carried on on such a principle must inevitably alienate. His object,
I cannot too often repeat, was to bring together, to conciliate, to
cement, to introduce a principle which should produce a community of
interests among all his subjects. The germ of that principle he found
in the alteration of the Musalman profession of faith above stated.
The writings of Muhammad, misinterpreted and misapplied, could only
produce disunion. He, then, for his age and for his reign, would take
the place of the Prophet. He would be the interpreter of the generous
and merciful decrees of the one All-powerful.

The dominant religion should not be, as long as he was its
interpreter, the religion of the sword. It should carry, on the
contrary, a healing influence throughout India; should wipe away
reminiscences of persecution, and proclaiming liberty of conscience,
should practise the most perfect toleration. When this change had
been generally recognised Akbar would then appeal {198} to the
princes and peoples of India to acknowledge the suzerainty of the one
prince who would protect and yet not persecute. He would appeal to
them to aid in the regeneration he was preparing, not in his
individual interest, but in the interests of the millions who, for
four centuries, had been harassed by invasions, by civil wars, by
persecutions following both.

Akbar did not appeal to an unreflecting or an obstinate people. With
one exception, that of Chitor (now known as