th regard to justice, they make even excessive concessions....
Straightforwardness is the distinguishing feature of their
administration."

If we turn to the accounts given by the Mohammedan conquerors of
India, we find Idrisi, in his Geography (written in the eleventh
century), summing up their opinion of the Indians in the following
words:[46]

"The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and never
depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty,
and fidelity to their engagements are well known, and they
are so famous for these qualities that people flock to their
country from every side."

Again, in the thirteenth century, Shems-ed-din Abu Abdallah quotes the
following judgment of Bedi ezr Zenan: "The Indians are innumerable,
like grains of sand, free from all deceit and violence. They fear
neither death nor life."[47]

In the thirteenth century we have the testimony of Marco Polo,[48]who
thus speaks of the _Abraiaman_, a name by which he seems to mean the
Brahmans who, though, not traders by profession, might well have been
employed for great commercial transactions by the king. This was
particularly the case during times which the Brahmans would call
times of distress, when many things were allowed which at other times
were forbidden by the laws. "You must know," Marco Polo says, "that
these Abraiaman are the best merchants in the world, and the most
truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth."

In the fourteenth century we have Friar Jordanus, who goes out of his
way to tell us that the people of Lesser India (South and Western
India) are true in speech and eminent in justice.[49]

In the fifteenth century, Kamal-eddin Abd-errazak Samarkandi
(1413-1482), who went as ambassador of the Khakan to the prince of
Kalikut and to the King of Vidyanagara (about 1440-1445), bears
testimony to the perfect security which merchants enjoy in that
country.[50]

In the sixteenth century, Abu Fazl, the minister of the Emperor Akbar,
says in his Ayin Akbari: "The Hindus are religious, affable, cheerful,
lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, admirers of
truth, grateful and of unbounded fidelity; and their soldiers know not
what it is to fly from the field of battle."[51]

And even in quite modern times the Mohammedans seem willing to admit
that the Hindus, at all events in their dealings with Hindus, are more
straightforward than Mohammedans in their