her
inquiry."[39] The clever historian of Islam makes the following
comment: "Bad, very bad;--perhaps he would not even be satisfied with
the seven riddles of the universe of the latest natural science."[40]

[Footnote 39: In Noer, I, 485.]

[Footnote 40: A. Mueller, II, 420 n.]

To every petition and importunity of the Jesuits to turn to
Christianity Akbar maintained a firm opposition. A second and third
embassy which the order at Goa sent out in the nineties of the
sixteenth century, also labored in vain for Akbar's conversion in
spite of the many evidences of favor shown by the Emperor. One of the
last Jesuits to come, Jerome Xavier of Navarre, is said to have been
induced by the Emperor to translate the four Gospels into Persian
which was the language of the Mohammedan court of India. But Akbar
never thought of allowing himself to be baptized, nor could he
consider it seriously from political motives as well as from reasons
of personal conviction. A man who ordered himself to be officially
declared the highest authority in matters of faith--to be sure not so
much in order to found an imperial papacy in his country as to guard
his empire from an impending religious war--at any rate a man who saw
how the prosperity of his reign proceeded from his own personal
initiative in every respect, such a man could countenance no will
above his own nor subject himself to any pangs of conscience. To
recognize the Pope as highest authority and simply to recognize as
objective truth a finally determined system in the realm in which he
had spent day and night in a hot pursuit after a clearer vision, was
for Akbar an absolute impossibility.

Then too Akbar could not but see through the Jesuits although he
appreciated and admired many points about them. Their rigid dogmatism,
their intolerance and inordinate ambition could leave him no doubt
that if they once arose to power the activity of the Ulemas, once by
good fortune overthrown, would be again resumed by them to a stronger
and more dangerous degree. It is also probable that Akbar, who saw and
heard everything, had learned of the horrors of the Inquisition at
Goa. Moreover, the clearness of Akbar's vision for the realities of
national life had too often put him on his guard to permit him to look
upon the introduction of Christianity, however highly esteemed by him
personally, as a blessing for India. He had broken the power of Islam
in India; to overthrow in like manner t