borrowed its
prayers chiefly from the Parsees and its ritual from the Hindus, but
practically abolished all Mahomedan observances. The orthodox Mahomedans
naturally held up their hands in horror, and many preferred honourable
exile to conformity. But the awe which Akbar inspired, and perhaps the
acknowledged elevation of his motives, generally compelled at least
outward acceptance during his lifetime. His Mahomedan subjects had,
moreover, to admit that his desire to conciliate Hinduism did not blind
him to its most perverse features. Whilst he abolished the capitation
tax on Hindus and the tax upon Hindu pilgrims, he forbade infant
marriages and, short of absolute prohibition, did all he could to
discountenance the self-immolation of Hindu widows. To the Brahmans
especially his condemnation, both implied and explicit, of the caste
system was a constant stone of offence.

Great as was his genius and admirable as were many of his institutions,
Akbar, to use a homely phrase, fell between two stools to the ground. He
himself ceased to be a Mahomedan without becoming a Hindu, whilst the
great bulk at least of his subjects still remained at bottom Mahomedans
and Hindus as before. Neither community was ripe for an eclectic creed
based only upon sweet reasonableness and lofty ethical conceptions. His
son and successor, Jehanghir, at once reverted to Mahomedan orthodoxy,
but the reaction only became militant when Aurungzeb succeeded Shah
Jehan. The profound incompatibility between Islam and Hinduism
reasserted itself in him with a bitterness which the growing menace of
the rising power of the Hindu Mahrattas probably helped to intensify.
The reimposition of the poll-tax on the Hindus destroyed the last
vestige of the great work of conciliation to which Akbar had vainly
applied all his brilliant energies. Like Fatehpur Sikri itself, which
for lack of water he had been compelled to abandon within fifteen years
of its construction, it was a magnificent failure, and it was perhaps
bound in his time to be a failure.

Aurungzeb was the first of the Moghuls to reside in the Mahomedan
atmosphere of Delhi throughout his long reign. But, begun in usurpation
at the cost of his own father, it ended in misery and gloom. His sons
had revolted against him, his sombre fanaticism had estranged from him
the Rajput princes of whom Akbar had made the pillars of the Moghul
throne, and though he had reduced to subjection the last of the
independen