he names of the chief men among the
Ulama. It gave the Padishah the power of deciding between the
conflicting authorities. It gave him the still more dangerous power of
issuing fresh decrees, provided they were in accordance with some verse
of the _Koran_ and were manifestly for the benefit of the people. The
document was in the handwriting of Sheik Mubarak; Abul Fazl, Abdul Faiz,
and probably Akbar himself had each a hand in the composition. The chief
men among the Ulama were required to sign it. Perhaps if they had been
priests or divines they might have resisted to the last. But they were
magistrates and judges; their posts and emoluments were in danger. In
the end they signed it in sheer desperation. From that day the power of
the Ulama was gone; they had abdicated their authority to the padishah;
they became mere ciphers in Islam. A worse lot befell their leaders. The
head of the Ulama and the obnoxious chief justice were removed from
their posts and forced to go to Mecca.

The breaking up of the Ulama is an epoch in history of Mussulman India.
The Ulama may have been ignorant and bigoted; they may have sought to
keep religions and the government of the empire within the narrow
grooves of orthodoxy. Nevertheless, they had played an important part
throughout Mussulman rule. As exponents of the law of Mahomet they had
often proved a salutary check upon despotism of the sovereign. They had
forced every minister, governor, and magistrate to respect the
fundamental principles of the _Koran_. They led and controlled public
opinion among the Mussulman population. They formed the only body in the
state that ever ventured to oppose the will of the sovereign.

The Thursday evenings had done their work. Within four years they had
broken up the power of the Ulama. Abul Fazl had another project in his
brain; it combined the audacity of genius with the mendacity of a
courtier. He declared that Akbar was himself the twelfth imam, the lord
of the period, who was to reconcile the seventy-two sects of Islam, to
regenerate the world, to usher in the millennium. The announcement took
the court by surprise. It fitted, however, into current ideas; it paved
the way for further assumptions. Akbar grasped the notion with
eagerness; it fascinated him for the remainder of his life; it bound him
in the closest ties of friendship and confidence with Abul Fazl.

The religious life of Akbar had undergone a vast change. He was testing
religion