AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 5
jects so widely at variance with each other in race, cus-
toms, and religion, and who finally when the narrow dog-
mas of his religion no longer satisfied him, attained to a
purified faith in God, which was independent of all formu-
lated religions.
A closer observation, however, shows that the contrast
is not quite so harsh between what according to our hypoth-
eses Akbar should have been as a result of the forces which
build up man, and what he actually became. His predilec-
tion for science and art Akbar had inherited from his
grandfather Baber and his father Humayun. His youth,
which was passed among dangers and privations, in flight
and in prison, was certainly not without a beneficial in-
fluence upon Akbar's development into a man of unusual
power and energy. And of significance for his spiritual
development was the circumstance that after his accession
to the throne his guardian put him in the charge of a most
excellent tutor, the enlightened and liberal minded Persian
Mir Abdullatif, who laid the foundation for Akbar's later
religious and ethical views. Still, however high we may
value the influence of this teacher, the main point lay in
Akbar's own endowments, his susceptibility for such teach-
ing as never before had struck root with any Mohammedan
prince./ Akbar had not his equal in the history of Islam.
"He is the only prince grown up in the Mohammedan creed
whose endeavor it was to ennoble the limitation of this most
separatistic of all religions into a true religion of human-
ity."*
Even the external appearance of Akbar appeals to us
sympathetically. We sometimes find reproduced a miniature
from Delhi which pictures Akbar as seated; in this the char-
acteristic features of the Mongolian race appear softened
and refined to a remarkable degree.* The shape of the
4A.Miiller, II,4i6.
* Noer, II as frontispiece (comp. also pp. 327, 328); X. Muller, II, 417.