'I had it from Tutsami, who had it from the Shah Esmail, teacher of Shaikh Chishti, who had it from Bahr ibn Kaniz al Saqqa, that Uthman ibn Saj related to him, from Said ibn Jubair, God's mercy on him, who said, "Let him give a general greeting to all the Muslims, including the young boys and the adolescents, and when he has arrived at class, let him restrain whoever was sitting from standing up for him, since neglecting this is one of the banes of the soul. – Akbar frowned, trying to follow it. It occurred to Bistami that it could be interpreted as meaning that he had been the one who had refrained from asking for any kind of obeisance from the other. He began to sweat in the chill morning air.
Akbar turned to one of his retainers, standing unobtrusively against the marble wall of the tomb. 'Bring this man with us on our return to the palace.'
After another hour of prayer for Bistami, and consultations for Akbar, who was relaxed but increasingly terse as the morning wore on and the line of supplicants grew rather than shrank before him, the Emperor bid the line to disperse and come back again later. After that he led Bistami and his retinue through the raw worksites of the city, to his palace.
The city was being built in the shape of a big square, like any other Mughal military encampment – indeed, in the form of the empire itself, Bistami's guard told him, which was a quadrilateral protected by the four cities of Lahore, Agra, Allahabad and Ajimer. These were all big compared to the new capital, and Bistami's guard was particularly fond of Agra, where he had worked in the construction of the Emperor's great fort, now finished. 'Inside it are more than five hundred buildings,' he said as he must always have said when speaking of it. He was of the opinion that Akbar had founded Fatepur Sikri because the fort of Agra was mostly complete, and the Emperor liked beginning great projects. 'He is a builder, that one, he will remake the world itself before he is done, I assure you. Islam has never had such a servant as him.'
'It must be so,' Bistami said, looking around at the construction, white buildings rising out of cocoons of scaffolding, set in seas of black mud. 'Praise be to God.'
The guard, whose name was Husain Ali, looked at Bistami suspi ciously. Pious pilgrims were no doubt a commonplace. He led Bistami after the Emperor and through the gate of the new palace. Inside the outer wall were gardens that looked as if they had been in place for years: big pine trees over jasmines, flower beds in all directions. The palace itself was smaller than the mosque, or the tomb of Chishti, but exquisite in every detail. A white marble tent, broad and low, its interior filled by room after cool room, all surrounding a fountain filled central courtyard and garden. The whole wing at the back of the courtyard consisted of a long gallery walled with paintings: hunting scenes, the skies always turquoise; the dogs and deer and lions rendered to the life; the skirted hunters carrying bow or flintlock. Opposite these scenes were suites of white walled rooms, finished but empty. Bistami was given one of these to stay in.
That night's meal was a feast, set sumptuously in a long hall opening onto the central courtyard. As it proceeded, Bistami understood that it was simply the ordinary evening meal in the palace. He ate roast quail, cucumber yoghurts, shredded pork in curry, and tastes of many dishes he didn't recognize.
That began a dreamlike period for him, in which he felt like Manjushri in the tale, fallen upwards into the land of milk and honey. Food dominated his days and his thoughts. One day he was visited in his rooms by a team of black slaves dressed better than he was, who quickly brought him up to their level of raiment and beyond, outfitting him in a fine white gown that looked well but hung heavily on him. After that he was given another audience with the Emperor.
This meeting, surrounded by sharp eyed counsellors, generals and imperial retainers of all kinds, felt very different from the dawn meeting at the tomb, when two young men out to smell the morning air and see the sunrise, and sing the glory of Allah's world, had spoken to each other chest to chest. And yet in all these trappings, it was the same face looking at him – curious, serious, interested in what he had to say. Focusing on that face allowed Bistami to relax.
The Emperor said, 'We invite you to join us and share your knowledge of the law. In return for your wisdom, and the rendering of judg ments on certain cases and questions that will be brought before you, you will be made zamindar of the late Shah Muzaffar's estates, may Allah honour his name.'
'Praise be to God,' Bistami murmured, looking down. 'I will ask God's help in fulfilling this great task to your satisfaction.'
Even with his gaze steadfast to the ground, or returned to the Emperor's face, Bistami could sense that some of the imperial retinue were less than pleased by this decision. But afterwards, some who had seemed least pleased came up to him and introduced themselves, spoke kindly, led him around the palace, probed in a most gentle way concerning his background and history, and told him more about the estate he was to administer. This, it appeared, would mostly be overseen by local assistants on site, and was mainly his title and source of income. And in return he was to outfit and provide one hundred soldiers to the Emperor's armies, when required, and teach all he knew of the Quran, and judge various civil disputes given to his charge.
'There are disputes that only the ulama are fit to judge,' the Emperor's adviser Raja Todor Mai told him. 'The Emperor has great responsibilities. The empire itself is not yet secure from its enemies. Akbar's grandfather Babur came here from the Punjab, and established a Muslim kingdom only forty years ago, and the infidels still attack us from the south and the east. Every year some campaigns are necessary to drive them back. All the faithful in his empire are under his care, in theory, but the burden of his responsibilities means in practice he simp y oesn't have time.'
'Of course not.'
'Meanwhile, there is no other system of justice for disputes among people. As the law is based on the Quran, the qadis, the ulama and other holy men such as yourself are the logical choice to take on this burden.'
'Of course.'
In the weeks following, Bistami did indeed find himself sitting in judgment in disputes brought before him by some of the Emperor's slave assistants. Two men claimed the same land; Bistami asked where their fathers had lived, and their fathers' fathers, and determined that one's family had lived in the region longer than the other's. In ways like this he made his judgments.
More new clothes came from the tailors; a new house and complete retinue of servants and slaves were provided; he was given a trunk of gold and silver coins numbering one hundred thousand. And for all this he merely had to consult the Quran and recall the hadith he had learned (really very few, and even fewer relevant), and render judgments that were usually obvious to all. When they were not obvious, he made them as best he could and retired to the mosque and prayed uneasily, then attended the Emperor and the evening meal. He went on his own at dawn every day to the tomb of Chishti, and so saw the Emperor again in the same informal circumstances as their first meeting, perhaps once or twice a month enough to keep the very busy Emperor aware of his existence. He always had prepared the story he would relate to Akbar that day, when asked what he had been doing; each story was chosen for what it might teach the Emperor, about himself, or Bistami, or the empire or the world. Surely a decent and thoughtful lesson was the least he could do for the incredible bounty that Akbar had bestowed on him.
One morning he told him the story from Sura Eighteen, about the men who lived in a city that had forsaken God, and God took them apart to a cave, and made them to sleep as it were a single night, to them; and when they went out they found that three hundred and nine years had passed. 'Thus with your work, mighty Akbar, you shoot us into the future.'
Another morning he told him the story of El Khadir, the reputed vizier of Dhoulkarnain, who was said to have drunk of the fountain of life, by virtue of which he still lives, and will live till the day of judgment; who appeared, clad in green robes, to Muslims in distress, to help them. 'Thus your work here, great Akbar, will continue deathless through the years to help Muslims in
distress.'
The Emperor appeared to appreciate these cool dewy conversations. He invited Bistami to join him in several hunts, and Bistami and his retinue occupied a big white tent, and spent the hot days riding horses as they crashed through the jungle after the howling dogs or beaters; or, more to Bistami's taste, sat on the howdah of an elephant, and watched the great falcons leave Akbar's wrist and soar high above, thence to dive in terrific stoops onto hare or fowl. Akbar fixed his attention on you in just the same way the falcons did.
Akbar loved his falcons, in fact, as kin, and always spent the days of the hunt in excellent spirits. He would call Bistami to his side to speak a blessing over the great birds, who looked off to the horizon, unimpressed. Then they were cast into the air, and flapped hard as they made their way quickly up to their hunting height, splaying wide their big wing feathers. When they were settled in their gyres overhead, a few doves were released. These birds flew as fast as they could for cover in trees or bush, but they were not usually fast enough to escape the attack of the hawks. Their broken bodies were returned by the great raptors to the feet of the Emperor's retainers, and then the falcons flew back to Akbar's wrist, where they were greeted with a stare as fixed as their own, and bits of raw mutton.
It was just such a happy day that was interrupted by bad news from the south. A messenger arrived saying that Adharn Khan's campaign against the Sultan of Malwa, Baz Bahadur, had succeeded, but that the Khan's army had gone on to slaughter all of the captured men, women and children of the town of Malwa, including many Muslim theologians, and even some Sayyids, that is to say direct descendants of the Prophet.
Akbar's fair complexion turned red all over his neck and face, leaving only the mole on the left side of his face untouched, like a white raisin embedded in his skin. 'No more,' he declared to his falcon, and then he began to give orders, the bird thrown to its falconer and the hunt forgotten. 'He thinks I am still under age.'
He rode off hard, leaving all his retinue behind except for Pir Muhammed Khan, his most trusted general. Bistami heard later that Akbar had personally relieved Adharn Khan of his command.
Bistami had the Chishti tomb to himself for a month. Then he found the Emperor there one morning, with a dark look. Adharn Khan had been replaced as vakil, the chief minister, by Zein. 'It will enrage him but it must be done,' Akbar said. 'We will have to put him under house arrest.'
Bistami nodded and continued to sweep the cool dry floor of the inner chamber. The idea of Adharn Khan under permanent guard, usually a prelude to execution, was disturbing to contemplate. He had a lot of friends in Agra. He might be so bold as to try to rebel. As the Emperor must very well know.
Indeed, two days later, when Bistami was standing at the edge of Akbar's afternoon group at the palace, he was frightened but not surprised to see Adharn Khan appear and stamp to the top of the stairs, armed, bloody, shouting that he had killed Zein not an hour before, in the man's own audience chamber, for usurping what was rightfully his.
Hearing this Akbar went red faced again, and struck the Khan hard on the side of the head with his drinking cup. He grabbed the man by the front of his jacket, and pulled him across the room. The slightest resistance from Adharn would have been instant death from the Emperor's guards, who stood at each side of them, swords at the ready; and so he allowed himself to be dragged out to the balcony, where Akbar flung him over the railing into space. Then Akbar, redder than ever, raced down the stairs, ran to the half conscious Khan, seized him by the hair and dragged him bodily up the stairs, armoured though he was, over the carpet and out to the balcony, where he heaved him over the rail again. Adhere Khan hit the patio below with a loose heavy thud.
Indeed he had been killed. The Emperor retired into his private quarters in the palace.
The next morning Bistami swept the shrine of Chishti with a tightness all through his body.
Akbar appeared, and Bistami's heart hammered in his chest. Akbar seemed calm, though distracted. The tomb was a place to give himself some serenity. But the vigorous brushing he gave the floor that Bistami had already cleaned belied the calm of his speech. He's the Emperor, Bistami thought suddenly, he can do what he wants.
But then again, as a Muslim emperor, he was subservient to God, and the sharia. All powerful and yet all submissive, all at once. No wonder he seemed thoughtful to the point of distraction, sweeping the shrine in the early morning. It was hard to imagine him mad with anger, like a bull elephant in must, throwing a man bodily to his death. There was within him a deep well of rage.
Rebellion of ostensibly Muslim subjects struck deepest into this well. A new rebellion in the Punjab was reported, an army sent to put it down. The innocents of the region were spared, and even those who had fought for the rebellion. But its leaders, some forty of them, were brought to Agra and placed in a circle of war elephants that had long blades like giant swords attached to their tusks. The elephants were unleashed on the traitors, who screamed as they were mowed down and trampled underfoot, their bodies then tossed high in the air by the blood maddened elephants. Bistami had not realized that elephants could be driven to such blood lust. Akbar stood high on a throne howdah perched on the biggest elephant of all, an elephant that stood still before the spectacle, the two of them observing the carnage.
Some days later, when the Emperor came to the tomb at dawn, it felt strange to sweep the shadowed courtyard of the tomb with him. Bistami swept assiduously, trying not to meet Akbar's gaze.
Finally he had to acknowledge the sovereign's presence. Akbar was already staring at him.
'You seem troubled,' Akbar said.
'No, mighty Akbar – not at all.'
'You don't approve of the execution of traitors to Islam?'
'Not at all, yes, of course I do.'
Akbar stared at him in the same way one of his falcons would have.
'But didn't Ibn Khaldun say that the caliph has to submit to Allah in the same way as the humblest slave? Didn't he say that the caliph has a duty to obey Muslim law? And doesn't Muslim law forbid torture of prisoners? Isn't that Khaldun's point?'
'Khaldun was just a historian,' Bistami said.
Akbar laughed. 'And what about the hadith, that has it from Abu Taiba by way of Murra Ibn Harridan by way of Sufyan al Thawri, who had it related to him by Ali Ibn Abi Talaib, that the Messenger of God, may God bless his name for ever, said, "You shall not torture slaves?" What about the lines of the Quran that command the ruler to imitate Allah and to show compassion and mercy to prisoners? Did I not break the spirit of these commandments, 0 wise sufi pilgrim?'
Bistami studied the flagstones of the courtyard. 'Perhaps so, great Akbar. Only you know.'
Akbar regarded him. 'Leave the tomb of Chishti,' he said.
Bistami hurried out of the gate.
The next time Bistami saw Akbar was at the palace, where he had been commanded to appear; as it turned out, to explain why, as the Emperor put it icily, 'your friends in Gujarat are rebelling against me'?
Bistami said uneasily, 'I left Ahmadabad precisely because there was so much strife. The mirzas were always having trouble. The King Muzaffar Shah the Third was no longer in control. You know all this. This is why you took Gujarat under your protection.'
Akbar nodded, seeming to remember that campaign. 'But now Husain Mirza has come back out of the Deccan, and many of the nobles of Gujarat have joined him in rebellion. If word spreads that I can be defied so easily, who knows what will follow?'
'Surely Gujarat must be retaken,' Bistami said uncertainly; perhaps, as last time, this was exactly what Akbar did not want to hear. What was expected of Bistami was not clear to him; he was an official of the court, a qadi, but his advice before had all been religious, or legal. Now, with a previous residence of his in revolt, he was apparently on the spot; not where one wanted to be when Akbar was angry.
'It may already be too late,' Akbar said. 'The coast is two months away.'
'Must it be?' Bistami asked. 'I have made the tr
ip by myself in ten days. Perhaps if you took only your best hundreds, on female camels, you could surprise the rebels.'
Akbar favoured him with his hawk look. He called for Raja Todor Mal, and soon it was arranged as Bistami had suggested. A cavalry of three thousand soldiers, led by Akbar, with Bistami ordered along, covered the distance between Agra and Ahmadabad in eleven dusty long days, and this cavalry, made strong and bold by the swift march, shattered a ragtag horde of many thousands of rebels, fifteen thousand by one general's count, most of them killed in the battle.
Bistami spent that day on camelback, following the main charges of the front, trying to stay within sight of Akbar, and when that failed, helping wounded men into the shade. Even without Akbar's great siege guns, the noise of the battle was shocking – most of it created by the screaming of men and camels. Dust blanketing the hot air smelled of blood.
Late in the afternoon, desperately thirsty, Bistami made his way down to the river. Scores of wounded and dying were already there, staining the river red. Even at the upstream edge of the crowd it was impossible to drink a mouthful that did not taste of blood.
Then Raja Todor Mal and a gang of soldiers arrived among them, executing with swords the mirzas and Afghans who had led the rebellion. One of the mirzas caught sight of Bistami and cried out 'Bistami, save me! Save me!'
The next moment he was headless, his body pouring its blood onto the bankside from the open neck. Bistami turned away, Raja Todor Mal staring after him.
Clearly Akbar heard of this later, for all during the leisurely march back to Fatepur Sikri, despite the triumphant nature of the procession, and Akbar's evident high spirits, he did not call Bistami into his presence. This despite the fact that the lightning assault on the rebels had been Bistami's idea. Or perhaps this also was part of it. Raja Todor Mal and his cronies could not be pleased by that.
The Year of Rice and Salt Page 12