what personal feelings we can well imagine.  For by this act the Ulemas were deprived of their ecclesiastical authority which was transferred to the Emperor.  That the Orient too possesses its particular official manner of expression in administrative matters is very prettily shown by a decree in which Akbar “granted the long cherished wish” of these same chiefs of the Ulemas to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca, which of course really meant a banishment of several years.  Other unworthy Ulemas were displaced from their positions or deprived of their sinecures; others who in their bitterness had caused rebellion or incited or supported mutiny were condemned for high treason.  The rich property of the churches was for the most part confiscated and appropriated for the general weal.  In short, the power and influence of the Ulemas was completely broken down, the mosques stood empty and were transformed into stables and warehouses.

Akbar had long ceased to be a faithful Moslem.  Now after the fall of the Ulemas he came forward openly with his conviction, declared the Koran to be a human compilation and its commands folly, disputed the miracles of Mohammed and also the value of his prophecies, and denied the doctrine of recompense after death.  He professed the Brahman and Sufistic doctrine that the soul migrates through countless existences and finally attains divinity after complete purification.

The assertion of the Ulemas that every person came into the world predisposed towards Islam and that the natural language of mankind was Arabic (the Jews made the same claim for Hebrew and the Brahmans for Sanskrit), Akbar refuted by a drastic experiment which does not correspond with his usual benevolence, but still is characteristic of the tendency of his mind.  In this case a convincing demonstration appeared to him so necessary that some individuals would have to suffer for it.  Accordingly in the year 1579 he caused twenty infants to be taken from their parents in return for a compensation and brought up under the care of silent nurses in a remote spot in which no word should be spoken.  After four years it was proved that as many of these unhappy children as were still alive were entirely dumb and possessed no trace of a predisposition for Islam.[35] Later the children are said to have learned to speak with extraordinary difficulty as was to be expected.

[Footnote 35:  J.T.  Wheeler, IV, I, 174; Noer, I, 511, 512.  A familiar classical parallel to this incident is the experiment recorded by Herodotus (II, 2) which the Egyptian king Psammetich is said to have performed with two infants.  It is related that after being shut up in a goat’s stable for two years separated from all human intercourse these children repeatedly cried out the alleged Phrygian word [Greek:  bekhos], “bread,” which in reality was probably simply an imitation of the bleating of the goats.  Compare Edward B. Tyler, Researches into the Early History of Mankind.