The Year of Rice and Salt

One morning at the very first light, when he was already in the tomb's courtyard at prayers, the Emperor Akbar himself came in to the shrine, and took up an ordinary broom, and swept the courtyard. It was a cool morning, the night chill still in the air, and yet Bistami was sweating as Akbar finished his devotions, and Chishti's grandson arrived, and asked Bistami to come when he had finished his prayers, to be introduced.

'A great honour,' he replied, and returned to his prayers, murmuring them thoughtlessly as the things he might say raced through his head; and he wondered how long he should delay before approaching the Emperor, to show that prayer came first. The tomb was still relatively empty and cool, the sun just rising. When it cleared the trees entirely, Bistami stood and walked to the Emperor and Chishti's grandson, and bowed deeply. Greeting, obeisances, and then he was obeying a polite request to tell his story to the watchful young man in the imperial finery, whose unblinking gaze never left his face, or indeed his eyes. Study in Iran with Tutsami, pilgrimage to Qom, return home, a year's work as a teacher of the Quran in Gujarat, a journey to visit his family, ambush by Hindu rebels, salvation by tiger: by the end of the story Bistami had been approved, he could see it.

'We welcome you,' Akbar said. The whole city of Fatepur Sikri served to show how devout he was, as well as displaying his ability to create devotion in others. Now he had seen Bistami's devotion, exhibited in all the forms of piety, and as they continued their conversation, and the tomb began to fill with the day's visitors, Bistami managed to lead the discussion to the one hadith he knew that had come by way of Chishti to Iran, so that the isnad, or genealogy of the phrase, made a short link between his education and the Emperor's.

'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.