Note 1118 — SECTION II. KĀBUL666 (continued 2)

Count von Noer’s words about a cognate reform of later date suit this man’s work, it also was “a bar to the defraudment of the Crown, a stumbling-block in the path of avaricious chiefs” (Emperor Akbar trs. i, 11). The opposition made by ‘Alī-sher to reform so clearly to Ḥusain’s gain and to Ḥusain’s begs’ loss, stirs the question, “What was the source of his own income?” Up to 873 AH. he was for some years the dependant of Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg; he took nothing from the Mīrzā, but gave to him; he must have spent much in benefactions. The question may have presented itself to M. Belin for he observes, “‘Alī-sher qui sans doute, à son retour de l’exil, recouvra l’héritage de ses pères, et depuis occupa de hautes positions dans le gouvernement de son pays, avait acquis une grande fortune” (J. Asiatique xvii, 227). While not contradicting M. Belin’s view that vested property such as can be described as “paternal inheritance”, may have passed from father to son, even in those days of fugitive prosperity and changing appointments, one cannot but infer, from Nawā’i’s opposition to Majdu’d-dīn, that he, like the rest, took a partial view of the “rights” of the cultivator.