From my station here, the mansabdari seems a vast, intricate machine binding military service to imperial rank and revenue—efficient, but impersonal. The abolition of jizya is praised in court as an act of sublime tolerance, yet I see its removal has not lessened the subtle weight of being a Christian friar in a Muslim empire. And sulh-i-kul, this "peace for all"… in practice, I find it a policy administered from the top down, more about the Emperor's majestic authority than the warmth of common fellowship. I measure these things by the guarded courtesy I receive and by the empty space where a church bell might sound.
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