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Like a good Turk he had no effeminate distaste for human blood; when, at the age of fourteen, he was invited to win the title of Ghazi—Slayer of the Infidel—by killing a Hindu prisoner, he cut off the man’s head at once with one stroke of his scimitar. These were the barbarous beginnings of a man destined to become one of the wisest, most humane and most cultured of all the kings known to history.

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The king, in his wisdom, understood the spirit of the age, and shaped his plans accordingly.

The compassionate heart of his majesty finds no pleasure in cruelties or in causing sorrow to others; he is ever sparing of the lives of his subjects, wishing to bestow happiness upon all.

Akbar's liberalism can be adjudged from another fact, namely that he issued gold and silver coins bearing the figures of Rama and Sita and inscribed with the legend Rama Siya.

With Islamic zeal, Akbar at first persecuted the Hindus.

Akbar’s court was essentially foreign, and even in his later years the Indian element, whether Hindu or Moslem, constituted only a small proportion of the whole.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Akbar (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.