The Mohammedan priesthood, the community of the Ulemâs in whose hands lay also the execution of justice according to the dictates of Islam, had attained great prosperity in India by countless large bequests. Its distinguished membership formed an influential party at court. This party naturally represented the Islam of the stricter observance, the so-called Sunnitic Islam, and displayed the greatest severity and intolerance towards the representatives of every more liberal interpretation and towards unbelievers. The chief judge of Agra sentenced men to death because they were Shiites, that is to say they belonged to the other branch of Islam, and the Ulemâs urged Akbar to proceed likewise against the heretics.[34] That arrogance and vanity, selfishness and avarice, also belonged to the character of the Ulemâs is so plainly to be taken for granted according to all analogies that it need hardly be mentioned. The judicature was everywhere utilized by the Ulemâs as a means for illegitimate enrichment. [Footnote 34: J.T. Wheeler, IV, I, 156.] This ecclesiastical party which in its narrow-minded folly considered itself in possession of the whole truth, stands opposed to the noble skeptic Akbar, whose doubt of the divine origin of the Koran and of the truth of its dogmas began so to torment him that he would pass entire nights sitting out of doors on a stone lost in contemplation. The above mentioned brothers Faizî and Abul Fazl introduced to his impressionable spirit the exalted teaching of Sûfism, the Mohammedan mysticism whose spiritual pantheism had its origin in, or at least was strongly influenced by, the doctrine of the All-One, held by the Brahman Vedânta system. The Sûfi doctrine teaches religious tolerance and has apparently strengthened Akbar in his repugnance towards the intolerant exclusiveness of Sunnitic Islam. The Ulemâs must have been horror-stricken when they found out that Akbar even sought religious instruction from the hated Brahmans. We hear especially of two, Purushottama and Debî by name, the first of whom taught Sanskrit and Brahman philosophy to the Emperor in his palace, whereas the second was drawn up on a platform to the wall of the palace in the dead of the night and there, suspended in midair, gave lessons on profound esoteric doctrines of the Upanishads to the emperor as he sat by the window. A characteristic bit of Indian local color! The proud Padishah of India, one of the most powerful rulers of his time, listening in the silence of night to the words of the Brahman suspended there outside, who himself as proud as the Emperor would not set foot inside the dwelling of one who in his eyes was unclean, but who would not refuse his wisdom to a sincere seeker after truth.