Before the time of Aurangzeb special care was taken to conciliate the Hindus. Akbar adopted definitely the policy of equal treatment for all, a degree of toleration not to be found in the contemporary Europe of William the Silent and Henry of Navarre. The government strove to abolish or mitigate such Hindu practices as were abhorrent to Mohammedanism, and at least one Moslem practice which offended the Hindus. Child-marriage, the ordeal, and animal sacrifice were forbidden. Widows were to be burned on the funeral pyres of their husbands only with their own full consent, and those who preferred to live might marry again. In the Rajput tributary states Hindu law of course prevailed. Probably in the regions under direct Mogul rule Hindus were judged by their own law when Moslems were not concerned and perhaps even by their own judges. It is true that the Hindus had to wait until Akbar came to be released from the personal disabilities imposed by earlier Moslem conquerors, that their temple lands were taxed until the time of Aurangzeb, and that Brahmans, pundits, and fakirs were perhaps only in Akbar’s presence treated with respect equal to that accorded _Sheiks_, _Seids_, and _Ulema_. But the emperors and their officers gave like justice to all; they permitted every man to worship according to the rites of his forefathers, and apparently never had a thought, as had Selim the Cruel, of giving to all non-Moslem subjects the choice between Islam and death. There was little ground for discontent until Aurangzeb began to apply a harsher policy. THE MOSLEMS AND THE MOSLEM CHURCH In comparison with conditions in the Ottoman Empire, Moslems and non-Moslems in the India of the early Moguls were far more nearly on a level. This was due not merely to the toleration and indifference of the emperors, but even more to the circumstances of the conquest, under which both groups were treated alike, since Baber at Panipat in 1526 subdued the Moslem Lodi Sultans of Delhi, and at Kanwaha in 1527 the Hindu Rajput confederacy. Indian-born worshippers of Allah and of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva were mingled in the same vast mass of conquered subjects, equally separated from the victorious invaders. There was also, in all probability, a much greater difference of race between Baber’s highlanders and the Moslems that he found in India than between the latter and the Hindus; for many inter-marriages had taken place, and many natives of India had joined the followers of the Prophet. Time, of course, diminished this distinction.