 The image both uses a fully Persian style, and includes thematic elements, including the self-portrait, that are "dazzling new departures in Islamic painting"

Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali followed the emperor on his return to India, only seven months before he died in 1556.They were retained by the fourteen-year-old Akbar who within a few years set about greatly expanding his court workshop.A drawing with muted colour, inscribed with Samad's name, in the Bodleian Library in Oxford depicts the arrest, three days after Akbar's accession, of Humayun's troublesome favourite, Abdu'l Ma'ali, who is seized from behind by a burly courtier.