Chapter 1
Early Muslims
No integrated contemporary account exists to say how Islam spread in India. Medieval chroniclers very graphically describe the achievements of Muslim invaders, conquerors, monarchs, governors, rulers of independent Muslims kingdoms, and even officials, in effecting conversions. Muslim hagiological works, some reliable others not so reliable, too report on addition to Muslim population through conversions. But the actual numbers who embraced Islam year after year and decade after decade are not known. Some Muslims no doubt came from abroad as conquerors and soldiers. Some scholars and religious men also arrived either in the train of conquerors or at the invitation of Indian sultans or as refugees. Arabs, Abyssinians, Egyptians, Persians and Transoxionians, all find mention as having come to India to seek refuge or fortune. But the majority of Muslims are converts from Hinduism. One has, therefore, to collect facts and figures contained in stray references of medieval writers, especially Persian chroniclers, to make a conversion-cum-immigration survey to be able to estimate the growth of Muslim population.
On a study in depth on the growth of Muslim population, one is struck by the fact that as against the zig-zag pattern of rise and fall of the overall population in the medieval period, Muslim population shows only a constant rise. Another is that in spite of centuries of exertion in the field of proselytization, India has been converted only but partially. This proves that in contrast to the quick conversion of some West Asian countries,
Islam received a definite check in India. In other words, while countries like Arabia, Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria succumbed to the onslaught of Islam and converted en masse, the sword of Islam was blunted in India. This check provided provocation and enthusiasm to some Muslim conquerors and rulers to take to the task of proselytization with great zeal and earnestness. Their exertions and achievements find repeated mention in official and non-official chronicles and similar other works. Sometimes, besides broad facts, actual data and figures in this regard are also available. All this information is very helpful in estimating Muslim numbers as they grew from almost a cipher.
By the year 1000 of the Christian Era the extreme north-western parts of India, in the trans-Indus region, had become introduced to Islam. As early as C.E. 664, consequent upon an invasion of Kabul and its environs (which then formed part of India), by Abdur Rahman, a few thousand inhabitants are reported to have been converted to Islam.
However, there were some small settlements of Muslims in Sind, Gujarat and the Malabar Coast. Parts of Sind were conquered by Muhammad bin Qasim Sakifi in C.E. 712. Whichever towns he took, like Alor, Nirun, Debul and Multan, in them he established mosques, appointed Muslim governors, and propagated the Muhammadan religion.
Muhammad bin Qasim remained in Sind for a little more than three years.
In brief, because of the efforts of Muhammad bin Qasim and Caliph Umar II (C.E. 717-24) some Hindus in Sind had been converted to Islam, but by the time of Caliph Hashim (724-43), when Tamim was the governor of Sind, many of these Sindhi converts had returned to Hinduism. Those who continued to retain the new faith remained confined mostly to cities, particularly Multan. After Mahmud of Ghazni’s attack on Multan their number seems to have gone up for, writing in the twelfth century, Al Idrisi says: ‘The greater part of the population (of Multan) is Musalman, so also the Judicial authority and civil administration.’
Similar was the situation in Gujarat. A military expedition was sent out in C.E. 636 from Oman to pillage the coasts of India. It proceeded as far as Thana (near Bombay).
Arab Muslims first settled on the Malabar coast about the end of the seventh century. ‘These Arab traders who settled down on India’s coast between the seventh and the ninth centuries were treated with tolerance by the Hindus’, and so they grew in numbers. In the early part of the eighth century, Hajjaj bin Yusuf (who sent Muhammad bin Qasim to Sind), drove out some persons of the house of Hasham, and they left their homeland to settle in Konkan and the Cape Camorin area. Refugees or traders, Muslims were welcome in India, and ‘apparently, facilities were given to them to settle and acquire lands and openly practice their religion ’
In short, while there can be no doubt about the presence of some Muslims in Sind, Gujarat and on the western coast of India, their number till the end of the tenth century was almost microscopic. In Hindustan proper, east of the river Indus, there were hardly any Musalmans in C.E. 1000.
In the year C.E. 1000 the first attack of Mahmud of Ghazni was delivered. The region of Mahmud’s activity extended from Peshawar to Kanauj in the east and from Peshawar to Anhilwara in the South. In this, wherever he went, he converted people to Islam. In his attack on Waihind (near Peshawar) in 1001-3, Mahmud is reported to have captured Jayapal and fifteen of his principal chiefs and relations some of whom, like Sukhpal, were made Musalmans. At Bhera all the inhabitants, except those who embraced Islam, were put to the sword. Since the whole town is reported to have been converted the number of converts may have been quite large. At Multan too conversions took place in large numbers for, writing about the campaign against Nawasa Shah (converted Sukhpal), Utbi says that this and the previous victory (at Multan) were ‘witnesses to his exalted state of proselytism’.
There is thus little doubt that during the first thirty years of the eleventh century, consequent upon the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni, some thousands of people were converted to Islam. During and after his raids, a few Muslim colonies were also established, some in as far off places as Kanauj, Banaras, and Bahraich.
In spite of his great success the sway of the descendants of Mahmud in Punjab was precarious, and their proselytizing efforts could not have been quite rewarding of success. Therefore, the number of Muslims in the Punjab, like in Sind, Gujarat and Malabar could have been only small. Islam being a proselytizing religion, its followers have not only taken pride in winning converts but also often exaggerating the numbers of real or imaginary conversions. For instance it is claimed that in Gujarat some members of the depressed classes like Kunbis, Kharwars and Koris were converted to Islam by Nuruddin Nur Satgur.
Thus while the story of the conversions to Islam has been very enthusiastically narrated by Muslim chroniclers, the attitude of the Hindus to conversion and the endeavours of the hurriedly converted Hindus to revert to their former faith, has not been even referred to by them. Alberuni mentions a number of restrictions imposed upon reconversion to Hinduism,
About the end of the twelfth century, Muhammad Ghori established Muslim rule in India on a durable basis. When he captured Bhatinda in 1190-91, he placed in its command Qazi Ziyauddin with a contingent of 1200 horse.
Aibak entered upon a series of conquests. He despatched Ikhtiyaruddin Bakhtiyar Khalji to the East and himself captured Kol (modern Aligarh) in 1194. There ‘those of the garrison who were wise and acute were converted to Islam, but those who stood by their ancient faith were slain with the sword’.
Ikhtiyaruddin Bakhtiyar Khalji’s military exploits in the east also resulted in conversions to Islam. About the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century,
During the time of Qutbuddin Aibak a large number of places were attacked and prisoners captured for which actual figures or written evidence are available. Figures of any conversions during campaigns to Kanauj, Varanasi (where the Muslims occupied ‘a thousand’ temples).
I have calculated elsewhere that the numbers converted between 1193, when the rule of the Turkish Sultanate was established at Delhi, and 1210, when Qutbuddin Aibak died, and the immigrant Muslims were about two and a half lakhs.
With this conceptual framework let us examine the structure and organization of Muslim community in Hindustan in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Punjab saw the emergence of Muslims as a local community consequent to the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni. But for a few immigrants in the shape of Ghaznavid officers and soldiers, the bulk of Muslims were converts from the indigenous Hindu population. Similar was the case in ‘pockets’ of Sind, Gujarat, Bihar and Malabar. The process of their conversion was hurried. All of a sudden the invader appeared in a city or a region, and in the midst of loot and murder, a dazed, shocked and enslaved people were given the choice between Islam and death. Those who were converted were deprived of their scalp-lock or choti and, if they happened to be caste people, also their sacred thread.
But no community, however newly born, however weakly constituted it may be, exists without a moral power which animates and directs it. After the passing of a few generations, Indian Muslims would have forgotten the circumstances of their conversion, and developed a sense of oneness amongst themselves. With time, they would have begun to be considered a distinct and separate entity in the caste-oriented Hindu society. ‘The Hindus were so well organized in their social and religious life’,
Footnotes:
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Ferishtah, Tarikh-i-Ferishtah, Persian text, Nawal Kishore Press, Lucknow 1865, Vol.1, p.16. ↩
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Stanley Lane-Poole, Medieval India under Muhammadan Rule (London, 1926), p.1. ↩
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Chachnama, trs. in H.M. Elliot and J. Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Vols., London, 1867-77, (here after as E and D), Vol. I, p. 207. ↩
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Al Biladuri, Futuh-ul-Buldan, trs. E and D, I, p.120. ↩
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Ibid., pp.122-24. ↩
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Chachnama, op. cit., pp. 163-64. Also pp. 205-07, 208. ↩
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Biladuri, pp.124-25. Also cf. Chachnama, pp.207-208. Also Cambridge history of India (hereafter C.H.I.) ed. Wolseley Haig, Vol. III, p.3. ↩
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Elliot’s Appendix in E and D, I, p.439. ↩
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Biladuri, op. cit., p.126, Also cf. Idrisi, E and D, I, Nuzhat-ul-Mushtaq. ↩
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Dension Ross, Islam, p.18. ↩
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Al Idrisi, p.83. ↩
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See also Elliot’s Appendix, E and D, I, p.459. ↩
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Biladuri, pp.115-16. Also p.415. ↩
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Tara Chand, Influence of Islam on Indian Culture (Allahabad, 1946), pp.31-33. ↩
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Ibn Hauqal, Ashkalal-ul-Bilad, trs. in E and D, I, p.34. Also p.457. See also Istakhri Kitab-ul-Aqalim, E and D, I, p.27. ↩
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Ibn Hauqal, p.38. ↩
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Muhammad Ufi, Jami-ul-Hikayat, E and D, II, pp.163-64. Also S. C. Misra, Muslim Communities in Gujarat (Bombay,1964), p.5. ↩
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Tara Chand, op. cit., p.33. Also Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford, 1964), p. 77. ↩
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Tara Chand, Ibid., p.34. ↩
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Sulaiman Saudagar, Hindi trs. of his Narrative by Mahesh Prasad, (Kashi, Sam. 1978, C.E. 1921), p.84. ↩
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For conversions at various places under Mahmud see Kitab-i-Yamini, Eng. trs. of Utbi’s work by James Reynolds, (London) 1858, pp. 451-52, 455, 460, 462-63 and Utbi, Tarikh-i-Yamini, E and D, II, pp.27, 30, 33, 40, 42, 43, 45, 49. Also Appendix in E and D, II, pp.434-78. ↩
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Zakaria al Qazwini, Asar-ul-Bilad, E and D, I, p.98. ↩
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C.E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 129. Utbi, Reynolds trs. op. cit., pp.438-39 and n. ↩
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Utbi, trs. Reynolds, op.cit., pp. 322-25, 462. Utbi, E and D, II, p.37 Ferishtah, op. cit., I, p.44. ↩
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Utbi, E and D, II, p.49. ↩
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About Banaras Ibn Asir says, ‘there were Musalmans in that country since the days of Mahmud bin Subuktagin’. Ibn-ul-Asir, Kamil-ul-Tawarikh, trs., E and D, II. ↩
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Indian Antiquary, IV, 1875, p.366. ↩
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Indian Historical Quarterly, XXII, 1951, p.240. ↩
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Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, VI Session, Patna, pp.123ff. Also B.P. Mazumdar, The Socio-Economic History of Northern India, (Calcutta, 1960), p.126. ↩
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Kalhana, Rajatarangini, trs. by M. A. Stein (Westminster, 1900), VII, 528-29, 1149, cited in Mazumdar, op. cit., p.128. ↩
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Arnold, The Preaching of Islam (Westminster, 1896), p.275; Murray Titus, Islam in India and Pakistan, (Calcutta, 1959), p.43. ↩
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S.C. Misra, Muslim Communities in Gujarat, p.57. ↩
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Tarachand, op. cit., pp.34-35. ↩
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Ferishtah, op. cit., I, p.27, M. Habib, Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin, Delhi reprint, 1951, p.34, ↩
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W. Ivanow, Brief Survey of the Evolution of Ismailism (Bombay, 1942), pp.34-35. ↩
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Alberuni, India, trs. Edward Sachau, 2 Vols., (London, 1910), II, pp.162-63. ↩
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Published by Anandasrama Sanskrit series, Poona, trs. by M.N. Ray in J.B.O.R.S.,1927. ↩
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P.V. Kane, History of the Dharmashastra Literature, 4 Vols., II, pp.390-91. ↩
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See B.P. Mazumdar, op. cit., pp. 131-33. ↩
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Utbi, E and D, II, p.39. Camb. Hist. India, III, p.47. ↩
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Ferishtah, op. cit., I, p.45. ↩
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Camb. Hist. India, III, p.40. ↩
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Hasan Nizami says that ‘the Sultan then returned to Ghazna but the whole army remained at the mauza of Indarpat’. (Taj-ul-Maasir, E and D, II, p.216). Surely Muhammad Ghori would not have gone back all alone. ↩
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Ibid., p.222. ↩
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Ferishtah, I, p.62. ↩
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Hasan Nizami, p.231. Also Ferishtah, I, p.53. Habibullah, The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India, (Allahabad, 1961), pp.69 and 334 (n.26), has missed to cite Hasan Nizami’s assertion that 50,000 were enslaved. ↩
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Titus. Islam in India and Pakistan (Calcutta, 1959), p.31. ↩
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Ferishtah, I, p.63. ↩
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Ferishtah, I, pp.59-60. The authenticity of Ferishtah’s statement has been challenged by Raverty (Notes on Afghanistan, p.367). The numbers of Khokhar converts have certainly been exaggerated. Amir Khusrau refers to Khokhars as a non-Muslim tribe (Tughlaq Namah, Aurangabad, 1933, p.128), and the way they were constantly attacked and killed by sultans like Iltutmish and Balban confirms Khusrau’s contention. There is, however, nothing strange about Ferishtah’s statement; only the figure seems to be exaggerated. ↩
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The exact date of the raid is difficult to determine. Ishwari Prasad, Medieval India (Allahabad, Fourth Impression, 1940), p.138 places it’ probably in 1197’, Wolseley Haig (C.H.I., III,pp.45-46) a little earlier than this, and Habibullah, op. cit., pp.70 and 84, n. 78 in 1202-03. ↩
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Indian Antiquary, IV, pp.366-67. ↩
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Fuhrer, The Sharqi Architecture of Jaunpur, pp.70-73. ↩
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Habibullah, op. cit., p.147. ↩
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Tabqat-i-Nasiri, trs. H.R. Raverty, (London, 1881), I, p.560. ↩
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Ferishtah, I, p. 58. ↩
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K.S. Lal, Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (Delhi, 1973), p.108. ↩
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Encyclopaedia of Social sciences (Macmillan, New York Reprint, 1949), pp. 102ff. ↩
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Ibid., p.105. ↩
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It may be noted here that Jayapal, after fighting Subuktigin near Kabul, ‘was contented to offer the best things in the most distant provinces to the conqueror, on condition that the hairs on the crowns of their heads should not be shaven off’. Utbi, op. cit., p.23.
W. Crooke in his Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, IV, p.226, quoting Ibbetson says that chotikat ‘is even now a term of reproach which is applied in the Punjab to those who have, on conversion to Islam, cut off the choti.’
Also Hodivala, S.H., Studies in Indo-Muslim History (Bombay, 1939), pp.137-38. ↩ -
Ferishtah, I, p. 45.
Murray Titus, Islam in India and Pakistan (Calcutta, 1959), p.170. ↩ -
Ibid., p.8 ↩
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Chachnama, mentions the case of a converted Hindu who could not pay respect to his old Hindu king by curtly declaring: ‘When I was your subject it was right of me to observe the rules of obedience; but now that I am converted, and am subject to the king of Islam, it cannot be expected that I should bow my head to an infidel.’ E and D, I, p.165.
Swami Vivekanand has aptly remarked that conversion means not only a Hindu lost but also an enemy created. ↩