The Soft Muslim Rule of India
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
The Indo-Pakistan subcontinent has been host to hordes of aliens such as the Aryans, Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and the British. Barring the Europeans, they entered here to make this country their home.
They were impure or mlechchha according to the Hindu faith but they could not be taken as a source of irritation for long. With the passage of time, they were taken as their own. In view of the existence of a number of levels of social institutions in the Hindu religion and society their assimilation became easier. If caste was a problem, which is predetermined by birth, it was not difficult to assign one to them; they were treated as one of the lower castes, or they could go to other heterodox creeds like Jainism and Buddhism that were caste-less.
Fortunately, the earlier immigrants had not brought with them strong religious beliefs. The result was that they could not withstand the seduction and overwhelming embrace of the Vedic religion. They were ultimately absorbed in it, and were completely Hinduized. Thus, there cropped up a maxim in the Indian history books: “Hinduism has a wonderful power of assimilation; it has always conquered its conquerors”. This maxim, however, is only partially true.
Hinduism has conquered only those communities that did not have their own strong religious codes or beliefs. It was unable to bring in its fold even those small communities of early Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, who had settled there two thousand years ago, or even earlier. Similar was the case with the Muslims. They found no grounds to merge in Hinduism. The philosophy and ways of life of the two communities differed radically. For instance, the Hindu institution of idolatry was anathema to the unequivocally monotheist Muslims, and so were the casteism and the doctrine of karma or the law of birth and rebirth.
Since Islam was a firmly entrenched religion with a new pattern of life, compromise on religious plane was not possible, although its social canvas could not resist the impact. Both segments of the society tended to merge, not merely in superficial ways of eating and dressing, language and arts, but in a more fundamental way in the area of values and culture. Thus the Muslims, though not conquered in India from the angle of religion, were subdued on social and cultural fronts. They adopted many Hindu customs and values and gave in return their own. The imprint was not one-sided. Undoubtedly, the two followed different religions, but they coexisted throughout the Muslim rule with no friction. This amalgam of two cultures gave birth to a new Indian race.
The commercial relations between Arabia and the western coastal region of India had existed from pre-Islamic days. The Arabs had acquired a monopoly of sea trade in this area, and had established a number of settlements in port areas with the grace of the Hindu rajas. Thus, with the advent of Islam in the beginning of the eighth century, no new racial element was introduced in India, but it definitely marked the seeding of a potent idea. After over two thousand years of Aryan invasions, Islam was to cause the most profound effect, and was destined to change the course of history.
The first Muslim force reached India in as early as AD 644. Ahmad Ibn YahyaIbn Jabir Al Biladuri writes in Futuhu-l Buld’an, “When Usman, son of Akkan, became Khalif, he appointed Abdu-llah son of Amar, son of Kuraiz, to (the government of) Irak, and wrote to him an order to send a person to the confines of Hind in order to acquire knowledge and bring back information. He accordingly deputed Hakim son of Jaballa al Abdi. When this man returned he was sent on to the Khalif, who questioned him about the state of those regions. He replied that he knew them because he had examined them. The Khalif then told him to describe them. He said, ‘Water is scarce, the fruits are poor, and the robbers are bold; if few troops are sent there they will be slain, if many, they will starve.’ Usman asked him whether he spoke accurately or hyperbolically. He said that he spoke according to his knowledge. The Khalif abstained from sending any expedition there”.
After a long pause, a serious attempt was made in AD 711 to conquer Sindh. And, when they conquered it, the Arabs did not present themselves as anti-Hindu. Taking cognizance of their religious books, the Hindus of Sindh were taken as the People of the Book. Muhammad bin Qasim, the Arab conqueror, wrote to the Governor of Iraq, Al-Hajjaj Bin Yusuf, and received the following reply: “The letter of my dear nephew Muhammad bin Qasim has been received and the facts understood. It appears that the chief inhabitants of Brahmanabad had petitioned to be allowed to repair the temple of Budh and pursue their religion. As they have made submission and agreed to pay taxes to the Caliph, nothing more can be properly required from them. They have been taken under our protection, and we cannot in any way stretch out our hands upon their lives and property. Permission is given to them to worship their gods. Nobody must be forbidden or prevented from following his own religion. They may live in their houses in whatever manner they like”. (Chach-nama, as translated by Fredunbeg and Mankind And Mother Earth by Arnold Toynbee).
At that time, the religion of the Hindus had no name. It was vaguely known as Brahmanism, Vishnuism, and Shivaism, or sometimes recognized as Buddhism. The Arabs gave it a name, “Hinduism,” when they called the local people by the name of Hindus, the residents of Hind. Also, the Arabs did not take their entry into Sind as a serious attempt for expansion. The Muslim dispersion in India was gradual until 1193 when QutbuddinAibak firmly established himself as the Sultan at Delhi.
The later Muslims had not entered India with the religious zeal and passion as had been demonstrated by the Arabs of the seventh century who had dispersed in the Middle Eastern countries, Africa and Persia. The new rulers of India were fortune hunters. They were not bound to the cultural traditions of the old Islamic lands. They had every intention to settle in this country, enjoy the pomp and pleasure of the royals, and avoid confrontation as far as possible. They did not interfere with the faith, culture, and traditions of the indigenous community, although the kings were not devoid of the pressure of the Islamic theologians. For instance, suicide is considered irreligious under the Islamic Law, but the heinous rite of Sati (the burning alive of the widow on the funeral pyre of her husband), was not touched upon by the Muslim rulers. It was the British rulers who, disregarding the religious sentiments of the Hindus, abolished it in 1829 on humanitarian grounds.
The propaganda of forced proselytizing and iconoclasm during the Muslim rule is one of those myths that had created a wedge between the two major communities of India. Undoubtedly, stray cases were there, mostly in war conditions on both sides; but its generalization would be unfair. RomilaThapar, writes in A History of India, Volume One: “These activities (proselytizing and iconoclasm) have been written about at length by the chroniclers presumably to prove the devotion of their patrons to Islam…The chroniclers had to show that the Sultan was making life difficult for the infidels, in order to earn him the respect of the orthodox in his community. Purely religious iconoclasm may be understandable in the raids of Mahmud, though even here the treasure was probably more attractive than the religious motive. But for a reigning king to decree the destruction of temples to earn religious merit would appear foolish in the extreme.”
As for conversion, it did take place, but not as a matter of state policy. "It is generally accepted that, except for a few areas such as Kashmir, the Muslim rulers did not follow any well-defined or widespread policy of conversion by force. In certain parts of the country, like Bengal and Punjab, where post-Buddhist Hinduism had not struck deep enough roots, Islam was accepted by outcast and low-caste communities as an escape from their social bondage, or because it brought them material benefits from the new rulers. However, it appears that a significant number accepted Islam because of the popularity of the Sufi ‘saints’… (Ranbir Vohra, The Making of India: A Historical Survey)"
At the time of Partition of India in 1947, the Muslim population constituted only 25 per cent, composed of the converted and the Muslim immigrants. The fact that the Muslims have always been a minority community in India also suggests that the Hindus were not in a desperate situation to seek conversion. Further, any pressure of proselytizing would have generated animosity between the Muslims and the Hindus and massive riots and revolts. The history of pre-British period does not record such events.
One should bear in mind that in the days when the Muslims came and lived in India, conquest of a foreign land was an act internationally recognized as normal and legal, that Islam was a new religion and its followers were fully soaked with the spiritual zeal of their belief, that it was not the period of enlightenment, that it was the time of absolute monarchy, that local public opinion did not count much, and that international public opinion did not exist. In such a situation, and in a land where a segment of the followers of Hinduism were subjected to abuse and mistreatment under its own religious laws, and in a land where its people wanting a change had themselves ventured upon new religions like Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, the ground was ripe for mass conversion. In spite of this, the Muslims did not proselytize or even indulge in organized missionary activities. Historically speaking, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have routinely wiped out mythological and pagan religions from the areas wherever they went. It was the liberalism of the Muslim rulers of India that has saved the Hindu religion from being wiped out completely from the world. This act surely imparts a nobleness to the Muslim rule of India.
According to Arnold Toynbee (Mankind and Mother Earth): “In most periods of the history of the Indian subcontinent the Indians have felt more concern about religion than about politics and economics”. Truly, it was this monster that when aroused and invoked by the British rulers in order to lengthen their rule rendered the country and its people into pieces in the twentieth century. Sadly, this poison has proved to be so lethal that it continues to kill the people of the subcontinent even today. Rebutting the British theory, Jagdish Narayan Sarkar writes in History of History Writing in Medieval India: “In their books (of the British) the advent of Islam in India was too closely associated with the conquests of Turks, the Afghans and the Mughals; military and political contentions amongst the rulers were generally presented as religious issues, and the offensive character of Muslim rule was given a false prominence and described as tyrannical and oppressive. The wealth of culture and spiritual values that came in the wake of the conquests and by non-militant Muslim immigrants were relegated to the background, and the catalytic effects of Islamic institutions on the existing social and intellectual conditions were overlooked, the significance of their endeavors and contributions to synthesize Hindu and Muslim legacies were minimized, and the fact that it was the joint efforts of the Hindus and the Muslims that gave rise to one of the greatest civilizations of the world, was almost completely ignored ”.
Religious tolerance has been the hallmark of the culture of the Subcontinent. Setting aside the episodes of struggle for political power and even the ensuing brutalities at high levels, strife and agitation at ground level have been absent. Good features of life like love, sympathy, understanding, support, and sharing appear to have been pervading, brightening the bigger canvas. The overall picture that emerges from the pages of history is that the Subcontinent never digressed from its tradition of tolerance. To propagate otherwise, or to practice intolerance today, is to make a scar on the face of the subcontinent’s beautiful history.
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