FORCEFULL CONVERSION IN ISLAM BY VARIOS MUSLIM SULTANS SPECIALLY IN BENGAL, KASHMIR AND SINDH AND ALSO IN REST OF INDIA and roll of sufis in forcefull conversion

 

 

FORCEFULL CONVERSION  IN ISLAM BY VARIOS MUSLIM SULTANS SPECIALLY  IN BENGAL,  KASHMIR AND  SINDH AND  ALSO IN REST OF INDIA

This article is chiefly based on legacy of muslim rule in india by one of the  most respected historian of India    K S LAL

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S Lal Page 210 to 212

Punjab was always the first to bear the brunt of Muslim invasions directed against India, and Muslim invaders were keenly interested in making converts. In the first half of the fifteenth century the successors of Timur were holding parts of Punjab to ransom. Under the Mongol invaders too conversions used to take place on a large scale.70 Rebellions of Muslim adventurers were also creating anarchical conditions.71 During this period and after, therefore, the Muslim population of the Punjab swelled considerably mainly due to proselytization. Added to this were the large number of Afghans whom the Saiyyads and Lodis had called from across the Indus with a view to consolidating their position. Like in Punjab, in Sind also the rule of the Turkish Sultans and the pressure of the Mongols had combined to Islamise the northern parts. In southern Sind the Summas became Muslims and Hindus by turns, but ultimately they seem to have adopted Islam, and propagated the religion in their dominions.72 in Sind compulsory conversions to Mahometanism were not infrequent, the helpless Hindu being forcibly subjected to circumcision on slight or misconstructed profession, or the false testimony of abandoned Mahometans73 When Humayun took refuge in Sind (1541),74 Muslim population in its cities had grown considerably. There were Muslim kings in the Kashmir Valley from the middle of the fourteenth century. However, it was during the reign of Sikandar Butshikan (1394-1417) that the wind of Muslim proselytization blew the hardest. His bigotry prompted him to destroy all the most famous temples in Kashmir and offer the Kashmiris the usual choice between Islam and death. It is said that the fierce intolerance of Sikandar had left in Kashmir no more than eleven families of Brahmans.75 His contemporary, the Raja of Jammu, had been converted to Islam by Timur, by hopes, fears and threats.76 The kingdom of Gujarat was founded by Wajih-ul-Mulk, a converted Rajput in 1396. One of its famous rulers, Ahmad Shah (1411-1442) was responsible for many conversions. In 1414 he introduced the Jiziyah, and collected it with such strictness, that it brought a number of converts to Islam.77 Mahmud Begharas exertions (1458-1511) in the field of proselytization were more impressive.78 In Malwa there were large number of Muslims since the days of Khalji and Tughlaq sultans.79 These numbers went on growing during the rule of the independent Muslim rulers of Malwa, the Ghauris and Khaljis (1401-1562). The pattern of growth of Muslim population in Malwa was similar to that in the other regions but their harems were notoriously large, filled as they were with Hindu inmates.80 About the conversions in Bengal three statements, one each from Wolseley Haig, Dr. Wise and Duarte Barbosa, should suffice to assess the situation. Haig writes that it is evident, from the numerical superiority inEastern Bengal of the Muslims that at some period an immense wave of proselytization must have swept over the country and it is most probable that the period was THE PERIOD OF JALALUDDIN MUHAMMAD (CONVERTED SON OF HINDU RAJA GANESH) DURING WHOSE REIGN OF SEVENTEEN YEARS (1414-1431) HOSTS OF HINDUS ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN FORCIBLY CONVERTED TO ISLAM.81 WITH REGARD TO THESE CONVERSIONS, DR. WISE WRITES THAT THE ONLY CONDITION HE OFFERED WERE THE KORAN OR DEATH MANY HINDUS FLED TO KAMRUP AND THE JUNGLES OF ASSAM, but it is nevertheless probable that more Muhammadans were added to Islam during these seventeen years (1414-31) than in the next three hundred years.82 And Barbosa writes that It is obviously an advantage in the sixteenth century Bengal to be a Moor, in as much as the Hindus daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulers.83 The militant Mashaikh also found in Bengal a soil fertile for conversion, and worked hard to raise Muslim numbers.84 We may linger awhile in Bengal to have a clear picture of the spread of Islam through methods in which medieval Muslims took pleasure and pride while modern Muslims maintain a studied silence.85 The details of the conversion of Raja Ganesh bring out the importance of the role of force, of persuasion and of the Ulama and Sufis in proselytization. In 1409 Ra a Ganesh occupied the throne of Bengal and sought to establish his authority by getting rid of the prominent ulama and Sufis. 86 Qutb-ul-Alam Shaikh Nurul Haqq wrote to Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi to come and save the Muslims of Bengal. Ibrahim Sharqi responded to the call, and Raja Ganesh, finding himself too weak to face the challenge, appealed to Shaikh Nurul Haqq for help. The latter promised to intercede on his behalf if he became a Musalman. The helpless Raja was willing, but his wife refused to agree. Ultimately a compromise was made by the Raja offering to retire from the world and permitting his son, Jadu, to be converted and ascend his throne. On Jadu being converted and enthroned as Jalaluddin Shah, Shaikh Nurul Haqq induced Sultan Ibrahim to withdraw his armies.87 If a Raja of the stature of Ganesh could not face up to the Ulama and the Sufis, other Rajas and Zamindars were still worse placed. Petty Rajas and Zamindars were converted to Islam, with their wives and children, if they could not pay land revenue or tribute in time. Such practice appears to be common throughout the whole country as instances of it are found from Gujarat88 to Bengal.89

PROTEST OF BRAHMANS AGAINST MUSLIM TYRANNY  AND SUFIS LETTER TO MUSLIM  SULTANS TO DESTROY TEMPLE

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S Lal Page 213 to 214

Who could save the Hindus from extinction in such a scenario? Obviously, leaders of the society, the Brahmans. What the Brahmans as protectors of their culture achieved in those days, writes Wilhelm von Pochhammer, has never been properly recorded, probably because a considerable number of people belonging precisely to this class had been slaughtered. If success was achieved in preserving Hindu culture in the hell of the first few centuries, the credit undoubtedly goes to the Brahmans. They saw to it that not too many chose the cowardly way of getting converted and that the masses remained true to the holy traditions on which culture rested92 Muslim kings knew this and treated the Brahmans sternly, restricting their sphere of activity. 93 The Muslim Mashaikh were as keen on conversions as the Ulama, and contrary to general belief, in place of being kind to the Hindus as saints would, they too wished the Hindus to be accorded a second class citizenship if they were not converted. Only one instance, that of Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangoh, need be cited because he belonged to the Chishtia Silsila considered to be the most tolerant of all Sufi groups. He wrote letters to Sultan Sikandar Lodi,94 Babur95 and Humayun96 to re-invigorate the Shariat and reduce the Hindus to payers of land tax and Jiziyah. 97 To Babur he wrote, Extend utmost patronage and protection to theologians and mystics that they should be maintained and subsidized by the state No non-Muslim should be given any office or employment in the Diwan of Islam. Posts of Amirs and Amils should be barred to them. Furthermore, in confirmity with the principles of the Shariat they should be subjected to all types of indignities and humiliations. The non-Muslims should be made to pay Jiziyah, and Zakat on goods be levied as prescribed by the law. They should be disallowed from donning the dress of the Muslims and should be forced to keep their Kufr concealed and not to perform the ceremonies of their Kufr openly and freely They should not be allowed to consider themselves equal to the Muslims. He went from Shahabad to Nakhna where Sultan Sikandar was encamping. His mission was to personally remind the Sultan of the kingly duties and exert his influence over him and his nobles. He also wrote letters to Mir Muhammad, Mir Tardi, Ibrahim Khan Sherwani, Said Khan Sherwani, Khawas Khan and Dilawar Khan, making frantic appeals to them to live up to the ideals of Islam, to zealously uphold and strictly enforce the Shariat and extend patronage to the Ulama and the Mashaikh.98 Such communications and advices did not go in vain. Contemporary and later chroniclers relate how Sikandar Lodi destroyed idols of Hindu gods and goddesses, and gave their pieces to Muslim butchers for use as meat-weights. Even as a prince he had expressed a desire to put an end to the Hindu bathing festival at Kurukshetra (Thanesar). Subsequently, he ordered that the Hindus, who had assembled there on the occasion of the solar eclipse be massacred in cold blood, but later on stayed his hand. In Mathura and other places he turned temples into mosques, and established Muslim sarais, colleges and bazars in the Hindu places of worship. The list of his atrocities is endless.99 Babur inherited his religious policy from the Lodis. Sikandar Lodis fanaticism must have been still remembered by some of the officials who continued to serve under Babur (who) was content to govern India in the orthodox fashion.10

MUSLIM  SULTANS IMPOSED FIFTY PERCENT TAX OF TOTAL INCOME TO HINDUS  SO  CONDITION OF ZAMIDARS AND KISANS BECAME DEPLORABLE RESULTING MANY CONVERTED DUE TO POVERTY AND HUNGER

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S Lal Page 231 to 234

We shall discuss about the tyranny of this department a little later; suffice it here to say that in Alauddins time, besides being oppressed by such a grinding taxstructure, the peasant was compelled to sell every maund of his surplus grain at government controlled rates for replenishing royal grain stores which the Sultan had ordered to be built in order to sustain his Market Control.22 After Alauddins death (C.E. 1316) most of his measures seem to have fallen into disuse, but the peasants got no relief, because Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq who came to the throne four years later (C.E. 1320) continued the atrocious practice of Alauddin. He also ordered that there should be left only so much to the Hindus that neither, on the one hand, they should become arrogant on account of their wealth, nor, on the other, desert their lands in despair. 23 In the time of Muhammad bin Tughlaq even this latter fear turned out to be true. The Sultans enhancement of taxation went even beyond the lower limits of bare subsistence. For the people left their fields and fled. This enraged the Sultan and he hunted them down like wild beasts.24 Still conditions did not become unbearable all at once. Natures bounty to some extent compensated for the cruelty of the king. If the regime was extortionist, heavy rains sometimes helped in bumper production. Babur noted that Indias crops are all rain grown. Shams Siraj Afif writes that when, during the monsoon season, there were spells of heavy rains, Sultan Firoz Tughlaq appointed officers to examine the banks of all the water courses and report how far the inundations had extended. If he was informed that large tracts had been made fertile by the spread of waters, he was overwhelmed with joy. But if any village went to ruin (on account of floods), he treated its officials with great severity. 28 But the basic policy of impoverishing the people, resulted in crippling of agricultural economy. By the Mughal period the condition of the peasantry became miserable; if there was any progress it was in the enhancement of taxation. According to W.H. Moreland, who has made a special study of the agrarian system of Mughal India, the basic object of the Mughal administration was to obtain the revenue on an ever-ascending scale. The share that could be taken out of the peasant's produce without destroying his chances of survival was probably a matter of common knowledge in eachlocality. In Akbars time, in Kashmir, the state demand was one-third, but in reality it came to two-thirds.29 The Jagirdars in Thatta (Sindh) did not take more than half. In Gujarat, according to Geleynsen who wrote in 1629, the peasant was made to part with three-quarters of his harvest. Similar is the testimony of De Laet, Fryer and Van Twist.30 During Akbars reign, says Abul Fazl, evil hearted officers because of sheer greed, used to proceed to villages and mahals and sack them.31 Conditions became intolerable by the time of Shahjahan when, according to Manucci, peasants were compelled to sell their women and children to meet the revenue demand.32 Manrique writes that the peasants were carried off to various markets and fairs, (to be sold) with their poor unhappy wives behind them carrying their small children all crying and lamenting33 Bernier too affirms that the unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children, who were carried away as slaves.34 Here was also confirmation, if not actually the beginning, of the practice of bonded labour in India. In these circumstances the peasant had little interest in cultivating the land. Bernier observes that as the ground is seldom tilled otherwise than by compulsion the whole country is badly cultivated, and a great part rendered unproductive The peasant cannot avoid asking himself this question: Why should I toil for a tyrant who may come tomorrow and lay his rapacious hands upon all I possess and value without leaving me the means (even) to drag my own miserable existence? - The Timariots (Timurids), Governors and Revenue contractors, on their part reason in this manner: Why should the neglected state of this land create uneasiness in our minds, and why should we expend our own money and time to render it fruitful? We may be deprived of it in a single moment Let us draw from the soil all the money we can, though the peasant should starve or abscond35 The situation made the tax-gatherer callous and exploitative on the one hand and the peasant fatalistic and disinterested on the other. The result, in Berniers own words, was that most towns in Hindustan are made up of earth, mud, and other wretched material; that there is no city or town (that) does not bear evident marks of approaching decay. 36 Wherever Muslim despots ruled, ruin followed, so that, writes he, similar is the present condition of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Palestine, the once wonderful plain of Antiochand so many other regions anciently well cultivated, fertile and populous, but now desolate Egypt also exhibits a sad picture 37 To revert to the Mughal empire. An important order in the reign of Aurangzeb describes the Jagirdars as demanding in theory only half but in practice actually more than the total yield.38 Describing the conditions of the latter part of the seventeenth century Mughal empire, Dr. Tara Chand writes: The desire of the State was to extract the economic rent, so that nothing but bare subsistence. remained for the peasant. Aurangzebs instructions were that there shall be left for everyone who cultivates his land as much as he requires for his own support till the next crop be reaped and that of his family and for seed. This much shall be left to him, what remains is land tax, and shall go to the public treasury. 39

TAX  MAFI  AND REWARDTO RAJAS AND KISANS WHO CONVERTED IN ISLAM

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S Lal Page 235 to 236

Collection of Arrears We have earlier referred to the problem of collection of arrears. When agriculture was almost entirely dependent on rainfall and land tax was uniformally high, it was not possible for the peasants to pay their revenue regularly and keep their accounts ever straight with the government. The revenue used to fall into arrears. From the study of contemporary sources it is almost certain that there were hardly any remissions - even against conversion to Islam. MUSLIM RULERS WERE VERY KEEN ON PROSELYTIZATION. SULTAN FIROZ TUGHLAQ RESCINDED JIZIYAH FOR THOSE WHO BECAME MUHAMMADAN.41 Sometimes he also instructed his revenue collectors to accept conversions in lieu of Kharaj. 42 RAJAS AND ZAMINDARS WHO COULD NOT DEPOSIT LAND REVENUE OR TRIBUTE IN TIME HAD TO CONVERT TO ISLAM.43 Bengal and Gujarat provide specific instances which go to show that SUCH RULES PREVAILED THROUGHOUT THE MUSLIM-RULED REGIONS.44 But remissions of Kharaj were not allowed. On the other hand arrears went on accumulating and the kings tried to collect them with the utmost rigour. In the Sultanate period there was a full-fledged department by the name of the Diwan-iMustakharaj. The work of this department was to inquire into the arrears lying in the names of collectors (Amils and Karkuns) and force them to realize the balances in full.45 Such was the strictness in the Sultanate period. Under the Mughals arrears were collected with equal harshness. The system then existing shows that the peasants were probably never relieved of the burden of arrears. In practice it could hardly have been possible always to collect the entire amounts and the balance was generally put forward to be collected along with the demand of the next year. A bad year, therefore, might leave an intolerable burden for the peasants in the shape of such arrears. These had a natural tendency to grow It also seems to have been a common practice to demand the arrears, owed by peasants who had fled or died, from their neighbour. And peasants who could not pay revenue or arrears frequently became predial slaves.46 In short, between the thirteenth century when armies had to march to collect the revenue,47 and the seventeenth century when peasants were running away from the land because of the extortions of the state, no satisfactory principle of assessment or collection except extortion could be discovered. The situation became definitely worse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as attested to by contemporary historians Jean Law and Ghulam Hussain. It is this general and continued stringency that was the legacy of the Mughal empire and the Indian Muslim states which continued under the British Raj.

PROMOTING  MUSLIMS  AND OPRRESING HINDUS AND  DOING FORCEFULL CONVERSION

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S LalPage Page  82

Muhammad KASIM now marched to Brahmanabad.17 On the way a number of garrisons in forts challenged his army, delaying his arrival in Brahmanabad. The civil population, as usual, longed for peace and let the Muslims enter the city. Consequently, it was spared, but Qasim sat on the seat of cruelty and put all those who had fought to the sword. It is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but according to others sixteen thousand were killed.18 Continuing his ravaging march northward, he proceeded to Multan, the chief city of the upper Indus with its famous Temple of Sun. Multan was ravaged and its treasures rifled. During his campaigns Muhammad bin Qasim concentrated on collecting the maximum wealth possible as he had to honour the promise he and his patron Hajjaj had made to the Caliph to reimburse to the latter the expenses incurred on the expedition. Besides the treasure collected from the various forts of the Sindhi King, freedom of worship to the Hindus could bring wealth in the form of pilgrim tax, jiziyah and other similar cesses. Hence, the temple of Brahmanabad was permitted to be rebuilt and old customs of worship allowed.19 In Multan also temple worship more or less went on as before. The expenses of the campaign had come to 60 thousand silver dirhams. Hajjaj paid to the Caliph double the amount - 120 thousand dirhams. 20 Muhammad bin Qasim set about organising the administration of the conquered lands like this. The principal sources of revenue were the jiziyah and the land-tax. The Chachnama speaks of other taxes levied upon the cultivators such as the baj and ushari. The collection of jiziyah was considered a political as well as a religious duty, and was always exacted with vigour and punctuality, and frequently with insult. The native population had to feed every Muslim traveller for three days and nights and had to submit to many other humiliations which are mentioned by Muslim historians.21

JIZYA IN MUSLIM RULE

Legacy of muslim rule in india by K S Lal Page 47

HINDU SHOULD BE HUMILATED DURING GIVING JAJIA MUSLIM SHOULD SPIT IN THEIR MOUTH DURING COLLECTING OF JIZYA AND IMPOSTION JAZIA BY MOHAMMAD KISIM

And here is Maulana Ziyauddin Barani. He writes: What is our defence of the faith, cried Sultan Jalaluddin Khalji, that we suffer these Hindus, who are the greatest enemies of God and of the religion of Mustafa, to live in comfort and do not flow streams of their blood.3 And again, Qazi Mughisuddin explained the legal status of the Zimmis (non-Muslims) in an Islamic state to Sultan Alauddin: The Hindu should pay the taxes with meekness and humility coupled with the utmost respect and free from all reluctance. Should the collector choose to spit in his mouth, he should open the same without hesitation, so that the official may spit into it The purport of this extreme meekness and humility on his part is to show the extreme submissiveness incumbent upon the Zimmis. God Almighty Himself (in the Quran) commands their complete degradation4 in as much as these Hindus are the deadliest foes of the true prophet: Mustafa has given orders regarding the slaying, plundering and imprisoning of them, ordaining that they must either follow the true faith, or else be slain or imprisoned, and have all their wealth and property confiscated.5

Rate of  jajiya

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In contrast to the Muslim bourgeoisie, the life of the Hindu middle classes was different in many ways. They lived under the Muslim theocratic regime and paid the poll tax Jiziyah incumbent upon the non-Muslims. There were three rates of Jiziyah, 40, 20 and 10 tankahs imposed on three classes or income groups - the high, the middle and the low. 21 This in itself is a proof of the existence of a middle class among the Hindus. If Akbar abolished this tax, Aurangzeb reimposed it and the Hindu middle class paid the Jaziyah at the middle rate, or probably the high, for all through the medieval period they possess almost exclusively the trade and the wealth of the country. 22 Pelsaerts description of the Hindu middle class is apt and elaborate. He writes: First there are the leading merchants and jewellers, and they are most able and expert in their business. Next there are the workmen, for practically all work is done by Hindus, the Moslems practising scarcely any crafts but dyeing and weaving Thirdly there are the clerks and brokers: all the business of the lords palaces and of the Muslim merchants is done by Hindus - book-keeping, buying and selling. They are particularly clever brokers, and are consequently generally employed as such throughout all these countries.23

MURDUR OF RAJPUTS AND BRAHMANS WHEN THEY CAME AGAIN IN HINDU FAITH

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S Lalpage 21

During the reign of Firoz himself the Hindu governor of Uchch was killed. He was falsely accused of expressing affirmation in Islam and then recanting.40 In the time of Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517) a Brahman of Kaner in Sambhal was similarly punished with death for committing the crime of declaring as much as that Islam was true, but his own religion was also true.41

LEGACY OF MUSLIM RULE IN INDIA  BY  K S Lalpage 46

As an example, the language of some contemporary chroniclers may be quoted as samples. Nawasa Shah was a scion of the Hindu Shahiya dynasty and was converted to Islam by Mahmud of Ghazni. Such conversions were common. But return to ones original religion was considered apostasy punishable with death. Al Utbi, the author of Tarikh-i-Yamini, writes how Sultan Mahmud punished Nawasa Shah: Satan had got the better of Nawasa Shah, for he was again apostatizing towards the pit of plural worship, and had thrown off the slough of Islam, and held conversation with the chiefs of idolatry respecting the casting off the firm rope of religion from his neck. So the Sultan went swifter than the wind in that direction, and made the sword reek with the blood of his enemies. He turned Nawasa Shah out of his government, took possession of all the treasures which he had accumulated, re-assumed the government, and then cut down the harvest of idolatry with the sickle of his sword and spear. After God had granted him this and the previous victory, which were tried witnesses as to his exalted state and proselytism, he returned without difficulty to Ghazna