The Legacy of Jihad in India
Dr. Andrew Bostom
2005/7/14
The phenomenon of modern
Islamic terrorism has forged an inchoate strategic alliance between the Israeli
and Indian governments, while heightening the awareness of a common threat—the
institution of jihad—among the civilian populations of these nations.
Rarely understood, let
alone acknowledged, however, is the history of brutal jihad conquest, Muslim
colonization, and the imposition of dhimmitude shared by the Jews of historical
Palestine, and the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent. Moreover, both peoples and
nations also have in common, a subsequent, albeit much briefer British colonial
legacy, which despite its own abuses, abrogated the system of dhimmitude
(permanently for Israel and India, if not, sadly, for their contemporary Muslim
neighboring states), and created the nascent institutions upon which thriving
democratic societies have been constructed. Sir Jadunath Sarkar (d. 1958), the
preeminent historian of Mughal India, wrote with admiration in 1950 of what the
Jews of Palestine had accomplished once liberated from the yoke of dhimmitude.
The implication was clear that he harbored similar hopes for his own people.
Palestine, the holy
land of the Jews, Christians and Islamites, had been turned into a desert
haunted by ignorant poor diseased vermin rather than by human beings, as the
result of six centuries of Muslim rule. (See Kinglake's graphic description).
Today Jewish rule has made this desert bloom into a garden, miles of sandy
waste have been turned into smiling orchards of orange and citron, the
chemical resources of the Dead Sea are being extracted and sold, and all the
amenities of the modern civilised life have been made available in this little
Oriental country. Wise Arabs are eager to go there from the countries ruled by
the Shariat. This is the lesson for the living history. [1]
Earlier, I reviewed
at length the legacy of Muslim jihad conquest and imposition of the Shari’a in
historical Palestine. The current essay provides a schematic overview of the
same phenomena in India, focusing on the major periods of Muslim conquest,
colonization, and rule.
A Millennium of
Jihad and Dhimmitude on the Indian Subcontinent
The 570 year period
between the initial Arab Muslim razzias (ordered by Caliph Umar) to
pillage Thana (on the West Indian coast near Maharashtra) in 636-637 C.E., and
the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate (under Qutub-ud-din Aibak, a Turkish
slave soldier), can be divided into four major epochs: (I) the conflict between
the Arab invaders and the (primarily) Hindu resisters on the Western coast of
India from 636-713 C.E.; (II) the Arab and Turkish Muslim onslaughts against the
kingdom of Hindu Afghanistan during 636-870 C.E.; (III) repeated Turkish efforts
to subdue the Punjab from 870 C.E. to 1030 C.E. C.E. highlighted by the
devastating campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni (from 1000- 1030 C.E.); and finally
(IV) Muhammad Ghauri’s conquest of northwestern India and the Gangetic valley
between 1175 and 1206 C.E. [2]
This summary chronology
necessarily overlooks the very determined and successful resistance that was
offered by the Hindus to both the Arab (in particular) and Turkish invaders, for
almost four centuries. For example, despite the rapidity of Mahmud of Ghazni’s
conquests—spurred by shock-tactics and the religious zealotry of Islamic
jihad—his successors, for almost 150 years, could not extend their domain
beyond the Punjab frontiers. Even after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate
(1206-1526), and the later Mughal Empire (1526-1707), Muslim rulers failed to
Islamize large swaths of Indian territory, and most of the populace. [3] The
first Mughal Emperor, Babur (1483-1530), made these relevant observations upon
establishing his rule in India: [4]
[Hindustan] is a
different world…once the water of Sindh is crossed, everything is in the
Hindustan way- land, water, tree, rock, people, and horde, opinion and
custom…Most of the inhabitants of Hindustan are pagans; they call a pagan a
Hindu.
Buddhist civilization
within India, in stark contrast, proved far less resilient. Vincent Smith has
described the devastating impact of the late 12th century jihad razzias
against the Buddhist communities of northern India, centered around Bihar, based
on Muslim sources, exclusively: [5]
The Muhammadan
historian, indifferent to distinctions among idolators, states that the
majority of the inhabitants were “clean shaven Brahmans”, who were all put
to the sword. He evidently means Buddhist monks, as he was informed that the
whole city and fortress were considered to be a college, which the name Bihar
signifies. A great library was scattered. When the victors desired to know
what the books might be no man capable of explaining their contents had been
left alive. No doubt everything was burnt. The multitude of images used in
Medieval Buddhist worship always inflamed the fanaticism of Muslim warriors to
such fury that no quarter was given to the idolators. The ashes of the
Buddhist sanctuaries at Sarnath near Benares still bear witness to the rage of
the image breakers. Many noble monuments of the ancient civilization of India
were irretrievably wrecked in the course of the early Muhammadan invasions.
Those invasions were fatal to the existence of Buddhism as an organized
religion in northern India, where its strength resided chiefly in Bihar and
certain adjoining territories. The monks who escaped massacre fled, and were
scattered over Nepal, Tibet, and the south. After A.D. 1200 the traces of
Buddhism in upper India are faint and obscure.
Three major waves of
jihad campaigns (exclusive of the jihad conquest of Afghanistan) which
succeeded, ultimately, in establishing a permanent Muslim dominion within India,
i.e., the Delhi Sultanate, are summarized in the following discussion. The
imposition of dhimmitude upon the vanquished Hindu populations is also
characterized, in brief.
The Muslim chroniclers
al-Baladhuri (in Kitab Futuh al-Buldan) and al-Kufi (in the Chachnama) include
enough isolated details to establish the overall nature of the conquest of Sindh
by Muhammad b. Qasim in 712 C.E. [6] These narratives, and the processes they
describe, make clear that the Arab invaders intended from the outset to Islamize
Sindh by conquest, colonization, and local conversion. Baladhuri, for example,
records that following the capture of Debal, Muhammad b. Qasim earmarked a
section of the city exclusively for Muslims, constructed a mosque, and
established four thousand colonists there. [7] The conquest of Debal had been a
brutal affair, as summarized from the Muslim sources by Majumdar. [8]
Despite appeals for mercy
from the besieged Indians (who opened their gates after the Muslims scaled the
fort walls), Muhammad b. Qasim declared that he had no orders (i.e., from his
superior al-Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq) to spare the inhabitants, and thus for
three days a ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter ensued. In the aftermath, the
local temple was defiled, and “700 beautiful females who had sought for
shelter there, were all captured”. The capture of Raor was accompanied by a
similar tragic outcome. [9]
Muhammad massacred 6000
fighting men who were found in the fort, and their followers and dependents,
as well as their women and children were taken prisoners. Sixty thousand
slaves, including 30 young ladies of royal blood, were sent to Hajjaj, along
with the head of Dahar [the Hindu ruler]. We can now well understand why the
capture of a fort by the Muslim forces was followed by the terrible jauhar
ceremony (in which females threw themselves in fire kindled by themselves),
the earliest recorded instance of which is found in the Chachnama.
Practical, expedient
considerations lead Muhammad to desist from carrying out the strict injunctions
of Islamic Law [10] and the wishes of al-Hajjaj [11] by massacring the (pagan)
infidel Hindus of Sindh. Instead, he imposed upon the vanquished Hindus the jizya
and associated restrictive regulations of dhimmitude. As a result, the Chachnama
records, “some [Hindus] resolved to live in their native land, but others
took flight in order to maintain the faith of their ancestors, and their horses,
domestics, and other property” [12] Thus a lasting pattern was set that would
persist, as noted by Majumdar, until the Mughal Empire collapsed at the end of
Aurangzeb’s reign (in 1707), [13]
…of Muslim policy
towards the subject Hindus in subsequent ages. Something no doubt depended
upon individual rulers; some of them adopted a more liberal, others a more
cruel and intolerant attitude. But on the whole the framework remained intact,
for it was based on the fundamental principle of Islamic theocracy. It
recognized only one faith, one people, and one supreme authority, acting as
the head of a religious trust. The Hindus, being infidels or non-believers,
could not claim the full rights of citizens. At the very best, they could be
tolerated as dhimmis, an insulting title which connoted political
inferiority…The Islamic State regarded all non-Muslims as enemies, to curb
whose growth in power was conceived to be its main interest. The ideal
preached by even high officials was to exterminate them totally, but in actual
practice they seem to have followed an alternative laid down in the Qur’an
[i.e., Q9:29] which calls upon Muslims to fight the unbelievers till they pay
the jizya with due humility. This was the tax the Hindus had to pay
for permission to live in their ancestral homes under a Muslim ruler.
Mahmud of Ghazni,
according to the British historian Sir Henry Elliot, launched some seventeen
jihad campaigns into India between 1000 and his death in 1030 C.E. [14] Utbi,
Mahmud’s court historian, viewed these expeditions to India as a jihad to
propagate Islam and extirpate idolatry. [15] K.S. Lal illustrates this
religious zeal to Islamize by force, as manifested during a 23 year period
between 1000 and 1023 C.E.: [16]
In his first attack of
frontier towns in C.E. 1000 Mahmud appointed his own governors and converted
some inhabitants. In his attack on Waihind (Peshawar) in 1001-3, Mahmud is
reported to have captured the Hindu Shahiya King 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. 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.” In his campaign in the Kashmir Valley (1015) Mahmud
“converted many infidels to Muhammadanism, and having spread Islam in that
country, returned to Ghazni.” In the later campaign in Mathura, Baran and
Kanauj, again, many conversions took place. While describing “the conquest
of Kanauj,” Utbi sums up the situation thus: “The Sultan levelled to the
ground every fort… and the inhabitants of them either accepted Islam, or
took up arms against him.” In short, those who submitted were also converted
to Islam. In Baran (Bulandshahr) alone 10,000 persons were converted including
the Raja. During his fourteenth invasion in 1023 C.E. Kirat, Nur, Lohkot and
Lahore were attacked. The chief of Kirat accepted Islam, and many people
followed his example.
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