INDIA
"On the evidence of Baladhuri's account of the conquest of Sind, there were certainly massacres in the towns of Sind when the Arabs first arrived..."C.E. Bosworth
The Muslim conquest of Sind was masterminded by Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq, and effected by his commander Muhammad b. Qasim in 712 A.D. Qasim's instructions were to "bring destruction on the unbelievers...[and] to invite and induce the infidels to accept the true creed, and belief in the unity of God... and whoever does not submit to Islam, treat him harshly and cause injury to him till he submits."
After the capture of the port of Debal, the Muslim army took three days to slaughter the inhabitants, but thereafter Qasim is more tolerant allowing many to continue their professions and practise their religion. This is not acceptable to Hajjaj, who, on receiving Qsaim's report of his victory, wrote back :"My dear cousin, I have received your life -augmenting letter. On its receipt my gladness and joy knew no bounds. It increased my pride and glory to the highest degree. It appears from your letter that all the rules made by you for the comfort and convenience of your men are strictly in accordance with religious law. But the way of granting pardon prescribed by the law is different from the one adopted by you, for you go on giving pardon to everybody, high or low, without any discretion between a friend and a foe. The great God says in the Koran [xlvii.4]: O True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads. "The above command of the Great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else all will consider you a weak-minded man. Concluded with compliments. Written by Nafia in the year ninety three." Later, Hajjaj returns to the same theme: "My distinct orders are that all those who are fighting men should be assassinated, and their sons and daughters imprisoned and retained as hostages." Obedient to a fault, Qasim, on his arrival at the town of Brahminabad, "ordered all the men belonging to the military classes to be beheaded with swords. It is said that about 6000 fighting men were massacred on this occasion, some say 16000. The rest were pardoned."
05.04
MAHMUD OF GHAZNI (969 -The real conquest of India by the Muslims dates from the beginning of the 11th century. In 1000 A.D., the head of a Turco- Afghan dynasty, Mahmud of Ghazni first passed through India like a whirlwind, destroying, pillaging and massacring, all of which he justified by constant references to the Koranic injunctions to kill idolaters, whom he had vowed to chastise every year of his life. As Vincent Smith put it, "Mahmud was a zealous Muslim of the ferocious type then prevalent, who felt it to be a duty as well as pleasure to slay idolaters. He was also greedy of treasure and took good care to derive a handsome profit from his holy wars." In the course of seventeen invasions, in the words of Alberuni the scholar brought by Mahmud to India,: "Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims." Mahmud began by capturing King Jaipal in the Punjab, then invaded Multan in 1004. On conquering the district of Ghur, he forcibly converted the inhabitants to Islam. Mahmud accumulated vast amounts of plunder from the Hindu temples he desecrated, such as that of Kangra. "Mathura, the holy city of Krishna, was the next victim. 'In the middle of the city there was a temple larger and finer than the rest, which can neither be described nor painted'. The Sultan [Mahmud] was of the opinion that 200 years would have been required to build it. The idols included 'five of red gold, each five yards high', with eyes formed of priceless jewels. 'The Sultan gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire, and leveled with the ground. 'Thus perished works of art which must have been among the noblest monuments of ancient India." [VA Smith 207] At the battle of Somnath, the site of another celebrated Hindu temple, 50000 were killed as Mahmud assuaged his lust for booty.
Mahmud was equally ferocious with those whom he considered heretics such as Dawud of Multan. In 1010, Mahmud invaded Dawud 's kingdom and slaughtered a great number of his heretical subjects. While Muslim historians see him as one of the glories of Islam, in reality, Mahmud was little more than an avaricious bandit undeserving of admiration.
FRUZ SHAH
In 1351, Firuz Shah ascended the throne and became ruler of the North of India. Though in many ways an enlightened man, when it came to religion was a bigot of the first order. He is said to have made "the laws of the Prophet his guide." He indulged in wholesale slave -raiding, and is said to have had 180000 slaves in his city, all of whom "became Muslims." But, as Vincent Smith says, he could be most savage when his religious zeal was roused. He seized a number of Shias, some he executed, others he lectured, and their books he burnt. He caused the ulama to kill a man who claimed to be the Mahdi, "and for this good action", he wrote, "I hope to receive future reward." He went to visit a village where a Hindu religious fair was being held, which was even attended by some "graceless Musalmans." He wrote: "I ordered that the leaders of these people and the promoters of this abomination should be put to death. I forbade the infliction of any severe punishment on the Hindus in general, but I destroyed their idol temples and instead thereof raised mosques." Later a Brahman who had practised his rites in public was burnt alive. Firuz Shah was simply carrying on the tradition of the early Muslim invaders, and he sincerely believed "that he served God by treating as a capital crime the public practice of their religion by the vast majority of his subjects [i.e.Hindus]." Firuz Shah also bribed a vast number of Hindus into embracing Islam, by exempting those who converted from the jizya or poll-tax, which was otherwise rigorously enforced, even on Firuz Shah, when due allowance is made for his surroundings and education, could not have escaped from the theory and practice of religious intolerance. It was not possible for him to rise, as Akbar did, to the conception that the ruler of Hindustan should cherish all his subjects alike, whether Muslim or Hindu, and allow every man absolute freedom, not only of conscience but of public worship. The Muslims of the fourteenth century were still dominated by the ideas current in the early days of Islam, and were convinced that the tolerance of idolatry was a sin."
AKBAR THE GREAT (1542-1605)
It is significant and ironical that the most tolerant of all the Muslim rulers in the history of India was also the one who moved farthest away from orthodox Islam, and in the end rejected it for an eclectic religion of his own devising. Akbar abolished the taxes on Hindu pilgrims at Muttra, and remitted the jizya or poll tax on non-Muslims. Akbar had early shown an interest in religions other than the rigid Islam he had grown up in. Under the influence of freethinkers at his court like Abul Fazl, and Muslim and Hindu mysticism, Akbar developed his interest in comparative religion to the extent of building a special "house of worship "in which to hold religious discussions. At first, the discussions were restricted to Muslim divines, who thoroughly disgraced themselves in their childish behaviour. Akbar was profoundly disgusted, for their comportment seemed to cast doubt on Islam itself. Now Akbar decided to include Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, and eventually three Jesuit fathers from the Portuguese colony of Goa. The Jesuit fathers were treated with the utmost respect; Akbar even kissed the Bible and other Christian holy images -- something totally revolting to an orthodox Muslim. One of the Jesuits became a tutor to Akbar's son. There were further acts that alarmed and angered the Muslims. First, Akbar proclaimed the Infallibility decree, which authorized the emperor to decide with binding authority any question concerning the Muslim religion, provided the ruling should be in accordance with some verse of the Koran. Second, Akbar again scandalised the Muslims by displacing the regular preacher at the mosque, and himself mounting the pulpit, reciting verses composed by Faizi,the brother of the freethinking Abul Fazl. The Muslim chiefs in the Bengal now considered Akbar an apostate, and rose up in revolt against him. When the rebellion was crushed, Akbar felt totally free to do what he wanted. And, in the words of V. Smith, "He promptly took advantage of his freedom by publicly showing his contempt and dislike for the Muslim religion, and by formally promulgating a new political creed of his own, adherence to which involved the solemn renunciation of Islam." Akbar rejected the Muslim chronology, establishing a new one starting from his accession. He further outraged the Muslims by issuing coins with the ambiguous phrase "Allahu Akbar", a frequent religious invocation known as the Takbir, which normally means "God is Great"(akbar = great), but since Akbar is also the emperor's name,"Allahu Akbar" could also mean "Akbar is God." Akbar 's aim throughout his reign was to abate hostility towards Hindus, and his own vague religion was "a conscious effort to seem to represent all his people." He adopted Hindu and Parsee (Zoroastrian) festivals and practices. Thus it is not surprising that"his conduct at different times justified Christians, Hindus, Jains, and Parsis [Parsees] in severally claiming him as one of themselves." Akbar's driving principle was universal toleration, and all the Hindus, Christians, Jains and Parsees enjoyed full liberty of conscience and of public worship. He married Hindu princesses, abolished pilgrim dues, and employed Hindus in high office. The Hindu princesses were even allowed to practise their own religious rites inside the palace. "No pressure was put on the princes of Amber, Marwar, or Bikaner to adopt Islam, and they were freely entrusted with the highest military commands and the most responsible administrative offices. That was an entirely new departure, due to Akbar himself..."
AURANGZEB (1618-1707)
Akbar's great grandson, Aurangzeb, was, in total contrast, a Muslim puritan, who wished to turn his empire into a land of orthodox Sunni Islam, ruled in accordance with the principles laid down by the early Caliphs. Once again, we enter the world of Islamic intolerance -- temples are destroyed (during the campaigns of 1679_80, at Udaipur 123 were destroyed, at Chitor sixty-three; at Jaipur sixty-six); and non -Muslims become second class citizens in their own country. The imperial bigot, to use Smith's phrase, reimposed the "hated jizya, or polltax on non-Muslims, which Akbar had wisely abolished early in his reign." Aurangzeb's aim was to curb the infidels and demonstrate the "distinction between a land of Islam and a land of unbelievers." "To most Hindus Akbar is one of the greatest of the Muslim emperors of India and Aurangzeb one of the worst; to many Muslims the opposite is the case. To an outsider there can be little doubt that Akbar's way was the right one.... Akbar disrupted the Muslim community by recognising that India is not an Islamic country: Aurangzeb disrupted India by behaving as though it were." [Gascoigne 227]
BUDDHISM AND BUDDHISTS
"Between 1000 and 1200 Buddhism disappeared from India, through the combined effects of its own weaknesses, a revived Hinduism and Mohammedan persecution" Edward Conze [117] "[Buddhism in India] declined after Moslem conquest of Sindh, A.D. 712, and finally suppressed by Moslem persecution A.D.1200 " Christmas Humphreys
"It is partly, no doubt, because of the furor islamicus that post-Gupta remains are surprisingly few in Bihar..." J.C.Harle [199]
Qutb ud din Aibak, described as "merciless and fanatical", sent his general, Muhammad Khilji, to the northern state of Bihar to continue the Muslim conquests that began in late 12th century. Buddhism was the main religion of Bihar. In 1193,the Muslim general, considering them all idolaters, put most of the Buddhist monks to the sword, and a great library was destroyed. "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 civilisation of India were irretrievably wrecked in the course of the early Muslim 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.."
The Muslim conquests of Central Asia also put an end to its Buddhist art. As early as the 8th century, the monasteries of Kizil were destroyed by the Muslim ruler of Kashgar, and as Benjamin Rowland says, "by the tenth century only the easternmost reaches of Turkestan had escaped the rising tide of Mohammedan conquest. "The full tragedy of these devastations is brought out by the words of Rowland: "The ravages of the Mongols, and the mortifying hand of Islam that has caused so many cultures to wither for ever, aided by the process of nature, completely stopped the life of what must for a period of centuries have been one of the regions of the earth most gifted in art and religion."
