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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