Indian History – Myth, Reality, Propaganda

1. Hot Debates-The Ten Big Questions of Indian history

1. Aryan invasion or migration, in or out
2. Indus valley or Sindhu-Saraswati civilization
3. Dating of the Vedas, Upanishads and the Mahabharata War, (assumptions in linguistics, direction of linguistic spread from Hittite centre, calibration of rate of mutation against supposed historical conjectures)
4. Sects and identities (presence of sects implies absence of unifying superstructures? was there violent military confrontations between sects? were these sects recognized by the foreigners?)
5. Caste, its existence, nature and formation (was caste a reconstruction by Islam and colonialism? what is the estimate of caste strength in the absence of historical demographic data?)
6. Impact and the role of Islam (were the conversions voluntary? were the early Sufis moderates? were there atrocities? was there trauma? did Buddhism prepare the grounds? did Brahmanism exist and was responsible? how were social practices such as caste, marriage, attitude towards women, changed in interaction with Islam? was cultural destruction carried out? was Islam still a colonizer that drained resources towards its centre outside India? impact on economy? iconoclasm? does isolated stories imply general peaceful coexistence?)
7. Slavery (slavery under Islam, slavery as intimidation, slavery as politics and repression, slavery as economic drain, slavery under Mughals, slavery under Europeans)
8. Role of Europe (colonialism, Marxism, cold-war – dependent development, and monotheistic ambitions, contested claimants for freedom struggle heritage, partition, regional power base for a weak centre deliberately chosen by the British as successor, provincialism and post colonial discrimination,why did the Marxists fail – roots in frustrated minority extremism resulting from failure to mobilize muslim populations against the British, need to look for extra-national support and identification, failure to be a national force and hence alliance with centre, Naxal strands, regime dependent historiography, fear of the development of a culture based identity more resistant to the appeal of Marxism, Christianity, and Eurocentrism)
9. Fundamentalism or reaction against denial (reconstruction from minority-majority complex against fragmentation, reaction towards growth of religious fundamentalism in the Middle East and its impact on Kashmir, fear of a lack of strategic “protector” such as the USSR?)
10. Diaspora and the reconstruction of Hinduism as national identity (reaction against racism, and religious hatred or denigration?)

2. Ten Dogmas of Indian History to be challenged at peril of being declared Hindu Fanatic/Fascist

1. There has been only one massive traumatic and violent invasion in the history of the Indian subcontinent, that by the Vedic Aryans, who imposed their caste based hierarchical society on indigenous Indians. All subsequent cultures, ideologies, religions and ethnic groups settled in India through peaceful migrations mainly as pastoralists and traders
2. The Vedic Saraswati river flowed in modern Afghanistan, and most of the Sanskrit literature about supposedly historical events on the Indian subcontinent are myths or fanciful reconstructions of stories and events originating outside the subcontinent
3. The Vedic culture and Sanskrit language arrived with the Aryan invaders who either destroyed the prexisting native civilizations or came long after such civilizations had decayed.
4. Buddhism liberated Indian society from the evil of Brahminism and social stratification.
5. With one and only one exception, if writings by the elite at any period in India, flaunt descriptions of enslavement, rape, genocide, and repression on the subjugated, then such writings have to be classified and dismissed as fanciful and propaganda for self glorification. Similarly the absence of records of trauma at the hands of such elite by their alleged victims should also lead to immediate dismissal of elite claims. Specifically, all references and claims to iconoclasm and destruction of non-Muslim cultural and religious sites should be dismissed as propaganda as all non-muslim cultural and religious sites if ruined were ruined due to natural decaying factors and not by human hands. The only exception is to be applied to Brahmanical authors of legal, social and literary texts, and all their claims of violence and exploitation should be accepted as representing historical reality. Specifically all claims of caste based oppression should be accepted as true even in the absence of contemporary written records by the victims of such oppression. Only in this context literary and other texts such as the Mahabharata by Brahminical authors should be considered authentic and representing historical periods although in all other contexts they should be treated as myths, fantasies and collections of imaginative narratives collected over a very long period of time and from a large number of sources.
6. The existence of sects should imply non existence of a superstructure called Hinduism. However, for all other religions sects should be referred to as sects within the religion.
7. Islam spread through conversion in India only under the benign influence of the Sufis who were a very peaceful and tolerant group within Islam to come to India. They never indulged in force to attain their objectives and never showed any aggressive military or repressive tendencies in their conversion work.
8. Muslims who came to India from outside were mainly peaceful pastoralists and traders who came and settled peacefully. Since there are no contemporary records by non-Muslims of trauma at the hands of immigrating Muslims, all such claims of repression by Muslim chroniclers to be rejected outright as propaganda. The question of why such descriptions of repression should be so highly esteemed in a religion which is supposed to be a religion of peace, is to be immediately suppressed with a counter question implying that Islam is being sought to be attacked and whoever raises this question is a Hindu fanatic. Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultans and the Mughals to be represented as immensely beneficial to non-Muslim Indians, and the entire period to be represented as of tremendous economic development and cultural enrichment of non-Muslim Indians. Any representation of Sultanate and Mughal punitive taxation, enslavement and cultural destruction of non-Muslims if impossible to ignore or falsify, should be seen as having been requested by the non-Muslims themselves and being beneficial to them – as anything which does not come from the revealed religions is superstitious and backward. Single, individual written claims of instances of apparent collaboration and amity between Hindu’s and Muslims imply a society wide phenomenon, but single individual written claims of repression, enslavement or destruction if not falsifiable imply exceptional and not society-wide pehnomena.
9. All caste based repressions including repression of Dalits have existed for thousands of years even if no written evidence of such practices exist on the part of the victims. No part in this repression has been played by Muslims or British colonial administration. In particular, any evidence that colonialism converted dependency relations into that of debt-bondage relations should not be highlighted or if raised should be ignored.
10. India’s independence from colonialism was obtained only by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of M.K.Gandhi, and J.Nehru, and the only strategy that succeeded against the British was that of peaceful non-violent Satyagraha as formulated by M.K. Gandhi. No contribution to the decision by the British to transfer power to the INC was made by any other political force in the subcontinent.

References:

Slavery in India:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Slavery_in_India

Problems with the “historical method” as used in India

My skepticism about “professional historians” stems from concrete reading of papers by historians. I made it a point to gather the works of “eminent historians”, read and verify them. There are essentially two types, those who rely more on observational-experimental-quantitative techniques such as archaeology, say Bratindranath Mukherjee, who writes almost with mathematical precision in arguments about Central Asian connections to the Indian subcontinent for example, and distinguish between speculation and confirmed fact or stop short of venturing further when they feel that they will not be able to prove it conclusively. Unfortunately, the big majority, follow a distinctive pattern in their expositions :

(a) Raise some speculative conjectures about a historical situation or process (in terms of poor professional mathematicians – this is a conjecture) in the form of questions – “is it possible….”

(b) The preferred data purportedly to examine the questions raised should be in the form of narratives

(c) Select the narratives that appear to support the implied question in the affirmative

(d) Either remain silent about narratives that may not support or may even counter the questions of interest, or if already widely known, try to disparage its validity as reliable

(e) Do not state the assumptions or the exact logical steps by which you draw conclusions from the chosen narratives (this gives rise to a plethora of adjectives – typically qualitative and not comparable)

(f) Even if there is insufficient data to answer the speculations in the affirmative, construct a new narrative of interpretation where the questions are treated as self-justified answers.

I remember an example by Prof. Thapar, where she discusses the validity of the claims of Hindu-Muslim antagonism based on among others, a particular plaque apparently engraved in the early 2nd millennium CE. She uses one of the translation s given by Prof. Desai, who translated and compiled a significant amount of epigraphic records of the period, which she interprets as showing amicable and very friendly terms between local authorities and a Muslim merchant trading from the Persian Gulf. This was a dedication written in Sanskrit which records the deeds of purchase of land and construction of a mosque. I saw that the same volume she quoted from also contained a second translation, of a dual plaque, which was actually installed in the mosque and later removed from the Somnath temple site, engraved in Arabic. The same translator gives literal translations that explicitly spell out that the merchant praises his own Sultan back at home, and prays that the Sultan’s dominion and his true faith holds sway over these heathen lands in the near future.

What was the problem in discussing this plaque? Fear that it could provide disturbing motivations on the part of the amicable , no political religious ambition, “pure trader”? It could have been attacked as a forgery or questioned about reliability, and then in typical historian’s fashion, concluded that it was a forgery! Then arguments like – since “50000” slaughtered is repeated in many narratives, it was therefore “notional” and possibly a 0 too many, and therefore a 0 too many. Think of arguments like – well there are no existing, contemporary “reliable” accounts of atrocities on non-Muslims by the supposedly non-Muslim victims themselves, therefore, no atrocity ever took place in the historical period. Textual claims of enslavement, rape or slaughter by Muslims is an exaggeration undertaken for glorification purposes, etc. However, same arguments are not applicable to Brahminical texts, each of whose examples, incidents, or claims of repression should be interpreted as true and generally representative of a society wide or mass phenomenon. So that even if there are no contemporary historical records of “caste” based repression by the “victims”, in this particular case we have to make the exception that all claims of caste based repression by Brahminical authors should be taken as literal, and not as exaggeration or wishful thinking. Many trained or required to use logic professionally would feel uneasy with such subjective and opportunistic application of logic.

Historians do consciously or subconsciously take it upon themselves to use their historical reconstructions for political purposes – such as prevention of any contrary opinion to the Holocaust to publicly discussed. This automatically cancels notions of academic neutrality. In India for example any questions about historian’s interpretations would be dubbed a “Hindu right wing attack” and therefore “in the tradition of Nazism” and therefore to be suppressed immediately and at all costs. (But Hinduism never existed according to historians – it was a motley collection of sects continually and violently fighting with each other, with nothing in common – I sometimes wonder at what exact historical second in the modern period it suddenly took birth – and became right wing immediately – and how could it be “revivalist” if it never existed). Its not an exception but usually the general rule for historians according to my experience.

For Kuhn, the scientific community is “the sole judge and jury for the work produced by that same community”. They have their own peculiarities and their own histories which must be examined in order to overcome the academic isolation, ie. That “ethnocentric, even egocentric, illusion that nothing exists beyond the confines of the ivory tower of the School, of the field of knowledge, of the line of research or the research team and beyond that individual “ego”, as if everything outside the particular, and safe, field of activity were nothing more than discord, confusion, eclecticism, etc”. To the extent that the community of professional historians can be or want to be called a Kuhnian scientific community, I guess they do show also the intolerance of “outsiders” who have not gone through the filter of their establishment and therefore may not have the same ideological allegiances or commitments towards particular positions. The common tactic that I have seen is to try and silence the dissenting voices by not letting their voices be heard, ensuring that the “sole judge and jury” decides through who gets an academic position, who gets published, that undesirable voices get filtered out and delegitimized in the very old Church/priesthood style – which also claimed that only their interpretation of history and the natural world was the true one,  – people who had not been “ordained” in the proper way were essentially heretics and their words not reliable or trustworthy or with very suspicious motivations or “vested interests”.

Specific cases :

1. The strange case of amicable [how much amicable?!!]Hindu-Muslim trade relations as proof of general amity between the two communities:

In contrast to the so called “very friendly relations” that Indian merchants and princes apparently had with Arab Muslim traders in the early part of the Islamic invasions, based on a few references to “cordial meals” or dinners being given by a Arab merchant to his Indian counterpart at Hormuz, all references to any hostile behaviour including involvement of Islamic traders in military action against Indians are suppressed in the Thaparite literature. However the Prabandhachintamani describes explicitly how an Arab Muslim trader, Saida (Sayyad) had become so powerful as to initiate a naval fight against Vastupala, a minister of Chalukya state. It is interesting to note that the same story describes in great detail that the dispute arose at the port of Stambha (Cambay) and Saida called on an Indian ally Mahasadhanika Sanka from the port of Bhrgukachha (Broach). Harihara, who was associated with Vastupala and therefore a contemporary, [satisfies at least three of Thaparite criteria for acceptability of  textual sources – it is contemporary, it is from the “attacked side”, it is from a non-Muslim side which claims to have “repressed” a non-upper-caste-Hindu – as a only repression on “lower caste Hindus” by Hindus are acceptable as valid claims]  has written a play Sankhaparabhava Vyayoga, which claims ultimate victory of Vastupala. The fact that one “Hindu” helped Sayida against another would perhaps have been highlighted by the Thaparite School to prove the “extremely cordial relationship” between Indians and Muslim Arabs, had not this incident also involved proof of involvement of the Arab Muslim traders in direct military action against Indian states.

Trade over land route – Role of Islam

We see that exactly as the Islamic regime consolidated its power over the Middle East and expanded into Central Asia through its bulkhead in Persia, the penetration and reach of Indian merchants into Central Asia decreased, whereas the penetration of Muslim traders into India increased. We do not read of significant non-Muslim Indian settlements of traders in the lands conquered by the Arabs, and the Thaparites have managed to fish out only some references in the early Islamic period at Hormuz, and connected therefore with the sea-trade [these were possibly simply remnants of an earlier long-term trade relation between Nabateans and western-Indians]. If Islam was so liberal in encouraging commerce and trade with non-Muslims, why did all of a sudden non-Muslim Indian traders suddenly lose their interest in overland trade with areas newly converted to Islam? At the same time however the previously overland trade with China continued in volume and value with nearly equal participation in the transport of goods by India and China continued as before by shifting the greater bulk of the trade over the sea-route.  The  non-Hindu non-Indian traveller I-Tsing [Chavannes’s quotation] comments on how the Ta-shi interfered with travel on the road to Kapisha. The Arab control over the central Asian trade route passing through the “greater India” (Balkh-Bahlik Pradesh, Kabul/Zabul, Samarquand – this was captured only after a typical surprise Islamic military attack when the bulk of the male population was away in distant lands for trade, and the women and children were captured and used for bargaining for surrender and conversion to Islam – etc., ) was only completed in about 1022 C.E. That the Arabs were in the habit of severely restricting non-Muslim traders  is also testified to in their own chronicles [Biladuri] as well as in versions by Europeans [Pirene – Economic and Social history of Medievalal Europe-note that in this period they cannot yet be called fanatical anti-Islamic Hindu fascists since by the Thaparite School Hinduism was yet to be conjured from thin air and non-existent ideas by them as a colonial power].

Four cornered struggle between Arabs, Persia, China and Tibet for control of Central Asian trade and evidence for the Muslims gradually pushing out the non-Muslim traders

In the first half of 7th century exactly when Muhammad was consolidating his hold over the isolated oases in Northern Arabia, the Chinese empire virtually controlled all the area up to the borders of Persia [Yule, Cathay]. The intensification of this struggle seems to have peaked in 650-670 C.E.[Tsuh Chih, A short history of Chinese civilization.] There are indications that Kashmir at this period could be involved in a partnership with China to fight against the Arabs, the Tukharas, and Daradas and blocked the route to Tibet. [Indian Historical Quarterly, XXX, pp 89-92]. Chinese sources represent the Pallavas from South India as requesting Chinese aid against the Arabs and the Tibetans [K.A.N. Sashtri, Foreign Nations]. There have been questions about the real motivations behind this Chinese representation as to China’s priority on the threat from Tibet. However we do find these references as indicating a struggle with the rising power of the Arab Muslims trying to take over the trade routes through Central Asia and prevent non-Muslim traders from benefiting from this trade. A significant amount of trade also began now to pass over into sea-trade between East Asia and India, and alternative land routes through (1) Bengal, Assam, and upper Burma  (2) Bihar, Nepal, Tibet.[Chau ju kua, Chavannes, P.C.Bagchi -India and China, P.C.Choudhury – History of civilization of Assam].

The disbalance in the number of settlements of Muslim traders in India compared to “Hindu” traders in the Muslim world.

There are very few actual references to “Hindu” merchants being allowed to survive in areas dominated by Islam outside subcontinental India in this period. Muhammad Aufi [Elliott and Dowson] describes the case of a Hindu merchant called Wasa Abhir from Nahrwala who had trade agents at Gazni, and had property valued at one million rupees indicating that he was probably a top-league merchant. When Muizudin bin Sam was defeated by the Gujarat army after Muizuddin mounted an invasion into Gujarat, he was apparently advised to confiscate Wasa’s property at Gazni after his retreat back to Gazni. Muizuddin is supposed to have refused to follow this advice on grounds of justice. This story yields several interesting aspects. First, it does not show actual presence of Hindu Merchants in Islamic territories on a permanent basis but simply, agents, and material holdings probably as necessary components of trade. Second, it shows that they were subject to political arbitrariness as Muslims defeated in their jihads on hindu territories could in general satisfy their frustration by seizing on Hindu merchant’s properties or family. Third, the possibility of a practical motivation in the rulers of that time, that top-merchants from other nations and ideologies should not be harassed too much because of fear of potential loss of revenue. This last point in its turn could also be applied to the so-called patronization of Muslims by the Rashtrakutas or other Hindu rulers on the west coast of India – that such protection of merchants need not automatically imply non-existence of general hostilities between the two regimes or ideologies of Islam and “Hinduism”.

Similarly we hear the propaganda of “presence of Indian merchants at Hormuz and very friendly and cordial relations between them and Arab Muslims” in the Thaparaite literature, and this alone is supposed to be incontrovertible proof of “cordial relations between Muslims and Hindus in general”. This is based on among two other textual references, on the following story. According to Abu Zaid, when one of the principal merchants of Siraf invited the Indian merchants of the place he would serve them food in separate plates. On such events there would be hundreds of guests and most of them were obviously “Indians”.[Fernande, Voyage du Marchand Arabe Sulayman]. The Jewish traveller Rabbi Benjamin, writes in 1170 c.e. that the island of Kish was the point to which the Indian merchants bring their commodities. [K.A.,N. Sastri, Foreign Nations]. Ibn Batuta writes of a colony of Indian merchants in Aden, but we can no longer be absolutely certain about their religious affiliation at the time of Ibn Batuta’s writings. The last reference that we will quote  is a very popular one with the Thaparite School,  that of Jagadu in Jagaducharita [A.K. Majumdar, Chalukyas of Gujarat] who is supposed to have Indian agents at Hormuz and who maintained regular trade with Persia. Note the preponderance of agents, who are not always mentioned to be non-Muslim Indians, who represent Hindu merchants in Islam dominated areas, and not a significant population of settled Hindu merchants.

In contrast we find records of significant populations of settled Islamic traders, deep inside “Hindu” territories especially near important commercial, political, and cultural centres [Buddhist university townships] which are later on targets of surprise military attacks by Muslims with surgical precision. Ibn Asir mentions explicitly in his Kamil-ut-Tawarikh, that there were “Mussalmans in the country of Banaras” from the days of Sabuktigin.[Elliot and Dowson]. Muhammad Aufi also speaks of Bahram Gur of Iran coming to Hindustan under the guise of a Muslim merchant. When Bakhtyiar appeared in Nudiya people thought that he was a Muslim trader come to sell horses – implying that visits to this old Hindu city on the banks of the Ganges in modern West Bengal, by Muslim traders was quite common and that Muslim military leaders were in the habit of using this acceptance to disguise themselves for spying or raiding or surprise attacks. Taranath mentions settlement of “Turuskas” (at this period a generic name for Muslims) in the AntarVedi or Ganges-Yamuna Doab. He also significantly mentions that during the time of Lavasena and his successors and prior to the invasions and destruction of the Buddhist university townships of Odantapuri and Vikramasila the number of “Turuskas” had significantly increased. Muhammad Habib in his introduction to Elliott and Dowson suggests that the far-flung campaigns of Mahmud Gaznavi would have been impossible without an accurate knowledge of trade routes and local resources of India, which he probably obtained from Muslim merchants. Many Arab narratives [including that of Al Beruni, who had been allowed to learn Sanskrit and copy and translate Hindu texts] contain accurate accounts of land-routes in India with minute details of the distances between cities and their products and other strategic details whose context shows that these were supplied mostly by Muslim merchants who had visited these places in person and recorded these details back at home accurately for future use by their fellows.

Is it true that all “Hindus” welcomed the “peaceful” and “pure commercial motive” Muslim traders as the Thaparite School demands that we should believe based on the scanty textual evidence [scanty because they would dismiss such evidence as scanty if it went against their hypothesis]?

The Arab writers are unanimous in severely accusing the Pratihara kings of being most hostile to Arabs and Islam.[Sulaiman,Al Masudi, in Elliot and Dowson]. The same authors, curiously enough, admit that the Pratihara administration was highly efficient, for Sulaiman says “there is no country in India more safe from robbers”. But the extremely harsh criticism of the Pratiharas for their “religious” intolerance and “xenophobia” are far more intense than the critiques of the “Hindu” kings who desperately fought to defend their land and people from the mostly deceptive, jihadist aggression of Islamic armies on their campaigns of iconoclasm, enslavement, massacre and looting. The Pratiharas discouraged the influx of Arab Muslims to protect the interests of their own countrymen and imposed checks and restrictions in support of this policy. There is difference in opinion among historians about interpretation of the term “Turuskadanda” and one line of opinions favours this to be interpreted as a tax [ a reverse Jiziya] on “Turuska” settlers in Gahadavala [successors of Pratiharas] lands [Sten Konow, Epigraphia Indica, IX].

The protection provided by Siddharaja Jayasimha, the Hindu ruler of Gujarat, to Muslims and their places of worship was continued by his successors in Gujarat. Both the populations as well as shrines and mosques of Muslims continued to rapidly multiply in several cities of Gujarat as reflected in numerous inscriptions, particularly from Khambat, Junagadh and Prabhas Patan, dated before Gujarat passed under Muslim rule in the aftermath of Ulugh Khan’s invasion in 1299 C.E. Z.A. Desai, the eminent epigraphist, comments that “These records make an interesting study primarily because they were set up in Gujarat at a time when it had still resisted Muslim authority. That the Muslims inhabited quite a few cities, especially in the coastal line of Gujarat, quite long before its final subjugation by them, is an established fact. The accounts of Arab travellers like Masudi, Istakhari, Ibn Hauqal and others, who visited Gujarat during the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian era, amply testify to the settlements of Muslims in various towns and cities. The inscriptions studied below also tend to corroborate the fact that the Muslims had continued to inhabit Gujarat until it became a part of the Muslim empire of Delhi. Moreover, they furnish rare data for an appraisal of the condition of Muslims under non-Muslim rulers of Gujarat. On one hand, they indicate the extent of permeation of Islamic influence in Gujarat at a time when it was still ruled by its own Rajput princes and show that Muslims had long penetrated into different parts of Gujarat where they lived as merchants, traders, sea-men, missionaries, etc.; these settlements were not only on the coastal regions but also in the interior as is indicated by some of these records. On the other hand, these epigraphs form a concrete and ever-living proof of the tolerance and consideration shown vis-a-vis their Muslim subjects by Hindu kings who were no doubt profited by the trade and commerce carried on by these foreign settlers.”[Arabic Inscriptions of the Rajput period from Gujarat’, Epigraphia Indica-Arabic and Persian Supplement, 1961].

Prof. Romila Thapar repeatedly cites one inscription from Prabhas Patan, the city of “Somnatha” and quotes only one of the two translations done by Z.A.Desai describing an event as recorded in two different inscriptions – in her public tirades against “revisionist historians” and in her hotly promoted Penguin history of India, she remains completely silent about the other inscription. This silence is puzzling. The inscription is dated 1264 C.E., and records the construction of a mosque at Prabhas Patan by a Muslim ship-owner. The stone slab containing its Arabic version is now fixed in the Qazi’s Mosque at Prabhas Patan and is not on site. The Sanskrit version which, it seems, was removed at some time and is now in a wall of the Harasiddha Mata temple in the nearby town of Veraval, has been summarised by Z.A. Desai:
“Ship-owner Nurud-Din Piruz, son of ship-owner Khwaja Abu Ibrahim, a native of Hormuz, had come for business to the town of god Somnath during the reign of Arjunadeva, the Vaghela king of Gujarat (C. 1261-74) when Amir Ruknud-Din was the ruling chief of Hormuz; Piruz purchased a piece of land situated in the Sikottari Mahayanpal outside the town of Somnath in the presence of the leading men like Thakkur Sri Palugideva, Ranak Sri Somesvaradeva, Thakkur Sri Ramdeva, Thakkur Sri Bhimsiha and others and in the presence of all (Muslim) congregations, from Rajakula Sri Chhada, son of Rajakula Sri Nanasiha; Piruz, who by his alliance with the great man Rajakula Sri Chhada, had become his associate in meritorious work, caused a mosque to be constructed on that piece of land; for its maintenance, i.e., for the expenses of oil for lamp, water, preceptor, crier to prayers and a monthly reader (of the Quran) and also for the payment of expenses of the particular religious festivals according to the custom of sailors, as well as for the annual white-washing and repairs of rents and defects in the building, the said Piruz bequeathed three sources of income: firstly, a pallaDika (particulars regarding whose location and the owner are given in detail); secondly, a danapala belonging to one oil-mill; and thirdly, two shops in front of the mosque, purchased from Kilhanadeva, Lunasiha, aSadhar and others; Piruz also laid down that after meeting the expenses as indicated above, the surplus income should be sent to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; as regards the management, he desired that the various classes of Muslims such as the communities of sailors, ship-owners, the clergy (?), the artisans (?), etc., should look after the source of income and properly maintain the mosque.”

The English translation of the first seven lines of the Arabic text as given by Z.A. Desai, is as follows:
1. Allah the Exalted may assign this (reward) to one who builds a house in the path of Allah… [This auspicious mosque was built].
2. on the twenty-seventh of the month of RamaDan, year [sixty-two].
3. and six hundred from migration of the Prophet (23rd July AD 1264), in the reign of the just Sultan and [the generous king].
4. Abu’l-Fakhr (lit., father of pride), Ruknud-Dunya wad-Din (lit., pillar of State and Religion), Muizzul-Islam wal-Muslimin (lit. source of glory for Islam and the Muslims), shadow of Allah in [the lands],
5. one who is victorious against the enemies, (divinely) supported prince, Abin-Nusrat (lit., father of victory), Mahmud, son of Ahmad, may Allah perpetuate his…
6. and may his affair and prestige be high, in the city of Somnat (i.e. Somnath), may God make it one of the cities of Islam and [banish?].
7. infidelity and idols…

Z.A. Desai noted differences between the Arabic and the Sanskrit versions. “For example,” he writes, “the Arabic inscription does not give all the details regarding the sources of income, the procedure for its expenditure, management, etc., which are mentioned at some length in the Sanskrit record. Also, the Arabic version mentions only the leader of prayer (imam), caller to prayers (muaddhin) and the cities of Mecca and Medina among the beneficiaries… Likewise, no mention is made of the provision for the celebration of religious festivals as stated in the Sanskrit record.  Further, in the extant portion of the Arabic record, we do not find mention of the then Vaghela king of Gujarat, Arjunadeva… On the other hand, the Arabic version gives some more information regarding the status and position of Piruz (Firuz) and his father Abu Ibrahim. For example, Firuz is called therein ‘the great and respected chief (sadr), prince among sea-men, and king of kings and merchants.’ He is further eulogised as the ‘Sun of Islam and Muslims, patron of kings and monarchs, shelter of the great and the elite, pride of the age’, etc. Likewise, his father, Abu Ibrahim, son of Muhammad al-‘Iraqi, is also mentioned with such lofty titles as ‘the great chief of fortunate position, protector of Islam and the Muslims, patron of kings and monarchs, prince among great men of the time, master of generosity and magnanimity’, etc. Needless to say, all these titles are absent in the Sanskrit version.” The record is complete for all practical purposes except for a few gaps which the epigraphist has filled up from long experience in reading and reconstructing such inscriptions. Could the name of Arjunadeva, the then Vaghela king of Gujarat, have occurred in any of these gaps even if the king was stripped of all his titles? Could the name of a Hindu king be found anywhere in the general format of the inscription. There are similar inscriptions on mosques and other Muslim monuments all over India, before and after this period in exactly the same format with the name of the reigning Muslim monarch with all his appellations displayed prominently. Significantly,  there was no Muslim monarch at that time in Gujarat which was a Hindu kingdom independent of the Delhi Sultanate, the builder of the mosque chose the king of Hormuz for showing his solidarity with the land and ruler of Islam. It is also significant to note that by installing two versions of the same installation plaque  in two different languages, the Muslim merchant shows that he is very much aware of this deception and therefore he expresses his true loyalties and feelings in his own language, which was obviously not widely known among the non-Muslims. Prof. Thapar remains completely silent on this because even mentioning this to discard it as a forgery or unreliable would bring attention to the original translation by Z.A. Desai and throw serious doubts on her desperate attempt to establish “friendly attitude of Muslim traders towards Hindus”.

Note that for a subject of the Hindu king of Gujarat or a resident alien doing business in Gujarat, and given that the mosque was erected at Prabhas Patan which was situated in the kingdom of Gujarat and not within the dominions of Hormuz, the Muslim merchant eulogises the king of Hormuz as “the source of glory for Islam and the Muslims,” and he prays fervently that “may his affair and prestige be high in the city of Somnat, may Allah make it one of the cities of Islam, and [banish?] infidelity and idols” from it. In other words, he was earnestly desiring another Islamic jihad on Gujarat. Comparing the Sanskrit and Arabic versions of this inscription, we see that the Muslim merchant from Hormuz had carefully edited out from the Sanskrit version what he had included confidently in the Arabic text. This shows that just as in the modern period, in the 13th century, Muslim elite took care with help from some elite Hindus [who collaborated out of commercial interests as claimed by the Thaparite School] that the ordinary Hindu never understood the real meanings of teachings of Islam, never read authentic versions of the core texts of Islam, never understood the real agenda of Islam, and that the Islamic Jihadi agenda of slaughter, enslavement, looting and conversion remained completely hidden until it was too late.

2. The role  of the Sufis in spread of Islam in India

The Islamic conversion in India of non-Muslims into Islam has been declared to have been done by Sufi preachers who were always a very tolerant, integrative, and peaceful interpretation of Islam always using peaceful means to convert Hindus. Let us see, what the Sufi’s themselves say about their conversion methods in the early days of Islam in India. Here is just one example….

Siyar al-Aqtab was completed in AD 1647 by Allah Diya Chishti and deals with many miracles performed by the Sufis, particularly of the Sabriyya branch of the Chishtiyya silsila.

Sheikh Muin al-Din Chishti of Ajmer (d. AD 1236) Ajmer (Rajasthan)

“Although at that time there were very many temples of idols around the lake, when the Khwaja saw them, he said: ‘If God and His Prophet so will, it will not be long before I raze to the ground these idol temples.’
“It is said that among those temples there was one temple to reverence which the Raja and all the infidels used to come, and lands had been assigned to provide for its expenditure. When the Khwaja settled there, every day his servants bought a cow, brought it there and slaughtered it and ate it…

[CE 1236 was the time of Qutbudin Aibak and Iltutmish, (whose reputation about treatment of non-Muslims we will discuss later) based a short distance away from Ajmer, in Delhi, with Muslim military bases all around in Punjab. The integration and tolerance towards non-Muslims is shown in the bold declaration of occupying a Hindu temple, slaughtering (imagined or real) cows in a Hindu temple and eating the beef up.]

“So when the infidels grew weak and saw that they had no power to resist such a perfect companion of God, they… went into their idol temples which were their places of worship. In them there was a dev, in front of whom they cried out and asked for help…The dev who was their leader, when he saw the perfect beauty of the Khwaja, trembled from head to foot like a willow tree. However much he tried to say ‘Ram, Ram’, it was ‘Rahim, Rahim’ that came from his tongue… The Khwaja… with his own hand gave a cup of water to a servant to take to the dev… He had no sooner drunk it than his heart was purified of darkness of unbelief, he ran forward and fell at the Heaven-treading feet of the Khwaja, and professed his belief…

“The Khwaja said: ‘I also bestow on you the name of Shadi Dev [Joyful Dev]’…Then Shadi Dev… suggested to the Khwaja, that he should now set up a place in the city, where the populace might benefit from his holy arrival. The Khwaja accepted this suggestion, and ordered one of his special servants called Muhammad Yadgir to go into the city and set in good order a place for faqirs. Muhammad Yadgir carried out his orders, and when he had gone into the city, he liked well the place where the radiant tomb of the Khwaja now is, and which originally belonged to Shadi Dev, and he suggested that the Khwaja should favour it with his residence…

[A realistic version will be the story of a typical strong arm bully backed up by the threat of Muslim military might simply picking up a nice property that takes fancy]

“…Muin al-din had a second wife for the following reason: one night he saw the Holy Prophet in the flesh. The prophet said: ‘You are not truly of my religion if you depart in any way from my sunnat.’ It happened that the ruler of the Patli fort, Malik Khitab, attacked the unbelievers that night and captured the daughter of the Raja of that land. He presented her to Muin al-din who accepted her and named her Bibi Umiya.”
[ This method of obtaining a bride is of course also a wonderful way of showing tolerance, integration, peaceful gestures of conversion. What is more significant is that a Sufi writer does not think that such behaviour is odd and not in the character of a Sufi]

Currie comments that “…The take-over of ‘pagan’ sites is a recurrent feature of the history of the expansion of Islam. The most obvious precedent is to be found in the Muslim annexation of the Hajar al-aswad at Mecca… Sir Thomas Arnold remarks that ‘in many instances there is no doubt that the shrine of a Muslim saint marks the site of some local cult which was practised on the spot long before the introduction of Islam…There is evidence, more reliable than the tradition recorded in the Siyar al-Aqtab, to suggest that this was the case in Ajmer. Sculpted stones, apparently from a Hindu temple, are incorporated in the Buland Darwaza of Muin-al-din’s shrine. Moreover, his tomb is built over a series of cellars which may have formed part of an earlier temple… A tradition, first recorded in the Anis al-Arwah, suggests that the Sandal Khana is built on the site of Shadi Dev’s temple.” [P.M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Muin al-Din Chishti of Ajmer, OUP, 1989]

For the rest of the post in the series on “How Islam came to India”

3. The Thaparite “Horse trade”

The Thaparian hypothesis of the important cause of ruin of the Indian economy from excessive import of horses from the West of India by feudatoty chieftains inside India for luxury and internecine warfare serves two purposes – first it provides one convenient internal scapegoat to which the general economic decline could be attributed to, and secondly by the other great Thaparian project to remove all traces of the destructive nature of Islam and its slaughtering, enslaving, and looting invasions in India it removes any external cause for this increased “consumption of horses”. The Thaparites are able to get away with this because Indian history textbooks are careful never to mention anything about the frequent Islamic raids, invasions, and the social and economic destructions and disruptions they caused and significantly the obvious resistance by the Hindus that required almost 500 years of continuous attacks and attempts from the side of Islam.  But more importantly this then allows the Thaparites to remove a possible crucial reason behind the need felt by the Indian rulers to import good quality horses suitable for military purposes. The suppression of the conflict also suppresses any realistic estimate of the degree of resistance and hence the resources that had to be committed to this conflict by the Hindu rulers. Here we recount this almost 500 year long conflict initiated by the Muslims to capture only about a third of Northern India as a possible indication of the scale of military resources that must have been needed by the Hindus, and which must have needed extraordianry number of horses to match the swift mounted soldiers and archers of the Muslims. For an idea of the number of horses among other military resources involved, look at Part 2 of this series which describes the last battles between Prithwiraj and allies and Ghori. Foreign breeds of horses, especially of the western Asian type, and specially those from Vanayu [Hindu name for Arabia] were found to be good quality war horse-material [ even now, reconstrucive historians find that few horses in a given batch can be trained to ignore the sights, smells and sounds of war, especially ignore the sounds of drawing the bow or releasing the arrow which must have been crucial for mounted archers] as described in Abhidhanaratnamala, and Vaijayanti. Breeding these horses appeared to be difficult because the Arabs prevented any farrier to come to India [Wassaf, in Eliott and Dowson, Marco Polo]. Chau-ju-kua in the Chinese text Ling-wai-ta aqlso refers to the Arabs importing large numbers of horses to Quilon. Prabandhachintamani refers to a ship importing 10,000 horses into Stambha [Cambay]. Wassaf gives one instance of the drain of resources in buying horses through the agreement made between an Arab merchant and a Pandya king, by which 14,000 horses were imported into the ports at a cost of 2.2 million dinars. This is supported by figures given  by Marco Polo [hearsay or otherwise, Marco’s figures appear to be consistent with Wassafs]. It is highly significant to note that the textrual evidence for the magnitude of horse imports increases rapidly towards the 12th and 13th centuries, and that most of these texts actually mention sea-ports on the southern sea-board of India as the main entreports. The Thaparites in their enthusiasm to remove any ideological contribution of Islam in Mahmud Gaznavi’s motivations to attack India, propose that he wanted to stop the import of horses into India through Sind and Gujarat, or control the trade in horses – if true then this can imply two possibilities that the limited Thaparite vision excludes – that horses were being imported through the sea and not through the North-West passage which he was in full control of , and the possibility that he realized the importance of horses in the resistance shown by the Hindus he wanted to subjugate.

For the rest of the post in the series “How Islam came to India”

To be continued….