MUSLIMS

MUSLIMS There has been an ongoing controversy for many decades regarding the ways in which Islam entered Indian civilization and culture. This controversy has been largely connected to varying political characterizations of Indian Islam—its opponents seeing it as a fundamentally "foreign" imposition and "alien" presence in the subcontinent, and its advocates and believers viewing it as a brilliant and positive contribution to the heritage of Indian civilization. Historically, Islam came to be a religious, cultural, and political force in India in three different ways: through trade, conquest, and conversion. Its effects on Indian civilization then cannot be fairly seen from any one-dimensional perspective, but have from the beginning been multifaceted, diverse, and complex.

The Arrival of Islam in the South

It is generally believed that Islam first spread in South India with Arab traders passing through what is now Malabar. Commercial contacts were present between regions of the Arabian Peninsula and several western Indian coastal towns, which were conduits to centers of trade within southern India. Thus it is known that in the Malabar region (today part of Kerala) the presence of Arabs was quite common in pre-Islamic times. As Islam emerged in Arabia, these traders began to engage not only in trading goods but also in sharing their new faith with the people they encountered during their travels.

According to most accounts, Islam received a warm welcome in the southern regions of India. Muslim traders constituted an important link to prosperous intercontinental trade that benefited local Indian merchants and consumers alike. In addition, early Muslim settlers in southern India were seasoned traders who were cognizant of their responsibilities and for the most part did not harbor any political ambitions. As they built mosques and community institutions, their religion, Islam, became known and attracted converts. As a different ethnic group, they were seen as having a distinct caste status, equivalent to the Hindu high caste, and thus were able to associate with Hindu nobles and other upper caste people of influence. They were also able to intermarry, which gave these non-Hindus greater status among the locals. The intermarriage between Arabs and South Indians and the raising of children in such marriages as distinctly Muslim in the Indian environment created a fusion of cultures and traditions at various levels. Since Arabic was fast becoming the dominant language of culture, scholarship, and commerce, these indigenous Muslims consciously retained their Arab heritage and used their Arabic language skills as a bridge between natives and Arabs in the pursuit of commercial gains. The Arabs and the native Indian rulers and traders benefited by complementing each other; the Arabs benefited from the trade of Indian goods, and the Indians learned the art of seafaring from the Arabs. Thus several examples of such mutual exchange and cooperation can be found during this period. Some are even found in legends and folklore.

Conquest and Alliance in the Northwest

In the northwestern region of the subcontinent, Islam arrived through various forms of conquest. In 711 when Muhammad bin Qasim arrived in Sind, he was not greeted with the same hospitality as the Arabs in the south. The reasons for the invasion of Sind by Qasim, who later became governor of the region in the Umayyad caliphate of Damascus, were—from the historical records we possess—retaliations for having his trading caravans attacked by local "bandits."

Muhammad bin Qasim made alliances in the region and declared Hindus (Brahmans) and Buddhists as dhimmis (protected groups). They were allowed to practice their religion and maintain their religious institutions under Muslim rule in exchange for their services, which included the collection of revenues from subjects of the state. Religiously speaking, considering Hindus and Buddhists as dhimmis was a remarkably "liberal" step, as they are not mentioned in the Qur?an or in the sayings of the Prophet as being such. This was an act of ijtihad (independent reasoning) on the part of Qasim, who was supported in his judgment by the ulama (Islamic religious scholars) of the Umayyad court, who had previously declared the Zoroastrians of Persia as deserving of dhimmi status.

The first major sultanate to emerge in North India was the Ghaznavid (997–1175), which marked the beginning of the rule of the "slave kings," so called because prior to their rule, they served as trained and compensated soldiers within the Abbasid dynasty (750–1258), guarding its outposts in the regions of Afghanistan and northwestern India. The most famous figure from this dynasty is Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030), reputed to have championed temple destruction in many regions of northern and western India. He plundered the wealth from many of the famous temples, including the Somnath, and used this wealth to strengthen his hold on power. Mahmud staged more than a dozen invasions of Sind over a period of approximately fifteen years, though he was clearly less interested in establishing an outpost of the Abbasid empire in North India than he was in buttressing the wealth of his own empire and its center in Ghazni.

In the employ of Mahmud of Ghazni worked one of the most famous medieval scholars, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973–1048), the first to study and write extensively on Indian religions and intellectual traditions. His work on India, Kitab al-Hind, was a compendium of India's religious and philosophical traditions. Al-Biruni, though under Mahmud's patronage, was critical of the latter's destruction of the Hindu temple in Somnath.

Historically, growth in the numbers of practicing Muslims in India has been a subject of controversy. Muslim rulers were not interested in converting the masses to Islam as much as they desired to maintain political and economic control over their territories.

From the ninth through the twelfth centuries, the Muslim populace expanded due to multiple factors. Some emigrated from other Muslim lands in North Africa and Arabia through Central Asia and Afghanistan. There were also conversions to Islam from various Hindu castes and subcastes. The single largest factor in conversions seems to have been an egalitarian form of Islam displayed by the Sufis and others who seemed open to a wide variety of spiritual practices. Sufis were apolitical and sometimes antiestablishment. They were often critical of the institutional religious and political hierarchy; hence they were closer to the masses than to the Muslim elite. They established khanqahs (community centers) for spiritual guidance, which were open to all.

There were other factors that led to the growth of Muslim communities in India, notably political patronage by the Muslim rulers, which attracted artisans, scholars, landed gentry, and other high caste Hindus. Some historians in recent times have argued that there were also forcible mass conversions to Islam, but a general consensus of scholars opposes this view. There are several examples of the destruction of Hindu temples at the hands of some rulers, but these were exceptions to the norm. Rulers were often interested in increasing their political capital, and where it suited them they destroyed temples, while in other places they granted land and other resources for temple building. Indeed, indigenous Hindu groups were often militarily aligned with both centralizing and anticentralizing forces during the six successive dynasties of the Delhi Sultanate (1192–1526).

The Sultanate Period (1192–1526)

As Ghaznavid power declined, it gave way to the reign of other "slave kings," which included the dynastic succession of the Ghorids (1192–1290), the Khaljis (1290–1320), and the Tughluqs (1320–1398), culminating in the Lodi (1451–1526) dynasty. The Sultanate period, which lasted from the late twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries, began with the invasion of India by Muiz al-Din Ghori, who was of Turkish origin. Unlike Mahmud of Ghazni, who came to India simply to plunder and loot, Ghori and his descendants aimed to establish political control which manifested itself as the Delhi Sultanate.

The sultanates created a relatively stable political structure during this period, while the ultimate political authority rested with the Turkic sultans who, at least nominally, displayed Islam as their religious as well as political ideology. Among the populace, the religion of Islam meant something different. It was not synonymous with power or political dominance, and mostly grew among the poor. In fact, in the multifaceted social structure that developed in the midst of this complex period, it was generally acknowledged within the Muslim populace that the ulama held a religious authority that could not be subordinated or abrogated by the sultan, be he a local or imperial sultan. Instead, sultans generally attempted to legitimize their rule by acknowledging the authority of local ulama and particularly of Sufi saints.

It should be noted that during this period there was a creative cultural melding of traditions, which resulted in systems of military cooperation strong enough to head off the powerful Mongol advance, agrarian management systems that would survive well into the British colonial period, and an artistic and architectural synthesis so compelling that its creations still draw tourists to India today. Through the medieval period, Muslim intellectuals, Sufis, artisans, and travelers in general were attracted to South Asia from all parts of the Muslim world. This resulted in an administrative system resembling Islamic structures developed in the Muslim caliphates of Iraq and Syria.

The role of the Sufis was central to the growth of Islam, as they were generous in establishing their khanqahs. These centers also served as places for devotional and therapeutic needs. Sufis and religious leaders filled the need for education as well as spiritual fulfillment.

As the Delhi Sultanate became weak at the center, it resulted in the emergence of regional dynasties—in Bengal in the east and Gujarat in the west. The Bahmani kingdom in the south became independent of the Sultanate in 1347 and lasted for almost two hundred years before being split up into four smaller kingdoms. Its rulers, patrons of Sufi saints, also supported a variety of forms of Indo-Islamic art and the spread of Islamic tradition in South India.

In this regional arrangement of political power, Muslim culture developed in collaboration with local linguistic and social norms. This contributed to the increasing diversity of Islamic societies, cultures, and traditions. Muslim rulers and nobles formed alliances based on political and economic interests that went beyond religious and sectarian (Shi?a-Sunni) affiliation. Hindu kings fought with Turkish rulers, Muslim rebels collaborated with Hindus to secede from the Sultanate's center, and so on.

The Mughal Empire (1526–1858)

The Mughals were heirs to the earlier Muslim dynasties that were sustained by their concentration of power within the Turkic ruling classes. By contrast, the Mughal empire thrived through power-sharing practice with Hindus and other Muslim elites. The Mughal rulers often had alliances that cut across religious and ethnic divides. The two major concentrations of power at the dawn of the Mughal period in India were with the Lodhi dynasty and the Rajputs.

As the Sultanate of Ibrahim Lodi became divided into many regional kingdoms, it was successfully invaded by Zahir al-Din Babur (1483–1530), who himself hailed from the central Asian region of Ferghana. There he laid the foundations for what became the most powerful and extensive Muslim empire in India. Babur also had to defeat the Hindu Rajput kingdom before consolidating his power. Babur's son Humayun ruled India from 1530 to 1556, except for a period of fifteen years (1540–1555), and eventually recaptured the throne by absorbing many regional kingdoms in the fold of the empire. He died a year later, in 1556, leaving behind a very young Akbar in charge.

Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (r. 1556–1605) has been credited for laying the foundations for the empire by initiating a number of innovations, such as a centralized political administration. His fiscal reforms were also effective. Akbar had the acumen to draw on his knowledge of both Persian and Turkic administrative practices on the one hand and those of the Rajputs and Indian Muslim dynastic rulers on the other. He was successfully able to fuse elements from these systems to construct his own administrative structure, which became the sustaining factor of the empire and continued to be implemented during the reigns of all the great Mughals until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Under Akbar, the Mughal empire continued to expand. This was possible because of alliances through marriage and royal patronage with other powers such as the Rajputs. Akbar was succeeded by his son, Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), and his grandson, Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658).

The political expansion of the empire continued during the reign of Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707). With a centralized power structure and an elaborate system of promotion of the nobles, the Mughals were successful in politically uniting most of the Indian subcontinent. But the wars of succession weakened the empire after Aurangzeb and eventually led to the British political takeover of parts of the empire. Rival Muslim rulers twice sacked Delhi, the seat of Mughal power, first in 1739 by Nadir Shah of Persia and again in 1761 by the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali. In 1757 the British East India Company defeated the Muslim armies at Plassey, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, Delhi, too, was effectively under the control of the British, although a figurehead Mughal emperor remained on the throne until after the "Mutiny" of 1857.

British Rule in India (1757–1947)

After the 1857 mutiny (also known as the "Sepoy rebellion") was crushed and Delhi was under the control of the British, the East India Company was no longer in charge, and the rule was administered directly by the British Crown.

Muslim power had been reduced to a few regions. Despite attempts to assert its legitimacy, Muslim rule had basically come to an end, and the British were firmly established throughout most of the Indian subcontinent. From their humble beginnings in the early eighteenth century as a trading company in Bengal, to a full-fledged empire with millions of Indian subjects, the British succeeded the Timurid Muslim (Mughal) power, which had constructed a unique cultural landscape in its three-hundred-year presence in India.

There were several attempts to reverse the course of British expansion during the three centuries of British presence in India. The Muslim loss of power meant that as a political minority they would stand to lose the most under non-Muslim rule. It was generally believed that Muslim rule was essential to the implementation of Shari?a (Islamic law), which governs all aspects of Muslim life. Without Shari?a Muslims would not be able to fully practice their faith.

There were calls for jihad, or armed resistance against the British, such as the one made by the Muslim scholar Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (1786–1831). He argued that because of the loss of Muslim power, India was no longer dar al-Islam (house or land of Islam). India had fallen into opposite category—dar al-harb (territory open to war)—and thus it became incumbent for Muslims to wage war against the British establishment. Sayyid Ahmad led many of his followers into the movement and died in 1831 while fighting the Sikhs in the northwestern India. He is widely regarded as a shahid (martyr).

Muslim Modernist Reformers (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries)

Many Muslim scholars, Sufis, and political elite challenged the authority of the British on religious grounds. There were some, however, who chose the path of cooperation with the British. One such scholar, who later founded the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875 (later renamed Aligarh Muslim University), was Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817–1898). Khan was primarily concerned with the welfare of Muslims in light of what he saw as the intellectual and scientific advancements made by the British. He wanted Muslims to learn from the British in order to improve their educational and social status. While Khan promoted British-style educational curriculum and called for Muslim women's education, other ulama (Muslim religious scholars) established the Dar-ul ?Ulum at Deoband, which became the center of Islamic learning and continues to enjoy an international reputation as such.

Sayyid Ahmed Khan inspired other reformers. Sayyid Ameer Ali (1849–1928) was a Western-educated Shi?a scholar whose major contribution was his work on Islam for a Western audience. Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) was also trained and educated in the West and steeped in its philosophical tradition. Iqbal, the poet and the philosopher, inspired some Muslims to see in his thought an argument for a separate Muslim homeland, later translated into a demand for Pakistan in the mid-1940s.

Independence from the British in 1947

The idea of a Muslim homeland surfaced as the anti-British nationalist movement was about to witness the realization of its main objective, freedom from the British. The Indian National Congress (the Congress Party), which was established in 1885 as a political organization for and by the Indian elite, increasingly began to challenge the legitimacy of the British in India. In the early twentieth century, the Congress became the principal agency representing the aspirations of millions of Indians seeking to rid India of the British Raj. It coexisted and sometimes cooperated with other nationalist and religious movements, such as the All-India Muslim League (established in 1906), which worked toward similar objectives.

Muslims and Hindus both participated in the Congress's efforts to establish what they called "self-rule." Even though the British had tried and, to some extent, succeeded in creating separate communal identities for Hindus and Muslims, the two communities resisted such compartmentalization based solely on religious differences. Most Muslims and Hindus shared common cultural and ethnic backgrounds, their linguistic and social commonalities more significant than their religious differences. But the British, based on the Orientalist constructions of the two communities as two different peoples, continued their policy of treating them as such. Politically, this worked in favor of the British; by pitting one group against the other, they were able to continue their political and economic subjugation of India. Hindu-Muslim unity was a major threat to the existence of British power.

The key players in the Congress Party, Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1947), Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), and Abul Kalam Azad (1888–1958), worked tirelessly to deconstruct the idea of Hindu and Muslim separateness. Other Muslims, such as the prominent leader of theMuslim League, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), argued that Muslims in free India would not be able to receive just treatment as a minority and that their interests would not be protected. He and some others demanded special autonomous powers for the Muslim-majority regions as part of a federal system once India became free. The alternate solution was to partition India into two separate states. The new state, Pakistan, would be fashioned out of the territories in the northwest and the eastern half of Bengal (the latter was to become independent from Pakistan in 1971 as the separate nation of Bangladesh). Neither proposal was acceptable to the leaders of the Congress Party.

Among the Muslims who opposed the idea of partition were two influential community leaders, Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890–1988) and Abul Kalam Azad. Ghaffar Khan was an admirer and follower of Gandhi who believed in and implemented the latter's principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) by forming what he called the Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of God) movement, in which members vowed to serve God by serving others, while utilizing nonviolence as their only weapon. He worked among his ethnic community of Pathans in the North-West Frontier province and was quite successful in mobilizing his people to engage in nonviolent social activism against British rule.

Azad, an erudite scholar of Islam and a colleague and admirer of Gandhi, was particularly distressed by the idea of a separate Muslim homeland causing a permanent rift between Hindus and Muslims. Unlike some other Muslim elite who dreamed of restoring Muslim rule in India, Azad focused on possible models in which Hindus and Muslims would be able to share power in a democratically governed India. Azad was a nationalist and a committed anti-British activist.

The early 1920s brought Indians of all stripes and vocations closer together. Even Muslim religious organizations such as the Jami?at ?Ulama-i Hind (Society of Indian Islamic Scholars) supported the nationalist struggle against the British and were opposed to partition. In fact, a vast majority of Muslims were not enthusiastic about the "two-nation" idea because of sheer practical concerns. Muslims were spread all over India and lived side by side with Hindus. The partition, as it was imagined in the minds of the handful of Muslim elite, was neither possible nor desirable.

Another major Muslim institution that came into being during this time, with the support of Gandhi and other nationalists, was the Jamia Millia Islamia (Muslim Nationalist University). Established in 1920 at Aligarh (later moved to New Delhi in 1925), it began as a reaction to the then famous Aligarh Muslim University, which had been founded on the principle of cooperation with the British and remained to some extent oriented toward British intellectual traditions. Many nationalist and secular-minded Muslims later became associated with the Jamia, and others emerged from its ranks as the institution developed into a full-fledged university in a democratic republic of India.

The Partition

The movement for Pakistan based its rationale on religious and cultural notions of self-preservation. Its proponents argued that Muslims must preserve their culture and religious way of life by implementing the Shari?a. This would not be possible in a free India where Muslims, being a minority, would not have the power to ensure governance according to Islamic law. The main thrust of this movement was a desire to return India to Muslim rule, albeit with a twist of religious flavor. This was a classical Islamist proposition. Maulana Abu?l ?Ala Maududi (1903–1979), the founder of the religious organization Jama?at-i Islami (Islamic party, founded in 1941), who was at first against the partition of India, became the chief proponent of the idea of implementing Islamic law in a newly created Pakistan. There were others who had similar objectives on the grounds that Muslim cultural and economic interests would not be met in a Hindu-majority India. Jinnah, a secularist leader of the Muslim League, was in the forefront of this struggle. Earlier in the Congress's struggle for independence, he had worked with Gandhi, but toward the mid-1930s he parted ways and worked in competition with and against the Congress Party.

Eager to remove themselves from the subcontinent, the British, under the pretext of being concerned for minority rights in a Hindu-majority India, seemed willing to accept the Muslim League's proposal of a "two-nation" solution. Gandhi, Azad, and other leaders of the Congress Party were against the division of the country, but they reluctantly accepted it; the alternate solution, having a federal system with greater autonomy for the Muslim provinces, drew even more severe objections from the members of the Congress, including Nehru, who advocated a centralized power structure. Thus on 14 August 1947, the dominion of Pakistan was created and consisted of two noncontiguous territories, the northwestern region as well as the eastern half of Bengal. Jinnah became the new nation's first governor-general and president of its legislative assembly. However, he did not live long enough to see the struggle that ensued between Islamic and secular forces, each vying to move Pakistan toward their respective visions of a Muslim homeland. Hours later, just past midnight on the 15th, India was declared independent, dividing the Muslims of British India into two roughly equal halves. Nehru became the first prime minister of independent India.

While celebrations for independence were underway, a tragedy of massive proportions unfolded. Thousands of Hindus and Sikhs had to leave their belongings and migrate from what had become Pakistan, the west Punjab, and Sind, while Muslims from various parts of India migrated toward Pakistan and eastern Bengal. The partition of India was a major tragedy for Indians in general. Members of the same family found themselves at opposite sides of the great political divide, afraid at times to even communicate with each other lest they become suspected of compromising their loyalty to the state in which they resided.

Indian Muslims since Independence

The partition caused a serious blow to Indian Muslims. Even though India became a secular and not a Hindu state, the blame for the division of the country (at least unofficially) was placed squarely on Muslims. Since independence, Muslims as a minority have experienced large-scale violent campaigns launched against them. Known as communal riots, many of these are deemed to be planned and well-organized "pogroms." The net result of the violence has been that, over fifty years after independence, there is little mutual trust between members of the two communities.

The recent rise of Hindu militant nationalist groups has once again raised the issue of Muslims' loyalty to India in light of their erroneous reading of Indian history. Since the reasons given for the partition were religious and communal, Muslims, as a religious community distinct from Hindus, were seen as misplaced and unwelcome in independent India. They suffered the most politically, by not being part of the Pakistan movement, but also in social, economic, and psychological terms. The wounds of the partition incurred by many Muslim families on both sides of the border took three decades to heal, since they found themselves divided physically as well as psychologically.

Hindu-Muslim riots, or what many have recognized as pogroms against Muslims, have become increasingly organized and coordinated over the years. Before the 1990s they were more sporadic, and while highly organized, the element of local initiative was crucial. But, during the height of the Babri Mosque controversy, the organized efforts to destroy and uproot Muslim communities received far greater national-level support from right-wing resources than was imagined before. The act of destruction of the historic mosque in Ayodhya was carried out locally, but it was planned, supported, and funded by the vast network of Hindu nationalist elements throughout India. It was a tragedy of international proportions, one that shook the secular foundations of the democratic Constitution of India. Even the central government was unsuccessful in preventing the destruction because, as Paul Brass in The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India rightly observes, anti-minority violence is coordinated in the sense that most of the time the police forces are found to be prejudiced against Muslims; therefore, despite its best intentions, the government is unable to act because this essential arm of the law becomes paralyzed.

Muslims in the Twenty-first Century

Even though the notion of "Indian Muslims" may appear somewhat reasonable given the unifying nature of the fundamentals of Islam, it is, in fact, a construction like its counterpart, "the Hindus." Muslims are a very dissimilar group with respect to their religious practices, ideological affiliations, and social, cultural, and political preferences. Such construction of identity is also problematic in dealing with issues of gender justice. The Muslim religio-cultural discourse tends to define women as well as their roles in homogenous terms, disallowing full realization of their potential. During Muslim rule between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, however, Muslim women made significant contributions as poets, authors, mystics, and teachers. Princess Jahanara (1614–1681), the eldest daughter of Shah Jahan, was one such famous intellectual and mystic. Women were not completely absent from public life either; the Sultanate period had its first queen in Razia Sultana (r. 1236–1240). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the throne of Bhopal was occupied by women rulers; the last to be named was Abida Sultaan (d. 2002) who ruled the state from 1935 to 1949.

Within Muslim communities, Muslim women are among the most disadvantaged. Women's educational rights are only recently being recognized, while they remain politically marginalized for cultural and economic reasons. Despite these challenges, Muslim women have made and continue to make significant advances in promoting female education and in removing barriers preventing their economic independence.

Even though Muslims are a diverse people, both the right-wing Hindus and the politically motivated Muslim leaders continue to insist on identifying Muslims as a monolith block of people with one agenda, one culture, and one religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, as recent studies (by Peter van der Veer and Cynthia Talbot) have shown, individual identities were understood in flexible terms in the past, and they were not compartmentalized in a single characteristic form, such as Muslim, Hindu, or Christian. Rather they were perceived in terms of geography, culture, state, profession, and language. Thus in medieval India, one could not simply be identified as Muslim without also being recognized as, for example, a Bengali, an easterner, a trader, a speaker of Bengali, and so forth.

In the post–Babri Mosque era, steps have been taken in building bridges between Hindus and Muslims and highlighting their shared history and common objectives in a democratic India. Several Muslim leaders, such as Wahiduddin Khan (b. 1925) and Asghar Ali Engineer (b. 1939), have made significant intellectual and social contributions through their writings, dialogue, and personal examples.

The legacies of Islam in India are, despite the minority framework imposed during the colonial period, inextricably intertwined with the legacies of Indian society as a whole, and both of these continue to unfold in the present. In the entire millennium of its presence in India, from architecture to music, from language to community belonging, from history writing to history making, Muslims have joined with Hindus and other groups in constructing the edifice of a great civilization. It lies to Indians of the twenty-first century to find paths through their communal frameworks and to continue to build upon this edifice.

Irfan A. Omar

See alsoAkbar ; Aurangzeb ; Ayodhya ; Babur ; British Crown Raj ; Congress Party ; Gandhi, Mahatma M. K. ; Humayun ; Iqbal, Muhammad ; Islam ; Jahangir ; Jinnah, Mohammad Ali ; Nehru, Jawaharlal ; Sayyid Ahmed Khan and the Aligarh Movement ; Shah Jahan

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