The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19.19

c19.19

Only in the Arab-ruled province of the Indus valley where Turkish orthodoxy was comperatively late in arriving, a section of the extreme *Shiah*, the *Qaramitah*—forerunners of the *Ismailis*—found a lodgement in the 9th century. They succeeded in making proselytes from the Hindu and Muslim population and winning political power in Upper Sind. In Multan and Mansura for more than two centuries political and religious allegiance was owed to the Fatimide Caliph of Egypt¹. Mahmud of Ghazni obtained only a temporary success for orthodoxy by installing a *Sunni* ruler over Multan, for Muiz-zuddin had to fight hard in order to overthrow the *Qaramitah* ruler. The final extension of Delhi's sovereignty put an end to their political power in the Indus valley but the sect was not exterminated. From Minhaj's account they even appear to have spread east and south and found followers in Gujrat and even in the Doab. Muizzuddin's death at their hands made the Memeluke state bitterly hostile to them; even the Mongol eruption failed to assuage this bitterness. Iltutmish's final acceptance of Abbaside suzereinty confirmed the *Shiahs* in their enmity to the Turkish rulers. While the *ulema* denounced them as unclean heretice, they on their part openly arraigned the latter for their worldly greed and compromising religiosity. Towards the end of Raziah's reign under the leadership of a person named Nur Turk² they conspired, to sieze power. Collecting the sect from all parts of India and fully armed he raised a great insurrection in the Jami Masjid and commenced a slaughter of the orthodox worshippers. It was a serious rising and took military force to quell it. Although suppressed on this occasion the sect could hardly be expected to die out; Barani's frequent condemnation of the Mulahidah heretics would postulate their continuance as a somewhat noticeable religious group¹. Under the Memelukes nevertheless, Shiism made little progress in Hindusthan; it had to wait till the conversion of the Il-Khans of Persia gave it once again a political sanction.