The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c19.31

c19.31

No evidence is forthcoming at this period to enable us to a make any precise statement as to the mutual borrowings of popular Islam and Hinduism. The examples afforded by the Tughluq chronicles of definitely Hindu practices and Hindu inspired sects among the Muslims, may have had an earlier beginning. That Indian converts would retain some of their Hindu notions and practices needs little proof. The worship of the saint and his shrine, which gradually increased and became a source of great social evil in latter times, is a phenomenon which undoubtedly had its origin in the 13th century reverence for the *sufi*, but in whose wide incidence the Hindu predilection of worshipping local and tribal gods must have had no little share. To what extent the higher intellects of the two people reacted to each other’s ideas is, however, a question whose answer the 13th century could be hardly expected to provide.