The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c5.2

c5.2

No strange faith came to India with the Turkish conquerors. Almost simultaneously with political conquests in the seventh century Islam began to find lodgements in India's western coast, where Arab merchants, familier for centuries, continued, even as Muslims, to receive warm welcome. Princes, anxious to improve their commercial prosperity, accorded generous treatment to the people who commanded the main trade routes of the civilized world. Bearded men in longskirted tunics, congregating, for prayer at fixed intervals, in a rectangular building which contained no idols, and adhering to no caste rules, presented a sight whose novelty wore off with the passage of time. As they established colonies and multiplied, they became an integral part of the population. Moving with his wares in the country, the *Tajik* added a new pattern of culture and a new channel of intellectual commerce. He enjoyed the liberty of preaching his faith, though direct conversion at the beginning must have been rare; an early report, quoted by a tenth century geographer, complains that Islam had not made a single convert in India¹. But a permeation of its cultural ideas was inevitable; to the natives, particularly of the lower class, the Muslim symbolised prosperity and emancipation.