The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c19.13

v3.c19.13

Sir William Muir has observed that the conquest of Sind marks a new stage in Muhammadan policy. The Islamic law divides misbelievers into two classes, ‘the People of the Book,’ that is Christians and Jews, as the possessors of inspired Scriptures, and idolators. The first, when conquered, are granted, by the authority of the Koran, their lives, and may not lawfully be molested in any way, even in the practice of the rites of their creeds, so long as they loyally accept the rule of their conquerors and pay the *jizya* or poll-tax, but a rigid interpretation of the Koran, subsequently modified by commentators and legislators, allows to idolators only the choice between Islam and death. By a legal fiction which placed the scriptures of Zoroaster on a level with the Old and New Testaments as a divine revelation the Magians of Persia had often obtained the amnesty which was strictly the peculiar privilege of Christians and Jews, but Hajjāj, a bitter persecutor, knew nothing of the lax interpretation which tolerated idolatry on payment of tribute, and in Central Asia idolators were rooted out. In India Muhammad granted the amnesty to idolators, and in many cases left their temples standing and permitted their worship. At Debul he had behaved as an orthodox Muslim, but his subsequent policy was toleration except when he met with obstinate resistance or his troops suffered serious losses. Thus we find the zealous Hajjāj remonstrating with the young soldier for doing the Lord’s work negligently and Muhammad consulting his cousin on the degree of toleration permissible. His campaign in Sind was not a holy war, waged for the propagation of the faith, but a mere war of conquest, and it was undoubtedly politic in the leader of a few thousand Arabs to refrain from a course which might have roused swarms of idolators against him.