Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c15.20

c15.20

Thus while the story of the conversions to Islam has been very enthusiastically narrated by Muslim chroniclers, the attitude of the Hindus to conversion and the endeavours of the hurriedly converted Hindus to revert to their former faith, has not been even referred to by them. Alberuni mentions a number of restrictions imposed upon reconversion to Hinduism,¹⁶ but he has probably noted only the extremely orthodox Brahman position. On the other hand *Devalasmriti*¹⁷, and many other similar works¹⁸, lay down liberal rules for the reconversion of men and women who might have stayed with the *mlechchas* for even as long a period as twenty years.¹⁹ All this points to a keenness on the part of the converted to return to Hinduism. We know that Nawasa Shah reverted to Hinduism at the earliest opportunity. There is also the case of Rai Sal.²⁰ Between Mahmud of Ghazni's death (1030) and Muhammad Ghori's invasion (1191-92) such opportunities of reconversion were many, even on a large scale.²¹ Consequently, during this period of more than a century and a half, Muslim numbers do not seem to have shown any great rise.