Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c16.7

c16.7

Also with the establishment of Muslim rule, batches of other types of Muslims began to arrive in Hindustan from Central Asia, Persia, African Muslim countries, and what is now called Afghanistan. India was rich and fertile as compared with their own lands, and with the extension of Muslim political power, many immigrant-soldiers and traders, saints and scholars, political refugees and adventurers, and even musicians, jesters and jugglers—attracted by the "abundance of wealth in cash and kind"—began to flock to India.³ Only a few instances of such immigration may be mentioned. Minhaj Siraj says that people from Persia (and adjoining countries) came to India in "various capacities".⁴ A great scholar of Iltutmish's reign was Amir Ruhani; he had come from Bukhara to Delhi during Chingiz's upheaval.⁵ Qazi Hamid-ud-din Nagori had also come from abroad.⁶ Fakhr-ul-Mulk Isami, who had been vazir at Baghdad for thirty years but then had suffered some disappointment, arrived in India and was appointed vazir by Iltutmish.⁷ Nuruddin Muhammad Ufi, the author of *Jama-ul-Hikayat* had also come to Delhi during Iltutmish's reign.⁸ Their important positions in India as well as the influence of the Abyssinian slave Yaqut at the court of Raziyah shows the presence of all types of foreign Muslims in India.