Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c17.s3.1

c17.s3.1

Most descriptions of Bengal given by European writers point to a mixed population. But "it is evident, from the numerical superiority in Eastern Bengal of the Muslims...that at some period an immense wave of proselytization must have swept over the country and it is most probable that that period was the period of Jalaluddin Muhammad [converted son of the Hindu Raja Ganesh] during whose reign of seventeen years (1414-1431) .....hosts of Hindus are said to have been forcibly converted to Islam." Other causes of large-scale conversions are said to be rivalry between Buddhism and Hinduism, the former joining hands with the Muslims,²³ excesses of the Brahmins in making *Hindus turn away from them*,²⁴ and the capture of Hindu places of worship which continued to be visited and revered by Hindus even after they had been turned into Dargahs presided over by a Shaikh in place of a Brahmin.²⁵ Muslim Sufi Shaikhs *also* converted people in large numbers by methods both of war²⁶ and of peace.²⁷ Usual mixed marriages²⁸ would have added to Muslim population. Employment prospects also helped in the rise of Muslim population, for says Barbosa: "It is obviously an advantage in the sixteenth century Bengal to be a Moor, inasmuch as the Hindus 'daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulers.'"²⁹