Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c20.s1.43

c20.s1.43

Similar was the position with regard to the Qassab. Arab geographers of the ninth to twelfth centuries found most Indians vegetarians. Some Hindus ate game but not flesh of animals and animals were not slaughtered for providing meat.²⁹ By many Hindus meat is still called 'shikar' (game). The Hindu Gorkhas call it only by this name. Therefore, while it would be difficult to categorically state that Hindus in the pre-Muslim period did not do the work of meat-selling, there does not seem to have been a caste of Hindu butchers which went over to Islam because of the oppression of caste system. The few Hindu butchers might have become Musalmans because their vocation found a flourishing and sympathetic clientele among Muhammadans but many others who were not butchers by profession would have found in cutting and selling of meat a new avenue of employment in a new society and joined it to form a Muslim caste of hundred per cent Qassab.