Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c23.31

c23.31

1000. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as well as in the seventeenth, especially under Aurangzeb, its rise was at an accelerated pace and throughout the country. In most regions where Muslims were found in good numbers by the year 1500, their population, by and large, went to growing in later centuries too. But surprisingly enough in some of these regions it actually fell. This was due as much to the tenacity of the Hindu social order which "lapped away at any intrusive system as the sea laps away at a sand bank",¹⁵ as to the new challenge of competition from Christian proselytizers. In other parts of the country also the Muslims could not make such headway. This situation has continued right up to modern times. A comparison of some figures of 1941 census, given in the following Table, would bear this out.