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Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c5: I. Source Materials and Limitations of Demographic Data

Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c5

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I. Source Materials and Limitations of Demographic Data

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The most important source materials for the study of medieval Indian demography, as for the study of any other aspect of medieval history, mainly comprise contemporary Arabic and Persian geographical and historical works. Of no less consequence are the accounts of foreign itinerants, especially European. Many modern works also help in estimating the population of medieval times. These fall into three categories. The first set consists of those written in the pre-census years, and attempting population estimates of past centuries. Actual census reports from 1881 onwards form the second set. Lastly, there are the writings of scholars like W.H. Moreland, J.M. Datta and Kingsley Davis who have, on the basis of the source-materials mentioned above, attempted to adjudge the population of India during the medieval period.

Persian and Arabic Works

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Arabic and Persian works have been evaluated time and again by scholars of medieval Indian history, but primarily with a view to assessing their importance, authenticity and reliability as sources of political and social history. Here we have to see how far they are helpful in the study of medieval population. Medieval Indian historians, like all others in the medieval world, were not interested in the study of population as such. But on going through their works a little minutely, one does come across a good deal of information, and sometimes even data and statistics, which help in demographic study. It is from them that we learn that many rulers, for varied reasons, were keen on knowing about the number of their subject people. For instance, we are told by Ibn Battuta that once during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, when relief measures were undertaken at the time of a famine ‘all over Hind and Sind’, ‘jurists and judges set out registering the names of inhabitants in different streets, sending for the people and giving them provisions¹’. Akbar indeed ordered a regular census in the twentyfifth year of his reign.² Right up to the time of Aurangzeb do we hear of *sar shumārī*³ (counting of heads, census ?), which goes to show that some sort of estimate of the number of people used to be kept. Even though we have no access to such records now, stray references in the chronicles about population trends are not altogether lacking.

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¹ *The Rehla of Ibn Battuta*, English trs with commentary by Mahdi Husain, Oriental Institute (Baroda, 1953), p 84 Also p. 117.

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² Abul Fazl *Akbar Namā*, trs. in Elliot and Dowson, *History of India as told by its own historians*, 8 vols (London, 1867-77), hereafter abbreviated as E and D, VI, p. 61. I have not been able to locate this passage in the Bib. Ind. text, vols. I-III or its English trs. by H. Beveridge (Calcutta, 1948).

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³ Khafi Khan, Muhammad Hashim, *Muntakhab-ul-Lubab* (Calcutta 1889-1925) II, pp 157 ff. Also E and D, *op. cit.*, VII, (pp. 207-533) p. 247.

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For the period A.D. 1000 to 1200 one important source of information is Arab geographers and travellers. The ‘geographers’ usually travelled widely and collected all sorts of information—on the habits, manners and customs of the people, their religious and social life, articles of trade and manufacture, life at the sea-ports, regions with concentrated or dispersed population etc.—about countries whose ‘geography’ they were writing. Consequently, their notices on India have a bearing on its population structure also. A few historians also throw light on such events as hint at the rise or fall of population. For example, Alberuni, Utbi, Baihaqi and Ibn-ul Asir all write about the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni and similar happenings, and the loss or dispersal of the Indian population in the process.

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From the thirteenth century right up to the eighteenth, however, there is no dearth of Persian chronicles. These are mainly contemporary political histories, but occasionally they give description of cities and towns, figures of revenue of regions and kingdoms, centres of manufacture and trade, areas under cultivation, prices of commodities, strength of armies, people killed in wars and famines as well as periodical immigrations, and sometimes, though rarely, even mention about rise and fall of population. All this assortment of information is very useful for the study of medieval Indian population, its structure and trends. Listing such chronicles is here uncalled for; those which shed light on any area helping in population study have been referred to in their proper context. However, it may be mentioned that the important contemporary chronicles of the Sultanate period are those of Ziyauddin Barani, Amir Khusrau, Isami, and Shams Siraj Afif, and for the Mughal period there are the authentic works of Babur, Abul Fazl, Nizamuddin Ahmad, and Khafi Khan. Ferishtah, a very descriptive writer, is a great help.

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Thus there is sufficient source material in the Persian language for the period eleventh to eighteenth century. Still from the sixteenth century onwards Persian historians tend to become more informative and provide very valuable information helping demographic study. Abul Fazl's first volume of the *Ain-i-Akbari*, for example, gives prices of commodities of daily use, and the second statistics of troops who could be called to duty in field from each and every parganah of Akbar's empire. Even other sixteenth and seventeenth century writers are better equipped with information and statistics on population. In the eighteenth century the position improves still further, and Marathi and Persian works give detailed description of casualties consequent upon Aurangzeb's wars in the Deccan, Nadir Shah's invasion, Abdali's raids on the Punjab and the Third Battle of Panipat. In addition, Muslim writers many times give figures and names of those who converted to Islam from time to time, helping in the assessment of the growth of Muslim population in medieval India.

Writings of Foreigners

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For the study of medieval Indian demography the itineraries of foreign visitors is of great importance. They came to India as travellers, traders, people in search of employment and some even as embassadors. Some like Wassaf and Shihabuddin Ahmad did not visit India but have given reliable account of affairs here on the basis of information supplied by others; some like Alberuni, Ibn Battuta and Abdur Razzaq, stayed here for years and have left detailed notices about famines, pestilences, wars etc. Still more important are their comments about places or regions sparsely or thickly populated.

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In this regard European travellers are still more informative. From the time of Marco Polo the chain of European travellers to India remains unbroken. From the sixteenth century their number swells. Barbosa, Bernier, Tavernier, and Manucci, and dozens of other visitors have written about India in some detail. Besides providing usual information about cities and towns, droughts and pestilences, their writings are important in many other respects. Landing on the west coast extending from Gujarat to Malabar, each one of them visited one or more than one region in the interior. Some travelled extensively within the country, so that collectively they present a fairly detailed picture of the whole of India. They could also often distinguish between Hindus and Musalmans and so help in estimating the proportion of the two peoples. Most important of all, they sometimes give definite population statistics of cities and towns or else compare many Indian cities with those of Europe whose population figures or reliable estimates thereof are now available. Factory Records of European commercial establishments in India too provide very valuable information of demographic nature.

Modern Works

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British administrators and officials in India were definitely interested in Indian demography, and from the nineteenth century many attempts were made to compute the numbers of inhabitants as well as to assess demographic trends in earlier centuries and estimate the population of ancient and medieval times. District officials sometimes held sorts of local censuses in cities, towns, and villages, and reported their findings to Government. So also was done in princely states. Colonel Sleeman's *Rambles and Recollections*⁴ and Reginald Heber's *Journal*⁵ fall under such category of works. Heber has also fixed the proportion of Hindus and Muslims with some amount of accuracy. These writings may be treated as almost contemporary material, for while political changes may be sudden or revolutionary, in the study of social, economic, and even population trends, the materials of 1820 or 1830 may, by and large, speak for 1780 or 1800. When Elphinstone wrote his history⁶ in the middle of the nineteenth century, he also made an attempt to assess the population of earlier times. But Edward Thornton's Gazetteer,⁷ written in pre-census times and published in 1854, is a mine of information for demographic study. It gives population figures of towns and cities gathered on the basis of actual censuses locally held between 1800 and 1851 as well as reports sent out by British officials from India to their home country. This Gazetteer contains total population of Presidencies, provinces and princely states, of districts, towns and sometimes even villages. Furthermore, besides giving the number of Hindu and Muslim inhabitants, it also provides figures of Hindu and Muslim agriculturists and those enganged in non-agricultural professions in rural and urban areas. It need hardly be stated that such pre-census attempts help a great deal in estimating the total population as also the Hindu-Muslim proportion in the India of 1800.

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⁴ Sleeman, Sir William H., *Journey through the Kingdom of Oudh in the years 1849-50*, 2 vols. (London, 1858).

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⁵ Heber, Reginald, *Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India* second edition, 3 vols. (London, 1828).

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⁶ Elphinstone, Mountstuart, *The History of India*, 2 vols. (London 1841).

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⁷ Thornton Edward, *Gazetteer of the Territories under the Government of the East India Co. and of the Native States on the Continent of India*, Compiled by the authority of the Hon. Court of Directors and chiefly from the documents in their possession, 4 vols. (Wm. H. Allen & Co., 7, Leaden-hall Street, London, 1854).

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Indian Census Reports from 1872 onwards too are important. The first all-India census was held in 1872. But it was non-synchronous, the enumeration extended over two to three months, and it took place in different areas in different months. But after 1881 more scientific methods of enumeration were brought into use. Population figures of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries by themselves are of no use to us, but Census Reports are not merely catalogues of figures. They trace historical background and deduce evidence for any particular or collective demographic behaviour. Information of social, religious, or economic nature collected by census officials, having a bearing on modern population patterns, could also be fruitfully used for the study of medieval Indian population trends.

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Among modern writers, W.H. Moreland must be given the credit of doing pioneering work in the field of medieval Indian demography. In the space of a few pages⁸ he scientifically sifted all the evidence within his reach to arrive at an estimate of Indian population in c. 1600. Some scholars have differed from him, some others have agreed with him, and many census Reports have cited his authority. Kingsley Davis wrote his monumental work⁹ thirty years after Moreland's when much more material was available. He has also attempted an estimate of the population of ancient and medieval times, thus helping in our study. The contribution of J.M. Datta to the study of medieval Indian demography too is laudable.¹⁰ Similarly, many historical monographs by modern scholars on medieval Indian history have been of great help. As an example only one such work may be mentioned. Professor Sri Ram Sharma's *Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors* gives facts and figures about conversions of Hindus to Islam under the Mughals, in particular under Shahjahan and Aurangzeb, helping in the assessment of the growth of Muslim population. After all, our main task has been to collect figures, data, statistics and well-established facts having a bearing on medieval Indian demography. These are sometimes readily available in these research monographs, and are more reliable too, having been cross-checked from a number of sources.

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⁸ W.H. Moreland, *India at the Death of Akbar* (Macmillan & Co. London, 1920), pp. 9-22.

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⁹ Kingsley Davis, *The Population of India and Pakistan* (Princeton: New Jersey, 1951)

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¹⁰ Jatindra Mohan Datta, (i) "Proportion of Muhammadans in India Through Centuries", *The Modern Review*, Calcutta, January, 1948.
(ii) "A Reexamination of Moreland's Estimate of Population of India at the Death of Akbar" in *Indian Population Bulletin*, Published by the Registrar General, No. I, 1960.

Conclusion

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All these source-materials, though impressive in bulk, are deficient in actual demographic data for the period A.D. 1000 to 1800. And yet, as Kingsley Davis has pointed out, research on medieval Indian demography is not just a ‘quixotic’ effort, or ‘an exercise of the imagination.’ "It is true that Indian statistics do not cover the whole history of India......But what country exists whose history is so covered ?......Compared with the world as a whole, India's past population statistics are above the average. Certainly she has had more usable data than any country of equal backwardness, and this fact constitutes one of the strongest reasons for making a special study of her population."¹

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Indeed, working on the available facts and figures, it is possible to determine the size of the population in the succeeding centuries of the medieval period. And since we also possess some data for the ancient period and definite statistics about modern times we may, by resorting to the old method of proceeding from the known to the unknown, obtain a tolerably satisfactory picture about the middle ages. By working forward from ancient times (on the basis of the demographic data, howsoever fragile), and back from modern times (when definite population figures are available), and taking into account all the factual and plausible figures the medieval records themselves provide, a fairly correct idea of the population of the medieval period can be obtained.