Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c8.51

c8.51

Jatindra Mohan Datta writes: "Farishtah...states that the population of India at the beginning of the Muhammadan conquest was six hundred million (60 crors)".³² I have not been able to locate this figure in Ferishtah's text, but the whole narrative of Ferishtah does give the impression that India, on the'eve of Muslim conquest, was a very large and populous country.³³ Datta, however, rightly remarks that a population of 200 to 300 million would be a better estimate, and if 100 to 140 million is estimated for 300 B.C., a population of 200 million is certainly not a high figure for A.D. 1,000. J.M. Datta adds: "the population was very much greater (on the eve of Turkish invasions) than at the death of Akbar. During centuries of invasions, constant oppression and misrule, the wholesale massacres during the Pathan period, the population of India dwindled...This broad fact emerges from the two estimates (Ferishtah's and Moreland's), howsoever erroneous or full of fallacies the individual estimates may be."³⁴