Indian Muslims: Who Are They c5.s5: Muslim Losses
Indian Muslims: Who Are They c5.s5
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Muslim Losses
c5.s5.1
Side by side the rise in Muslim numbers through immigration and conversion, there was decimation of Muslim population also. Muslim rulers had to struggle hard to preserve and expand their territory not only against Hindu Rajas but also against rebel Muslim governors and adventurers. There were wars against Hindu rulers for extension of Muslim political power and there were wars of succession and military campaigns against defiant Muslim governors. Withal foreign invaders had to be kept in check All these processes entailed loss of Muslim lives.
c5.s5.2
A glance at a few historical events can give an idea of this loss. During the first year of their conquest the Muslims had captured Ajmer, Hansi, Kuhram, Sarsuti, Baran, Meerut, Kol and Ranthambhor. But in 1193 the Chauhan prince Hariraja, collected a Rajput force and besieged Ranthambhor where, earlier in the year, Aibak had placed a garrison under Qivam-ul-Mulk.⁶⁰ The Chauhans also occupied Ajmer. In 1194 Aibak is stated to have crossed the Jumna a second time to capture Kol, but the next year again he had to proceed to the relief of its garrison. On his return to Delhi in 1195 news arrived of fresh trouble in Ajmer, which was again besieged by the Rajputs in 1195 and Aibak had to fight hard for its relief; and it could be saved only by the timely arrival of reinforcements from Ghazni.⁶¹ But a little later, in Ghazni itself Yaldoz was creating trouble for the Delhi Sultan. Such troubles recurred constantly; as a consequence of which there was loss of Muslim numbers. The best instances of such losses are found in the east where Bakhtiyar Khaljis ambition to conquer Tibet and China destroyed his whole army,⁶² or in the west where a Hindu king, after defeating a Muslim army shorly after the initial Turkish conquest, openly regarded himself as restoring to India its original name of *Aryavarta* by killing off the *mlechchhas*.⁶³
c5.s5.3
Sultan Iltutmishs accession (1210) was resisted by Delhi *Jandars*, and in the battle he put most of their horsemen to the sword. His wars with Yaldoz and Qubacha again must have meant depletion of Muslim numbers (fighting on both sides) continually. In his attack on Malwa - Vidisha, Ujjain etc., again some Muslim soldiers would have perished. During his attack on Nagda, the capital of the Guhilots, he was driven away by its ruler Kshetra Singh, with heavy losses. But the most interesting fact is that Kalinjar, Gwalior, Ranthambhor and even Badaon and Kanauj, which had been captured earlier, had to be reconquered by him.⁶⁴ Obviously the Muslim garrisons in these places had been destroyed by the Rajputs. Minhaj Siraj makes mention of a Hindu Raja of Avadh, Bartu (?) by name, under whose hands and sword (in 1226) more than 120,000 Musalmans had received martyrdom.⁶⁵ The figure may be inflated, but the fact is important. Raziyahs rule was full of bloodshed. Armies of Delhi, Lahore, Bhatinda and Sirhind were involved in war. Karmatians had created trouble in Iltutmishs reign: in Raziyahs reign a thousand of them openly attacked the Muslims in the Jama Masjid, killed many of them and then were themselves killed. Ranthambhor had once again to be evacuated during her reign. Since perhaps during the period of the early sultans there was not muh Indianisantion of the army, the losses in war may have been mainly of the Muslims. Alauddin Masud Shah had acquired the habit of seizing and killing his nobles⁶⁶ (and certainly other Muslims too). In Nasiruddins reign two attempts on Ranthambhor (1248, 1259) seem to have been made without success⁶⁷ but surely entailing loss of Muslim soldiers. In wars in Avadh, Narwar, Gwalior, Chanderi, Malwa etc., again, many Muslims would have lost their lives.
c5.s5.4
Add to these losses the Mongol killings in India. In 1241 the Mongols under Tair Bahadur captured Lahore, slaughtered the Muhammadans and made their dependents captive.⁶⁸ Hasan Qarlugh wrested Multan in 1245 and the whole of Sindh was lost to the Mongols.⁶⁹ It was recovered by Ulugh Khan (Balban) but the next year the Mongols⁷⁰ again arrived under Sali Bahadur. By 1254, the territory up to and including Lahore had been taken by them. During Balbans reign the Mongol pressure increased all the more. His son, the Prince Martyr, lost his life fighting them. So great was the loss on this occasion, that according to Amir Khusrau, in Multan, in every house there was some dead to be wept for.⁷¹ Vigorous Mongol attacks.⁷² continued right up to the first decade of the fourteenth century; and this alone can give an idea of the losses suffered by Muslim (and Hindu) population.
c5.s5.5
Meanwhile fighting at home never ceased. Balban did not mount any major attacks on neighbouring rulers, but even so his campaigns against the rebellious Bengal and Mewat would have only added to the depletion of Muslim numbers. Barani says that the Mewatis had killed a hundred thousand of his personal troops.⁷³ Jalaluddin Khaljis accession was attended by loss of Muslim lives. What Ranthambhor meant to him (and had surely meant to his predecessors too), is candidly confessed by him. He had marched to it in 1291, but recoiled from attacking it because he feared that its capture would entail great loss of Muslim lives.⁷⁴ With murdering Mongols he purchased peace. Although Alauddin Khalji rarely suffered defeat, yet there is no doubt that Muslim soldiers lost their lives in good numbers in the Bengal campaign, at Ranthambhor and Chittor and against the recurring terrific Mongol invasions.⁷⁵ The rebellions of Ikat Khan, Haji Maula and Umar and Mangu Khan too would have killed many Muslims. The massacres of neo-Muslims under Balban and Alauddin (30,000 under Alauddin only) would have added to the depreciation of Muslim numbers, and so also in Ghayasuddin Tughlaqs expeditions to Warangal, Jajnagar, Tirhut, and Bengal.
c5.s5.6
Muslim blood was shed most recklessly under Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Many of his schemes were costly in terms of human life. In the Qarachal venture 100,000 soldiers are said to have perished. Many of these, if not all, would have been Muslims. A modern historian recounts twenty-two rebellions during his reign, twenty of which were of Muslim nobles or governors, and the details point to loss of Muslim lives on both sides, rebel as well as royalist.⁷⁶ During the transfer of the capital, according to the same scholar, it were mainly Muslims who were asked to go from Delhi to Devagiri, and it is they who suffered and died in the exodus.⁷⁷ Ibn Battuta and Ferishtah credit this Sultan with a love for shedding blood. Not a little of this blood was Muslim.
c5.s5.7
Under Muhammad Tughlaqs successor Firoz Tughlaq, Shams Siraj Afif notices a demographic recovery.⁷⁸ When he wrote about it, he was naturally thinking in terms of his co-religionists also. But after Firozs death civil wars and other disorders began to decimate Muslim numbers. Most of the 180,000 slaves were done away with by his son Nasiruddin Muhammad Shah.⁷⁹ Muhammad Bihamad Khani gives vivid details of how with the weakening of the Sultanate, Muslim forces were repeatedly defeated and destroyed by even local rulers like Adharan and Sumer, and how Muslims were ousted from Chandwar, Bhongaon, Bercha, Kalpi and many other places, of course with great losses in men.⁸⁰ As the fourteenth century closed, Timur arrived to kill indiscriminately, not only Hindus but also Muslims.⁸¹ Muslim numbers would also have contributed their share to famines, pestilences etc. commonly recurring in India.