Indian Muslims: Who Are They c5.s6: Natural Growth of Muslim Population

Indian Muslims: Who Are They c5.s6

Language: English

Natural Growth of Muslim Population

c5.s6.1

These contradictory scenes in Muslim demography apart, about one thing one can be sure. While the overall demographic trend of India showed a decline, the Muslim population showed only an upward tendency. It is true that many a time statistical victories through conversions were scored off by losses in wars, yet an overall rise in Muslim population - sometimes slow, at others accelerated - is clearly discernible.

c5.s6.2

The rise seems to be slow between 1200 and 1300, and rapid between 1300 to 1400. Historical facts vouch for this behaviour. Up to the end of the thirteenth century, government effort towards proselytization is hesitant.⁸² For example, when some Ulema approached Iltutmish and suggested to him to confront the Hindus with a choice between Islam and death, Nizam-ul-Mulk Junaidi, the Wazir, replied: But at the moment in India the Muslims are so few that they are like salt (in a large dish). If the above orders are to be applied the Hindus might combine and the Muslims would be too few in number to suppress (them). However, after a few years when in the Capital and in the regions and the small towns, the Muslims are well established and the troops are larger, it will be possible to give Hindus, the choice of death or Islam.⁸³ Iltutmish, Balban and Alauddin Khalji were practical administrators, and but for the captives and converts obtained by them during wars, they did not act as royal missionaries. Besides, with the Hindus politically strongly entrenched right up to the end of the thirteenth century, Muslim proselytizing activity had to be cautious. Alauddin subdued the major Hindu powers. With their submission and extension of Muslim political power to most parts of the country Hindu vulnerability to proselytization increased. Therefore, between 1300 to 1400, under Qutbuddin Mubarak, Muhammad and Firoz Tughlaq, conversions were effected at an accelerated pace, and immigrants also arrived in larger numbers.

c5.s6.3

In brief till about the end of the thirteenth century, Muslims in India were only like salt in a large dish. The main reason for this phenomenon was that during the whole century there was little Muslim territorial expansion. To what had been acquired by 1206, nothing substantial was added till about 1300, and all the energies of the Sultanate were concentrated on preserving their acquisitions rather than expanding territorially. Such a situation was discouraging both to proselytization and even immigration. Even in the capital city of Delhi and its environs the Muslims were few, a fact which probably made Barani suffer from an incurable Hindu-phobia.⁸⁴ From the time of Alauddin Khalji, however, Muslim population in India began to grow a little faster due to the spreading of the Muslim rule to almost the whole of India after 1300, and it is rightly claimed that the establishment of the Vijayanagar Empire in the South was effected with a view to preserve Hinduism from the onslaughts of Islam. But contemporaneously the Bahmani kingdom of the South was also founded and it took to proselytising work usual with a Muslim regime.

c5.s6.4

By the close of the fourteenth century, the situation was like this. Kashmirs introduction to Islam had started since the days of Mahmud of Ghazni. Sind and Punjab were being effectively Islamised by rulers and Mongol invaders. In Gujarat, Deccan and Malwa also, because of the campaigns of local Muslim rulers against Hindu chiefs, the number of Muslims had risen. By the last years of the century, in the heartland of Muslim power, Muslim population of Delhi and its adjoining regions rose greatly, a fact which prompted Afif to write from the qasba of Indrapat (present Indraprastha Estate) to the Kaushik-i-Shikar (present Delhi University area), five kos apart all the land was occupied There were eight public mosques, and one private mosque The public mosques were each large enough to accommodate 10,000 suppliants.⁸⁵ This clearly indicates a fairly large Muslim population in the capital city.

c5.s6.5

There is yet another, though indirect and not unimpeachable, evidence for this rise. Alauddin Khalji had abolished the jagir system, lest local officials should turn contumacious. But by the time of Firoz Tughlaq the number of dependable Muslims (or Muslims of a few generations) had increased, and he could safely entrust jagirs to them, and during the forty years of his reign he devoted himself to generosity and the benefit of Musalmans, by distributing villages and lands among his followers in lieu of salary.⁸⁶

c5.s6.6

Indian Muslims around CE 1400

c5.s6.7

So, between C.E. 1200 and 1400 especially in the fourteenth century, Muslim population had grown at an accelerated pace. The agencies which contributed to this growth are, well-known. Historical facts giving an idea of this rise too are on record. But the quantum or percentage of rise during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is not possible to estimate with any amount of accuracy for want of specific data. However, it has been estimated by me elsewhere that there were more than thirty lakh Muslims in India around the year 1400 C.E.⁸⁷ These Indian Muslims were not a coalesced lot. The Musalmans of Gujarat, Malabar or Bihar had little communication among themselves. The interests of merchants were different from the other classes. Even in the Central region of Delhi-Agra Muslims had broken up into groups of vested interests. In theory all Muslims are equal; in practice some have always been more equal than the others. Foreign Muslims tried to dominate over Indian Muslims. At the top were the Ulema or the learned, nobles and army commanders. They were all foreigners or descended from migrant Muslims. It was from the Ulema class that the high officers, of government as well as religious institutions were chosen. Their presence was indispensable to a Sultan, who was generally uneducated, if not unlettered. They assisted him in the interpretation and execution of the law. It was through these men that the regime systematized the religious and social life of the Muslim community just as it organized the extension and administration of Muslim dominions in India through the nobility.

c5.s6.8

The nobility laid the foundation of Muslim rule in India. It was also sustained by the endeavours and exertions of foreign warriors and nobles. These foreign nobles belonged to Turkic, Persian, Arab, Afghan, Mongol, Abyssinian and Egyptian stocks but were known by the generic title Turk. They constituted the ruling oligarchy of the early Sultanate. They were army commanders-cum-civil administrators, officers in charge of provinces and districts and holders of other similar appointments of various grades and ranks. Many of them had risen from humble beginnings; some of them were originally slaves. But conquest of Indian kingdoms had proved to be very lucrative. So greatly had they benefited during campaigns and wars, and so great was their need to hold and administer the newly acquired territories, that they all became men of power and influence. They were known by the generic term Turks and they insisted on monopolizing all key posts and important positions, and maintaining their racial and exotic identity. This attitude was also shared by their children and childrens children, who though born in India, psychologically felt that they were Turks of foreign stock. On the other hand the foreign Muslims treated the Indian Muslim converts with contempt. They were so class conscious that Ziyauddin Barani, who was born in India but belonged to a family of nobles, credits the Turks, both in his *Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi* as well as *Fatawa-i-Jahandari*, with all possible virtues and the Indian Muslims with all kinds of vices.

c5.s6.9

The Indian converted Muslims manned the subordinate occupations. The socially rejected tradesmen were weighers, camel and donkey drivers, changers, falconers, cuppers, leather-workers and tanners, geomancers, jugglers, and barbers.⁸⁸ The menials included scavengers, entertainers, funeral workers. Wrestlers, clowns, players, story tellers, and singing women, moving about in the streets, irregularly employed, knocking about for a living, associated with vice and begging, were part of this low class.⁸⁹ Tailors, weavers and carpenters were a little better off. Somewhere in between can be placed saddlers, bow-makers, blacksmiths, rope-makers, butchers, wool-dealers, bakers, gardeners, domestic slaves, beggars, labourers and pedlars of all kinds.

c5.s6.10

These professions were almost exclusively manned by backward classes neo-converts. Conversion to Islam did not change their status, and foreign Muslims looked down upon them. The foreigners especially were not prepared to treat them on equal terms at all. To add insult to injury, the chronicler Ziya Barani, a confirmed believer in the racial superiority of the so-called Turks and baseness of the Indian Muslims, recommends: Teachers of every kind are to be sternly ordered not to thrust precious stones down the throats of dogs that is, to the mean, the ignoble, the worthless. To shopkeepers and the low born they are to teach nothing more than the rules about prayer, fasting, religious charity and the Hajj pilgrimage along with some chapters of the Quran and some doctrines of the faith without which their religion cannot be correct and valid prayers are not possible. They are to be instructed in nothing more. They are not to be taught reading and writing for plenty of disorders arise owing to the skill of the low-born in knowledge⁹⁰ The low-born, who have been enrolled for practising the baser arts and the meaner professions, are capable only of vices⁹¹ Indeed all neo-Muslims were called by the generic but contemptuous term *julaha*. Surely all the converts could not have come from the weaver caste, but the word *julaha* became synonymous with the despised low-born Indian Muslim convert.

c5.s6.11

On the other hand the foreign Muslims (or Turks) alone are capable of virtue, kindness, generosity, valour, good deed, good works, truthfulness, keeping of promises loyalty, clarity of vision, justice, equity, recognition of rights, gratitude for favours and fear of God. They are, consequently, said to be noble, free born, virtuous, religious, of high pedigree and pure birth. These groups, alone are worthy of offices and posts in the government Owing to their actions the government of the king is strengthened and adorned. On the other hand the low-born (Indian) Muslims are capable only of vices - immodesty, falsehood, miserliness, misappropriation, wrongfulness, lies, evil-speaking ingratitude,shamelessness, impundence So they are called low-born, bazaar people, base, mean, worthless, plebian, shameless and of dirty birth.⁹² Now neither the one could be so good nor the other that bad, but Ziyauddin Barani rightly depicts the prevailing attitudes and consequent tensions. What worried him most was that the Indian Muslims were appointed to high offices and are successful in their work they will make people of their own kind their helpers, supporters, colleagues. They will not allow (Turkish) nobles and free-born men and men of merits to come anywhere near the affairs of the government.⁹³

c5.s6.12

In short, there was a constant and bitter struggle of wit and influence for power going on between the foreign Turks and Indian Muslims - Indian Muslims both high and low. Although the claim of nobility of birth by purchased slaves makes little sense, the Turks felt that they belonged to blue blood and as founders of Muslim rule in India, they deserved special consideration. It was their right to keep to themselves all high offices, for they possessed merit and were superior to the *julahas*. The Indian Muslims knew that the Turks were good fighters, but for administrative work the indigenous Muslims were better suited if not indispensable. Muhammad bin Qasim and Mahmud Ghaznavi used to employ Hindus in administration and army. But with the permanent establishment of Muslim rule in India and the growth of Muslim population, the policy of the early sultans was to keep the Hindus excluded from offices and appoint only Muslims. Consequently, many ambitious Hindus converted to Islam to obtain offices. They were originally Brahmans or Kshatriyas or of other high classes and perhaps belonged originally to *raja*, *zamindar* or warrior families. Such converts had good chances of entering official positions because isolation from original homes and communities made them all the more reliable servants. They had intelligence and experience on account of their being sons of the soil. They carried with them their caste pride. In short, the Indian Muslim officers did not feel inferior to the Turks. While the poor sections of the neo-Muslims could bear any humiliation at the hands of the Turks, the higher class Indian Muslims hit back.

c5.s6.13

In this strife, the foreign Muslims had an edge. They were closer to the sultan and wielded influence with him. They were ever doing research on the ancestry of Indian Muslim officers, and informing the king about their origins and genealogy with a view to denigrating them and attempting at the removal of those who had infiltrated into it. Ziyauddin Barani derives a cynical pleasure in writing about the exclusion and expulsion of low-born Muslims from state employment. He says that Iltutmish dismissed thirtythree persons from government service by one stroke of the pen on account of their low birth. He also writes that the Vazir Nizamul Mulk Junaidi had appointed one Jamal Marzuq as the *Mutsarrif* (Superintendent) of Kannauj. The sultan not only cancelled the appointment of Marzuq, he even went into the antecedents of Nizamul Mulk himself on the representation of Malik Qutbuddin Hasan the Barbak and Malik Izzuddin Salari the Vali-i-Dar, who had some personal score to settle with the Vazir. Nizamul Mulk is highly praised by Muhammad Ufi, who dedicates his book the *Jami-ul-Hikayat* to the Vazir. This shows that he was high born. But it was not difficult for vested interests to prove that the Vazirs grandfather had descended from the *julaha* class. It is said that the latter lost the confidence of the sultan. But not his office. Obviously, the sultan dared not remove him. Barani wrongly writes that no Indian Muslim could be retained on an *iqta* or appointed to the post of *khwajgi*, *mutsarrifi* or *Mir Muharriri*. It is true that Balban also made detailed enquiries about the families of all his officers. He refused to grant audience to a low-born officer (*Amir-i-Bazariyan*) for granting him an interview would reduce the status of the king in the eyes of the common people and diminish the prestige of the throne,⁹⁴ and removed one Kamal Maiyher from the *khwajgi* of Amroha. The situation never changed, and Francois Bernier, late in the seventeenth century, talks of originally real Mongols, White men, foreigners. He also says that children of the third and fourth generation, who have the brown complexion... are held in much less respect than new comers, and are seldom invested with official situations: they consider themselves happy, if permitted to serve as private soldiers in the infantry or cavalry.⁹⁵

c5.s6.14

¹ Minhaj Siraj, *Tabqat-i-Nasiri*, pp. 238, 242, 247, 249, 256, 258, 262, 276, 281.

c5.s6.15

² *Tarikh-i-Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah*, ed. Sir Denison Ross, (London, 1927), p. 33.

c5.s6.16

³ Ferishtah, *op. cit.*, I, p.84. Also p. 66.

c5.s6.17

Footnotes:

c5.s6.18

⁴ Minhaj, *op. cit.*, pp.157-60.

c5.s6.19

⁵ Ferishtah, I, p. 66.

c5.s6.20

⁶ *Ibid.*, p. 67

c5.s6.21

⁷ *Ibid.*

c5.s6.22

⁸ *Loc. cit.*

c5.s6.23

⁹ A.B.M. Habibullah *op. cit.*, pp. 95,97.

c5.s6.24

¹⁰ Ferishtah, I, p. 73.

c5.s6.25

¹¹ Ferishtah, I, p.75. Also Habibullah, *op. cit.*, p.272.

c5.s6.26

¹² Thus fifteen *mohallas* (localities) were colonized in Delhi. These were named as Abbasi, Sanjari, Khwarizm Shahi, Delmi, Alvi, Atabaki, Ghori, Chingezi, Rumi, Sunquri, Mosuli, Samarqandi, Kashgari, and Khitai. Ferishtah, I, p. 75.

c5.s6.27

¹³ Ziyauddin Barani, *Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi*, (Calcutta, 1862) pp.57-58.

c5.s6.28

¹⁴ Ferishtah, *op. cit.*, I, p.70.

c5.s6.29

¹⁵ *Ibid.*, p. 85.

c5.s6.30

¹⁶ Barani, *op.cit.*, p.218. Isami, *Futah-us-Salatin*, pp. 205-06.

c5.s6.31

¹⁷ *Ibid.*, p.462.

c5.s6.32

¹⁸ Ibn Battuta, *Rehla*, Trs, Mahdi Husain (Baroda, 1953), pp.14-15.

c5.s6.33

¹⁹ Yahiya Sarhindi, *Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi*, pp.107-108.

c5.s6.34

²⁰ Abdul Karim, *Social History of the Muslims in Bengal*, Asiatic Society of Pakistan (Dacca, 1959), p.147.

c5.s6.35

²¹ Lal, *Twilight of the Sultanate*, p.132.

c5.s6.36

²² Yahiya Sarhindi, *op.cit.*, pp.107-108.

c5.s6.37

²³ Lal, *History of the Khaljis*, p.250.

c5.s6.38

²⁴ M. Mujeeb, *The Indian Muslims* (London, 1967), pp.67-68.

c5.s6.39

²⁵ Lal, *Khaljis*, p. 247.

c5.s6.40

²⁶ Yahiya, p.129. Ferishtah, I, p.147.

c5.s6.41

²⁷ Alberuni, II, pp. 162-163.

c5.s6.42

²⁸ Ibn Asir, *Kamil-ut-Tawarikh*, p.250.

c5.s6.43

²⁹ *Ibid.*, p.251.

c5.s6.44

³⁰ *Tarikh-i-Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, op. cit.*, p.20 has *jauq jauq ghulam har jins*.

c5.s6.45

³¹ Ferishtah, I, p. 66. Also Minhaj, *op. cit.*, p.175.

c5.s6.46

³² Minhaj, E and D, II, p348.

c5.s6.47

³³ *Ibid.*, 367. Also Ferishtah, I, 71.

c5.s6.48

³⁴ *Ibid.*, p. 371.

c5.s6.49

³⁵ *Ibid.*, pp. 380-81

c5.s6.50

³⁶ Barani, *op. cit.*, p. 59, Ferishtah, I, p.77.

c5.s6.51

³⁷ Shams Siraj Afif, *Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi*, Bib., Ind., Text (Calcutta, 1890), p. 272.

c5.s6.52

³⁸ Barani, op.cit, p.318. Lal, *Khaljis, op.cit.*, pp.214-15.

c5.s6.53

³⁹ Afif, *op. cit.*, p. 267.

c5.s6.54

⁴⁰ *Ibid.*, p.270.

c5.s6.55

⁴¹ Barani, *op. cit.*, pp.314-15.

c5.s6.56

⁴² *Masalik-ul-Absar*, op. cit, p. 580.

c5.s6.57

⁴³ First of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come and sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing the Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives, sons of Maliks etc. On the second day the *durbar* is held in a similar fashion after Asr. Female singers are brought out the Sultan distributes them among the Mameluke Amirs. On the third day relatives of the Sultan are married and they are given rewards. On the sixth day male and female slaves are married. On the seventh day he (the Sultan) gives charities with great liberality.

c5.s6.58

Ibn Battuta, *op. cit.*, p. 63. Hindi translation by A.A. Rizvi in *Tughlaq Kalin Bharat*, part I, Aligarh, 1956, p. 189.

c5.s6.59

⁴⁴ Ibn Battuta, *op. cit.*, p.123.

c5.s6.60

⁴⁵ Afif, op. cit., p.265 has *chandin hazar aurat musturat va makhdarat musalmanan nasib mikardand*. Also see pp. 119-20.

c5.s6.61

⁴⁶ *Ibid.*, p.180.

c5.s6.62

⁴⁷ *Ibid.*, p. 360.

c5.s6.63

⁴⁸ *Ibid.*, p. 144.

c5.s6.64

⁴⁹ Amir Khusrau, *Khazain-ul-Futuh*, English trs. by Mohammed Habib under the title *Campaigns of Alauddin Khilji* (Bombay, 1933), p.80.

c5.s6.65

⁵⁰ Ferishtah, *op. cit.*, II, p. 341.

c5.s6.66

⁵¹ Ibn Battutah, Voyages, ed. C. Defremery and B.R. Sanguinetti (Paris, 1857), Ill, pp.197-98. Also Lal, *Khaljis, op. cit.*, p. 305.

c5.s6.67

⁵² Satya Krishna Biswas, *Banshasmriti* (Bengali), Calcutta, 1926, pp.6-10.

c5.s6.68

⁵³ *Afif, op. cit.*, pp. 268-69.

c5.s6.69

Also Ishwari Prasad, *Qaraunah Turks*, p.331.

c5.s6.70

⁵⁴ *Fatuhat-i-Firoz Shahi* of Firoz Tughlaq, E and D, III, p. 386.

c5.s6.71

⁵⁵ Lal, *Khaljis*, op.cit., p.305; Ferishtah, *op.cit.*, I, p.127.

c5.s6.72

⁵⁶ For instance Raju Qattals efforts to convert Nahawan, the Darogha of Uchch; the latters resistance and murder. Jamali, *Siyar-ul-Arifin* (Delhi, 1311 H.), pp.159-60. Also Ferishtah, *op. cit.*, II, pp.417-18.

c5.s6.73

Also see K.R. Qanungo, *Historical Essay* (Agra, 1968), p.151 for proselytizing efforts of the militant mashaikh in Bengal and Richard Maxwell Eaton, *Sufis of Bijapur* (1300-1700), Princeton, 1978, for the Deccan.