Indian Muslims: Who Are They c6.s1: The Sultanate - The Punjab, Sind and U.P.
Indian Muslims: Who Are They c6.s1
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The Sultanate - The Punjab, Sind and U.P.
c6.s1.1
During Timurs invasion the important places in the Punjab were systematically sacked. Punjab was always the first to bear the brunt of Muslim invasions directed against Hindustan, and Muslim invaders were keenly interested in making conversions. The Ghaznavids and Ghorids had occupied it and converted many people to Islam. The Mongols had also ravaged it occasionally. And for many years at a stretch, during the reigns of Sultan Nasiruddin and Ghayasuddin Balban (1246-86), they had held the trans-Ravi and Sind regions under their sway. Under them conversions used to take place on a large scale.⁶ In the second quarter of the fifteenth century the successors of Timur were holding parts of the Punjab to ransom, and rebellions of Muslim adventures were creating anarchical conditions.⁷ During this period and after, therefore, the Muslim population of the Punjab swelled considerably mainly due to proselytization. Immigration of foreign Muslims too was there on a good scale, for, as said earlier, the Saiyyad rulers, to deal effectively with foreign invaders and local rebles, and the Lodis to consolidate their position, invited large number of Afghans from across the Indus. Thus foreign immigration and campaigns helped in the rise of Muslim population in the fifteenth century Punjab.
c6.s1.2
Uttar Pradesh formed part of the Sultanate from its very inception. Consequently its invasion, which brought converts, was ruled out. But in the fifteenth century, the region to the east and south of Delhi - Katehar, Doab, Bayana and Mewat - had become a problem tract under the Saiyyads, and there they contented themselves with the ignoble but customary satisfaction of plundering the people,⁸ and obtaining some converts in the bargain. In eastern U.P. the flourishing Muslim kingdom of Jaunpur again helped in the rise of Muslim numbers. However, the regular warfare between the Lodis and the Sharqis had made both of them loosen their grip on neighbouring Hindu Rajas and Zamindars. But when the Sultanate once again gathered stability, the policy of proselytization was revived with vigour. Sikandar Lodi is credited with sustained activity in this regard. His intolerance in Gwalior, Mathura, Banaras and Allahabad,⁹ his various Islamic regulations, and the fact that a contemporary (inscription) declares him a staunch Muslim who made the foundations of Islam strong,¹⁰ point to large additions to Muslim demography.
c6.s1.3
By the fifteenth century Sind also contained a substantial population of Muslims, but when actually Sindhis converted to Islam in large numbers is not precisely known. However, Muslims had been growing in number there ever since the days of Mahmud of Ghazni. Like in Punjab, Ghaznavid governors had also ruled over upper Sind.¹¹ Later on the rule of Qubacha, his defeat by Iltutmish, the pressure of Mongols, and the rule of the Sultanate of Delhi had all combined to Islamize northern Sind to a large extent. In southern Sind the Sumras, a native Rajput tribe, was ousted by another Rajput tribe, the Summas, in the fourteenth century. The Summas were Muslims and Hindus by turns,¹² but ultimately they seem to have adopted Islam, and propagated the religion in their dominions,¹³ so that when Firoz Tughlaq invaded Tatta in 1361, he prohibited the plunder or captivity of the people because they were Muslims.¹⁴ But the Hindus were also there in large numbers. When Sultan Mahmud Beghara of Gujarat received complaints from Southern Sind where Muslims were said to be persecuted by Hindus, he marched to their relief in 1470. He met many leaders of Sumras, Sodas and Kalhoras who told him that they were professing Muslims but knew little of their faith or its rules, and were wont to intermarry with and to live as Hindus. In Sind, Compulsory conversions to Mahometanism were not infrequent, the helpless Hindu being forcibly subjected to circumcision on slight or misconstrued profession, or the false testimony of abandoned Mahometans.¹⁵ Mahmud invited many of them to Gujarat where teachers were appointed to instruct them in the faith of Islam..¹⁶ In the first quarter of the sixteenth century, Shah Beg Arghun, driven from Qandhar by Babur, expelled Jam Firoz, the last of the Summas, and his son Shah Husain took Multan in 1528. When Humayun took refuge in Sind (1541)¹⁷ Muslim population in the cities of Sind had grown considerably. The countryside had a mixed population in which half-converted Muslims and Hindus predominated.