Indian Muslims: Who Are They c8.s1.2

c8.s1.2

The rulers used force and persuasion in equal measure. Their resources were great. They could give jobs, honours, and titles and many other economic concessions and status benefits as inducements to conversion, and many people would have taken advantage of these facilities. We have referred to Mubarak Khaljis encouragement to Hindus to accept Islam by presenting the convert with a robe and a gold ornament. People used to be converted in this fashion right up to the reign of Aurangzeb and perhaps even thereafter. There were other methods too. The Banshasmriti of Satya Krishna Biswas states that in Bengal the Rajas and Zamindars who could not deposit land revenue by a certain date had to convert to Muhammadanism. The *Banshasmriti* narrates an isolated incident, but as this regulation of the thirteenth century had been revived by Murshid Quli Khan, or had continued right up to his times, many local Rajas and Zamindars would have been converted in the course of four centuries, for full payment of land tax by due date was not always possible. Firoz Tughlaq (1351-88) instructed his revenue collectors to convert Hindus to Islam.⁵ He rescinded the Jiziyah to lure people to become Muhammadans, and this measure brought large additions to Muslim population. In his *Fatuhat-i-Firoz Shahi*, Sultan Firoz Tughlaq candidly writes: I encouraged my infidel subjects to embrace the religion of the prophet and I proclaimed that everyone who repeated the *Kalima of tauhid* and became Musalman should be exempt from Jiziyah Information of this came to the ears of the people at large, and great number of Hindus presented themselves, and were admitted to the honour of Islam. Thus they came forward day by day from every quarter, go on coming to this day, and adopting the faith, are exonerated from the Jiziyah, and are favoured with Khilats and presents.⁶