Indian Muslims: Who Are They c8.s2: Immigration

c8.s2.1

It was thus mainly conversions that were responsible for the rise and growth of Muslim population in medieval India. This component of growth went on extending with Muslim territorial expansion. Immigration of foreign Muslims too helped in its growth. As has been seen at many places earlier, from the inception of Muslim rule right up to the eighteenth century foreign Muslims, especially from Persia, Central Asia and Abyssinia used to arrive in India and settle down here. Hindustan was a paradise for Muslim merchants, scholars and adventures. Muslim regime of Hindustan promised and provided excellent jobs to all and sundry foreign Muslims. No wonder that the latter came here in large numbers to settle down and make fortunes. Hazards of journey were there no doubt,³⁹ but these were reduced with passing of time and minimised by migrant adventurers and merchants travelling in groups. Throughout the medieval period they came in droves, like ants and locusts,⁴⁰ and were given here important and influential positions. It was naturally a one way traffic; Muslims only came, nobody migrated from here. By the seventeenth century they formed many pressure groups - like Irani and Turani - in the Mughal empires politics and society. Many Muslims even today take pride in asserting their extra-territorial identity by adding suffixes like Iraqi and Bukhari to their names.