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Indian Muslims: Who Are They c9.s2: Hindu Protestant Movement

Indian Muslims: Who Are They c9.s2

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Hindu Protestant Movement

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Another reason for India remaining a Hindu majority country was the resistance of the people to conversion to Islam. Before the advent of Islam India had seen the birth and growth of many religions and sects like Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Jainism, Buddhism, Shankaras neo-Hinduism, etc. People had freely converted, reconverted and at times conformed to more than one religious belief at one and the same time. For all this was a matter of conviction brought about by peaceful methods.

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But the Hindus could not have liked being converted by conquerors and rulers by force. In fact, as seen in Sind after the return of Muhammad bin Qasim and in Karnataka after the death of Tipu Sultan, many Hindus, who were converted to Islam, returned to their former faith on the first opportunity. Harihar and Bukka, converted to Islam by Muhammad bin Tughlaq, reverted to Hinduism and founded the kingdom of Vijayanagar to resist the expansion of Muslim power in the South. Although any return of converts to the Hindu fold was frowned upon by the Muslim rulers, and some Brahmins encouraging converts to return to Hinduism were put to death by Firoz Tughlaq and Sikandar Lodi,³ yet there did exist some mechanism which facilitated return of converted Hindus back into their old religion. Else, with what actually happened in medieval times, Hindus would have been completely submerged under the onslaught of unmitigated proselytization. The Hindus did not believe in converting others to their faith, but the tenacity of the Hindu social order lapped away at any instrusive system as the sea laps away at a sand bank.⁴ Yet in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular there were conversions on such large scale throughout the country, that for once the bleeding soul of the Hindus rose in revolt.⁵ The Bhakti saints were the leaders of the Hindu protestant movement.⁶

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It must be said at the outset that there is no recorded evidence to show that the Bhakti saints of the fifteenth century made any *deliberate* attempt to put a stop to conversions to Islam, or to reconvert people to Hinduism.

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Still there is good deal of circumstantial evidence to show that their reform movement did help check Muslim proselytizing activity. It. is significant that the socio-religious reformers associated with the Bhakti movement of the fifteenth century were all Hindus. There is some doubt about Kabirs parentage, but then, the whole background of Kabirs thought is Hindu.⁷ Indeed Kamal, the son of Kabir, who probably had greater leaning towards Islamic ways of thinking, is remembered in the *Adigrantha* by the disparaging line: the family of Kabir foundered when Kamal the son was born.⁸

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A striking feature of the Bhakti movement was that it gave to the backward class Hindus a respectable position in the society. Indeed some of the leaders of this movement like Sain, Raidas, and Dhanna belonged to the lowest classes of Hindu social order. Because of this revolution in which the lowest classes of people, even the untouchables, had not only got an equal status with the highest, but were even revered as saints,⁹ there could have been no incentive for the low classes of people to renounce their faith, if they ever had any before because of Hindu tyranny, and go over to Islam. As Aziz Ahmad puts it, like other Bhakti poets his (Kabirs) denunciation of the caste-system was as much an inspiration of Muslim example as a response to its pull of conversion.¹⁰ When Kabir denounced caste and ritual of the Hindus, he also denounced the superstitions and rituals of the Muslims: or, conversely, the idea is best expressed in the words of his disciple Naudhan (whom Sikandar Lodi executed): Islam was true, but his own religion was also true.¹¹ This was an open challenge to Muslim propagandism and proselytization. No wonder that Bhakti reformers were disliked by some Sufi Mashaikh, who looked upon them as competitors.¹² For, under the influence of these saints many Muslims were converted to Bhakti Hinduism. Namdeva,¹³ Ramdas, Eknath, Ramanand, Kabir, Nanak and Chaitanya and several other saints had Muslim disciples, many of whom converted to the Hindu Bhakti cult. Chaitanya openly converted Muslims to Bhakti Hinduism.¹⁴ The *Bhaktamala* relates many instances of conversions that Pipa effected.

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The effects of the mission of the socio-religious reformers with regard to conversion of people to Hinduism were significant. They themselves had adhered to peaceful methods but not their followers in later years. Kabirs disciples spread out throughout North India and the Deccan. Jiwan Das was the founder of the Satnami sect which took up arms against the Mughals. The Sikh disciples of Nanaks successor Gurus, for varied reasons, fought against the Mughals and many times converted people by force. So did the Marathas. Manucci and Khafi Khan both affirm that the Marathas used to capture Muslim women because (adds Manucci) the Mahomedans had interfered with Hindu women in (their) territories.¹⁵ Chaitanyas influence in Bengal as of Nanak in the Punjab is still great. According to Abdul Majid Khan it is because of Chaitanyas influence that large-scale conversions to Hinduism took place at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century.¹⁶

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Thus whether it was their motive or mission or not, the work of the Bhakti reformers helped in checking conversions to Islam and reclaiming many converted Hindus back to their former faith.

Cites (2)