The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c10.s3.11

c10.s3.11

Furthermore, in confirmity with the principles of the Shariat they should be subjected to all types of indignities and humiliations. The non-Muslims should be made to pay *Jiziyah*, and *Zakat* on goods be levied as prescribed by the law. They should be disallowed from donning the dress of the Muslims and should be forced to keep their *Kufr* concealed and not to perform the ceremonies of their *Kufr* openly and freely They should not be allowed to consider themselves equal to the Muslims. He went from Shahabad to Nakhna where Sultan Sikandar was encamping. His mission was to personally remind the Sultan of the kingly duties and exert his influence over him and his nobles. He also wrote letters to Mir Muhammad, Mir Tardi, Ibrahim Khan Sherwani, Said Khan Sherwani, Khawas Khan and Dilawar Khan, making frantic appeals to them to live up to the ideals of Islam, to zealously uphold and strictly enforce the Shariat and extend patronage to the Ulama and the Mashaikh.⁹⁸ Such communications and advices did not go in vain. Contemporary and later chroniclers relate how Sikandar Lodi destroyed idols of Hindu gods and goddesses, and gave their pieces to Muslim butchers for use as meat-weights. Even as a prince he had expressed a desire to put an end to the Hindu bathing festival at Kurukshetra (Thanesar). Subsequently, he ordered that the Hindus, who had assembled there on the occasion of the solar eclipse be massacred in cold blood, but later on stayed his hand. In Mathura and other places he turned temples into mosques, and established Muslim *sarais*, colleges and *bazars* in the Hindu places of worship. The list of his atrocities is endless.⁹⁹ Babur inherited his religious policy from the Lodis. Sikandar Lodis fanaticism must have been still remembered by some of the officials who continued to serve under Babur (who) was content to govern India in the orthodox fashion.¹⁰⁰