The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c10.s3.7

c10.s3.7

About the conversions in Bengal three statements, one each from Wolseley Haig, Dr. Wise and Duarte Barbosa, should suffice to assess the situation. Haig writes that it is evident, from the numerical superiority in Eastern Bengal of the Muslims that at some period an immense wave of proselytization must have swept over the country and it is most probable that the period was the period of Jalaluddin Muhammad (converted son of Hindu Raja Ganesh) during whose reign of seventeen years (1414-1431) hosts of Hindus are said to have been forcibly converted to Islam.⁸¹ With regard to these conversions, Dr. Wise writes that the only condition he offered were the Koran or death many Hindus fled to Kamrup and the jungles of Assam, but it is nevertheless probable that more Muhammadans were added to Islam during these seventeen years (1414-31) than in the next three hundred years.⁸² And Barbosa writes that It is obviously an advantage in the sixteenth century Bengal to be a Moor, in as much as the Hindus daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulers.⁸³ The militant Mashaikh also found in Bengal a soil fertile for conversion, and worked hard to raise Muslim numbers.⁸⁴