The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c8.s1: Theocratic State

The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c8.s1

Language: English

Theocratic State

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The State that these Muslim invaders and rulers set up in India was a theocracy. This is the conclusion arrived at by Jadunath Sarkar,¹ R.P. Tripathi,² K.M.Ashraf,³ T.P. Hughes,⁴ the *Encyclopaedia of Islam*⁵ and many others. All the institutions that the Muslims either evolved or adopted were intended to subserve the law,⁶ observes Tripathi. On the other hand, I.H. Qureshi says that the supremacy of the Shara (Islamic law) has misled some into thinking that the Sultanate was a theocracy.⁷ Qureshis contention may not be taken seriously, because he tries to eulogize every aspect of Muslim rule in India.⁸ But even Mohammad Habib declares that it (Muslim state in India) was not a theocratic state in any sense of the word and that its foundation was, non-religious and secular.⁹

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Before analysing these two poles-apart views, let us first be clear about what theocracy means. According to the Oxford Dictionary the word theocracy is derived from the Creek *theos*, meaning God; and a state is theocratic when governed by God directly or through a sacerdotal class. Theocracy envisages direct intervention and authorship of God through revelation in government of society.¹⁰ The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary defines theocracy as that constitution of a state in which the Almighty is regarded as the sole soverign, and the laws of the realm as divine commands rather than human ordinances, the priesthood necessarily becoming the officers of the invisible ruler.¹¹

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The above premise makes three elements essential in a theocracy: (1) prevalence of the law of God, (2) authority of the soverign or ruler who promulgates this law, and (3) presence of a sacerdotal class or priesthood through which this law is disseminated. Let us examine to what extent these elements were present in the Muslim state in medieval India. We need not discuss the first two elements for, according to Dr. Qureshi himself, the Shara is based on the Quran which is believed by every Muslim to be the word of God revealed to His prophet Muhammad on these two rocks - the Quran and Hadis (the prophets interpretations, traditions) is built the structure of Muslim Law This Law was the actual sovereign in Muslim lands.¹²

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So far as the third element is concerned, it is true that there was no ordained or hereditary Muslim priesthood in medieval India. But there was a scholastic class called the Ulama, who wielded great influence with the Sultan. About their education and orthodoxy, Dr. Yusuf Husain has this to say: The institutions of higher learning called Madrasa, had developed into centres of learning with a distinct religious bias. They were essentially schools of theology These Madrasas were the strongholds of orthodoxy and were subsidized by the state.¹³ From amongst the products of these schools of theology were appointed jurists, advisers of Sultans and kings, and interpreters of the Shara (Islamic law). The protection of Shariat, writes Ibn Hasan, has two aspects: The propagation of the knowledge of Shara and its enforcement as law within the state. The one implies the maintenance of a class of scholars devoted to the study, the teaching and the propagation of that knowledge, and the other the appointment of one from those scholars as an adviser to the king in all his acts of state. The scholars devoted to that knowledge are called Ulama and the one selected from among them is termed Shaikh-ul-Islam.¹⁴ The Shaikh-ul-Islam was the representative of the Ulama and it was his duty to bring to the notice of the King what he thought detrimental or prejudicial to the interest of his religion, and the king had little option in acting upon such an advice.¹⁵ Henry Blochmann elaborates the position still further. Islam has no state clergy, says he, but we find a counterpart to our hierarchical bodies in the Ulemas about the court from whom the Sadrs of the provinces, the Mir Adls, Muftis and Qazis were appointed. At Delhi and Agra, the body of the learned had always consisted of staunch *Sunnis*, who believed it their duty to keep the kings straight. How great their influence was, may be seen from the fact that of all Muhammadan emperors only Akbar, and perhaps Alauddin Khalji, succeeded in putting down this haughty sect.¹⁶ No amount of arguments can obliterate the fact of the great influence of the priestly class (Ulama and Mashaikh) in the Muslim state.

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Thus the law which obtained in medieval India was the Shara which was based on divine revelation. It was not a secular law. Muslim state could not be a secular state. In fact Islam and secularism are mutually exclusive. One has only to read the Quran and a few Persian chronicles of medieval times to realise the extent to which the Muslim state in India was theocratic both in spirit and in action.

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The fundamental basis of the Islamic polity is the attainment of complete religious uniformity, to root out heresy and to extirpate infidelity - populations everywhere were to be converted into true believers.¹⁷ The Quranic injuction is: And when the sacred months (*Ramzan*) are passed, kill those who join other deities with God, wherever you shall find them. But if they shall convert then let them go their way.¹⁸ The prophet of Islam who had accorded some sort of religious toleration to the Jews of Medina, expelled them afterward to bring about a complete religious uniformity in that city, while Caliph Omar I (C.E. 634-644) expelled the Jews and Christians from the whole of Arabia.¹⁹

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In India the decision of Muhammad bin Qasim to accord to the Hindus the status of *Zimmis* (protected people against payment of *jiziyah*) paved the way for subsequent Muslim rulers to follow the same precedent; else Hindus as idolaters could not be given this concession reserved for *Ahl-i-Kitab* (or the People of the Book) Christians and Jews - and could only be given a choice between conversion and death. In all their discussions the Ulama and Sufis never conceded the status of *Zimmis* to the Hindus. In this regard the declaration of the secular Alim and Sufi, Amir Khusrau, may be taken as final: Happy Hindustan, the splendour of Religion, where the Law finds perfect honour and security. The whole country, by means of the sword of our holy warriors, has become like a forest denuded of its thorns by fire Islam is triumphant, idolatry is subdued. Had not the Law granted exemption from death by the payment of poll-tax, the very name of Hind, root and branch, would have been extinguished.²⁰ If the sultans treated Hindus as Zimmis, it was because of the compulsions of the Indian situation.

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Even so, the Hindus, as *Zimmis*, became second class citizens in their own homeland and were suffered to live under certain disabilities. One of them was that each adult must pay a poll-tax called *jiziyah*. Moreover, the main object in levying the tax is the subjection of infidels to humiliation²¹ and during the process of payment, the *Zimmi* is seized by the collar and vigorously shaken and pulled about in order to show him his degradation.²² The *Zimmis* also had to suffer in respect of their mode of worship, payment of taxes, and on account of certain sumptuary laws.²³ Death awaited them at every corner, because, being idolaters they could be given a choice only between Islam and death.²⁴ The State rested upon the support of the military class which consisted largely of the followers of the faith. They were treated as the favoured children of the state while various kinds of disabilities were imposed upon the non-Muslim It is interesting to note that even (illiterate and unscrupulous) foreign adventurers were preferred just because they were Muslims to hold offices of importance and dignity which were denied to the Hindus.²⁵

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There are countless examples of prejudicial treatment meted out to non-Muslims under the theocratic government. Only a few may be mentioned here as an illustration. Amir Khusrau writes that under Jalauddin Khalji (1290-96), after a battle, whatever live Hindu fell into the hands of the victorious king was pounded to bits under the feet of the elephants. The Musalman captives had their lives spared.²⁶ Similarly, Malik Kafur, the famous general of Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316), while on his expeditions in South India, spared the lives of Muslims fighting on the side of the Hindu Rai as they deserted to his army.²⁷ Rizqullah Mushtaqi is all praise for Sultan Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517) because under him the Muslims dominated and the Hindus were suppressed (*musalman china dast va hinduan ram*).²⁸ It was not only so in the medieval period. Such discrimination is observed in theocratic states even today.

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When, in 1910, Boutros Pasha was murdered by an Egyptian Muhammadan for no personal provocation but for the political reason that he had presided over the court that sentenced the Denshawai villagers, and the guilt of the murderer was conclusively proved by evidence, the Chief Qazi of Egypt pronounced the judgement that according to Islam it is no crime for a Muslim to slay an unbeliever. This is the opinion held by the highest exponent of Islamic law in a modern civilized country.²⁹

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And here is a case of the year 1990. Sunil Vadhera was employed with M/s. Archirodo Construction (Overseas) Co., Riyadh. He died in an accident caused by a Creek national of M/s. Saboo. The defender deposited 1,00,000 Saudi *riyals* or Rs. 4.65 lakh with the Saudi government as compensation for death. But the Shariat Saudi court has ruled that as the deceased was a Hindu, as per Shariat law he was entitled to Saudi *riyals* 6,666.66 only or Rs.30,000. This is just about one-fifteenth of the compensation that the parents would have got if their son was a Muslim.³⁰

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The disabilities the Hindus suffered under this Islamic or *Shariat* law are clearly mentioned in the Quran, the Hadis and the *Hidaya*. It would be the best to go through these works as suggested in Chapter 2. However, these are also summarised in the *Encyclopaedia of Islam*,³¹ T.P. Hughess *Dictionary of Islam*,³² N.P. Aghnidess *Muhammadan Theories of Finance*,³³ Blochmanns translation of the *Ain-i-Akbari*,³⁴ Ziyauddin Baranis *Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi*³⁵ and a host of other Persian chronicles, and there is no need to repeat here *zimmi*, *kharajguzar*, *jiziyah* syndrome. The fact to be noted is that Shariat law continued to prevail throughout the medieval period.

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The *Shariat* law was so brazenly prejudicial to the interests of the vast majority of the non-Muslims (and hence the wishful thinking that it did not prevail and that the medieval state was secular), that even the medieval thinkers and rulers found it impracticable to enforce it in full. When the nobles and Ulama of the Sultanate pressed Shamsuddin Iltutmish to enforce the *Shara*, and give the Hindus a choice between Islam and death, the latter asked for time.³⁶ Equally helpless (or shrewd) were Balban and Jalaluddin Khalji.³⁷ It was probably the experience of such rulers that prompted Ziyauddin Barani to advocate that if the enforcement of the *Shariat* was impossible or impracticable, new laws should be enacted by rulers. It is the duty of a king, says he, to enforce, if he can, those royal laws which have become proverbial owing to their principles of justice and mercy. But if owing to change of time and circumstances he is unable to enforce the laws of the ancients (i.e. ancient Muslim rulers), he should, with the counsel of wise men frame laws suited to his time and circumstances and proceed to enforce them. Much reflection is necessary in order that laws, suited to his reign, are properly framed.³⁸ So that they in no way contravene the tenets of Islam. These laws Barani calls *Zawabits*.

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Barani wrote in the fourteenth century. Perhaps he had in mind the rules of Alauddin Khalji about Market Control or his revenue regulations. Else, right up to the first half of the sixteenth century no king made any laws of the kind. No chronicler has made mention of any such laws. It was late in the sixteenth century that Akbar promulgated a number of regulations for the real benefit of people. There were some tolerant monarchs in medieval India, and yet none except Akbar ever thought of enacting any laws which would have removed to some extent the disabilities imposed on the majority of the population. Between 1562 and 1564 he abolished the pilgrim tax, the *jiziyah* and the practice of enslaving prisoners of war. Restrictions were imposed on the manufacture and sale of liquor in 1582 and the same year child marriage was discouraged by fixing the marriage age at 14 for girls and 16 for boys. In 1587 Akbar legalized widow remarriage and prohibited *Sati* for *Bal Vidhvas* in 1590-91. In 1601 he took the revolutionary step of permitting individuals to choose their religion and those who had been forcibly converted to Islam could go back to their former faith. But even Akbar did not codify any laws as such for his successors to follow. His beneficial and equitable regulations remained, as they could remain, only for his empire and during his life-time. It is significant to note that even in the few reforms that Akbar ordered, many nobles and Ulama saw a danger to Islam.

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So what Barani calls *Zawabits* were few and far between, and the *Shara* continued to be the supreme law prevalent in the Turkish and Mughal times. No wonder, contemporary chroniclers always eulogized the Indian Muslim kings as defenders of the Islamic faith. This tickled their vanity and prompted them to be strict in the enforcement of the law. It encouraged them to be iconoclasts, it made them patronize the Muslim minority and resort to all kinds of methods to obtain conversions, besides, of course, at the same time treating the non-Muslims unfairly to exhibit their love for their own faith. Secondly, the Ulama always tried to keep the kings straight. They considered it their sacred duty to see that the kings not only did not stray away from the path of religion and law, but also enforced it on the people. Such indeed was their influence that even strong monarchs did not dare suppress them. Others, of course, tried to walk on the path shown by this bigoted scholastic class. The third and the most important reason was that protestation of championship for Islam buttressed the claim of the king for the crown, for a ruler was not safe on the throne if he did not enforce the Shara. At the close of the Khalji regime, Ghiyasuddin declared himself as a champion of the faith, because the Ulama had been dissatisfied with Alauddins policies and Ghiyasuddin with the activities of Nasiruddin Khusrau. The slogan of Islam in danger so common yet so effective in the history of the Muslims, was started.³⁹ And this to a great degree won Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq the throne. The Ulama were equally dissatisfied with Muhammad bin Tughlaq. On his demise, Shaikh Nasiruddin Chiragh obtained from Firoz a promise that he would rule according to the tenets of justice and law. Firoz Shah Tughlaq proved true to his word and made religion the basis of his government.⁴⁰ A little later Amir Timur openly claimed to have attacked Hindustan with the avowed object of destroying idolatry and infidelity in the country.⁴¹ Akbars tolerance had exasperated the Muslim divines, and a promise was obtained from his successor, Jahangir, that he would defend the Muslim religion. Immediately after Akbars death Mulla Shah Ahmad, one of the greatest religious leaders of the age, wrote to various court dignitaries exhorting them to get this state of things altered in the very beginning of (Jahangirs) reign because otherwise it would be difficult to accomplish anything later on.⁴² Aurangzeb openly claimed to have fought the apostate Dara to re-establish the law of Islam. Thus, whether we consider the influence of the Muslim religious class (the Ulama), the application of the law of Islam (*Shara*), or the activities of the kings, it is clear beyond doubt that the medieval state was a theocratic state. No wonder that many contemporary and later Muslim writers praise the deeds of Aurangzeb with great gusto. The name of Akbar is obliterated: it does not find mention by a single Muslim chronicler after his death.

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Why is then there a desire to escape from this fact? In modern times values of life have changed. Today, in an age of science and secularism, ideas of religious disabilities and persecution appear to be so out of tune with .human behaviour, that we are made to believe that such disabilities were never there even in the past. Modern Indian government is based on the ideals of secularism. It tries to eschew religious controversies. It is felt that such was the position through the ages without realising that even now disabilities of non-Muslims are existing in many Islamic countries.

Cites (1)

Tārīkh-i Fīrūzshāhī — Shams-i Sirāj ʿAfīf, Persian