The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c9.s1.4

c9.s1.4

Right through the Muslim rule, low origin foreigners used to come as individuals and in groups to seek employment in India. Writing about the foreign element in the Mughal nobility in seventeenth century Bernier says that the Omarahs mostly consist of adventurers from different nations who entice one another to the court; and are generally persons of low descent, some having been originally slaves, and the majority being destitute of education. The Mogol raises them to dignities, or degrades them to obscurity; according to his own pleasure and caprice.³ W.H. Moreland, however, does not consider all foreign immigrants as of low descent. He says that in Mughal India there were huge prizes to be won and one need not wonder that the service should have attracted to the court the ablest and most enterprising men from a large portion of Western Asia.⁴ High and low, foreign and Indian, the Muslim nobles after all belonged to one and the same cadre, and they tried to come closer together.⁵ On the one hand, foreign Muslims used to become locals after the lapse of a few generations. Bernier writes that the children of the third and fourth generation (of Uzbegs, Persians, Arabs and Turks) are held in much less respect than the new corners.⁶ On the other hand, the low-born Indian Muslim became elitist with rise in economic status. There was a saying: Last year I was a *julaha*, this year a *shaykh*; and the next year, if the harvest be good, I shall be a *saiyyad*.⁷ Belonging to Islam was a great cementing force, and, whatever the colour of the skin, all Muslim nobles tried to feel as one, as belonging to the ruling elite, as searching for exotic roots. It was aristocratic on the part of the orthodox Muslim to feel that he was in India, but not of it. He durst not strike his roots deep into the native soil. He must import traditions, language and culture. His civil and criminal law must be derived from the writings of jurists and the decisions of judges in Baghdad and Cairo. The Muslim in India was an intellectual exotic; he considered it *infra dig* to adapt himself to his environment.⁸