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History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c45: Chapter XXXIV. The Islamic State Church in India

History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c45

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Contents

Chapter XXXIV. The Islamic State Church in India

§1. The Muslim State entirely subordinate to the Church.

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By the theory of its origin the Muslim State is a theocracy. Its true king is God, and earthly rulers are merely His agents, bound to enforce His law on all. Civil Law is completely subordinated to Religious Law and, indeed, merges its existence in the latter. The civil authorities exist solely to spread and enforce the true faith. In such a State, infidelity is logically equivalent to treason, because the infidel repudiates the authority of the true king and pays homage to his rivals, the false gods and goddesses. All the resources of the State, all the forces under the political authorities, are in strict legality at the disposal of the missionary propaganda of the true faith.

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Therefore, the toleration of any sect outside the fold of orthodox Islam is no better than compounding with sin. And the worst form of sin is polytheism, the belief that the one true God has partners in the form of other deities.∗ Such a belief is the rankest ingratitude (*kufr*)* to Him who gives us our life and daily bread.

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∗ The Arabic term for polytheism is shirk, meaning "associating other [false gods] with God." (Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, 579.)

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∗ *Kufr* means literally 'covering up the truth (regarding God),' and secondarily 'ingratitude.' A *kafir* is a man guilty of *kufr*.

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Islamic theology, therefore, tells the true believer that his highest duty is to make "exertion (*jihad*) in the path of God,"† by waging war against infidel lands (*dar-ul-harb*) till they become a part of the realm of Islam (*dar-ul-Islam*) and their populations are converted into true believers. After conquest the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced to the status of slaves of the conquering army. The men taken with arms are to be slain or sold into slavery and their wives and children reduced to servitude. As for the non-combatants among the vanquished, if they are not massacred outright,—as the Canon lawyer Shafi declares to be the Quranic injunction,—it is only to give them a respite till they are so wisely guided as to accept the true faith.

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† *Jihad fi sabil ullah* (Quran, ix. 29). For *jihad* see Hughes, 243-248, 710; *Encyclopædia of Islam*, i. 1041. "And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other deities with God, wherever ye shall find them...But if they shall convert,...then let them go their way." (Quran, ix. 5, 6.) "Say to the infidels, if they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them. But if they return to it,...fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's" (viii. 39-42.)

§2. Ideal of a Muslim State.

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The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent, is the ideal of the Muslim State. If any infidel is suffered to exist in the community, it is as a necessary evil, and for a transitional period only. Political and social disabilities must be imposed on him, and bribes offered to him from the public funds, to hasten the day of his spiritual enlightenment and the addition of his name to the roll of true believers.* The growth of the infidel population in number or wealth would, therefore, defeat the very end of the State. Hence, a true Islamic king is bound to look on jubilantly when his infidel subjects cut each other's throats, for "whichever side may be slain, Islam is the gainer," (har tarf ke shawwad kushta sud-i-Islam ast). If for instance, two rival orders of Hindu monks fought each other to the death for precedence in bathing in a holy tank, a Muslim king like Akbar was expected to abdicate his function of guardian of the public peace, and assist them in mutually thinning the number of the infidels.†

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∗ "With regard to the idolators of a non-Arabic country, Shafi maintains that destruction is incurred by them also; but other learned doctors agree that it is lawful to reduce them to slavery, thus allowing them, as it were, a respite during which it may please God to direct them into the right path, but making, at the same time, their persons and substance subservient to the cause of Islam." (Hughes, 710.) Encyclo. Islam, i. 917 (dar-ul-harb.)

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† Khuda Bakhsh MS. of Khandan-i-Timuria, 322a, where Akbar's action is justified on the principle, Har tarf &c. Tabaqat-i-Akbari, 279.

§3. Political disabilities of non-Muslims.

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A non-Muslim, therefore, cannot be a citizen of the State; he is a member of a depressed class; his status is a modified form of slavery. He lives under a contract (*zimma*) with the State: for the life and property that are grudgingly spared to him by the Commander of the Faithful he must undergo political and social disabilities, and pay a commutation-money (*jaziya*). In short, his continued existence in the State after the conquest of his country by the Muslims is conditional upon his person and property being made subservient to the cause of Islam.

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He must pay a tax for his land (*kharaj*), from which the early Muslims were exempt; he must pay other exactions for the maintenance of the army, in which he cannot enlist even if he offers to render personal service instead of paying the poll-tax; and he must show by humility of dress and behaviour that he belongs to a subject class. No non-Muslim (*zimmi*) can wear fine dresses, ride on horseback or carry arms; he must behave respectfully and submissively to every member of the dominant sect.*

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∗ For zimmis or protected non-Muslims, Hughes 710-713; Encyclopædia of Islam, i. 958, 1051; Muir's Caliphate, 3rd ed., 149-158. "Each adult, male, free, sane Zimmi must pay a poll-tax, jizya. His real estate either becomes a waqf for the whole body of Muslims, but of which he continues to have the use, or he holds it still as his own. In either event he pays on it and its crops a land-tax, kharaj, which on the owner being a Muslim falls. He is liable also to other

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As the learned Qazi Mughis-ud-din declared to Ala-ud-din Khalji, in accordance with the teaching of the books on Canon Law :—" 'The Hindus are designated in the Law as 'payers of tribute' (*kharaj-guzar*); and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should, without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths wide to receive it. By these acts of degradation are shown the extreme obedience of the *zimmi*, the glorification of the true faith of Islam, and the abasement of false faiths. God himself orders them to be humiliated, [as He says, 'till they pay *jaziya*] with the hand and are humbled.'...The Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive...No other religious authority except the great Imam [Hanifa] whose faith we follow, has sanctioned the imposition of the *jaziya* on Hindus. According to all other theologians, the rule for Hindus is 'Either death or Islam.' " (Zia Barani, 290.)

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exactions for the maintenance of the Muslim armies. He must distinguish himself from believers by dress, not riding on horseback or carrying weapons, and by a generally respectful attitude towards Muslims. He is also under certain legal disabilities with regard to testimony in lawcourts, protection under criminal law and in marriage ...Nor in the exercise of their worship may they (the *Zimmis*) use an offensive publicity. They are not citizens of the Muslim State." (*Encyclo. Islam*, i. 958-959.)

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The *zimmi* is under certain legal disabilities with regard to testimony in lawcourts, protection under criminal law, and marriage. The State, as the other party in the contract (*zimma*), guarantees to him security of life and property and a modified protection in the exercise of his religion :—he cannot erect new temples, and has to avoid any offensive publicity in the exercise of his faith. But everything short of open physical persecution,—everything that would not be a flagrant breach of the contract of protection, can be legitimately practised by the Muslim ruler to reduce the number of the undesirable alien sect.

§4. Necessary effects of Muslim conquest.

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The history of the world under Muslim rule illustrates how theology has repeatedly prevailed over political wisdom. The early Arab conquerors, notably in Sindh, followed the wise and profitable policy of leaving the shrines and religious practices of the non-Muslim population practically undisturbed. On the first capture of a city the inhabitants were called upon to accept Islam. If they agreed, they were given full rights with the conquerors; otherwise, by paying a compounding fee (*jaziya*), they secured the right of exercising their religion. The demolition of the chief temple in the captured city and the erection of a mosque on its site was an invariable incident of Muslim conquest. But there was at first no wanton or systematic iconoclasm. With the growth of the Muslim population, however, the long enjoyment of unchallenged power bred in them a spirit of intolerance and a love of persecution.* Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects. In addition to the poll-tax and public degradation in dress and demeanour imposed on them, the non-Muslims were subjected to various hopes and fears. Rewards in the form of money and public employment were offered to apostates from Hinduism. The leaders of Hindu religion and society were systematically repressed, to deprive the sect of spiritual instruction, and their religious gatherings and processions were forbidden in order to prevent the growth of solidarity and a sense of communal strength among them. No new temple was allowed to be built† nor any old one to be repaired, so that the total disappearance of all places of Hindu worship was to be merely a question of time. But even this delay, this slow operation of Time, was intolerable to many of the more fiery spirits of Islam, who tried to hasten the abolition of "infidelity" by anticipating the destructive hand of Time and forcibly pulling down temples.

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∗ Elliot, i. 469. The *zimmis* "may repair and even rebuild existing churches, but not erect new ones on new sites." (Encyclo., i. 959.) "The construction of places of worship in the Muslim territory is unlawful for them, unless within their own houses, but if churches and synagogues originally belonging to Christians and Jews be destroyed or fall to decay, they are at liberty to rebuild and repair them." (Hughes, 711.) "It has been settled according to Canon Law that no long standing temple should be demolished nor any new one allowed to be built" (Aurangzib's Benares *farman*, J.A.S.B., 1911, 689).

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† Firuz Shah Tughlaq destroyed all new idol-temples in Delhi and its environs, and "killed the leaders of infidelity and subjected the

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In this later age, particularly among the Turks, who were new converts to Islam and had all the fiery zeal of neophytes, the old Arab toleration of false faiths appeared sinful and the suppression of infidels, however accomplished, a supreme merit in the eyes of God. Outside their own realms, the destruction of temples and the slaughter of Hindus sanctified every war of aggression. Thus a frame of mind was produced in the Muslim community which habitually regarded plunder and homicide as the purest of human acts, as "exertion in the path of God." When Timur, for instance, was tempted by the report of the vast wealth of India to come and plunder it, he announced his aim to be "to overthrow their temples and idols and become ghazis and mujahids before God;...since the inhabitants are chiefly polytheists and infidels, and idolators and worshippers of the Sun, by the order of God and

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lower orders to stripes and chastisement, as a warning to all men that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Muslim country." (Elliot, iii. 380-381.)

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His Prophet it is right for us to conquer them." (Elliot, iii. 396.) This motive sanctified all his massacres and outrages in the eyes of his fellow-believers. Again, in 1569, when a noble named Husain Khan went on a private predatory expedition into the Sewalik mountains on "hearing that the bricks of the temples were of silver and gold, and conceiving a desire for this and all other unguarded treasures, of which he had heard a lying report," the pious historian Al Badayuni (ii. 125) calls it a religious war. When Muhammad Adil Shah sent his armies to attack the Hindus of the Karnatak, whose only fault was their wealth, his Court historian designated this campaign of slaughter, rapine and outrage as the realization of a long cherished pious resolution. (Bas. Sal. 304.) The murder of infidels (*kafir-kushi*) is counted a merit in a Muslim. It is not necessary that he should tame his own passions or mortify his flesh; it is not necessary for him to grow a rich growth of spirituality. He has only to slay a certain class of his fellow-beings or plunder their lands and wealth, and this act in itself would raise his soul to heaven.*

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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 judgment that according to Islam it is no crime for a Muslim to slay an unbeliever.

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A religion whose followers are taught to regard robbery and murder as a religious duty, is incompatible with the progress of mankind or with the peace of the world.

§5. Influence of the Quranic political ideals on the Muslim population.

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Nor has it been conducive to the true interests of its followers. Muslim polity formed "the faithful" into a body with no other profession than war. As long as there were any fresh lands to conquer and any rich *kafirs* to plunder, all went well with the State.* The dominant body prospered and multiplied rapidly; even arts and industries, literature and painting of a certain type were fostered. But when the tide of Muslim expansion reached its farthest limit and broke in vain on the hills of Assam and Chatgaon, or the arid rocks of Maharashtra, there was nothing to avert a rapid downfall. The State had no economic basis, and was not able to stand a time of peace. Repose was fatal not only to its growth but to its very life.

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This is the opinion held by the highest exponent of Islamic law in a modern civilized country.

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∗ "The Arabs lived on the fat of the conquered provinces, and subject peoples served them. Of booty taken in war four-fifths were distributed to the army on the field...And there arose, also, new sources of revenue in the land assessment and poll-tax of conquered countries, the surplus of which, after defraying civil and military charges, became equally with spoils of war patrimony of the Arab nation." (Muir's *Caliphate*, 158.) Elliot, i. 461.

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For, the cruel kindness of the Government had unfitted the dominant people for avocations of peace and the silent but deadly struggle for existence. Like the Romans of the empire and the Spaniards of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Turks are an essentially military and non-economic people. War is the only trade they have a natural aptitude for, and peace means to them "unemployment," vice and downfall.

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The settled principle of Islam ended by making the Muslims a privileged class, nourished on State bounties, naturally prone to indolence in peace times and unable to stand on their own legs in the arena of life. Brave and active as the hungry first conquerors were, their sons merely lived on the paternal fiefs without feeling any incentive to exertion, and soon began to look on military service as a hateful tax payable for their lands.* Public office came to be regarded as the birthright of the faithful, and so every inducement to display superior ability or exertion was taken away from them. The enormous areas of land given away by the kings as religious and service grants, nourished thousands of Muslim families in a life of slothful ease, while the natural increase of every succeeding generation turned their competence into deepening squalor. The vast sums* spent by the State in maintaining pauper houses and in scattering alms during Ramzan and other holy days and joyous ceremonies, were a direct premium on laziness. It was more lucrative and comfortable to be a *faqir* at the capital than to earn an honest living as a cultivator, subject to the caprices of the seasons and the worse caprices of the revenue underlings and officials on tour. Thus a lazy and pampered class was created in the empire, who sapped its strength and was the first to suffer when its prosperity was arrested. Wealth bred indolence and love of ease; these soon led to vice; and vice finally brought about poverty and ruin.

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∗ "The old Shamsi military grantees of land were unfit for service, and never went out [on campaign]. Thirty or forty years had passed...Some of these holders of service lands went leisurely to perform their military duties, but the greater part stayed at home making excuses." When orders were issued by Balban for the enforcement of military service and the resumption of the lands of the infirm, widows and orphans, "a loud outcry arose in every quarter"...and the Sultan withdrew his order! (Elliot, iii. 107-108.)

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§6. Moral and economic decay of the rulers and of the subject population under Islam.

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At the same time that the ruling class was placed on an unsound non-economic basis, the treatment of the subject people prevented the full development of the resources of the State by them. When a class of men is publicly depressed and harassed by law and executive caprice alike, it merely contents itself with dragging on an animal existence. With every generous instinct of the soul crushed out of them, with intellectual culture merely adding a keen edge to their sense of humiliation, the Hindus could not be expected to produce the utmost of which they were capable; their lot was to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to their masters, to bring grist to the fiscal mill, to develop a low cunning and flattery as the only means of saving what they could out of the fruits of their own labour. Amidst such social conditions, the human hand and the human mind cannot achieve their best; the human soul cannot soar to its highest pitch. The barrenness of the Hindu intellect and the meanness of spirit of the Hindu upper classes are the greatest condemnation of Muhammadan rule in India. The Islamic political tree, judged by its fruit, was an utter failure.

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∗ In June 1663, Aurangzib ordered that Rs. 1,49,000 should be spent annually in alms to beggars. This was in addition to what he gave away on his two birthdays, lunar and solar, every year and on other special occasions. *A.N.* 830-831.

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As a widely travelled and profound modern philosopher writes, "Islam is a religion of absolute surrender and submissiveness to God—but to a God of a certain character—a War-Lord who is entitled to do with us as he will and who bids us stand ever in line of battle against the foe...The ritual of this belief embodies the idea of discipline. When the true believers every day at fixed hours perform their prayers in serried ranks in the mosque, all going through the same gestures at the same moment, this is not, as in Hinduism, done as a method of self-realization, but in the spirit in which the Prussian soldier defiled before his Kaiser. This military basis of Islam explains all the essential virtues of the Musalman. It also explains his fundamental defects—his unprogressiveness, his incapacity to adapt himself, his lack of initiative and invention. The soldier has simply to obey orders. All the rest is the affair of Allah.” (H. Keyserling’s *Travel Diary of a Philosopher*).

§7. Formation of a nation impossible in a theocracy.

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When public offices are distributed in consideration of race or creed and not of merit, when birth and not efficiency is the qualification demanded in those who are to serve the State, public posts rightly come to be regarded as the spoils of war; the official system becomes a hereditary form of military pension and not a machinery for doing certain necessary services to the community at a minimum cost and maximum efficiency. The non-Muslim populations are, therefore, driven to conclude that they have no lot or part in such a State; it is alien to them, and its fall would mean no injury to the community but only a personal loss to a body of self-seekers. The Islamic theocracy when set up over a composite population has the worst vices of oligarchy and of alien rule combined.

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In Mughal India it was, in addition, the dominion of a small minority. And this minority differed from the politically depressed majority not in race or culture, but in creed only. Centuries of intermarriage had left no Muhammadan in India—not even of the blood royal—who could claim absolute purity of foreign descent; they were all Hindustan-born, Hindu blood flowed in their veins, they had the same language, manners and dress as their Hindu subjects. The minority, therefore, could not justify its monopoly of power and office, its political privileges and social hauteur, by any pretended superiority of racial qualities, physical or mental. Religion was the only line dividing the two classes. Thus the subjects' attitude to the State was naturally vitiated by the odium which theological differences excite all the world over. It was rightly felt by all persons outside the fold of the dominant creed that the power and resources of the community, entrusted to the Government for the public good, were being misused by being applied to the propaganda of a Church which aimed at their extinction. Such a State had no right to be called national; it did not rest on the love and devotion of the people.

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§8. Toleration under Islam exceptional and contrary to Quranic law.

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Such was the ideal of the State as conceived by orthodox Islam, and such were its results when carried out to the full extent of its theory. It was the accepted political end, not of the ignorant peasantry or rude soldiery, but of kings and ministers, scholars and saints. No doubt, common sense often triumphed over logic and statesmanship over theology; or the weakness of human nature made it impossible for every king and every officer to enforce the intolerant system everywhere or in its entirety. Thus it happened that under Muslim rule there were periods when the Hindus enjoyed toleration and security of property, or when an enlightened and liberal king encouraged them to make progress in literature and art, wealth and public service, and his State grew in strength and material resources.

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But such indulgence of infidelity was by its very nature precarious and exceptional. The Muslim world regarded it as a deplorable falling off from the orthodox ideal, and a wicked neglect of royal duty. The liberal king would be publicly reprimanded by some pious scholar for having bartered his soul away for gold; he would be called upon to return to the pure and unadulterated law of Islam. Quotations from the Holy Book would support the demand of the bigot and would find a ready response in the hearts of the Muslim soldiery on whose sword depends the king's power,—for, in Islamic theory, he does not occupy the throne by hereditary succession or divine right; he is merely the elected captain of the militant body of Islam (*amir-ul-muminin*), the responsible first servant of the community (*jamait*). For the stability of his own position he must throw political wisdom to the winds, and "chastise the infidels" according to the letter of the Law.

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Therefore, the growth and progress of non-Muslims, even their continued existence, is incompatible with the basic principles of a Muslim State. The political community is in a condition of unstable equilibrium, till either the dissenters are wiped out or the sceptre passes out of Muslim hands. The literal interpretation of the Quranic Law sets up a chronic antagonism between the rulers and the ruled, which has, in the end, broken up every Islamic State with a composite population. And the reign of Aurangzib was to illustrate this truth in a form clear to the meanest intellect.

§9. Aurangzib's early bigotry.

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Aurangzib began his attack on Hinduism* in an insidious way. In the first year of his reign, in a charter granted to a priest of Benares, he avowed that his religion *forbade him to allow the building of new temples*, but did not enjoin the destruction of old ones. During his viceroyalty of Gujrat, 1644, he had desecrated the recently built Hindu temple of Chintaman in Ahmadabad by killing a cow in it and then turned the building into a mosque. He had at that time also demolished many other HINDU TEMPLES in the province; these were probably new constructions. An order issued early in his reign has been preserved in which the local officers in every town and village of Orissa from Katak to Medinipur are called upon to pull down all temples, including even clay huts, built during the last 10 or 12 years, and to allow no old temple to be repaired.

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∗ All the authorities on Aurangzib's temple demolition are collected together in Appendix V, and no separate reference to them will be given by means of footnotes.

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§10. His destruction of Hindu temples.

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Next, he took a step further, and in the 12th year of his reign (9th April, 1669) he issued a general order "to demolish all the schools and temples of the infidels and to put down their religious teaching and practices." His destroying hand now fell on the great shrines that commanded the veneration of the Hindus all over India,—such as the second temple of Somnath* built by the pious zeal of Bhimadeva soon after the destruction of the older and more famous one at the hands of Mahmud of Ghazni, the Vishwanath temple of Benares, and the Keshav Rai temple of Mathura, that ‘‘wonder of the age’’ on which a Bundela Rajah had lavished 33 lakhs of Rupees. And the governors of the provinces had no peace till they could certify to the Emperor that the order of demolition had been carried out in their respective provinces.

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∗ The Somnath temple, formerly of wood, was built of stone by Bhimadeva, and fully restored by Kumarapala (r. 1143-74). It was

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The holy city of Mathura has always been the special victim of Muslim bigotry. It was the birthplace of Krishna, the most popular of the ‘‘false gods’’ of India,—a deity for whom millions of ‘‘infidels’’ felt a personal love. The city stood on the king's highway between Agra and Delhi, and its lofty spires, almost visible from the Agra palace,*—seemed to taunt the Mughal emperors with lukewarmness in ‘‘exalting Islam and casting infidelity down.’’ Aurangzib’s baleful eye had been directed to the Hindu Bethlehem very early. He had appointed a ‘‘religious man,’’ Abdun Nabi, as *faujdar* of Mathura to repress the Hindus.

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[^]: often sacked by the Muhammadans, particularly in 1297 and 1394,—the last attack being very destructive. (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. I. pt. 1. 169, 189-190, 205, 223.)

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∗ ‘‘Among others was destroyed the great temple of Mathura, which was of such a height that its gilded pinnacle could be seen from Agra.’’ (Storia, ii. 154.) For iconoclasm at Mathura under Sikandar Lodi, Elliot, iv. 447.

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On 14th October, 1666, learning that there was a stone railing in the temple of Keshav Rai, which Dara Shukoh had presented to it, Aurangzib ordered it to be removed, as a scandalous example of a Muslim's coquetry with idolatry. And finally in January 1670, his zeal, stimulated by the pious meditations of Ramzan, led him to send forth commands to destroy this temple altogether and to change the name of the city to Islamabad. Ujjain suffered a similar fate at the same time. A systematic plan was followed for carrying out the policy of iconoclasm. Officers were appointed in all the sub-divisions and cities of the empire as Censors of Morals (muhtasib), to enforce the regulations of Islam, such as the suppression of the use of wine and bhang, and of gambling. The destruction of Hindu places of worship was one of their chief duties, and so large was the number of officers employed in the task that a "Director General" (darogha) had to be placed over them to guide their activity.

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How strictly the imperial orders were enforced we can see from the fact that even in remote East Bengal and Orissa, on the extreme frontier of the empire, the local officers sent their men round to pull down all the temples and smash all the images within their jurisdictions. In June 1680, the temples of Amber, the capital of the loyal State of Jaipur, were broken down.

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Neither age nor experience of life softened Aurangzib’s bigotry. When an old man of over eighty, we find him inquiring whether the Hindu worship, which he had put down at Somnath early in his reign, had been revived through the slackness of the local governor, and, again, telling one of his generals to take his own time in destroying a certain famous temple in the Deccan, as “it had no legs to walk away on.” In 1674 he confiscated all the lands held by Hindus as religious grants (wazifa) in Gujrat. [Mirat, 305.]

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§11. Jaziya or poll-tax on non-Muslims.

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For permission to live in an Islamic State the unbeliever had to pay a tax called JAZIYA,* which means substitute money, i.e., the price of indulgence. It was first imposed by Muhammad, who bade his followers “fight those who do not profess the true faith, till they pay jaziya with the hand in humility.” (Quran, ix. 29.) The last two words of this command have been taken by the Muslim commentators to mean that the tax should be levied in a manner humiliating to the taxpayers. As the scholars and divines of the time informed Aurangzib, the books on Muslim Canon Law lay down that the proper method of collecting the jaziya is for the zimmi to pay the tax personally; if he sends the money by the hand of an agent it is to be refused; the taxed person must come on foot and make the payment standing, while the receiver should be seated and after placing his hand above that of the zimmi should take the money and cry out, "O, zimmi! pay the commutation money."

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∗ For the jaziya, Hughes, 248; Encyclopædia of Islam, i. 1051-1052; Elliot, i. 476; Barani’s Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, 290. For the rate and manner of levying, Br. Mus. MS. Or. 1641, 65b—66b; Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 313-314 (followed by me); Ishwardas, 74; Storia, ii. 234. For its imposition by Aurangzib, M.A. 174, Khafi Khan, ii. 255, 278-279, 377-378. In the 37th year of his reign (1693) a sanad was issued exempting the Christians [of Agra] and their priests from the capitation tax. (J.A.S.B. 1912, p. 328.)

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Women, children below fourteen, and slaves were exempted from the tax; blind men, cripples and lunatics paid only when they were wealthy; monks were untaxed if they were poor, but if they belonged to rich monasteries the heads of these religious houses had to pay. The impost was not proportioned to a man's actual income, but the assessees were roughly divided into three classes according as their property was estimated at not more than 200 dirhams ("the poor"), between 200 and ten thousand dirhams ("the middle class"), and above ten thousand ("the rich"). Money-changers, cloth-dealers, landowners, merchants, and physicians were placed in the highest class while artisans,—such as tailors, dyers, cobblers, and shoemakers were counted as "poor". This last class paid only when their professional income left a margin above the cost of maintaining themselves and their families. Beggars and paupers naturally escaped the tax.

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§12. Rates of jaziya.

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The rates of taxation were fixed at 12, 24 and 48 *dirhams* a year for the three classes respectively,—or Rs. 3 1/3, Rs. 6 2/3 and Rs. 13 1/3. On the poor, therefore, the incidence of the tax was at least 6 per cent of the gross income; on the middle class it ranged from 6 to 1/4 p. c., and on the rich it was always lighter even than 2 1/2 per thousand. In violation of modern canons of taxation, the *jaziya* hit the poorest portion of the population hardest. It could never be less than Rs. 3 1/3 on a man, which was the money-value of nine maunds of wheat flour at the average market price of the end of the 16th century. (*Ain*, i. 63.) The State, therefore, at the lowest incidence of the tax, annually took away from the poor man the full value of one year's food as the price of religious indulgence. Secondly, all Government officials were exempted from the tax, though they were the wealthiest members of their respective classes in society.

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Under the early Muslim rulers of India, the *jaziya* had been levied on all Hindus except the Brahmans,—who had been spared by the politic and conciliatory system introduced into Sindh by Muhammad bin Qasim. Firuz Shah in his old age withdrew the privilege and the Brahmans were taxed like other unbelievers.* The wise statesmanship of Akbar abolished the tax and removed an invidious badge of degradation from the majority of his subjects (1564). A century afterwards Aurangzib reversed this policy.

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§13. Strict levy of jaziya; Hindu protest crushed.

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By imperial orders the jaziya was reimposed on the "unbelievers" in all parts of the empire from 2nd April, 1679, in order, as the Court historian records, to "spread Islam and put down the practice of infidelity." When the news spread, the Hindus of Delhi and its environs gathered together in hundreds and stood on the bank of the Jamuna below the balcony of morning salute in the palace-wall, and piteously cried for the withdrawal of the impost. But the Emperor turned a deaf ear to their plaintive wail. When next Friday he wanted to ride to the Jama Mosque to attend the public prayer, the whole road from the gate of the Fort to the mosque was blocked by a crowd of Hindu suppliants, whose number was swollen by all the shopkeepers and craftsmen of Delhi city and the cantonment bazar, out for a demonstration. The crowd did not disperse in spite of warning; and the Emperor after waiting vainly for an hour ordered elephants to be driven through the mass of men, trampling them down and clearing a way for him. The Hindu protest continued for some days, but in the end the Emperor's firmness triumphed and the subject people ceased to protest. A temperate and reasoned letter from Shivaji urging the impolicy of the new impost and appealing to Aurangzib to think of the common Father of mankind and the equality of all sincere beliefs in God's eyes, met with no better success. (Vide Appendix VI.)

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∗ Elliot, i.

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⁴⁷⁶ Afif's Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, 382. Akbar abolished it in March 1564 (Akbarnamah, tr ii. 316) and not in 1579 as Al Badayuni wrongly states (text, ii. 276.)

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In levying the *jaziya*, Aurangzib was deaf to the pleadings of pity and political expediency alike. In Mughal Deccan, particularly in Burhanpur, the tax could be realized only by force. But Aurangzib was inexorable and ordered the Prefect of the City police to chastise every defaulter. This had the desired effect, and a strict collector like Mir Abdul Karim increased the yield of the tax from Rs. 26,000 a year for the whole city to more than four times the amount in three months for half the city only (1682). When a minister wished to oust his rival from favour, he had only to complain that the latter had excused some Hindus from paying the poll-tax;* and the Emperor would plainly tell the lenient revenue minister, "You are free to grant remissions of revenue of all other kinds; but if you remit any man's *jaziya*—which I have succeeded with great difficulty in laying on the infidels, it will be an impious change (*bidat*) and will cause the whole system of collecting the poll-tax to fall into disorder."

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∗ Khafi Khan, ii. 278-279, 377-378.

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Again, when the enforced levy of this tax scared Hindu traders away from the Mughal territory in the Deccan and caused scarcity of grain in the camp of the imperial army, Aurangzib vetoed his general's proposal to suspend the *jaziya* in that locality. His soldiers might starve, but should he jeopardize his soul by violating the Quranic precept to take *jaziya* from the infidels?*

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An army of Muslim collectors and *amins*,—usually men of reputed scholarship and orthodoxy,—spread over the country to assess and realize the tax. So large was their number, that in 1687 an Inspector-General of *jaziya* was appointed to tour through the four provinces of the Deccan and see that these men did their work properly. (*M.A.* 297.)

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∗ *Anecdotes of Aurangzib*, §72. The authorities quoted in this and the previous paragraph seem to contradict Ishwardas, who says (111b) that the Emperor excused the *jaziya*, *sair* and other cesses at Haidarabad for one year after its conquest, because the governor had reported that the inhabitants could not pay the tax on account of their poverty, and that if the tax were levied the place would be depopulated. The relief, if given, was temporary and intended to make the place recover from the ravages of war and famine.

§14. Effect of jaziya.

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The tax yielded a very large sum. In the province of Gujrat, for instance, it was 5 lakhs of Rupees a year, which amounted to 3½ p. c. of its total gross revenue.* Now, if we make allowance for the facts that Gujrat had a large Muhammadan population which contributed to the general revenue but not to the *jaziya* and that the custom duties of the busy ports of Surat, Broach and Cambay greatly swelled the total revenue collected in the province, we shall not be far wrong in holding that the *jaziya* meant for the Hindus an addition of fully one-third to every subject's *direct* contribution to the State. To be a Muslim was to be free from this extra taxation.

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The officially avowed policy in reimposing the *jaziya* was to increase the number of Muslims by putting pressure on the Hindus.† As the contemporary observer Manucci noticed, ‘‘Many Hindus who were unable to pay turned Muhammadan, to obtain relief from the insults of the collectors......Aurangzib rejoices that by such exactions these Hindus will be forced into embracing the Muhammadan faith.’’ (*Storia*, ii. 234, iv. 117.)

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∗ Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 314. The revenue of the province of Gujrat about 1695 was 145 lakhs of Rupees. (India of Aurangzib, xxxii.) † As the official history written from State papers at the instance of his favourite secretary puts it, "All the aims of the religious Emperor being directed to the spread of the law of Islam and the overthrow of infidel practices, he issued orders that from 1st Rabi-ul-awwal (=2 April 1679), *jaziya* should be levied from the *zimmis* in accordance with the Quranic injunction till they pay compensation out of their hands in humility." (M.A. 174.) The *Mirat-i-Ahmadi*, 313, another history based upon official papers, ascribes the same motive to the Emperor. The theory of some modern writers that the *jaziya* was only commutation money paid for exemption from military

§15. Discriminating custom duties in favour of Muhammadans.

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By an ordinance issued on 10th April, 1665, the CUSTOM DUTY on all commodities brought in for sale was fixed at 2½ p. c. of the *value* in the case of Muslims and 5 p. c. in that of Hindu vendors. This was called the *mahsul* or duty, and must not be confounded with the *zakat* or tithes which all Muslims had to pay on the annual *increase* of their wealth, and the proceeds of which could by the Quranic law be spent on Muhammadans alone.

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On 9th May, 1667, the Emperor abolished the custom duty altogether in the case of Muslim traders, while that on the Hindus was retained at the old level. Apart from the political immorality of favouring one creed above all others, the direct sacrifice of public revenue was very great, and the

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service is not borne out by history, for it was as late as 10th May, 1855 that ‘‘the *jaziya* as a tax on the free exercise of religion was replaced by a tax for exemption from military service’’ even in European Turkey. (*Encyclo. Islam*, i. 1052.)

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real loss to the State was likely to be still greater as the Hindu traders had now a strong temptation to pass their goods off as the property of Muslims, in collusion with the latter. The danger was not unknown to Aurangzib, as this very ordinance warns the local officers to guard against such fraud. And yet, in defiance of the laws of economics and the teaching of sound statesmanship, he put his tariff on the basis of religious discrimination alone.*

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A third instrument of the policy of putting economic pressure on unbelievers, was the granting of rewards to converts and the offering of posts in the public service on condition of turning Muslim.† The revenue drawn from the entire population was spent in aiding the mission propaganda of the dominant minority. Infidels were bribed into accepting the royal faith by the offer of money allowances, robes of honour, posts, liberation from prison, or succession to disputed property.

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∗ With regard to the custom duty I have followed Mirat-i-Ahmadi, 272 and 280. But Khafi Khan, ii. 229-230, puts it in the inverse order. M.A.

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⁵³⁰ Storia, ii.

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⁶¹ For the zakat or tithe, Hamilton's Hedaya, 2nd ed. (1870), xli. 1; Hughes, 699-700. Aurangzib's regulations on the zakat are given in Mirat, 312, 315, 317, 336.

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† For rewards to Hindus on conversion to Islam, Elliot, iii. 604; M.A., 528; Akhbarat, 9/10, 10/14, 13/13. List of converts, M.A. 94, 220, 270, 273, 396; K.K. ii. 461; M.U. ii. 281; Inayetullah's Ahkam, 197b; Mirat, 314, Tod, i.

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⁴¹³ Posts and zamindaris given to converts, Akhbarat, 10/8, 10/9, 13/15, 13/17, 13/18, 13/19. Storia, iv. 439.

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§16. Hindus excluded from public offices.

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From time immemorial, service in the revenue department had brought daily bread to middle class Hindus able to read and write. Under Aurangzib, "qanungo-ship on condition of turning Muslim" became a proverbial expression; and several families in the Panjab still preserve his letters patent in which this condition of office is unblushingly laid down. Several other instances of it are also recorded in the extant news-letters of his Court.

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In 1671 an ordinance was issued that the rent-collectors of the Crownlands must be Muslims, and all viceroys and taluqdars were ordered to dismiss their Hindu head clerks (peshkars) and accountants (diwanian) and replace them by Muslims. As the official historian of the reign exultantly points out, "By one stroke of the pen he dismissed all the Hindu writers from his service." (M.A. 528.) It was found impossible to run the administration after dismissing the Hindu peshkars of the provincial governors, but in some places Muslims replaced Hindu kroris (district rent-collectors). Later on, the Emperor yielded so far to necessity as to allow half the peshkars of the revenue minister and paymaster's departments to be Hindus and the other half Muhammadans.[*]

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∗ K. K. ii. 249, 252. Khafi Khan gives the date as 1082 A. H., which if meant for the 14th year of the reign would correspond to

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There were other temptations as well for seducing Hindus from their own faith. Some of the converts were, by the Emperor's orders, placed on elephants and carried in procession through the city to the accompaniment of a band and flags. Others got daily stipends, four annas at the lowest. Most of the new Muslims, however, were only granted food money for the month following their conversion and circumcision, and then dismissed with robes of honour. There was a general rule to this effect in the provinces.*

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In March 1695 all Hindus, with the exception of the Rajputs, were forbidden to ride palkis, elephants or thorough-bred horses, or to carry arms. (K. K. ii. 395; M. A. 370.)

§17. Hindu fairs put down.

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On certain days of the calendar, the Hindus all over India hold fairs near their holy places. Men, women and children in vast numbers gather together,

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1671 A.D. But M.A. 98, while silently passing over the other pro-Islamic ordinances, places one of them (that prohibiting Muslims to salute by raising the hand to the head) in the 13th year (1670), though Khafi Khan ascribes all of them to the 14th year. Storia, ii. 154 (Hindu officers replaced by Muslims), iii. 171. One of Aurangzib's letters (Kalimat-i-Tayyibat, 77b) states, "A Hindu cannot be appointed, probably a Muslim has been chosen instead of him [by you.]" Again, to his son Muhammad Azam he writes, "Why do you recommend a Hindu to be appointed vice a Muslim, knowing it to be opposed to my wishes?" (Raqat, No. 33.)

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∗ M.A. 274; Akhbarat, year 10, sheet 9; Mirat, 314.

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nominally to bathe in the sacred water, worship the idol, or follow the religious procession, but mainly to buy things in the booths set up and the packs opened by the traders. To our village women in particular such fairs are the only means of relieving the monotony of their life of toil and the only occasion for an outing in the whole year. Here they meet their distant friends and kinsfolk, and enjoy the show. The Indian Muslims, no less than the Hindus, flock to such gatherings. They offer a combination of amusement, business and piety, probably in a gradually decreasing proportion. The traders do a roaring business. The Mughal Government on such occasions earned a large sum from market-toll in each of the provinces.

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A very grand fair of this kind used to be held at a tank in the village of Malwa up to the 14th century; but Firuz Shah Tughlaq put it down with bloodshed. Aurangzib revived the same policy and in 1668 forbade such fairs throughout his dominions. (Elliot, iii. 380. K. K. ii. 212.) The coincidence was ominous: the Tughlaq empire perished only one generation after Firuz.

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The Hindu festival of lamps (*diwali*) and spring carnival (*holi*) were ordered to be held only outside bazars and under some restraints.*

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∗ Aurangzib contemptuously refers to holi in K. T. 7a. The

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