Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c13.s4.4

v1.c13.s4.4

Moreover, the Shias, partly by reason of the smallness of their number and partly because of their religious and cultural inspiration being derived exclusively from Persia, tend to form a class apart and to isolate themselves from the rest of the Islamic community. This isolation is intensified by their love of inbreeding or restriction of marriage, and often of social intercourse too, within their own sect and even to Persians by race. This spirit of racial and cultural aloofness has stood in the way of their absorbing other Islamic races and Indian converts to Islam by a rough and ready process of assimilation such as the Sunnis have everywhere adopted. A wide gulf separates the specific local Shia settlements in India from the vast and ever-growing mass of Indian Islam. The Turks, being Sunnis, have more readily amalgamated with the Indian Muhammadans,—and the Abyssinians in the Deccan,—by marriage and social communion and been able to enlist their support in strengthening their position.* This inherent weakness of the Shia position in India, as contrasted with the Sunni, proved fatal to the ambition of Safdar Jang to rule the empire of Delhi as a dominant wazir, overriding the other nobles and the Emperor.