Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c5.s4.t3.13

c5.s4.t3.13

We have explained in an earlier chapter the reactions of the establishment of the Sultanate on the religious life of Muslims and the essentially useful service which the ‘Ulama performed by associating themselves very closely with the Sultanate. Let us study here the reactions of this association on the moral and spiritual outlook of the ‘Ulama, who cannot be dissociated from their main function of the spiritual and religious leadership of the Muslims of India. The religion of Islam claims to provide a comprehensive code of life for its followers. The question of its leadership is thus intimately mixed up with the broader questions of public morals and the ethical outlook of the Muslim community, and as such deserves a careful consideration. The ‘Ulama abdicated from their office of leading the Muslims in the path of virtue and piety. Sultan Balban complained of the want of truthfulness and courage among the ‘Ulama as a whole.¹ It was with a certain amount of pain that Bughra Khan discovered the fact that ‘un-Islamic’ and godless theologians had dispensed his son Sultan Mu-izz-ud-din Kaiqubad from the observance of the obligatory fast of Ramazan, and had deliberately explained away the Qur’anic injunctions, through sheer greed of ‘the accursed gold’. He emphatically warned his son against trusting these ‘latter day’ ‘Ulama, and asked him to keep away from these theologians, whom he described as ‘greedy rogues whose highest deity was this world and not the next’. On the other hand, Bughra Khan recommended to his son the association and company of those who had renounced this world.² Muhammad Tughluq held similar views. Besides these royal estimates of the ‘Ulama, let us see what Amir Khusrau, himself an orthodox Muslim and a shrewd observer, has to say about the position. He gives his considered opinion that the Qazis (or those of the ‘Ulama who occupied judicial offices) were thoroughly ignorant of the principles of Muslim law and were otherwise unfit to occupy any responsible position in the kingdom. According to him they had neither learning nor virtue of any kind to their credit. When a monarch was a tyrant, the ‘Ulama were sure to support him. In their private lives they exhibited a perfect disregard of religious injunctions and were unscrupulously bold in committing sins and violating all provisions of Islam. Amir Khusrau finds that the only distinguishing feature of the theologians as a class was their hypocrisy, vanity and conceit. He sums up the whole position in a sentence, by declaring that the respect paid to the ‘Ulama was purely through force of convention, and that if intrinsic virtue were to decide the measure of social honour ‘the laity was a thousand times better than the priesthood’.¹ These estimates are rather sweeping and too strong, but since they come from those whose interests were not opposed to those of the ‘Ulama, are worthy of the greatest consideration.