Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c10.s8.4

c10.s8.4

Sometimes the Hindus have also retaliated. just as the Hindus do not believe in converting people of other faiths to Hinduism, yet, when Muslim proselytization continued unabated, Hindus also retaliated, although in a token way, by reconverting and taking back into Hinduism those who had fallen a prey to Muslim spree of conversion. In the same way Hindus do not desecrate or break the shrines of peoples of other faiths. But when Muslim vandalism got beyond Hindu patience, they also reconverted some Hindu temples which had been turned into mosques by Muslim invaders and rulers. But while the Muslims convert Hindus openly, punishment for renouncing Islam is death. Similarly, while the shrines of non-Muslims are regularly destroyed, non-Muslims cannot reclaim their desecrated temples. This is the law of Islam. Hindus are not bound by it. Muslims razed the temple of Somnath repeatedly; the Hindus rebuilt it again and again, so that the present majestic temple built after Independence is the seventh in the series. Similar is the attachment of Hindus to the temples of Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi. The Babri structure at Ayodhya was built by Babur with the debris of a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Ram. The Hindus destroyed the Muslim structure on 6 December 1992 and reclaimed the site of the temple. The interesting part of the story is that not a day passes without some remark made about the demolition of the Ayodhya structure in 1992, particularly by Muslim secularists and Hindu Marxists and "intelligentsia". But Ayodhya is not the first act of people's reaction against the desecration of their shrines. Muslim armies of Delhi attacked Gujarat in 1299, and again sacked the temple of Somnath. They looted the opulent city of Anhilvara and sacked a number of monasteries, palaces and temples in Asavalli, Vanmanthali, Surat, Dholka and Khambayat. The Gujaratis could not forget or forgive this vandalism. 40,000 brave Dalit Barwaris from Gujarat arrived in Delhi over the years and sacked the main mosque in Siri in Delhi in 1320 under the rule of Sultan Nasiruddin Khusrau, a half-convert. Idol worship was started inside the palace and mosque. Copies of the Quran were tom to pieces and used as seats for idols which were placed in the *mehrabs* (niches) of the mosques, and the slaughter of cows was forbidden.⁹⁹ The Barwaris had known Muslim invader and rulers breaking temples, burning their religious books, and enslaving their women and children. The Barwaris paid them back in their own coin. They say "revenge is a kind of wild justice". And there are many more such examples of which only a few may be mentioned here. When Sher Shah conquered and occupied Jodhpur, the temple in the fort was converted into a mosque. There was retaliation and when the mosque was taken back by Hindus, they prevented the reading of Friday prayers there.¹⁰⁰ Temples were freely destroyed under Firoz Tughlaq and Sikandar Lodi. In return Rana Kumbha also claims to have broken a mosque.¹⁰¹ Medini Rai in Malwa turned some Muslim women into slave girls,¹⁰² a practice freely indulged in by Muslims in regard to Hindu women.