Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c5.s2: 1.2. The Spread of Islam
Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c5.s2
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1.2. The Spread of Islam
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Muhammad, the prophet of Islam (full name Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Abdul Muttalib ibn Hashim) was born in Arabia in or around 570 CE and died in 632. In 622 he had to migrate from Makkah to Madinah (called *hijrat*) and this year forms the first year of the Muslim Hijri calender. During his life time, Muhammad made Arabia a land exclusively adherent to Islam. After his death, the Arabs embarked on a series of territorial expansions and made themselves masters of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Persia within a short span of twenty years, or, in the rhetorical words of Earnest Barker, Arab Islamism "Spreading with the rapidity of an electric current from its power house in Mecca, it flashed into Syria, it traversed the whole breadth of north Africa; and then, leaping the Straits of Gibralter it ran to the Gates of the Pyrenees."¹³ Such unparalleled feats of success were due to their proud feeling of Arabicism, their zeal for the new faith, and the material gains brought through holy war or jihad. The ponderosity of the jihad gave them the energy and the rapidity of electric current. And Islam came to be what the world has ever since recognized it to be - a militant religion, a creed of aggression and violence.
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Islam originated in the land of the Arabs. The rise of Arabs as a political power has been elucidated by a large number of writers on Islam. T.W. Arnold observes that the expansion of the Arabs was due not so much to the religious spirit as to their desire to obtain the lands and goods of their neighbors who were richer and more fortunate than themselves.¹⁴ Most Arabs of the days of prophet Muhammad were poor. They needed a reformer to improve their economic condition. There are two ways of alleviating poverty and gaining economic well-being. One way is to work hard and raise one's resources through labour and sweat. The other is to attack and rob others and thereby grow rich. The early indigent Arab Muslims could either be persuaded to make a living by working hard, or encouraged to attack and plunder the others. Islam resorted to the second alternative as ordered by Allah. Recruits, mainly from among the slaves or lower classes, began to swell the ranks of the believers, or in the flowery words of Edward Gibbon, the shepherds were turned into robbers and robbers were collected to form an army of conquest. "Soldiering was not only the noblest and most pleasing professions in the sight of Allah but also most profitable."¹⁵
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Anwar Shaikh analyses the expansion of Arab power in the following words: "The prophet Muhammad divided humanity into two sections - the Arabs and the non-Arabs... The Arabs are the rulers and the non-Arabs are to be ruled... Islam is the means to realize this dream... Islam has caused more damage to the national dignity and honour of non-Arab Muslims than any other calamity ... Yet they believe that this faith is the ambassador of 1. Equality and 2. Human Love. This is a fiction."¹⁶ Creation of a pure (Muslim) nation, demanded that the Jews must be expelled from Arabia. So, they were treated mercilessly. Finally, the policy of ethnic cleansing was adopted, and the Jews were banished.¹⁷
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As the Quran is in Arabic, this must be the preferred language of the Muslims everywhere. Translation of Quran in fact is not Quran. The real Quran is the one that has been revealed in the Arabic language.¹⁸ Besides, "*no place on earth bas ever exacted such a tribute of reverence from mankind as the Kaaba. Respect to the Kaaba means, respect to Mecca, respect to Mecca means respect to Arabia, and respect to Arabia means respect to Arabs, the dwellers of Arabia*". (italics by the author).¹⁹ Everything about Arabia is superior, says also the Hadis. Mecca is Allah's best land and most beloved of God. Muhammad decreed that Muslims everywhere must prostrate five times a day facing Makkah. When Muslims die, they must be buried facing Mecca which is the guarantee of their salvation. Keeping one roza in Makkah brings benediction (*sawab*) of one lakh rozas.²⁰
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Muhammad made Hajj to Arabia an obligatory ritual for his followers. As prophet of Allah, Muhammad was aware of his power and influence over Muslims. If he had said that Hajj should be performed every year, it would "have become obligatory on Muslims to go for Hajj every year.²¹ He knew their limitations and therefore made one Hajj at least good enough in one's lifetime. Mecca was declared Allah's own land and it became a centre of pilgrimage of Islam and of all Muslims; Hajj impressed upon Muslims the sanctity of Arabia. Besides for the old, the weak and women, Hajj is their Jihad.²² Hajj created an everlasting source of income for the Arabs.²³ Ruben Levy notes that "the largest amount of space devoted in the Quran to any of the four duties is then given to the pilgrimage".²⁴
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Anwar Shaikh dwells on this early period of Arab glory. "The Arabs made a profession of robbing and murdering the non-Muslims in the name of Allah, but they called it jihad. Egypt and Iran were the early casualties. It was the pillaged wealth and abducted daughters and sisters of the foreign nations which lent the golden touch to this Arab era."²⁵ "After their spectacular conquests, the Arabs were unwilling to concede equality to the non-Arab converts to Islam, despite Islamic doctrine that expressively forbade discrimination. But for the Arabs there were the conquered and the conquerors... The Arabs ruled as a sort of conquistador tribal aristocracy", to which only "true Arabs" could belong …²⁶ Later on the same was done by the "true Turks". The Turks took concubines from the conquered people, but their children and their slave women were heavily discriminated against and were not considered full Turks.
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To sum up, Islam spread through unparalleled feats of armed might. Some Muslim merchants spread their creed by peaceful means also by making their employees and other beneficiaries join their faith. Peaceful propagation of Islam was ruled out by the fact that the majority of early Arab Muslims were not educated enough to discuss, debate, argue and convince. Hence they were not trained for spreading the new creed through any missionary endeavour. They could only wield the sword very well. Hence Muslim historical literature repeatedly mentions that Islam spread through military conquests when the vanquished were offered the alternative of Islam or death. They accepted Islam because they had hardly any other choice. Death is no choice because nobody chooses death, so they chose Islam.
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In view of this it is difficult to agree with the view that Islam was hailed by people living under "despair and frustration" and that its "success should be sought, not so much in the strength of Muslim armies, as in the revolutionary impact of the principles of the new social order which Islam preached and strove to establish".²⁷ It is true that Muslims believe Islam to be a religion of equality and love. This idea of equality and love may not be a total fiction, but it is meant not for all the people; it is confined to Muslims only.
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There are one or two passages in the Quran evincing tolerance like: Your religion to you, my religion to me; or, there is no compulsion in religion. "All passages preaching tolerance are found in Meccan, i.e., early Suras, and all the passages recommending killing, decapitating, and maiming are Medinan, i.e., later toleration has been abrogated by intolerance. For example, the famous verse 9.5, "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them," is said to have cancelled 124 verses that dictate toleration and patience.²⁸
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Islam has two sets of principles of morality, ethics and justice: One for Muslims and the other for non-Muslims. Sincerity, well-wishing and brotherhood are for the believers and faithful. For non-Muslims the principles and standards of behaviour are different. The differences are elaborately defined in the Quran, the Hadis and the Sunnah. Subversion of many ancient civilizations by Islam is a historical fact. Welcome reception of the new creed by other people because they were living in frustration in their old order, is only an assumption.
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This assumption is disproved by a patent fact. Islamic armed creed projected through war, achieved quick success only in small countries with small populations (beginning at home with Arabia itself), not in large countries with large populations. In 622 CE "when the Muslims took up arms they had little more than a tiny existence. In 632 the Muslims had conquered the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. It was conquered at the cost of only 150 men killed in the battlefield on the enemy side."²⁹ For the same reason, it could accomplish its aim of spreading Islam in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran and North Africa. According to Colin Clarke's estimates the population of Egypt about the middle of the fourteenth century was three million, of the rest of North Africa two million, of Asia Minor, Syria and Cyprus eleven million, and of other countries of South-West Asia also eleven million.³⁰ The fighting force of these countries in the seventh and eighth centuries would have been very small - too small to withstand the armed might of the invading Arabs. Hence these were overrun and Islamized speedily. Big countries with large population and hoary civilizations like India, China, Russia and Europe rejected Islam. Not that Islamic armies did not try to penetrate them, but they were persistently resisted and Islam was not accepted by them as their national creed or culture. India is the most appropriate example of this phenomenon. Here a thousand years of Islamic rule, terror and vandalism failed to impress the people about the Islamic revolution. Islam was not welcomed as harbinger of a revolution promising a new world order because it was not believed to be so by those who were subjected by it. If today some Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran take pride in the achievements of Islam and dream of furthering Pan-Islamism, they do not care or dare to remember the point of time when their original religions and civilizations were subverted; they do not desire to recapitulate how their ancestors had felt at the sudden trampling of their cherished values through violence. Of course some countries like Egypt, Turkey and Algeria which were similarly Islamized in medieval times now want to rid themselves of Islamic fundamentalist shackles.