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Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s1: 4.1. Khams

Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s1

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4.1. Khams

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We shall take up Khams first. For there was conquest before setting up of any government or administration. In the age of Islamic conquests, Jihad was the most flourishing industry, and Khams flowed as a reward of military victory. Khams as the word indicates, was one-fifth share of the Muslim state of the war-booty (*ghanima*) obtained in Jihad. The remaining four-fifths was distributed among the warriors. The *mal* obtained from Kafirs without engaging in war was called *fay*. The law of one-fifth (*khams*) did not apply to it. The whole benefit of it went to Muslims at large - the orphans, the poor, travellers etc. The special thing about Khams *is that it was obtained through war with Kafirs*.¹ Loot in war is common. It was common in the medieval period. What is special about Khams is that in Islam robbing of the infidel enjoys religious legitimacy. It was the command of God. Amir Timur in his *Mulfuzat-i-Timuri* declared: "Plunder in war is as lawful as mother's milk to a Musalman."

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The early Arab Muslims belonged to the poor, economically 'scum' sections of the society. They had to be provided for. There were two ways of doing it. One was to urge the needy neo-Muslims to work hard and earn livelihood through honest means. The other was to prompt them to attack non-Muslims and rob them of their possessions, and distribute the same among the faithful. Muhammad took with him 315 men to the battle at Badr. They were on foot. They had no clothes and no food. He prayed to God to give them all these. God gave victory to Muslims. When they returned from Badr, there was no man who had not brought one or two camels. They got enough clothes and sufficient food.² Khams provided an easy way of financially benefiting both the poor Muslims and their rich masters.³

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Rules about Khams were laid down after the Battle of Badr. The Prophet's army had collected a motley spoil from the enemy camp. A diversity of opinion arose about its distribution. The contention was so sharp that Muhammad interposed with a message from heaven, and assumed possession of the whole booty. "It was God who had given the victory; and to God the spoil belonged." Shortly afterwards, the following ordinance which the Muslim law of prize recognises to the present day was given forth: "And know that whatsoever thing you plunder, verify one-fifth thereof is for God and for the Prophet, and for him that is of kin (unto the Prophet), and for the orphans, and the poor and the wayfarer…"⁴ The procedure about distribution followed was like this. After an expedition, Muhammad used to ask his slave Bilal to announce three times to the faithful to bring whatever they had obtained in *ghanaim*. People brought their booty and Muhammad distributed the loot among Muslims as per the one-fifth rule. While surrendering the gains, no stealing or perjury was allowed. The Rasul, Abu Bakr and Umar used to beat the men who did not truthfully disclose their gains and set fire to their goods. Even thread and needle was to be surrendered and no embezzlement was allowed. There was fire of hell for such culprits, say many *ahadis* of Bukhari. Sometimes Muhammad used to give something extra to a Mujahid beyond his share, but one who disappeared from the battle got nothing. According to Abu Daud, no share was fixed for women, *ghulams* or *bandis*, but they were given something if they happened to be present at the time of distributions.⁵

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In accordance with the divine command, the booty was divided in equal allotments, among the whole army, after the Prophet's one-fifth had been set apart. Muhammad obtained the camel of Abu Jahl and also selected the sword by the name of Zulfiqar, beyond his share according to a custom which allowed him, in virtue of his prophetic dignity, whatever thing might please him most before division.⁶ In short, in the early years of Islam, every believer was given a share in the booty accruing from new religious wars that were becoming the order of the day; they also had a share in the large revenues coming from a fast expanding Muslim empire. Every Arab was drafted as a soldier of Islam and his name was put on payroll. Umar regularized the system. Every Arab was a partner in the revenues derived from the loot and exploitation of the newly conquered lands Muslim brotherhood in action. The scales were fixed according to one's nearness to the Prophet. The widows of Muhammad received an annual allowance of 10,000 dirhams each every year; the famous Three Hundred of the Battle of Badr had 5,000 dirhams each; those of the Pledge of the Tree, received 4,000 each; every one who had converted to Islam before the Battle of Badr got annually 4,000 each, and their children 2,000 dirhams a year, and so they graduated downwards to 200 dirhams. Wives, widows, and children had each their share. Every Muslim had a share in this classification. Officers of the Arab Occupation Armies in different cantonment areas of the empire received yearly from 6,000 to 9,000 dirhams; and every boy, as soon as born, received 100 dirhams each; every Muslim had the title to be entered on the payroll, with a minimum allowance of ten pieces, rising with advancing age to its proper place.⁷

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These stipends were hereditary and they created a class of people who lived on the fat of the land they occupied. It laid the foundation of a thorough imperialism which was more durable than any other the world had known in the past.⁸

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The legitimacy of loot and provision of a share to the warrior attracted many volunteers for Jihad. it also encouraged the soldiers to follow their leaders unitedly through thick and thin. It formed the very basis on which Muslim brotherhood had been organised from the very beginning. Besides the soldiers and the rulers, sultans and nobles, the saiyads, sufis, ulema, poets, mullahs, maulvis, muftis, imams, qazis and hajis, who had been at one time or the other the warriors of Islam or sycophants at the courts also lived lavishly on war booty dished out to them in the forth of *inams*, pensions or *madad-i-maash*. All these sections in turn prompted their rulers to more and more Jihad to obtain more and more Khams.⁹ As a Zimmi the Hindu soldier had no share in the booty as he could not wage Jihad. Hindu women and children similarly had no claim. But Hindu troops were also paid something "in order to encourage them to fight and inferiority of their station be rendered manifest to them."¹⁰

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*Khams in India*

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The Muslim rulers of Hindustan followed the tenets and traditions of Islam. The one-fifth share, called Khams, of the Ghanimah obtained as booty in their campaigns, and one or two articles specially selected by the Muslim ruler, were also continued to be regarded as the share of the sultans of India. The rest was distributed to the army. it is another matter that the sultans tried to appropriate much more than their share of Khams. Another rule which became the norm in India was the general disposal of the acquisitions in war. It was also set in Arabia after an attack on the Jews. The expedition was against the Jewish tribe, the Banu Quraizah, which was led by Muhammad. The Jews were besieged and later compelled to capitulate. "Their fate was left to the decision of the Prophet's companion, Sa'd, whose sentence was that the male captives should be slain, the female captives and children sold into slavery, and the spoils divided among the army. The Prophet commanded the cruel judgement of Sa'd, as a decision according to the judgement of God..."¹¹ in most campaigns in Hindustan after victory the Muslim sultans or their commanders also used to slay male captives, and enslave women and children. And like in early Islam, the Muslim rulers in India used the wealth obtained in war and through other means to the best of their enjoyment. They created a ruling class which lived on the fat of the land it occupied. They milked the people thoroughly and laid the foundation of Islamic imperialism which more or less survived for a thousand years.

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In Hindustan, the income from Khams was considerable. An idea of the profits can be had from the account of the Arab invasion of Sindh by al-Biladuri. According to him Muhammad bin Qasim had forwarded to Hajjaj 120 million dirhams which represented only one-fifth of the total loot (of 600 million) which was paid into the Caliph's treasury according to the rule of Khams.

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Economic historians are prone to believe that Muslim invaders of India were motivated mainly by material gains and they were not enthused by political motives or with zeal to spread Islam. It must be remembered that in human mind or human society social, political, and religious affairs cannot be separated from one another. All act and react upon one another. In the history of Islam, the three are interrelated and cannot be divided into watertight compartments. Still let us see how economic denudation of India led to its people losing their status in society and drifting into lower classes and castes.

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From the sack of Debal to the end of Muhammad Qasim's stay in Sindh, the invaders had gained 600 million dirhams in money¹² and thousands in slaves (especially women) and distributed them liberally among the Muslims from the Caliph to the common soldier.¹³ The economic life of Sindh had got completely unhinged during his campaigns. A large number of people and merchants had fled "to Hind" and abroad.¹⁴ Most others had been sucked dry. Such was the erosion of demography and prosperity that after the capture of Brahmanabad, "all people, the merchants, artisans and agriculturists were divided separately into their respective classes, and (only) ten thousand men, high and low, were counted. Muhammad Qasim then ordered twelve dirhams weight of silver (i.e., twelve silver coins or their equivalent) to be assigned to each man (for rehabilitation), because all their property had been plundered."¹⁵ The Brahmans, "the attendants of the temples were likewise in distress. For fear of the (Muslim) army, the alms and bread were not regularly given to them, and therefore they were reduced to poverty."¹⁶ From the destruction of Debal to the end of the campaign temples had been broken with the zeal of an iconoclast and their *purohits* and other dependents had no employment, no income. "It was ordained (by Qasim) that the Brahman should, like beggars, take a copper basin in their hands, go to the doors of the houses, and take whatever grain or other thing that might be offered to them, so that they might not remain unprovided for."¹⁷

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Mahmud Ghaznavi also collected lot of wealth from Khams. A few facts and figures may be given as illustrations. In his war against Jayapal (1001-02 CE) the latter had to pay a ransom of 2,50,000 dinars (gold coin) for securing release from captivity. Even the necklace of which he was relieved was estimated at 2,00,000 dinars "and twice that value was obtained from the necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners or slain..."¹⁸ A couple of years later, all the wealth of Bhera, which was "as wealthy as imagination can conceive," was captured by the conqueror (1004-05 CE). In 1005-06 the people of Multan were forced to pay an indemnity of the value of 20,000,000 (royal) dirhams (silver coin). When Nawasa Shah, who had reconverted to Hinduism, was ousted (1007-08), the Sultan took possession of his treasures amounting to 400,000 dirhams. Shortly after, from the fort of Bhimnagar in Kangra, Mahmud seized coins of the value of 70,000,000 (Hindu Shahiya) dirhams and gold and silver ingots weighing some hundred maunds, jewellery and precious stones. There was also a collapsible house of silver, thirty yards in length and fifteen yards in breadth, and a canopy (*mandapika*) supported by two golden and two silver poles.¹⁹ Such was the wealth obtained that it could not be shifted immediately, and Mahmud had to leave two of his "most confidential" chamberlains, Altuntash and Asightin, to look after its gradual transportation.²⁰ In the succeeding expeditions (1015-20) more and more wealth was drained out of the Punjab and other parts of India. Besides the treasures collected by Mahmud, his soldiers also looted independently. From Baran, Mahmud obtained, 1,000,000 dirhams and from Mahaban, a large booty. in the sack of Mathura five idols alone yielded 98,300 *misqals* (about 10 maunds) of gold.²¹ The idols of silver numbered two hundred. Kanauj, Munj, Asni, Sharva and some other places yielded another 3,000,000 dirhams. We may skip over many other details and only mention that at Somnath his gains amounted to 20,000,000 dinars.²² These figures are more or less authentic as Abu Nasr Muhammad Utbi, who mentions them, was the secretary to Sultan Mahmud, so that he enjoyed excellent opportunities of becoming fully conversant with the operations and gains of the conqueror.

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Besides gold and silver, the Ghaznavids collected in loot and tribute and Khams, valuable articles of trade like indigo, fine muslins, embroidered silk, and cotton stuffs, and things prepared from the famous Indian steel, which have received praise at the hands of Utbi, Hasan Nizami, Alberuni and many others. For example, one valuable commodity taken from India was indigo. From Baihaqi, who writes the correct Indian word *nil* for the dyestuff, it appears that 20,000 *mans* (about 500 maunds) of indigo was taken to Ghazni every year. According to Baihaqi, Sultan Masud once sent 25,000 mans (about 600 maunds) of indigo to the Caliph at Baghdad for "the Sultans often reserved part of this (valuable commodity) for their own usage, and often sent it as part of presents for the Caliph or for other rulers."²³

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Khams was collected not only on wealth captured in war but on all items of loot like animals and humans. Khams on animals was fixed according to rules of barter and exchange. For example, in the early days of Islam, according to a *hadis*, twenty goats were considered to be equal to one camel.²⁴ Of the humans captured, the policy was to kill all males who could bear arms and capture their women and children as per the rule laid down in Quran and Hadis.²⁵ The non-combatant men were made slaves and put on sundry duties in the king's palace, distributed among the nobles or sold in the markets in India and abroad. Women and children were the prize of the warriors, and as early as the days of Qutbuddin Aibak "even a poor Muslim householder (who was also a soldier) became owner of numerous slaves."²⁶ One-fifth, and often more of this item, was the share of the state or the monarch.

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*Women as Khams*

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An important item of Khams was women. "An idea of the number of slaves flooding the Muslim empire as a result of conquest may be gained from such exaggerated figures as the following: Musa took 300,000 captives from North Africa, one-fifth of whom he forwarded to the Caliph, and from the Gothic nobility in Spain he captured 30,000 virgins; the captives of one Muslim general in Turkestan alone numbered 100,000."²⁷ In India from the days of Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century to those of Ahmad Shah Abdali in the eighteenth, enslavement, distribution and sale of Hindu women and children was systematically practised by Muslim invaders and rulers of India. A few lakh women were enslaved in the course of Arab invasion of Sindh. In the final stages of its conquest, "When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim... one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside (to be sent to Caliph through his agent Hajjaj); they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number... (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers."²⁸ In Muhammad Ghauri's invasion of Gujarat 20,000 prisoners were captured and in 1202 at Kalinjar 50,000 *kaniz wa ghulam*.²⁹ Under the Khaljis and Tughlaqs thousands of non-Muslim women were captured in never-ceasing campaigns.

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As per the Hadis virgins were to be preferred³⁰ but if a married woman with husband still alive was taken captive and introduced into the sultan's harem, conjugal felicity with her was permitted by law. One such case is that of Kamla Devi, the consort of Raja Karan Vaghela of Gujarat, who was captured by Alauddin Khalji's generals and introduced into his harem. Sexual relations with a married woman whose husband was living was taboo, but in an *ayat* received by the Prophet from Allah when women with husbands living are captured in war and "you are their master," it is allowed to have conjugal relations with them.³¹ Throughout the medieval period in the North, South, East and West women-capturing or purchasing was a major pleasure activity of the ruling class.³² No wonder that mainly through this activity 2,000 women were inducted into the harem of a nobleman (e.g. Khan Jahan Maqbul, Wazir of Firoz Shah Tughlaq), another 2,000 into the harem of a prince (e.g. Alam Shah, son of Aurangzeb), and 5,000 into that of a king (e.g. Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar). One example of such activity may be given to end the unhappy story. In the time of Jahangir, his general Abdullah Khan Uzbeg destroyed, in the Kalpi-Kanauj area alone, all towns and took all their women and children as slaves. He once boasted: "I made prisoners of five lacs of men and women and sold them. They all became Muhammadans. From their progeny there will be crores by the day of judgement."³³ Kafir women had a special place in the Muslim psyche. Gloating over the pleasures of Paradise, Ibn Majah writes on the basis of appropriate *ahadis*, that a Jihadist will be married to seventy-two beauties in Paradise of whom two will be *hurs* and seventy Kafir women obtained in miras, transferred from hell for his pleasure's sake.³⁴

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Thus the glories of Kufa, of Baghdad and of Ghazni, the glories of the empires of Islam everywhere like in Agra, Lahore and Delhi, comprising of magnificent palaces, spacious audience halls adorned with costly rugs, silken curtains and embroidered cushions, with hundreds of young charming maidens with shoes studded with precious stones, dancing and gyrating in unison, thousands of slave girls running about at the bidding of their master, about which the Muslim historians, poets and minstrels sing ceaselessly, were gifts of Khams, the state's share of the loot and plunder of the infidels.

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*Wealth obtained through Khams*

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Alauddin Khalji wanted to keep his treasury full and people poor. He disliked people from growing opulent. Therefore, he appropriated four-fifths of the spoil as Khams. This proportion seems to have become the norm till Firoz Tughlaq changed this 'illegal' practice, as he calls it, and reverted to the sanctioned one-fifth of the loot of soldiers as share for the state treasury.³⁵ Sometimes to enthuse the soldiers all the individual plunder from the rebels was left with them to enjoy.³⁶ But one-fifth was the norm as per the law. Since Khams brought lot of wealth to the government and the soldiers it made both of them greedy. This situation led to many embezzlements and mutinies. The Prophet had repeatedly commanded the Muslims in the Hadis not to hide any gains in war and to declare their personal loot honestly.³⁷ But human nature asserted itself against the Shariat's demand. Only one example of this would suffice. Gujarat was invaded by Khalji forces in 1299. The soldiers sacked dozens of towns and looted a number of monasteries, palaces and temples there. The social practice of the times and especially the use of various kinds of gold ornaments by the Hindu families had made gold a household commodity. The Arab traveller Abdurrazzaq who visited the Deccan in the fifteenth century writes that "all the inhabitants of the country, whether high or low, even down to the artificers of the bazars, wear jewels and gilt ornaments."³⁸ Farishtah also says that even the poor in the Deccan put on gold ornaments and the high class people used to eat in gold and silver plates.³⁹ This was about the time when people in the North had already been divested of much of their gold and silver by waves of invaders and dynasties of rulers. Still the old habits had continued. The people of Gujarat, a rich kingdom with a flourishing trade, were continually attacked and robbed. In the words of Abdullah Wassaf "the Muslim army plundered gold and silver to an extent greater than can be conceived, and an immense number of brilliant precious stones, such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, etc., as well as great variety of cloths, both silk and cotton, stamped, embroidered, and coloured. They (also) took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 and children of both the sexes, more than the pen can enumerate."⁴⁰ They also exacted immense booty in bullion, jewels, and other valuables from the merchants and other rich men of the port-town of Cambay or Khambhat. Besides, "each soldier had plundered sufficient wealth for himself."⁴¹ In the course of the return journey dispute arose regarding the quantum of Khams and various kinds of brutal punishments were inflicted upon the soldiers to extort confession from them with regard to their individual gains. They wished to part with only one-fifth of their loot as required by the rules of Khams, but Alauddin's orders were for collecting four-fifths.

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According to the contemporary chronicler Ziyauddin Barani, harsh enquiries Were made about the amount and items of loot. The commanders did not believe in the version of the soldiers and wanted to take the best out of everything from the lashkar of gold, silver, and other precious articles. There were many ticklish technicalities involved in the search operation. The army comprised of many "Hindus, Muslims, Amirs, and neo-Muslims (Mongols)."⁴² According to law there was no share in the loot for the Mushriks joining the Jihad.⁴³ Then, according to Isami, the soldiers besides plundering what they could lay their hands on, dug out and carried away treasures hidden underground by the Gujarat people.⁴⁴ Khams was due on it if it belonged to non-Muslims. In Gujarat, however, there were many rich Muslims who had their hidden treasures ransacked. Khams was also not due if the property belonged to a person who had been killed by a trooper. In such a case his whole belongings went to the killer; no Khams was due on it.⁴⁵

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The case of Gujarat shows how loot in war fed the greed of both the soldiers and the commanders of the king. Resistance of the soldiers sometimes took the form of rebellion. But during the whole of the Sultanate period of more than three centuries, immense wealth was gathered by Muslims through loot and Khams. Rizqullah narrates one incident which is worth reproducing. During Sher Shah's time Champaran in Bihar was attacked by his commander. The kingdom had escaped Muslim visitation during the last two hundred years, and all the riches and treasures which were amassed during that period were now looted by Mian Husain Farmuli's men. "The shoes of the infidels who lost their lives in this action... when melted down no less than 20,000 *mohurs* of gold were obtained from them."⁴⁶

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*Khams during the Mughal Period*

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During the Mughal period, the quantum of such gains increased because of their exceptional success in war. Babur's gains were immense. As will be seen later on he distributed huge amounts of these to his ladies, princes and Begs. And if Humayun was not successful in this regard, Sher Shah and his successors made up for the deficiency. Akbar was victorious in almost every campaign and the extent of his success determined the quantity of loot, tribute and Khams during his reign of half a century. It is not necessary to catalogue all the monetary gains of Akbar through war. An example alone may suffice to give an idea of the same. In 1564 Asaf Khan I, the governor of Kara under Akbar, invaded the kingdom of Gondwana of Rani Durgawati on behalf of the emperor. "When the fort (of Chauragarh) was taken there fell into the hands of Asaf Khan and his men an incalculable amount of gold and silver. There were coined and uncoined gold, decorated utensils, jewels, pearls, figures, pictures, jewelled and decorated idols, figures of animals made wholly of gold, and other rarities. The coin was said to include a hundred large pots full of the gold *ashrafis* of Alauddin Khalji."⁴⁷ If a small kingdoms like Gondwana could bring in so much wealth, how much more would have been collected in loot and Khams from larger kingdoms can only be imagined. But it is not possible to go into the gains from all the enterprises of Akbar and his successors.

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Khams did not mean just material gain or loss in war. It meant ruination of the country as a whole as vouched by the Muslim chroniclers themselves. We have seen how immense were the gains of Muhammad bin Qasim and Mahmud of Ghazni in their campaigns. And Alberuni who was eye-witness to Mahmud's exploits in India, writes: "*Mahmud utterly ruined the* *prosperity of the country* (emphasis ours)... The Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions. This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far away (to Kashmir, Benaras and other places)... Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims."⁴⁸ Abdullah Wassaf wrote about the exploits of Alauddin Khalji's generals in Gujarat campaign (1299) between March 1300 and 1310. He repeats in the beginning of the fourteenth century what Alberuni wrote in the beginning of the eleventh. "*The Muhammadan army brought the country to utter ruin and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants and plundered the cities, and captured their offspring*... (emphasis added)..."⁴⁹ Similar was the result of Asaf Khan's sack of Gondwana.⁵⁰ Collection of Kharaj was circumscribed by the fear of the peasantry abandoning cultivation if pressured too far. Collection of Jiziyah was possible only where non-Muslim residents were too weak to resist. The stream of income from Khams never got dry as there were always infidel lands to subjugate and destroy.

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*Destruction Wrought by the Islamic Way*

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In the seventeenth century Francois Bernier, the French physician-savant wrote that wherever Muslims went and ruled, ruin followed. In his time the "present condition of *Mesopotamia*, *Anatolia*, *Palestine*, the once wonderful place of Antioch, and so many other regions anciently well cultivated, fertile and populous, but (are) now desolate... Egypt also exhibits a sad picture..." So happened in India. About here, writing in the glorious days of Islamic Mughal rule, he says that "most towns in Hindustan are made up of earth, mud, and other wretched material; that there is no city or town (that) does not bear evident marks of approaching death."⁵¹ Hindustan reverted to British and Hindu rule and was by and large saved. But the once wonders of Hindu and Buddhist regions which remained with Muslims or got demographically dominated by them like Afghanistan and Kashmir set upon a path of decline. Once upon a time Afghanistan was a great centre of Gandhara art and culture. The sculptural art of Gandhara, under Kushan dynastic patronage, created the Bamiyan colossi of the Buddha carved from the living rock by nameless Kushan sculptors. The famous Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang, passing through Bamiyan, on his way to the court of Harshavardhan and the University of Nalanda in 629 CE praised it as a centre of art to which sculptors, architects and painters flocked. Bamiyan Buddha is the tallest statue in the world. There are (or rather were) many wonderful pieces of architecture and sculpture strewn all over Afghanistan. Here flourished poets like Ashvaghosh, physicians like Charak and philosophers like Nagarjun. Here flourished trade which provides wealth which in time pipelines facilities into all creative activity. The violence of Islam destroyed all this in Afghanistan in course of time. Today Afghanistan is being ruled by the Taliban in accordance with the Islamic Shariat. And the whole world knows how it is being ruled.

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Kashmir too was a centre of Hindu and Buddhist art and learning in the ancient period. The background of Muslim penetration is given by Alberuni. He writes: "In former times, Khurasan, Persis, Iraq, Mogul, the country up to the frontier of Syria, was Buddhistic,⁵² but then Zarathustra went forth from Adharbaijan and preached Magism in Balkh (Baktra)... both by force and by treatise... The succeeding kings made their religion (i.e. Zoroastrianism) the obligatory state-religion for Persis and Iraq. In consequence, the Buddhists were banished from those countries east of Balkh..." India, as far as known to Alberuni was Brahmanic, not Buddhistic.⁵³ "But then came Islam... Muslims began to make inroads into their (Hindus') country. Muhammad Ibn Elkasim Ibn Elmunabbih (Muhammad bin Qasim) entered India proper and penetrated even as far as Kanauj, marched through the country of Gandhara, and on his way back, through the confines of Kashmir... All these events planted a deeply rooted hatred in their (Hindus') hearts... Mahmud Ghaznavi utterly ruined the prosperity of the country." The process of ruination of Kashmir was continued. Kashmir was gradually bereft of this 'Science' as sultans like Sikandar Butshikan and sufis of his ilk began to Islamize the region. By Abul Fazl's time much of Hinduism was gone and a little of Buddhism remained. For writes he, "The third time that the writer accompanied His Majesty to the delightful valley of Kashmir, he met a few old men of this persuasion (Buddhism), but saw none among the learned [Brahmans?]."⁵⁴ Emperor Jahangir found near Srinagar only "the remains of a place of worship for recluses: cells cut of the rock and numerous caves."⁵⁵ Kashmir Valley is today experiencing the full blast of Islamic cultural tradition. But when all these regions were first sacked loot and Khams were the motives of attack. If Khams resulted in ruination, Jiziyah brought in both economic loss and moral as well as mental degradation to the victims.

Cites (5)