Mughal Administration c17.s3: § 3. Religious changes in India due to Islam.
Mughal Administration c17.s3
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- English
§ 3. Religious changes in India due to Islam.
c17.s3.1
Fourthly, Hunter and some other European writers have held that the monotheistic or at least anti-Brahman and anti-caste movements among the Hindus in the middle ages were due to the influence of Islam. But we have to bear in mind that all the higher thinkers, all the religious reformers, all the devout *bhaktas* among the Hindus from the remotest time, have proclaimed the principle of monotheism and recognized the one supreme God behind the countless deities of popular worship. Therefore, it is not historically true that Islam taught the Hindus monotheism. What really happened was that these dissenting movements among the Hindus of mediæval India received a great impetus from the presence of the Muhammadans in our immediate neighbourhood. The example of Islamic society acted as a solvent on Hindu prejudices.
c17.s3.2
Many sects arose which tried to harmonise Islam and Hinduism and to afford a common meeting-ground to the devout men of both creeds, without emphasizing their differences of ritual, dogma and other external marks of faith. This was the aim of Kabir and Dādu, Nānak and Chaitanya. They made converts freely from Hindus and Muslims and rejected the rigid orthodoxy of the Brahman and the Mulla alike.
c17.s3.3
So, too, the Sufi movement afforded a common platform to the more learned and devout minds among the Hindus and Muhammadans. Unlike the above-mentioned popular religions of mediæval India, Sufism never extended to the illiterate people. It was essentially a faith—often an intellectual-emotional enjoyment—reserved for the philosophers, authors and mystics free from bigotry. The eastern variety of Sufism is mainly an off-shoot of the Vedanta of the Hindus, and it rapidly spread and developed in India from the time of Akbar onwards.
c17.s3.4
A huge mass of Sufi literature in the Persian language was produced by the Hindus. Though of the poorest literary quality, it shows the wide prevalence of this faith among our people, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, probably as a refuge from the political disorder and economic decay attending the decline of the Mughal empire. These popular religions and Sufi philosophy tended to bring the ruling sect and the dominated people closer together.