Mughal Administration c17.s6: § 6. Muhammadan settlers Indianised.
Mughal Administration c17.s6
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- English
§ 6. Muhammadan settlers Indianised.
c17.s6.1
But the long stay of the invading Muslim races in India gradually destroyed their alien character and gave to them a purely Indian stamp, till at last from the 17th century onwards it became increasingly difficult for the Indian Muhammadans to absorb readily into their society new-comers from Bukhara, Persia or Arabia. (This was a change quite distinct from the deterioration in their physique and colour under the Indian climate.) The Indo-Muhammadans adopted many Indian customs beliefs articles of food [esp. betel-leaf] and dress, and even an Indian language, namely, Hindustani [zabān-i-Hindavi, the Indian tongue] which is Sanskritic in its grammatical structure though its vocabulary is full of Persian and Arabic words in addition to Hindi. Thus, in the course of centuries the Indo-Muhammadans almost completely drifted apart from their brethren of the outer Asiatic world. The later Muhammadan immigrants into India were absorbed in the local population, but only after the lapse of two or three generations, by which time they had acquired the distinctive Indian character and given up their foreign peculiarities.
c17.s6.2
Centuries of residence in this country in the midst of a vastly more numerous Hindu element and a purely Indian environment, gradually fused the Muhammadans in certain respects with the indigenous population. The Indo-Muhammadans largely married local women and admitted to social equality enormous numbers of converts from Hinduism (or corrupt Buddhism), with the result that they quickly lost their purity of blood and distinctive racial characteristics. They also adopted many Hindu customs, beliefs and even ways of life. The popular religions of mediæval India, Sufism, the Urdu language, and Indo-Saracen art were the common property of the conquerors and the conquered, and tended to blend them together culturally, while the granite walls of the caste system kept them apart. Many Muhammadan saints (pirs) were worshipped by the lower classes of the Hindus, and renowned Muslim saints were adored by stout champions of Hindu orthodoxy like Shivaji and Mahadji Sindhia. The ignorant Muhammadan peasantry of Bengal and even of other provinces where no vigilant reforming mulla was present, took part in Hindu religious festivals and the worship of popular village-gods, just as in Bihar lowclass Hindus until quite recently used to take part in the Muharram procession as enthusiastically as the Muhammadans.
c17.s6.3
Thus, while the old scriptures and strict theory kept the two sects apart, a common destiny and the common weal and woe of life under the same Indian sun drew them together, except for occasional crescentades by a puritan Sultan or Padishah.