Mughal Administration c17.s6.2

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.