The Ayodhya Temple-Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources c19.2

c19.2

History is not, cannot be, and must not be a record of goody-goody things: it is bound to be a record of things good, bad, and indifferent. Trouble starts when a section of people begin to identify themselves with idealize tyrants, ghāzī-s, and suchlike to the entire neglect and sometimes to the wholesale condemation of those who strained every nerve to achieve national integration or defend national honour. Today every 'secularist' is out to whitewash the anti-Hindu image of Aurangzībs and Ṭīpū-s and consign Sulṭān Zaynu 'l-'Ābidīn of Kashmir (1420-1470), Sulṭān Ibrāhīm 'Ādil Shāh II of Bījāpur (1580-1627), emperor Jalālu 'd-Dīn Muḥammad Akbar (1556-1605) in his later phases, and Prince Dārā Shukoh (d. 1659) to the folds of oblivion. Europe has had its share of religious tyrants, but nobody holds a brief for them excepting the negationists for the Nazis, with the result that today there is hardly any animosity between the Catholics and Protestants, between religious and scientific establishments. They do not go about finding fault with history. They take lesson from history and live in peace.