K. S. Lal - The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India

Had India been completely converted to Muhammadanism during the thousand years of Muslim conquest and rule, its people would have taken pride in the victories and achievements of Islam and even organised panIslamic movements and Islamic revolutions. Conversely, had India possessed the determination of countries like France and Spain to repulse the Muslims for good, its people would have forgotten about Islam and its rule. But while India could not be completely conquered or Islamized, the Hindus did not lose their ancient religious and cultural moorings. In short, while Muslims with all their armed might proved to be great conquerors, rulers and proselytizers, Indians or Hindus, with all their weaknesses, proved to be great survivors. India never became an Islamic country. Its ethos remained Hindu while Muslims also continued to live here retaining their distinctive religious and social system. It is against this background that an assessment of the legacy of Muslim rule in India has been attempted.

Source-materials on such a vast area of study are varied and scattered. What we possess is a series of glimpses furnished by Persian chroniclers, foreign visitors and indigenous writers who noted what appeared to them of interest. It is not an easy task, on the basis of these sources, to reconstruct an integrated picture of the medieval scenario spanning almost a millennium, beginning with the establishment of Muslim rule. The task becomes more difficult when the scenario converges on the modem age with its pre- and post-Partition politics and slogans of the two-nation theory, secularism, national integration and minority rights. Consequently, some generalisations, repetitions and reiterations have inevitably crept into what is otherwise a work of historical research. For this the author craves the indulgence of the reader.

10 January 1992

K. L. Lal

If royalty did not exist, the storm of strife would never subside, nor selfish ambition disappear.'

- Abul Fazl

Muslim rule in India coincides with what is known as the Middle Ages in Europe. The term Middle Ages or the Medieval Age is applied loosely to that period in history which lies between the ancient and modern civilizations. In Europe the period is supposed to have begun in the fifth century when the Western Roman Empire fell and ended in the fifteenth century with the emanation of Renaissance in Italy, Reformation in Germany, the discovery of America by Columbus, the invention of Printing Press by Guttenberg, and the taking of Constantinople by the Turks from the Byzantine (or the Eastern Roman) Empire. In brief the period of Middle Ages extends from C.E. 600 to 1500.

Curiously enough the Middle Age in Europe synchronises exactly with what we call the medieval period in Indian history. The seventh century saw the end of the last great Hindu kingdom of Harshvardhana, the rise of Islam in Arabia and its introduction into India. In C. 1500 the Mughal conqueror Babur started mounting his campaigns. And since these foreign Muslim invaders and rulers had come not only to acquire dominions and extend territories, but also to spread the religion of Islam, war and religion became the two main currents of medieval Indian Muslim history.

Kingship

War is the work of kings turned conquerors or conquerors turned kings. Therefore it was necessary for the medieval monarch to be autocratic, religious minded and one who could conquer, rule and subserve the interest of religion. Such was the idea about the king in medieval times, both in the West and the East.

The beginnings of the institution of kingship are obscure. Anatole France attempts to trace it in his Penguin Island, a readable satire on (British) history and society. That is more or less what he writes: Early in the beginning of civilization, the peoples primary concern was provision of security against depredations of robbers and ravages of wild animals. So they assembled at a place to find a remedy to this problem. They put their heads together and arrived at a consensus. They will raise a team of security guards who will work under the command of a superior. These will be paid from contributions made by the people. As the assembled were still deliberating on the issue, a strong, well-built young man stood up. He declared he would collect the said contributions (later called taxes), and in return provide security. Noticing his physical prowess and threatening demeanour they all nodded their assent. Nobody dared protest. And so the king was born.

In whatever manner and at whatever time the king was born, he was, in the Middle Ages, personally a strong warrior, adept at horsemanship, often without a peer in strength. He gathered a strong army, collected taxes and contributions and was surrounded by fawning counsellors. They bestowed upon him attributes of divinity, upon his subjects those of devilry, thus making his presence in the world a sort of a benediction necessary for the good of mankind. Once man was declared to be bad and the king full of virtues, there was hardly any difficulty for political philosophy and religion to recommend strict control of the people by the king.

There were thus monarchs both in the West and the East and in both autocracy reigned supreme. Still in the West they could wrest a Magna Carta from the king as early as in 1215 C.E. and produce thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesqueue and Bentham who helped change the concept of kingship in course of time. But in the East, especially in Islam, a rigid, narrow and limited scriptural education could, parrot-like, repeat only one political theory-Man was nasty, brutish and short and must be kept suppressed.

Consequently, medieval Muslim political opinion could recommend only repression of man and glorification of king.

Kingship thus became the most general and permanent of institutions of medieval Muslim world. In theory Islam claims to stand for equality of men, in practice it encourages slavery among Muslims and imposes an inferior status on non-Muslim. In theory Islam does not recognize Kingship; in practice Muslims have been the greatest empire builders. Muhammadans themselves were impressed with the concept of power and glamour associated with monarchy. The idea of despotism, of concentration of power, penetrated medieval mind with facility. It must be said to his credit that the Muslim Sultan, by and large, worked according to these injunctions, and sometimes achieved commendable success in his exertions in all these spheres.