The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate

by Abraham Eraly

  Hindu kings seem to have viewed the Turkish invasion of India as a part of the normal churning political processes of medieval India. Communal considerations were seldom major factors in the calculations that determined the policies and actions of rajas or sultans, unless it was politically and militarily expedient for them to play the communal card. Hindu kings were especially liberal in their treatment of Muslims, partly because communal and religious diversity was the norm in India—had been so for very many centuries—and also because Muslims played a vital role in their kingdoms as traders and soldiers. Many Hindu kingdoms had fairly large colonies of Muslims in their towns, and the rajas usually did not discriminate against them in any way. Indeed, they often showed special favours to Muslims in their service, such as Devaraya of Vijayanagar placing a Koran on an ornate desk in front of his throne so that his Muslim officers would feel comfortable in bowing before him. And, even though the sultans generally forbade Hindus to build new temples in their kingdoms, the rajas had no objection to their Muslim subjects building mosques in their kingdoms.

  In medieval India it was common for rajas to have a good number of Muslims in their armies, particularly in critical divisions like the cavalry, musketry and artillery, and to deploy them even in their wars against Muslim rulers. But then, so did sultans employ a large number of Hindus in their armies, and deploy them even in their wars against Hindu kings. They could do so without any unease, because the wars between sultans and rajas were not usually, with rare exceptions, fought in a crusading spirit by either side, and were not in any way different from their wars against their own coreligionists. These wars were all about power and wealth and territory, not about religion.

  THE ACCOMMODATIVE SPIRIT of Hindus in matters of religion was an expression of their general tendency to bend with the wind, adjust to the prevailing conditions, whatever they might be. Equally, it was an expression of the widely held view of Hindus that the beliefs and practices of each group of people were legitimate for that group, and should not be interfered with, however repugnant those beliefs and practices might be to other groups.

  Muslims did not share this liberal attitude. This is epitomized in an incident reported by Shaikh Nurul Haq, a sixteenth century chronicler. According to him, Sultan Sikandar Lodi was once told that a Brahmin religious leader held the view that Hinduism and Islam were both equally true religions. The Brahmin no doubt meant well, but unfortunately for him, the sultan found it odious that Hinduism and Islam should be thus equated. So he ordered the Brahmin to become a Muslim (since being a Muslim was as good as being a Hindu), and when he refused to do that (since being a Hindu was good as being a Muslim), he was put to death.

  Many such incidents of the persecution of Hindus by sultans are reported by Muslim chroniclers. But the prominence given to these incidents by them seems to be rather excessive, considering the vast range of the interaction between Hindus and Muslims in medieval India, the immense number of people involved in it, and the many centuries long coexistence of the two communities. By and large Hindus and Muslims lived together peacefully in medieval India, without any serious communal clashes. But neither religion exerted any notable influence on the other religion. Hinduism, a couple of millenniums old and rather decrepit at this time, did not have the energy and spirit to respond creatively to the challenge of Islam; as for Islam, it was far too rigid a religion to accommodate any modifications under external influence. The most that happened was that both religions spawned a few minor and transient cults that synthesised some elements from both religions.

  In any case, Hinduism and Islam were far too divergent from each other in every respect to have any major influence on each other. For instance, while Hinduism was flexible in its religious beliefs and practices, it was rigid in its social organisation—the caste compartmentalisation of its society—while Islam was flexible in its social organisation, but was rigid in its religious beliefs and practices. Conforming to caste rules was for Hindus far more important than conforming to religious beliefs and practices—anyone could adopt any religious belief and practice, worship any deity or any number of deities, but none could deviate from the prescriptions and practices of his caste without serious consequences, which involved even the risk of being ostracised by the entire Hindu society. Thus Hindus would be horrified at the mere thought of allowing Muslims to enter their homes or to share a meal with them, even though they generally had no qualms about serving under Muslim rulers or even about offering devotions at Muslim shrines.

  ACCORDING TO THE strict interpretation of Koranic law, all non-Muslims in Muslim ruled lands, except Jews and Christians, had to become Muslims or be exterminated. But it was not practicable to apply this prescription against Hindus, as they were far too numerous to be put to death, even if very many years were spent on it. Further, in many fields the services of Hindus were essential for the very survival of Muslim rule in India. So Muhammad Qasim, the first Muslim invader of India, was permitted by his superiors to give the people of India the status of Zimmis, protected non-Muslims—like Jews and Christians—and thus spare their lives and allow them, on the payment of jizya, to lead their traditional way of life, and practise their religion without any interference.

  That was the general rule. And it was generally observed. There was nevertheless a good amount of slaughter of Hindus and destruction of their temples throughout the history of the Delhi Sultanate, particularly during its early period. Gruesome savagery was an essential part of medieval warfare everywhere in the world, for soldiers to quench their bloodthirst and to demoralise the enemy. This was more so with Turks in India, because they, a miniscule minority in India, needed to terrorise Indians to keep them submissive. As for vandalising temples, that was, in their view, an essential demonstration of the powerlessness of Hindu gods. Moreover, looting temples was a good means for collecting booty, for many of the temples were fabulously rich, with the accumulated offerings of their devotees over the centuries.

  Ala-ud-din Khalji once asked his advisors about what he should do to keep Hindus submissive to his rule. And they, according to Barani, advised him that Hindus should be reduced to so abject a condition as to be unable to enjoy any luxuries and be hard-pressed even to have common comforts. Another day the sultan sought the opinion of a kazi on how to treat Hindus, and the kazi advised: ‘When the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should, without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths wide to receive it … To keep Hindus in abasement is a religious duty.’ Ala-ud-din smiled at this counsel, and said that he too considered Hindus to be a major source of turbulence in the state, and that it was therefore an imperative political necessity that they should be ‘reduced to the most abject obedience,’ and be deprived of ‘wealth and property which fosters disaffection and rebellion.’

  Ala-ud-din’s anti-Hindu policy was primarily motivated by political and military considerations, not by religious considerations, and there is evidence that, despite his anti-Hindu professions, Hindus enjoyed greater security and prosperity under him than under many other sultans. In contrast, the primary motive of the anti-Hindu policy of Firuz Tughluq, which was quite oppressive, was to enforce orthodox Muslim religious prescriptions, than to gain political advantage. And, although he was on the whole a humane and cultured ruler, some of his actions against Hindus and Muslim heretics were horrendous. Thus when he was told that an old Brahmin in Delhi was ‘publicly performing the worship of idols in his house, and that the people of the city, both Muslims and Hindus, were resorting to his house to worship the idol,’ Firuz had the Brahmin brought to him and ordered him to become a Muslim, and when he refused, had him thrown alive into a burning pyre built in front of the durbar hall.

  There were several other such incidents during the reign of Firuz, and he himself reports on some of them in his autobiography. ‘There was a set of heretics … [who] met by night at an appointed ti
me and place, both friends and strangers,’ he writes about what was obviously the rite of a Hindu Tantric sect. ‘Wine was served, and they said that this was their religious worship. They brought their wives, mothers, and daughters to these meetings. The men threw themselves on the ground as if in worship, and each man had intercourse with the woman whose garment he caught. I cut off the heads of the elders of this sect, and imprisoned and banished the rest, so that their abominable practices were put an end to.’ Similarly, ‘there was a sect which wore the garments of atheism, and having thrown off all restraint, led men astray. The name of their chief was Ahmad Bahari … His followers called him a god.’ Firuz had the ‘god’ chained and imprisoned, and his followers banished from the city.

  Firuz also sought, in conformity with orthodox Muslim prescriptions, to strictly enforce the collection of jizya from all non-Muslims, including Brahmins, who were till then exempt from it. When this policy was announced, the Brahmins of Delhi and its environs gathered in front of the royal palace and threatened to immolate themselves or starve themselves to death if the sultan did not revoke the order. But Firuz remained unrelenting, and eventually the Brahmins had to withdraw their agitation, after pleading with the sultan to at least reduce the quantum of the tax on them, to which he agreed.

  OUR ONLY SOURCES of information on the persecution of Hindus by the sultans are the accounts given by Muslim chroniclers, who invariably embellished their reports with exaggerations in order to glorify their royal patrons, as the slaughter of Hindus and the destruction of their temples were, in their view, highly commendable acts. ‘The blood of infidels flowed copiously and apostasy was often their only way of survival,’ writes al-Utbi, a medieval Arab chronicler, about the plight of Hindus in the Delhi Sultanate. Adds Amir Khusrav: ‘The land had been saturated with the water of the sword and the vapours of infidelity had been dispersed.’

  These are hyperbolic statements. Though there is no doubt that severe persecution of Hindus were carried out by the Turko-Afghans, and that a large number of Hindus were slaughtered by them, the incidents were in all probability nowhere near of the scale described by Muslim chroniclers. Many of the sultans in fact treated Hindus quite fairly and employed a good number of them in crucial offices. Even Mahmud Ghazni, the reportedly ruthless iconoclast and exterminator of Hindus, had a large contingent of Hindu soldiers in his army. And so had his son and successor Masud, who even warned his Muslim officers to take care not to offend the religious sentiments of their Hindu colleagues. And there were several instances, even in the very early phase of the Delhi Sultanate history, of sultans employing Hindu captains and soldiers in their army, and of allying themselves with rajas, to wage war against rival Muslim rulers or chieftains. Zaynu’l-Abidin, a fifteenth century sultan of Kashmir, was particularly conciliatory towards Hindus; he employed several of them in high positions in government, even rebuilt some of their temples destroyed by his predecessors, and allowed Hindus who had been forced to become Muslims to revert to their ancestral faith, even though apostasy was a capital crime in Muslim society. And in Delhi, some of the Muslim nobles, even some members of the royal family, now came to be known by Hindu nicknames, a minor but culturally noteworthy development. It is significant that one of the reasons (or pretexts) for Timur’s invasion of India was that he felt that the Delhi sultans were too lenient in their treatment of Hindus.

  The accommodative policy of some sultans towards Hindus was in part an expression of their liberal and humane sentiments, but it was primarily dictated by political prudence, for the sultans could not have governed their Indian empire without the service of Hindus, who held very many crucial though subordinate positions in the civil and military wings of the government, and it was the productivity of the Hindu population that provided the material resources to the sultans to maintain their rule.

  ONE OF THE most fascinating religious developments in India in the early medieval period was the rise of several mystical religious movements, in Islam as well as in Hinduism. These movements were inevitably confined to a small number of spiritually sensitive people, who scorned conventional religious practices as impediments—rather than as the means—to spiritual attainment. Typically, Bauls, a cult of Bengali mystic minstrels, asserted that ‘the path to god is blocked by the temple and the mosque,’ and that god dwelled within each man, so no one had to go to temple or mosque to worship god. ‘The man of my heart dwells inside me,’ declared a Baul poet. ‘Everywhere I look, he is there … He is in the very sparkle of light.’

  The Indian mystic sages of the middle ages were usually syncretic in their religious views, and had no hesitation to freely incorporate elements of different faiths in their teachings. ‘There is only one god, though Hindus and Muslims call him by different names,’ states sage Haridasa. ‘This one god is the highest meaning of both the Puranas and the Koran.’ This was the common credo of all mystic sects. There was in fact hardly any fundamental difference between the various mystic sects of medieval India. Their common view was that all gods (and goddesses) are manifestations of The One, though man, because of the limitations of his understanding, sees them as many. And, as the mystics did not discriminate between gods, they did not discriminate between men either, and they rejected or ignored caste and communal divisions. Another common characteristic of these mystic sects was that they generally were intensely emotion-charged movements.

  One of the most prominent mystic saint-poets of medieval India was Kabir, who lived and preached in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The details of his background and early life are uncertain. He probably lived around the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and was evidently born a Muslim, as his name indicates. There is a legend that he was the illegitimate son of a Brahmin widow, who abandoned him on birth, and that he was then brought up by a humble Muslim family of weavers. Kabir’s family profession is reflected in the many similes drawn from weaving in his verses. We do not know what education he had, if any at all. His poems were all oral compositions, which were later written down by his disciples, so there is quite probably some amount of interpolations in them.

  Kabir was probably inclined to mysticism from an early age, but the transformative event of his life was his adoption by Ramananda—the great Vaishnava saint-reformer of Varanasi—as his disciple. As Kabir set out on his spiritual journey he was quite confident of what he would achieve in life, and what his achievement would mean to others, as he states in one of his poems:

  When I was born, the world smiled and I cried.

  But I will do such deeds that when I die,

  I will be smiling and the world will be crying.

  The main thrust of Kabir’s mission was to unite Hindus and Muslims in a common quest for god realisation. ‘Hindus and Muslims have the same god,’ he held. ‘God is the breath of all breath … Look within your heart, for there you will find [god] … All men and women in the world are his living forms.’ Although many of his sayings had a strong Hindu flavour in them—presumably because of Ramananda’s influence—he made no distinction between Hinduism and Islam. Similarly, though he usually referred to god as Hari or Rama, he used those words as synonyms of god, and not as the names of particular deities. ‘I am not Hindu nor Muslim; Allah-Ram is the breath of my body,’ he stated, and went on to declare that

  All that lives and dies,

  they are all one.

  The this and that haggling,

  is done.

  Kabir made no distinction between religions or castes. ‘In the beginning there was no Turk, no Hindu, no race, no caste,’ he maintained. Not surprisingly, he ridiculed many of the common Hindu beliefs and practices, such as the caste system, idol worship, belief in divine incarnations, the practice of going on pilgrimages, and so on. ‘If by worshipping stones one can find god, I shall worship a mountain,’ he mocked. He considered many of the conventional socio-religious customs and practices of all religions as utterly ludicrous. ‘A Brahmin wears a sacred thread he himself has made. If you are a
Brahmin, born of a Brahmin mother, why haven’t you come into the world in some special way?’ he taunted. ‘If you are a Turk, born of a Turk, why weren’t you circumcised in the womb of your mother? If you milk a black cow and a white cow, can you distinguish the milk that they give?’

  Kabir’s emphasis was on inward devotion, not on outward displays of faith. And he exhorted:

  Make thy mind the Kaaba,

  thy body the temple

  thy conscience the primary teacher …

  Hindus and Muslims have the same lord.>

  Kabir’s disciples—Kabir-panthis—came from both Hindu and Muslim communities, but on his death they split into two sects, one of Hindus and the other of Muslims, each claiming that Kabir belonged to their religion. And they wrangled with each other about the funeral rites they should perform for him. But when, according to legend, they removed the sheet supposedly covering his body, all they found there was a heap of flowers. His Muslim and Hindu followers then divided the flowers between them, and performed over each lot their particular funeral rites. Subsequently even the Hindu followers of Kabir split into two groups, the Bap (father) sect, and the Mai (mother) sect. The Kabir-panthis are generally considered a Hindu sect.