The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  At Mandrail, said Nizamuddin Ahmed, Sikandar “got the temples demolished and mosques erected in their stead.”68 Finding churches in the same city, he had them destroyed as well.69 Sikandar amplified his contempt for Hinduism by persecuting the Hindus in his domains. Niamatullah noted that “the Islamic sentiment [in him] was so strong that he demolished all temples in his kingdom and left no trace of them. He constructed sarais, bazars, madrasas and mosques in Mathura, which is a holy place of the Hindus and where they go for bathing. He appointed government officials in order to make sure that no Hindu could bathe in Mathura. No barber was permitted to shave the head of any Hindu with his razor. That is how he completely curtailed the public celebration of infidel customs.”70 Mushtaqi added: “If a Hindu went there for bathing even by mistake, he was made to lose his limbs and punished severely. No Hindu could get shaved at that place. No barber would go near a Hindu, whatever be the payment offered.”71 This was because of the Qur’anic dictum that the idolaters were “unclean.” (9:28)

  Sikandar Lodi died in 1517, but the Hindus had no respite. Sikandar’s son Ibrahim Lodi succeeded him as sultan. According to Niamatullah, Ibrahim Lodi sent jihad warriors to Gwalior, where they “captured from the infidels the statue of a bull which was made of metals such as copper and brass, which was outside the gate of the fort and which the Hindus used to worship. They brought it to the Sultan. The Sultan was highly pleased and ordered that it should be taken to Delhi and placed outside the Red Gate which was known as the Baghdad Gate in those days.”72 Later, however, the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great ordered the bull to be melted down and the metal used for cannons and other weapons.73

  Nor did the Hindus find any relief when the Mughal Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi in the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. The Mughal Empire at its zenith covered most of the Indian subcontinent, as well as Afghanistan, and continued the relentless jihad against the Hindus. Babur, like Tamerlane, left behind a memoir, in which he recounted his exploits with relish. “In AH 934 [AD 1528],” he wrote, “I attacked Chanderi and, by the grace of Allah, captured it in a few hours. We got the infidels slaughtered and the place which had been a daru l-harb [house of war] for years, was made into a daru l-Islam [house of Islam].”74

  At Urwa, Babur noted, “people have carved statues in stone. They are in all sizes, small and big. A very big statue, which is on the southern side, is perhaps 20 yards high. These statues are altogether naked and even their private parts are not covered. Urwa is not a bad place. It is an enclosed space. Its biggest blemish is its statues. I ordered that they should be destroyed.”75

  After battles with Hindu forces, Babur delighted in sitting by and watching as the heads of the Hindus were piled up together, and the pile grew higher and higher.76 Sher Shah Suri, who took over the Mughal Empire in 1540, was not as zealous for the deaths of infidels, but he did his Islamic duty. In 1543, according to Shaykh Nurul Haq’s contemporary history Zubdat ut-Tawarikh, the Hindu Puranmal “held occupation of the fort of Raisen.… He had 1000 women in his harem…and amongst them several Musulmanis whom he made to dance before him.”77 That was intolerable. Sher Shah Suri thus resolved to take the fort. “After he had been some time engaged in investing it, an accommodation was proposed…and it was finally agreed that Puranmal with his family and children and 4000 Rajputs of note should be allowed to leave the fort unmolested.”78

  That, too, was intolerable. “Several men learned in the law [of Islam] gave it as their opinion that they should all be slain, notwithstanding the solemn engagement which had been entered into. Consequently, the whole army, with the elephants, surrounded Puranmal’s encampment. The Rajputs fought with desperate bravery and after killing their women and children and burning them, they rushed to battle and were annihilated to a man.”79

  The End of the Vijayanagara Empire

  The Hindu resistance was seldom strong or well-organized. The Muslims had superior firepower, better organization, and in most cases, unity. Although there was always considerable internecine jihad between rival Muslim factions, the warring groups could usually unite against the infidels. In 1564, the sultans of Bijapur, Bidar, Ahmadnagar, and Golkonda formed such an alliance against the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire, which ruled southern India. The following January, Rama Raya, the de facto Vijayanagara ruler, met the forces of the Muslim alliance near a Vijayanagara fortress, Talikota, with a mixed force of Hindus and Muslims. The Hindus were winning the battle when two Muslim generals fighting for Vijayanagara deserted and joined the jihadi alliance. The Hindu line was broken, and Rama Raya was almost immediately captured and beheaded.80

  The Muslims quickly stuffed his head with straw and mounted it on a pike for display. That was the turning point in the battle: the Hindus fled in shock and confusion. Noted Firishta: “The Hindus, according to custom, when they saw their chief destroyed, fled in the utmost disorder from the field, and were pursued by the allies with such success that the river was dyed red with their blood. It is computed by the best authorities that above one hundred thousand infidels were slain during the action and the pursuit.”81

  To the victors went, as always, the spoils, as the Muslims entered the city of Vijayanagar, the seat of the empire. In 1522, the Portuguese traveler Domingos Paes had visited Vijayanagar, and reported that it was comparable in size to Rome, with a population of five hundred thousand. He called Vijayanagar “the best provided city in the world…for the state of this city is not like that of other cities, which often fail of supplies and provisions, for in this one everything abounds.” Inside the palace, he saw a room “all of ivory, as well the chamber as the walls from top to bottom, and the pillars of the cross-timbers at the top had roses and flowers of lotuses all of ivory, and all well executed, so that there could not be better—it is so rich and beautiful that you would hardly find anywhere another such.”82

  It was in this grand city that the warriors of jihad now went to work. “The plunder was so great,” said Firishta, “that every private man in the allied army became rich in gold, jewels, effects, tents, arms, horses, and slaves; as the sultans left every person in possession of what he had acquired, only taking elephants for their own use.”83 They slaughtered as many people as they could and entered the temples in order destroy the statues. After smashing the statues in the temple of Vitthalaswami, they set fire to it.84

  Akbar the Great

  The Mughal emperor Akbar the Great in 1568 besieged the fort at Chittor and ordered, after taking it, that everyone inside be killed. Abul Fazl, Akbar’s official court historian, recorded that “there were 8,000 fighting Rajputs collected in the fortress, but there were more than 40,000 peasants who took part in watching and serving. From early dawn till midday the bodies of those ill-starred men were consumed by the majesty of the great warrior. Nearly 30,000 men were killed.… When Sultan Alauddin [Khalji] took the fort after six months and seven days, the peasantry were not put to death as they had not engaged in fighting. But on this occasion they had shown great zeal and activity. Their excuses after the emergence of the victory were of no avail, and orders were given for a general massacre.”85 Akbar himself gave effusive thanks to Allah for the victory and issued a proclamation explaining with profuse quotations from the Qur’an that everything he had done had been in accord with Islamic law.86

  Akbar was not, however, a doctrinaire jihad warrior, and began to manifest a growing disenchantment with Islam itself. He even abolished the jizya, an extraordinary departure from Sharia mandates that made him extraordinarily popular among the Hindus within his domains.87 In 1579, he made contact with the Portuguese at Goa and asked them for information about Christianity.88 He began in that same year to preach his own sermons at the mosque, and the following year even banned the mention of Muhammad in public prayers.89 He favored the exclamation “Allahu akbar,” but this was not a sign that he retained some belief in orthodox Islam: since his name was Akbar, the phrase took on a thrilling double meaning, not onl
y “Allah is greater” but also “Akbar is Allah.”90

  In 1582, he finally made his break with Islam official, proclaiming his new Divine Religion (Din Ilahi), which rejected Muhammad as a prophet, essentially replacing him with Akbar himself. He began to introduce practices derived from Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Christianity.91 He forbade the consumption of beef and the naming of children Muhammad. Echoing Sharia laws for dhimmis, he forbade Muslims to build new mosques or repair old ones. No one was to make prostrations except to Akbar himself.92

  Understandably, Akbar’s apostasy caused considerable consternation among Muslims, and the cadi of Jaunpur declared the emperor an apostate, which meant that he could lawfully be deposed and killed. Akbar, however, was superior to the rebels both in military might and ruthlessness, and he was able not only to crush the rebellions but to expand Mughal domains considerably in a series of wars with neighboring Muslim kingdoms.

  Other Muslims continued to wage jihad. In 1582, involving the Turcoman Muslim commander Husain Quli Khan, the Tabqat i-Akbari described how “the fortress [hissar] of Bhim, which is an idol temple of Mahamai, and in which none but her servants dwelt, was taken by the valour of the assailants at the first assault. A party of Rajputs, who had resolved to die, fought most desperately till they were all cut down. A number of Brahmans who for many years had served the temple, never gave one thought to flight, and were killed. Nearly 200 black cows belonging to Hindus had, during the struggle, crowded together for shelter in the temple. Some savage Turks, while the arrows and bullets were falling like rain, killed those cows. They then took off their boots and filled them with the blood and cast it upon the roof and walls of the temple.”93

  Akbar, however, was more concerned with expanding his domains. When he died in 1605, his new religion died with him. It may have died before that, as his son and his successor, Jahangir, who had revolted against his father but managed to survive and succeed him, said that before he died, Akbar began “returning again a little into the right way” and showed that he was “once more an orthodox believer.”94

  Jahangir himself was a rigid Muslim. In fact, Jahangir had the man he blamed for his father’s discarding Islam killed, a man named Abul Fazzel. It was he, said Jahangir, who had convinced Akbar that Muhammad was not a prophet but just a well-spoken con artist. “For towards the close of my father’s reign,” Jahangir explained, “availing himself of the influence which by some means or other he had acquired, he so wrought upon the mind of his master [that is, Akbar], as to instil into him the belief that the seal and asylum of prophecy, to whom the devotion of a thousand lives such as mine would be a sacrifice too inadequate to speak of, was no more to be thought of than as an Arab of singular eloquence, and that the sacred inspirations recorded in the Koran were nothing else but fabrications invented by the ever-blessed Mahommed.” Jahangir gives his story a happy ending: “Actuated by these reasons it was that I employed the man who killed Abul Fazzel and brought his head to me, and for this it was that I incurred my father’s deep displeasure.”95

  His father was enraged and arranged for Jahangir to be passed over in the imperial succession, arranging for Jahangir’s son to become emperor after him. Akbar, however, died without ensuring that his wishes would be implemented. Jahangir became emperor, and the jihad in India resumed. It is noteworthy in any case that it took an emperor’s departure from Islam to give the Hindus of India any respite from the jihadi onslaught.

  Jahangir Returns India to Islam

  Jahangir began his reign in 1606 by having the leader of the Sikhs, Guru Arjan, tortured and killed. Some ascribed this to Arjan’s aiding of a rebel prince, not to a determination to persecute the Sikhs.96 However, Jahangir himself wrote contemptuously of Arjan: “A Hindu named Arjun lived in Govindwal on the bank of river Beas in the garb of a saint and in ostentation. From all sides cowboys and idiots became his fast followers. The business had flourished for three or four generations. For a long time it had been in my mind to put a stop to this dukan-e-batil [market of falsehood] or to bring him into the fold of Islam.”97 Jahangir was also said to have demanded that Arjan include passages from the Qur’an in Adi Granth, the Sikh scripture.98

  A contemporary court historian recounted that Jahangir also moved against the Jains: “One day at Ahmadabad it was reported that many of the infidel and superstitious sect of the Seoras [Jains] of Gujarat had made several very great and splendid temples, and having placed in them their false gods, had managed to secure a large degree of respect for themselves and that the women who went for worship in those temples were polluted by them and other people. The Emperor Jahangir ordered them banished from the country, and their temples to be demolished.”99 Again following the practice of previous jihad rulers, Jahangir ordered contempt to be shown to the gods of the conquered people: “Their idol was thrown down on the uppermost step of the mosque, that it might be trodden upon by those who came to say their daily prayers there. By this order of the Emperor, the infidels were exceedingly disgraced, and Islam exalted.”100

  Exalting Islam was Jahangir’s priority. Another contemporary historian noted Jahangir’s zealousness for the religion: “The Emperor by the divine guidance, had always in view to extirpate all the rebels in his dominions, to destroy all infidels root and branch, and to raze all Pagan temples level to the ground. Endowed with a heavenly power, he devoted all his exertions to the promulgation of the Muhammadan religion; and through the aid of the Almighty God, and by the strength of his sword, he used all his endeavours to enlarge his dominions and promote the religion of Muhammad.”101

  Jahangir also manifested his Islamic piety in his memoirs:

  On the 7th Azar I went to see and shoot on the tank [holy water pool] of Pushkar, which is one of the established praying-places of the Hindus, with regard to the perfection of which they give [excellent] accounts that are incredible to any intelligence, and which is situated at a distance of three kos from Ajmir. For two or three days I shot waterfowl on that tank and returned to Ajmir. Old and new temples which, in the language of the infidels, they call Deohara are to be seen around this tank. Among them Rana Shankar, who is the uncle of the rebel Amar, and in my kingdom is among the high nobles, had built a Deohara of great magnificence, on which 100,000 rupees had been spent. I went to see that temple. I found a form cut out of black stone, which from the neck above was in the shape of a pig’s head, and the rest of the body was like that of a man. The worthless religion of the Hindus is this, that once on a time for some particular object the Supreme Ruler thought it necessary to show himself in this shape; on this account they hold it dear and worship it. I ordered them to break that hideous form and throw it into the tank. After looking at this building there appeared a white dome on the top of a hill, to which men were coming from all quarters. When I asked about this they said that a Jogi lived there, and when the simpletons come to see him he places in their hands a handful of flour, which they put into their mouths and imitate the cry of an animal which these fools have at some time injured, in order that by this act their sins may be blotted out. I ordered them to break down that place and turn the Jogi out of it, as well as to destroy the form of an idol there was in the dome.102

  Jahangir was proud of his efforts to extirpate Hinduism, and had plenty of them to relate:

  I am here led to relate that at the city of Banaras a temple had been erected by Rajah Maun Singh, which cost him the sum of nearly thirty-six laks of five methkaly ashrefies [a considerable sum]. The principal idol in this temple had on its head a tiara or cap, enriched with jewels to the amount of three laks ashrefies. He had placed in this temple moreover, as the associates and ministering servants of the principal idol, four other images of solid gold, each crowned with a tiara, in the like manner enriched with precious stones. It was the belief of these Jehennemites that a dead Hindu, provided when alive he had been a worshipper, when laid before this idol would be restored to life. As I could not possib
ly give credit to such a pretence, I employed a confidential person to ascertain the truth; and, as I justly supposed, the whole was detected to be an impudent imposture. Of this discovery I availed myself, and I made it my plea for throwing down the temple which was the scene of this imposture and on the spot, with the very same materials, I erected the great mosque, because the very name of Islam was proscribed at Banaras, and with God’s blessing it is my design, if I live, to fill it full with true believers.103

  Immediately after relating this story of jihad and persecution with pride, Jahangir recounted his heretical father Akbar the Great’s answer when Jahangir asked him why he didn’t persecute the Hindus:

  “My dear child,” said he, “I find myself a puissant monarch, the shadow of God upon earth. I have seen that he bestows the blessings of his gracious providence upon all his creatures without distinction. Should I discharge the duties of my exalted station, were I to withhold my compassion and indulgence from any of those entrusted to my charge? With all of the human race, with all of God’s creatures, I am at peace: why then should I permit myself under any consideration, to be the cause of molestation or aggression to any one? Besides, are not five parts in six of mankind either Hindus or aliens to the faith; and were I to be governed by motives of the kind suggested in your inquiry, what alternative can I have but to put them all to death! I have thought it therefore my wisest plan to let these men alone. Neither is it to be forgotten, that the class of whom we are speaking, in common with the other inhabitants of Agrah, are usefully engaged, either in the pursuits of science or the arts, or of improvements for the benefit of mankind, and have in numerous instances arrived at the highest distinctions in the state, there being, indeed, to be found in this city men of every description, and of every religion on the face of the earth.”104