1. Analyze the nature of the Turkish invasions in the light of its Central Asian background.

Ans. The Turkish ‘invasions’ refer to two phases of campaigns into India – first, under the Ghaznavids and Mahmud of Ghazni; and the second under the Ghurids, led by Muizzuddin Muhammad Ghuri – which were conducted in the 11th and 12th centuries and culminated in the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206 A.D. They are called ‘Turkish’ because they were led by people who were ethnically Turks, though they were influenced by Persian traditions. The nature of these campaigns has been the subject of great debate among historians, i.e., whether they were guided by religious zeal or political-economic motives. But to answer this question, one needs to look at their Central Asian background.

RISE OF TURKS – INDEPENDENT SULTANS – MAHMUD OF GHAZNI

One of the pertinent questions is why it was the Turks and not others, who came to India. For this we must trace the history of the Turks. Their political rise goes back to the Abbasid Caliphate, which began the practice of recruiting and training Turkish slaves in the military warfare and administration in an attempt to build an independent support base and strengthen their position. These slaves were also trained in Persian language and culture. Most of these slaves were either prisoners of war or bought from Turkish clans. They owed allegiance to their master, though not necessarily to his descendants. This led to the beginning of the ghulam system. Over a period of time, these ghulams began to be appointed to positions of authority, e.g. governors. Islam did not discriminate against slaves and soon they became very powerful. They came to dominate the Abbasid court and played a key role in matters of succession.

After the decline of the Abbasids in the 9th century, several prominent provincial dynasties became autonomous and numerous ‘succession states’ came up, either founded by Turks or with the help of Turkish slaves. However, they still continued to recognize the authority of the Caliphs. The rulers addressed themselves as amirs (commanders) of the Caliph and usually went through the formality of obtaining a patent of authority (manshur), a robe of investiture (khillat) and a sonorous title (laqab) from him, in return for inserting his name in the khutbah and the sikkah. One such family was the Samanids, which dominated Central Asia and Persia in the late 9th-10th. They further expanded the ghulam system and so Turks continued to rise in importance. Alptagin was one such slave, posted in Ghazni, who, taking advantage of a weakening Samanid state, began to carve out an independent area of influence around Ghazni. Gradually, under his successors, the state emerged as an independent political entity.

Mahmud of Ghazni was the ruler of this Ghaznavid dynasty from 998 to 1130 A.D. He was the first to formally adopt the title of ‘Sultan’. He also took titles like amin-ul-millat (Protector of the Muslim Community) and yamin-ud-daulah/khilafat (Right-hand of the Empire/Khilafat). Thus, it is with him that one sees the culmination of the process of growth of monarchical institution. However, links were still maintained with the Abbasid Caliph, who formally recognized Mahmud as Sultan by sending him a khillat. This did not imply subordination but sanction; the state was independent in all spheres of governance.

Islam did not provide for monarchy and there were no laws of succession. The position of the Sultan was open to challenge, as anyone who could militarily defend his claim could occupy the throne. Mahmud wanted to boost his image and build a larger Central Asian empire centered around Ghazni. But he faced pressure from the Samanid state in the west and the Qara-khitais in the Trans-Oxiana region. So he turned eastwards towards Hindustan. He led a series of 17 campaigns, beginning in 1001 A.D. against the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Punjab, till the last one in 1027 A.D., against the Jats. But he never went beyond western Punjab. Though this was not the first encounter of an Islamic ruler with India, these campaigns in many ways set the stage for later Turkic dynasties to invade India.

Mahmud’s death in 1030 led to the rapid decline of the Ghaznavid empire. It was facilitated by a wave of Turkish migrations, the Seljuks, from the steppes east of the Caspian Sea, who established of the Seljukid state in Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan. Following its disintegration, we see the rise of the Ghurid state in north-west Afghanistan and the Khwarazim state in Khurasan and Iran. These were established by vassals of the Ghaznavids and Seljuks, and were in constant conflict with each other for control over Khurasan. The Ghurid rulers belonged to the Shansabani dynasty, which claimed descent from an ancestor known as Shansa, who was an officer in the Ghaznavid state. It was quite unlike other Muslim monarchies at this time in respect to the fact that it three chiefs or Sultans – Ghiyasuddin, Shihabuddin (Muizzuddin), and their uncle Malik Fakhruddin. After the death of his elder brother, Shihabuddin came in control of empire, very powerful by his time, with its capital at Ghazni.

By this time, numerous other smaller Turko-Persian states existed, who were also trying to assert their superiority and expand into new territories. The Khwarazim Shahs suffered from the overlordship of the Qara-khitais to their rear, and the hostility of the Abbasid Caliph. Muizzuddin was pushed into India due to pressure from the Khwarazims in the west and the Mongols in the north. The movement eastwards was also facilitated by Turkish migrations into India, in search of land, pasture and fertile areas. It was his campaigns that led to the conquest of North India.

Due to political and geographical reasons, it was only Upper Sind which Muizzuddin could reach on his first expedition into India. A number of Rajput states confronted him. Chief among them was the Chauhana kingdom, with its capital at Ajmer. Thus further expansion was not possible till the Ghaznavid territories under Khusrau Malik were annexed, which would bring control of the more northerly routes via the Khyber Pass. Ghuri captured Multan in 1175; Uchch in 1176; Peshawar in 1179; and Lahore in 1186. With this, he could now enter the Gangetic plains. With the Chauhanas, two major battles were fought at Tarain. Ghuri was defeated in first one in 1191, by the Rajput ruler Prithviraja Chauhan, and was obliged to return to Ghazni. He however returned in 1192 and won the second time, and Prithviraja was captured. This was a major victory. From this time onwards we can date the establishment of a permanent Muslim force in the region, at Indraprastha, near Delhi. But direct Muslim rule was not imposed on a uniform basis. Ajmer was left in the possession of Prithviraja’s son, now a client of Muizzuddin. This pattern was followed many times in other regions conquered by Muslims later. In 1193, he defeated Rai Jai Chand, the ruler of Kanauj, at Chandwar. Thus, the whole of Northern India from the banks of the Ravi to the banks of the Brahmaputra came into the hands of the Ghurian Turks.

Muizzuddin’s campaigns into India were initially handled by his kinsmen, the Ghuris, and the Khalaj. However, after the Second Battle of Tarain, the conquests came under the command of his Turkish ghulams. Yalduz and Qubacha conducted campaigns in the north-west, Punjab, Kutch and Gujarat. Qutb-ud-din Aibek conducted conquests in the Gangetic plains, while the eastern campaigns into Bengal and Bihar were under Bakhtiyar Khalji. Irfan Habib has shown how he took care to promote his ghulams, particularly to administrative and military office in India. This was because after his brother’s death, he was largely occupied by the developments in Khwarazim, where the Khwarazim Shah sought to recover territories previously lost to the Ghurids. So he relied increasingly on his Turkish slave lieutenants. In fact, the forging and preservation of an independent Muslim power in India was, in large measure, the work of Turkish slave commanders and their own ghulams.

On his death, Muizzuddin left no heir, and his vast inheritance was disputed by his relatives and slaves, and his enemy, the Khwarazim Shah, who repudiated Qara-khitain overlordship and annexed the Ghurid territories in Khurasan. The later Ghurid princes were defeated by the Khwarazimians, and they lost their power in Central Asia and even their homeland. The Khwarazim empire was also brought to an end by the Mongol campaigns of Chengiz Khan in the 13th century. Nevertheless Ghuri’s Turkish slave-officers succeeded in establishing an empire in India. Following his master’s death, Aibek took up residence at Lahore, where he established himself as ruler in 1206 A.D. With this, the Delhi Sultanate came into existence.

The large-scale military operations of the Ghurids in the last quarter of the 12th and first quarter of the 13th century were neither abrupt nor unexpected. They were the culmination of a series of sporadic incursions during the preceding century and a half. The Rajputs were aware of the growing Turkish pressure by the 11th century. This is clear from the mention of the tax called Turushkadanda (collected either to finance the struggle against the Muslims or to meet their demands for tribute) in a grant of the Gahadavala rulers of Kanauj, dated to 1090. The language of the grant suggested that the tax was a familiar impost. A more definite evidence of the threatening advance of the Turks is furnished by an inscription of Prithviraja I recording the fortification of the frontier town of Hansi to check the progress of “the hammira who has become the cause of anxiety to the world”.

There is a misconception that the Turks had an easy victory in India and that the establishment of the Sultanate was a simple affair, conducted by a single individual. However, this is completely untrue. The Turks never had an easy victory – they had to put up with stiff resistance, earlier from the Hindu Shahis, and later from the Rajputs, who even defeated the Turks several times. Permanent conquest was a protracted affair and took a whole century. Even then, actual control was restricted only to a few cities in North India. The consolidation of the empire and establishment of the Sultanate was a result of the joint effort of the Turkish slaves of Muizzuddin.

Having seen the background to the invasions, it is now possible to analyze the nature of the Turkish campaigns, i.e., whether they were religious or not. One view is that the desire to spread Islam was the primary motive behind the invasions, and the destruction of temples during the course of the invasions is taken as evidence for this. The other view attributes it to political and economic factors that influenced the ‘invaders’. This problem has arisen due to the nature of the sources available for this period, and the way in which they were interpreted by Orientalist scholars who first undertook the task of translating them, after the establishment of British rule in India.

The main sources for this period are the Persian court chronicles, of which Minhaj-us-Siraj Juzjani’s Tabaqat-i-Nasiri and Utbi’s Tarikh-i-Yamini are important, because while the latter was a contemporary of the Ghaznavids, the former wrote in the period of the Ghurids. Later works like the Tajul-Maasir of Hasan Nizami, and Zia-ud-Din Barani’s Tarikh-i-Firozshahi and Fatawa-i-Jahandari are also useful. The main problem with these sources is their use of religious terminology to describe events. History was seen in the larger Islamic context. They attempted to celebrate and exaggerate the victories of the Turks as achievements of Islam. Muslims who were killed in these wars were given the status of shahid, while those who survived were called ghazi (holy warrior). Muizzuddin’s forces are designated as ‘the army of Islam’. Sometimes the campaigns were called jihad (holy war). But this retrospective, hyperbolic, and rhetorical character can be attributed to the background of the writers, most of who came from the ulema class. Also, exaggerated report of destruction of temples had a definite propaganda value – it bolstered the dubious legitimacy of the Turkish ghulam rulers; and it facilitated recruitment in central Asia by holding out prospects both of religious glory and of worldly riches. Thus, the writings were addressed to a certain audience and were more concerned with effect rather than accuracy. Later, in the face of the threat from Mongol invasions, there was a sense of nostalgia about the glory of the Turko-Persian states which had been destroyed. Accounts of travelers, like Al-beruni’s Kitab-ul-Hind, and Central Asian works like Kamil fi’l-Tarikh by Ibn al-Athir, may also be used but these are quite unreliable.

Juxtaposed to this “Epic” literature is what Aziz Ahmad calls “Counter-Epic”, i.e., indigenous Bardic literature, mainly that of the Rajputs. Here there is an attempt to glorify the resistance put up by the Rajputs and exaggerate their chivalry and bravery. Thus, the weaknesses of the Rajputs are undermined. E.g. it is said that Prithviraja’s forces had an edge over the Turks even in the Second Battle of Tarain. But when the Rajputs were gaining ground, the Turks retreated, only to return once the Rajput armies had also retreated. So their victory is attributed to their deceitful strategies. But this has no historical basis, though it is mentioned in works like Prithvirajraso by Chand Bardoi and Prithviraja Vijaya by Janaka. Also, these texts were written and compiled over a span of several centuries, initially being passed through an oral tradition. So they were prone to interpolations, and tended to present the Rajputs as heroes. These texts can be supplemented with archaeological evidence from monuments, coins, inscriptions etc.

Thus, we can see that Persian literature tried to present the non-Muslims of India as “the other”, while the Bardic literature did the same for the Turks. This was wrongly built upon by the Orientalist scholars. They tended to present the medieval period in India as one of backwardness, and Muslim dominance and aggression. They translated only selected passages from the primary sources, suited to their convenience, to highlight Muslim cruelty and oppressiveness. A primary example is Elliot and Dawson’s ‘History of India as Told by Its Own Historians’. This was done in order to justify colonial rule in India. Also, in accordance with the British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’, the separate identities of the Hindu and Muslim communities were emphasized. So any social strife was described as communal. But this Hindu-Muslim aggression is a modern-day construct. None of the wars fought during the campaigns took a religious colour. B. D. Chattopadhyaya has shown that the Sanskrit sources of medieval times never address the Turks in religious terms. The terms used was either ethnic – Turushka, referring to Turks; or geographical – Yavana; or cultural – mleccha. This is also true for the Rajput texts. Moreover, the emphasis on the religious identity of people is wrong. In this period, identities were multi-faceted and segmented. Religion was just one basis of identity; more important was a person’s caste, class, region, sect, clan etc. This was ignored by the Orientalists, who misrepresented religion as a fundamental division in society.

This kind of presentation was continued by Nationalist writers as firstly, they depended, to a large extent, on the colonialist translations of the primary sources. Secondly, they tended to present the Turks as ‘foreign’ or ‘alien’ or ‘the other’, in order to restore national pride and glory, and arouse feelings of patriotism. Most of these writers were part of the freedom struggle and wanted to unite people against the British.

These representations have been criticized by several scholars like Romila Thapar and M. Habib. Romila Thapar points out that the Orientalists assume that monolithic all-inclusive communities of Hindus and Muslims existed in the medieval period. She has tried to show that both these communities cannot be presented uniformly as ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’. She calls such an attempt the “tyranny of labels”, where such “imagined communities” are created by modern constructs. ‘Hindu’, according to her, is an amorphous term. Moreover, it was originally used by Arabs to refer to the inhabitants of the land across the Sindhu or Indus river. Also, there is no well-defined and historically evolved religion which we now call Hinduism. The modern description of Hinduism ignores the clear differences that existed in early times, between Brahmanism and Sramanism; and also a multiplicity of beliefs that existed regarding sacrifices, renunciation etc. The devotional bhakti cults; the Tantric cults; Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism; and even Jainism and Buddhism are presented as breakaways from ‘Hindu’ religion. Actually these were religious sects that co-existed. A Hindu religion with a common belief did not exist in medieval times.

Simultaneously in these writings, there is also an attempt to search for a Prophet, a revealed book, a monotheistic God, ecclesiastical organization, and a founder. This was the result of several factors – of Christian missionaries who saw religions in India as primitive; of Orientalist scholars who wanted to fit it into a known ‘model’; and of the Indian reformers attempting to cleanse Indian religion and finding parallels in Semitic religion. But the evolution of Hinduism is not a linear progression from a founder. It is rather the mosaic of distinct cults, deities, sects, and ideas.

She too, like Chattopadhyaya, looks at how Turks were presented in Indian sources. The name ‘Muslim’ does not occur anywhere. Only terms like Turushka, Yavana, Śaka, mleccha etc. were used. Yavana was used for the Greeks and others coming from West Asia since the 1st millennium B.C. So it was an indication of the Turks being from the west. Mleccha referred to non-Sanskrit speaking people, often outside the caste hierarchy or regarded as foreign. The Arabs were spoken of as Tajiks in the sense of traders. Also, the Persian sources spoke of Hindus sometimes in the sense of the indigenous population, sometimes as a geographical entity, and sometimes as followers of a non-Islamic religion. So the perception which the two groups had of each other was not in terms of a monolithic religion but more in terms of distinct and disparate castes and sects. Anyway, the recognition of a religious identity does not automatically establish a religious community. The notion of expansive communities is imagined and the premises on which such communities are constructed are thus open to analysis.

Cynthia Talbot has examined Hindu representations of Muslims through a case study of Andhra between the years 1323 and 1650. The study commences with the fall of Andhra’s local Kakatiya dynasty, which was under attack from the Khalji and Tughluq armies, and ends with the fall of the fourth and last Vijayanagara dynasty. For this, she uses 100 Sanskrit or Telugu inscriptions from Andhra, supplemented by literary materials. But while using them, one must keep in mind that they were mostly land grants given to the temple or the brahmanas, and thus represent the viewpoint of the religious and political elite, and not the common beliefs of the time.

In most inscriptions, the Turks are presented in negative light. E.g the Vilasa Grant of Prolaya Nayaka, issued sometime between 1325 and 1350 A.D. Various proofs of their wicked character are mentioned – brahmanas were forced to abandon their sacrificial rites, temples were destroyed, brahmana villages (agrahara) were confiscated, and cultivators were deprived of their produce. It is to be noted that most of these evil acts affected the brahmanas. But these cannot be taken literally, for they resemble too closely the representations in the Puranas regarding the Kali Yuga, which is associated with the coming and domination of foreign elements and the disruption of the brahmanical society. They were composed at a time when the Shakas and Kushanas were invading India, and Buddhism had achieved popularity. It is similar fears of a loss of status and power for the brahmanas that are echoed in the Vilasa grant, another time of turbulence when brahmanical privilege was threatened.

She also points out that it is only initially that the Turks are so represented, and that too primarily in the aftermath of dramatic military conflict and severe military strife. Also, such representations were used by the new elements in the polity to legitimize their position and gain allegiance, by depicting them as upholders of the dharma. Thus, the pejorative characterization of Muslims was a by-product of the process of identity-formation Even then, they are never referred to as ‘Islamic’ but Turushkas, mlecchas etc. They were demonized but initially such enmity is natural as they were conquerors. Such representations recede over time and gradually the inscriptions show that the Turks were accepted a political rival of the time, like the other Hindu powers. In a 1352 A.D. inscription, the title “Hindu-raya-suratrana” or ‘the Sultan among Hindu Kings’ is assumed by the Vijayanagara king. Here “Hindu” meant Indic as opposed to Turkish, and not “of the Hindu religion” as opposed to “of the Islamic religion”. Once political stability comes about in the 14th-15th centuries, Muslims figure mainly as mighty warriors, and not missionaries, over whom victories in battle were to be admired.

Faced with the practical reality of co-existence, there is evidence of a substantial degree of acculturation. The Muslim polities were dependent on Hindu official warriors for tax-collection. Bi-lingual inscriptions were issued. Conversely, Muslim expertise in military and administrative affairs was adopted by their rival Hindu polities. The Vijayanagara army included contingents of Muslim horse-riders. Muslim influences are also seen in the sphere of architecture, dress etc. There was also an influx of Persian and Arabic words into the Telugu language.

Talbot argues that the language of ‘us-versus-them’ was utilized to strengthen emergent identities in a fluid and constantly changing socio-political milieu. This brings us to the representation of Muslims as “foreign” or “alien”. This was again the work of Colonialists, who, because the English government was a foreign government, imagined the Delhi Sultanate to be alien as well. There are several problems with such an analysis. Firstly, it should be pointed out that most of the Muslims in India were Indian converts, who had lived in the country for several centuries. Secondly, the Mongol invasions cut off the Indian Turks from their homelands, and they rapidly adapted to the conditions here. A composite Indo-Muslim culture developed. Also, in this period, the states did not have well-defined boundaries. There was constant movement of people and loyalty was confined to the regional limits of one’s state. So we cannot speak of modern concepts of ‘nation’, ‘citizen’, ‘alien’ etc. For instance, it is wrong to expect Jai Chand to have come to the assistance of Prithviraja Chauhan in his battle against Mahmud, as for him, the Turks were as much rivals as the Chauhanas. Similarly, the wars cannot be simplistically viewed as Hindus against Muslims. In his final assault on Khusrau Malik, Muizzuddin cooperated with the Hindu prince of Jammu, while the Ghaznavid Sultan allied with the Khokhars of Punjab. Armies were never divided on religious lines. A phalanx of Afghan warriors fought under Rai Pithora at the battle of Tarain, while Mahmud’s military commander was Tilak, a Hindu. The Turkish armies were composed of both Hindus and Muslims.

Explanation is still required for the destruction of temples mentioned by the sources. Mahmud is called budshikan (destroyer of idols) by Utbi. It indeed cannot be denied that there were some temples that were destroyed in the course of the Turkish campaigns, sometimes accompanied by the establishment of mosques. But this cannot be attributed to religious zeal as many of the Turks that came to India had not even fully converted to Islam. It is true that material from demolished Hindu temples was used in the erection of mosques, e.g. the Quwwat-ul-Islam in Delhi but this stopped once the Turks were in a position to erect their own buildings. We also hear of some temples being repaired and patronized after the initial conquest was over. A Sanskrit inscription, dated 1326, mentions that Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq appointed Muslim officials to repair a Siva temple in Kalyana (in Bidar district).

The predatory nature of these raids has been discussed by Eaton and Richard Davis. For the Ghaznavids, it was more a question of material gains. They had come to India for plunder, not permanent settlement. So they raided and looted Indian cities, including their richly endowed temples loaded with movable wealth, with a view to financing their larger political objectives in Khurasan. Even the Ghurids benefited in their campaigns, from the loot collected. It is significant that after the overthrow of the Gahadavala king, Muizzuddin’s army marched to occupy, not the capital Kanauj, but Banaras and Asni where the king’s fallen treasure was known to have been deposited. Money was also required to maintain a permanent, professional army built around an elite corps of slaves that were purchased, equipped, and paid with cash derived from regular infusions of war booty. As C. E. Bosworth says, the “temple treasures of India continued to be brought back to Ghazni…the flow of bullion continued to keep the economy of the Ghaznavid empire buoyant and the currency of high quality…” Most of the bullion was used for minting purposes, facilitating the newly activated and ever-intensifying trade between the Islamic world and India. The loot was also used to raise Mahmud’s prestige in Ghazni as it was used to finance and adorn splendid buildings erected by him. Muslim authors mention golden artifacts from Ajmer, which formed part of the Chauhana tribute, and came to decorate the royal palace at Firuzkuh and the congregational mosque at Herat.

Mohammad Habib says that economic and imperialistic considerations rather than religious zeal were the inspiring motives for Mahmud. But it is unfair to end the statement here. To some extent, one can also see the influence of the revival of Persian traditions in this period, where emphasis was laid on courage, chivalry, and expansion. This was the spirit of the age and Mahmud was essentially a pioneer of the ‘new imperialism’ brought into vogue by the Persian Renaissance. His real aim was the establishment of a Turko-Persian empire and the Indian expeditions were a means to that end. Some scholars also make reference to his greed.

The most famous campaign of Mahmud in this regard is the attack on the Somnath temple in Gujarat in 1026 A.D. This has been investigated by Davis. He points out that Muslim narratives dramatized this attack by elevating Somnath to be the cultic center of Hinduism, the Indian equivalent of Mecca or the caliphal Baghdad, whereas actually it was just one of one of hundreds of such pilgrimage sites in the subcontinent. Some sources even identified it with the Ka’ba – Somnath (or Somnat), they claimed, was in fact Manat, an idol worshipped near Mecca before Muhammad’s time, which he had been unable to destroy. This identification of Somnath linked Mahmud’s expedition against it with the Prophet himself. Mahmud’s victory became a symbolic defeat of polytheism itself. He also looks for the religious aspect of the attack. Ibn al-Athir reported that Mahmud’s victory was attributed by the Hindus to the displeasure of the Somnath god. Mahmud was uncomfortable about this and so set out to assert Islamic superiority over this deity. There is also a story concerning the actual destruction of the idol, where Mahmud is said to have refused the brahmanas offer of vast wealth as he wished to be known as “breaker of idols”. When he actually broke the idol, “a jackpot of diamonds, rubies and pearls” is said to have come out. M. Habib has said that this is an impossible story. Apart from the fact that it lacks contemporary confirmation, the Somnath idol was solid unsculptured linga, not a statue, and so “stones could not have come out of its belly”. It was probably a later addition.

For the Ghurids, the attack on temples was driven more by a political intent as they came with the aim to establish an empire. In medieval times, royal temple complexes, patronized by the ruling dynasties, were thoroughly and pre-eminently political institutions. The image of the ruling dynasty’s state-deity, or rastra-devata (usually Vishnu or Siva), expressed the shared sovereignty of the king and deity, and were a source of power. It also had a strong geographical connection. This bonding between king, god, temple, and land in early medieval India is well illustrated in a passage from the Brhatsamhita, a 6th century text, which says “If a Siva linga, image, or temple breaks apart, moves, sweats, cries, speaks, or otherwise acts with no apparent cause, this warns of the destruction of the king and his territory.” Eaton points out that it was only these temples that were attacked, not the temples of the common people, which were politically irrelevant. The purpose was to display that the previous political authority had lost its legitimacy. Mosques, in this regard, differed from the temples. The only way to signify political change there was to read the khutbah in the name of the new political authority. Even then, there are cases of Mongols destroying mosques during their campaigns against the Turko-Persian states.

In fact, attack on places of worship was accepted as a part of medieval warfare, and there are plenty such examples in Pre-Turkish history, even by Hindu rulers. In the early 10th century, the Rashtrakuta monarch Indra III destroyed the temple of Kalapriya, patronized by their enemies, the Pratiharas In the mid-11th century, the Chola king Rajadhiraja defeated the Chalukyas and plundered Kalyani, taking a large black stone door guardian to his capital in Thanjavur, where it was displayed to his subjects as a trophy of war. King Harsha of the second Lohara dynasty of Kashmir plundered a number of Hindu temples for replenishing his treasury. Thus, we can see that temples had been the natural sites for the contestation of kingly authority well before the coming of Muslim Turks to India. Not surprisingly, Turkish invaders, when attempting to plant their own rule in early medieval India, followed and continued established patterns.

The campaigns of the Ghurids were not followed by any attempts to discriminate against the Hindus or forced conversion. The Quran, in the Sura section, line 256, clearly states that there is no compulsion in religion. There is no evidence of any conversion whatsoever, conducted by the state, during this period. The supposed cases of persecution in medieval India are few and will, on closer examination, turn out to be cases of individual injustice and not of communal oppression. Moreover, it is unlikely that such conversion would have gone unnoticed by the chroniclers. The shariah was not implemented and jaziyah was not collected. There was, instead, a relationship of interdependence. Numerous Hindu princes retained power and internal autonomy, e.g. in Ajmer, Gwalior and Delhi. The Muslims depended on the Hindu chiefs for collection of revenue. The reproduction of the figure of the goddess in Muizzuddin’s gold issue indicates the extent to which the conquerors were prepared to compromise their religious ideas with the demands of the state.

Thus, we can see that the nature of the Turkish campaigns was definitely not religious. Religion was only used as a means of justification and the portrayal of Mahmud and Ghuri as propagators of Islam was a later development. The language of the sources has served to distort the character of these, so that they have taken on the hue of a conflict that was religiously inspired – a development in turn nurtured by colonialists. But it was actually political compulsions and economic considerations that were the primary factor behind the invasions.

 

Bibliography:-

  1. Peter Jackson – The Delhi Sultanate: A Political And Military History
  2. Mohammad Habib And K. A. Nizami (Ed.) – A Comprehensive History Of India, Volume 5: The Delhi Sultanat (A.D. 1206-1526)
  3. A. Nizami – Some Aspects Of Religion And Politics In India During The 13th Century
  4. A. Nizami – State And Culture In Medieval India
  5. A. Nizami (Ed.) – Politics And Society During The Early Medieval Period: Collected Works Of Professor Mohammad Habib, Volumes I and II
  6. B. M. Habibullah – The Foundation Of Muslim Rule In India (A History Of The Establishment And Progress Of The Turkish Sultanate Of Delhi: 1206-1290 A.D.)
  7. Satish Chandra – Medieval India: From Sultanat To The Mughals, Part One: Delhi Sultanat (1206-1526 A.D.)
  8. André Wink – Al-Hind: The Making Of The Indo-Islamic World, Volume II: The Slave Kings And The Islamic Conquest (11th-13th Centuries)
  9. Richard H. Davis – Lives Of Indian Images
  10. David Gilmartin And Bruce B. Lawrence (Ed.) – Beyond Hindu And Turk: Rethinking Religious Identities In Islamicate South Asia
    1. Temple Desecration And Indo-Muslim States – Richard M. Eaton
  11. Romila Thapar – Cultural Pasts: Essays In Early Indian History
    1. Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History And The Modern Search For A Hindu Identity – Romila Thapar
    2. The Tyranny Of Labels – Romila Thapar
  12. Daniel Pipes – Slave Soldiers And Islam: The Genesis Of A Military System
  13. ARTICLES –
    1. The Islamic Frontier In The East: Expansion Into South Asia – F. Richards
    2. Epic And Counter-Epic In Medieval India – Aziz Ahmad
    3. Trends In The Political Thought Of Medieval Muslim India – Aziz Ahmad (From – Studia Islamica, Volume 17, 1962)
    4. The Early Ghaznavids – E. Bosworth (From – Cambridge History Of Iran, Volume 4)
    5. Inscribing The Other, Inscribing The Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities In Pre-Colonial India – Cynthia Talbot
    6. From Mleccha To Asvapati: Representations Of Muslims In Medieval Andhra – Cynthia Talbot
    7. The Study Of Prataparudra: Hindu Historiography On The Deccan Frontier – Cynthia Talbot
    8. Rāmāyana And Political Imagination In India – Sheldon Pollock