The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (60 page)

The Nagas belonged to the extreme periphery of Hindu religion, and had virtually no role in the everyday life of Hindus. The most notable of the mainstream medieval Hindu religious movements were the Bhakti cults, which came to prominence in the centuries immediately preceding the Turkish invasion of India.
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These supercharged devotional cults originated in South India around the sixth century, and gradually, over the next few centuries, spread all over the subcontinent. The Bhakti sages held that only total and unswerving
bhakti
(devotion to god) can save man from the pitfalls of life and earn him salvation. And for this one does not have to go to temples or perform rituals, for god is latent in every man, and this god within can be awakened through loving devotion.

The defining characteristic of the Bhakti sages was that they lived totally immersed in the sea of devotional ecstasy. Quite appropriately, the Tamil Vaishnavite Bhakti sages were known as
Alvars
, meaning the immersed. These
sages ignored all class and caste distinctions, preached in vernacular languages, using simple maxims and parables, so their teachings were accessible to all right across the social spectrum, to the literate as well as to the illiterate. The movement had no intellectual pretensions, but had strong emotional fervour, which appealed to rustics and to urban underclasses. Orthodox Hindus, particularly Brahmins, initially disapproved the movement, as it was disruptive of the established social order and religious practices. But eventually the movement gained wide acceptance among all Hindu castes. In the process, however, it lost some of its radical features—it no longer opposed the caste system or idol worship—but fitted itself into a niche in the orthodox Hindu socio-religious structure.

ISLAM, UNLIKE HINDUISM, did not ever go through any transformative evolutionary processes. Its beliefs and practices were defined in detail by Prophet Muhammad, and these have remained unchanged since then. And, although several sects had appeared in Islam over the centuries, these differed only in organisational matters and social practices, not in religious faith. Similarly, authorities often differed in their interpretations of Koranic prescriptions, but the prescriptions themselves were never questioned.

The rigour of the enforcement of Koranic prescriptions however varied from sultanate to sultanate, and from sultan to sultan. The primary concern of sultans, even of the most orthodox of them, was with the preservation and expansion of their power, not with the enforcement of religious directives. Thus Balban, despite his strict personal observance of orthodox religious prescriptions, was, in matters of administration, guided primarily by the needs of the state, not by Islamic law. Ala-ud-din Khalji followed the same policy. ‘When he became sultan he came to the conclusion that polity and government are one thing, and the rules and decrees of Islamic law are another,’ observes Barani. ‘Royal commands belong to the sultan, Islamic legal decrees rest upon the judgment of the qazis and muftis.’

Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a monotheistic religion. This is stated in the Kalimah, the Islamic confession of faith:
La Ilaha Illa-Allah; Muhammadur Rasul-ullah
: there is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Sharia, the holy laws of Islam—based on the prescriptions of Koran, the sayings and conventions of prophet Muhammad (
hadith),
and the rulings of Islamic scholars
(fatwas)
—regulate every aspect of Islamic society, economy and government, as well as the totality of the life of individual Muslims. Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular laws. Every law has a religious base, and the violation of any law is a crime as well as a sin.

There are, however, a few purely religious duties for Muslims to perform. All Muslims, for instance, are required to pray five times a day at home or
office, and to gather in a mosque for congregational prayers on Fridays. They are also required, if they can afford it, to go on Hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once in their lifetime.

Islam abhors idol worship, and maintains austerity and high decorum in its religious ceremonies. While temple worship in Hinduism is often accompanied by music and dance, Islam sternly prohibits them in mosques. Religious festivities in Islam are solemn acts of submission to god, unlike in Hinduism in which they are carnivals in celebration of deities. In fact, Islam, unlike most other religions, has no religious rituals at all, and therefore no ordained priests or bishops, no supreme religious authority like pope.

There are however religious leaders in Islam, termed Imams, men of piety and scholarship, who lead the prayer in mosques. The other prominent socio-religious functionaries in Islamic society are Mullahs (religious scholars), Pirs (spiritual guides), Sheikhs (tribal patriarchs), and above them all the Caliph (the supreme authority over all Muslims of his sect everywhere in the world, in temporal as well as spiritual matters). But all these functionaries, even the Caliph, hold their posts by their personal merit recognised by their community, not by ordination. The role of the Caliph was similar to the role of the sultan, except that the sultan’s power was confined to his kingdom, while the Caliph had, in theory at least, authority over all Muslims of his sect everywhere in the world, though often he was just a figurehead.

ISLAM, LIKE ANY other religion, has a number of sects, the most prominent of which are Sunnis, Shias and Sufis. The difference between Sunnis and Shias is primarily in organisational matters. These two sects initially emerged out of their difference over the mode of succession to the Caliphate—while Shias preferred hereditary succession to the office through the descendants of Ali, prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Sunnis wanted succession to be decided by the consensus of the Muslim community. Later other differences also arose between the two sects, and the gap between them widened. The Sunni is the predominant sect in the Muslim world, including the Indian subcontinent, while Shias are mostly in Iran.

Shia and Sunni, despite their differences, are both orthodox sects. Sufis are on another religious plane altogether; they are mystics and are regarded as heretics by many orthodox Muslims. Even al-Biruni, though he was generally quite broadminded, was censorious about Sufism, and condemned it for its flighty mysticism and lack of intellectual rigour and sophistication. Sultan Ghiyas-u-din Tughluq also disapproved of Sufis. A rigidly orthodox Muslim, he once summoned Nizamuddin Auliya, the great Sufi sage of medieval India, to the court to appear before a jury of orthodox theologians, and forced him to acknowledge, at least outwardly, the error of his ways.

Sufis hold that god realisation cannot be achieved through conventional religious practices, but only though obsessive, passionate devotion to god, and by awakening one’s intuitive faculties through intense meditation. Such meditation, Sufis believe, would enable the devotee to gain insights into the true nature of god, and that this knowledge would liberate him from all worldly bonds, so that he becomes one with god. Typically, Khwaja Moinuddin, the founder of the Chishti sect in India, claimed: ‘For years I used to go around the Kaaba, now the Kaaba goes around me.’

Many of the peculiar beliefs and practices of Sufis arose out of their conviction that doomsday, the end of the world—the day of final divine judgement and the arrival of Mahdi, the redeemer—was at hand, and that man should prepare himself earnestly for that day by ridding himself of all his temporal concerns, and thus transcend the human condition. Sufis therefore detached themselves from society, lived in seclusion, practised self-mortification, and indulged in dervish practices like rapturous singing and dancing, to induce in themselves spiritual ecstasy and to fall into a trance, and thus disengage themselves totally from the mundane world. Often they spoke in a cryptic language, not so much to say anything, as to create an otherworldly ambiance.

The beliefs and practices of Sufis were in many ways similar to those of the Bhakti cults of Hinduism, but while the Bhakti sages usually functioned within society, Sufis usually functioned outside society. In that they were rather like yogis. And yogis evidently did have some influence on some Sufi sects in India, whose members took to performing yogic exercises, particularly controlled breathing. Some Indian Sufi leaders even called themselves rishis, as the Hindu sages did. And some of them took Hindus as disciples.

Sufis in medieval India were divided into three major orders: Chishti (popular in Delhi and the Doab, and had poet Amir Khusrav as one of its distinguished followers), Suhrawardi (of Sind), and Firdausi (of Bihar). The best known Sufi sage of the early medieval period was Nizamuddin Auliya of the Chishti order, who had a large number of followers among the ruling class in Delhi. But the followers of Sufism, compared to the general Muslim population in India, were quite small even at the height of the movement’s short-lived popularity, because the renunciatory and asocial character of the sect was not suited for the common people.

SOME OF THE Muslim mystic sects were quite weird in their practices, like some of the Hindu mystic sects. The oddest of them was the Qalandar sect, a loosely organized group of antinomian wandering dervishes. Their early history is obscure, but they probably originated in Iran or Central Asia, from where they entered India around the twelfth or thirteenth century. Qalandars
were contemptuous of all social and religious conventions, habitually used psychedelic drugs, and considered themselves above all laws, including the Sharia laws. Unlike most Sufis, they shaved their head and face, even their eyebrows, wore iron rings on their ears and fingers, and went about clad in coarse, hip-length woollen blankets. Some members of this sect fitted a short iron rod transversely into their penis, to prevent any possibility of sexual intercourse by them.

Ibn Battuta once saw a performance by Qalandars at Amroha in Uttar Pradesh. ‘Their chief,’ he reports, ‘asked me to supply him with firewood so that they might light it for their dance, so I charged the governor of that district … to furnish it. He sent about ten loads of it, and after the night prayer they kindled it, and at length, when it was a mass of glowing coals, they began their music recital and went into that fire, dancing and rolling about in it. Their chief asked me for a shirt and I gave him one of the finest texture; he put it on and began to roll about in the fire with it on and beat the fire with his sleeves until it was extinguished … He then brought me the shirt showing not a single trace of burning on it, at which I was greatly astonished.’ In Maldives too Battuta once saw the dervishes perform this fire rite; they, he reports, went into a fire, ‘treading it with their [bare] feet, and some of them ate it (the embers) as one eats sweetmeats.’

The early medieval period was the age of bizarre religious movements in India, in Hinduism as well as in Islam. Firuz Tughluq in his autobiography describes some of these sects, and the action he took to suppress them. One such heretic leader of the age was Rukn-ud-din, who claimed to be the Mahdi; Firuz set the rabble on him and had him killed—‘the people rushing in tore him to pieces and broke his bones into fragments,’ he writes with approbation. Firuz also mentions a heretic in Gujarat who ‘used to say “Ana-l-Hakk” (I am god), and instructed his disciples that when he said these words they should say, “Thou art, thou art!” … He was put in chains and brought before me … I condemned him to punishment …’

ISLAM WAS AN aggressively proselytising religion, but there is no evidence of any extensive use of violence by Muslim rulers in India to force conversions. Though there were many instances of sultans converting Hindus into Islam by force, most of them were incidental to military campaigns. The sultans did not actively seek conversions, for their object in conquering India was to gain power and wealth, not to spread religion, though religion did subserve their other goals.

The greatest number of Hindu coverts to Islam came from the under-classes, who sought to gain socio-economic emancipation through conversion, by freeing themselves from the bondage of the Hindu caste system. As Muslims,
their careers were no longer confined to their old degrading caste functions, so they could rise to whatever position they merited by their aptitudes and skills. And, more than anything else, conversion radically transformed their social status, from that of the underclass to that of the upper class.

‘The heathens of these parts daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulers,’ writes Barbosa about what he observed in Bengal. Sometimes there were mass conversions, following clan or tribal decision. This was fairly common in north-east and north-west India, the predominantly tribal regions of the subcontinent. But most of the individual conversions were in urban areas—in rural areas there was very little for Hindus to gain by becoming Muslims, while in urban areas conversion opened up a whole new world for them, for economic as well as social advancement.

There were a few conversions to Islam from the Hindu upper castes also, of men who sought to advance their careers by becoming Muslims. Even some rajas and chieftains became Muslims, so as to retain their power. Conversion also freed Hindus from the obligation to pay jizya, though this does not seem to have been a major factor. Sufis too played a role, though only a small role, in attracting Hindus to Islam. In several cases, Hindu converts to Islam continued to observe their old sectarian socio-religious practices. Thus it was reported that Hindu converts to Islam in Punjab continued to worship their old village deities even after their conversion. Such practices were fairly common in other regions of India also.

Most Muslims in medieval India were in the regions under Muslim rule, but there were a good number of them even in Hindu kingdoms. These were mostly migrants from Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, though there were also some local converts there. Battuta in the fourteenth century found numerous mosques in Kerala, evidently built by Muslim traders from the Middle East who had peacefully settled there and prospered. According to Barbosa, even a Kerala king became a convert to Islam.