Lovers of God

Sufism and the Politics of Islam in Medieval India

Raziuddin Aquil

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000053203
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

This book addresses some of the fiercely contested issues about religion and politics in medieval India, especially with regard to the crucial presence of Sufis who styled themselves as friends and lovers of God. Enjoying widespread veneration even in situations of hostility with regard to Islam and Muslims in general, Sufis are central to an understanding of religious interactions and community relations historically.

The chapters included in the book can be read as stand-alone pieces focussing on some of the most fascinating as well as contentious themes in medieval Indian history – subjects and issues which are otherwise either left untouched by historians because of their sensitive nature from the point of view of modern day secularism or abused by interested parties in their communal propaganda. When read as a monograph, the volume as a whole attempts to combat all kinds of intellectual absurdities, which mar our understating of the place of Islam in medieval Indian history, especially the significant presence of Sufis who were devoted to the love of God and service to humanity.

Historiographically important issues which are also topical in these times of interdependence of religion and politics – the latter exploiting religion for legitimacy and justification of violence, and religion needing political support for expansion and imposition on the gullible – have been dealt in detail, neither bounded by a particular ideology nor by identity politics with its separate blinkers.

Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

CHAPTER 1

Dispatching Kafirs to Hell?: The Making of Islam in Medieval India

When the imperial army reached the city of that land, the sword of the righteous monarch completely conquered the province…. Much blood was shed. A general invitation was issued to all the beasts and birds of the forest to a continuous feast of meat and drink. In the marriage banquet, at which the Hindus were sacrificed, animals of all kinds ate them to their satisfaction.

AMIR KHUSRAU in his Khaza’in-ul-Futuh on the Khalji conquest of Anhilwara, the then capital of Gujarat¹

The Muslim Sultan cannot establish the supremacy of Islam in Hindustan unless he makes concerted efforts to overthrow infidelity and destroy its leaders, called Brahmins. He should make a firm resolve to overpower, capture, enslave and degrade the infidels. The full strength of the Sultan and the warriors of Islam should be devoted to religious campaigns and jihad.

ZIYA-UD-DIN BARANI’s counsel to the Delhi sultans in his Fatawa-i-Jahandari²

Scholars of medieval Indian history are increasingly viewing the eleventh and twelfth centuries as the period of adaptation between the expanding frontier—featuring swift raids, mobile wealth, and long-distance trade—and settled society of the agricultural plains. Large swathes of territories, roughly covering the whole of the subcontinent, witnessed considerable churning. The agricultural plains of north India were gradually brought under a Muslim Sultanate with its base in Delhi, and facilitated by professional armies, built around Turkish slave-soldiers and Afghan mercenaries on horseback, with loot constituting the foundational basis of economy in the early period of political flux. As things settled down, several other dimensions of economy needed attention. A steady stream of migrants from Central Asia and Iran further consolidated the formation of a new ruling elite. These centuries saw the expansion of agricultural frontier, the establishment of extensive commercial networks, gradual technological change and development of political and religious institutions, even as technologies of warfare and outcomes of military campaigns determined the politics of the time and affected social processes as well.

This chapter illustrates the entanglement of the languages of warfare and religion in the making of the political structure of the Delhi Sultanate and argues how much of it could be properly understood if one looks at the processes dispassionately. In doing so, it offers a critical overview of some key themes in Sultanate history and indicates the need to rethink some of the older propositions. Thus, the aim here is twofold: present a synthesis of existing literature and attempt to chart fresh vistas for understanding the complexities of religion and politics in the Delhi Sultanate. In a measure, this will be an intervention in the current contestations over the controversial legacies of Muslim rule in India. However, it is important to make clear at the outset that, unlike the two broad trends, divisive questions will neither be swept away as unimportant nor recommended for abuse by contemporary political propagandists. The intention here is to write a dispassionate history of warfare and religion in the Delhi Sultanate, warfare and religion being two of the most contested terrains in Indian history. There is already a considerable literature on the theme, my debt to which will be evident throughout the pages of this chapter, though many of the older interpretations are reconsidered and substantially revised.³

EMERGENCE OF ISLAM

A new chapter in the history of the subcontinent begins with the eastward expansion of Islam in the last decade of the twelfth century and the establishment of a series of Muslim sultanates. The Ghurid forces of Mu‘iz-ud-Din bin Sam, referred to as the lashkar-i-islam (literally, army of Islam) in the early sources, overran Ghaznavid Punjab. The Rajput resistance was smothered in the Second Battle of Tarain in 1192. The Muslim army went on to occupy large parts of upper north India. It eliminated the symbols of Rajput power and prestige in the region. Remarkably, there was no general massacre and no major demographic dislocation. Much as the chroniclers celebrated the conquest of new territories, the conquerors themselves preferred minimum use of force and violence. Though iconoclasm may have been a motivating factor for some soldiers, the places of worship were generally plundered for their wealth. Alternatively, their despoliation was aimed at hammering home the point that the old regime was overthrown; it could no longer protect the people and their religious places. The general public was thus made aware that the Turks and their sultan had established a new, Islamic order. Indeed, the minaret attached to Delhi’s congregational mosque, later known as the Qutb Minar, was subsequently perceived as a victory tower. Among the prime targets of Ghurid campaigns were Muslim Ghaznavids as well, but the Muslims of the Sultanate period particularly liked to remember the crushing of the infidels (kafirs), especially the army of the Rajput ruler Prithviraj Chauhan, who was referred to as Rai Pithaura.⁴

In their misplaced understanding of the Sultanate as an Islamic state, the ulama (Muslim religious scholars) wanted the sultans to confront the Hindus of the dominion with the alternative of death or Islam. In a measure, which speaks of the rulers’ attempts for rapprochement with non-Muslims, they ignored the pressure tactics of the ulama. The Turks had realized that it was difficult to rule a vast majority of non-Muslim population through a strict adherence to a narrow interpretation of the shari‘at (Islamic law). Instead, they evolved a broad, secular state law (zawabit-i-mulki) with public protestation of respect to the Muslim divines and their institutions.

Significantly enough, the enthronement of Qutb-ud-Din Aibak (r. ce 1206–10) at Lahore coincided with the election of Ghenghiz Khan as the great leader of the Mongol hordes. The raids of the Mongols witnessed large-scale devastation in Central and West Asia in the next fifty years. Major centres of Islam such as Bukhara and Baghdad were sacked. The subcontinent was yet protected, though Punjab and Sindh were exposed to the threat of a possible onslaught. Escaping the wrath of the Tartars, Islam prospered in the Delhi Sultanate with the name of the caliph still being mentioned in the khutba (Friday sermons) and the sikka (coins). The period witnessed large-scale immigration of Muslims. A number of Sufi saints had also come to settle here.

The arrival of the Sufis, especially of the Chishti order, ensured that force and violence were not used for converting the general population to Islam. Much as Islamic orthodoxy strove for total annihilation of the kafirs, the seemingly liberal approach of the Sufis proved to be more appealing to the early sultans. The rulers themselves detested the arrogance of the ulama, and felt that the Sufis’ position on such questions as the treatment to be meted out to the Hindus, and generally on matters related to the shari‘at, was more correct. The Sultanate was thus going to have a secular and broad-based polity, though religious ideas and institutions did play important roles. Controversial religious issues which had the potential to break the pluralistic fabric of medieval India did come to the public arena, but in the end sanity prevailed.

In a way it augured well for the history of Islam in India that the earliest Muslim to have been born in the capital city of Delhi after the Turkish conquest went on to become a Chishti Sufi of considerable reputation for syncretistic proclivities. Shaikh Hamid-ud-Din (d. 1274) was a disciple and khalifa, spiritual successor of none other than the great Khwaja Mu‘in-ud-Din Chishti Ajmeri (d. 1236). Mu‘in-ud-Din, in turn, was said to have been directed by Prophet Muhammad in a dream in Medina to go to Hindustan. The Khwaja’s arrival coincided with the conquest of the Turks. Sufi tradition claims that Mu‘in-ud-Din had prophesied Shahab-ud-Din Ghuri’s victory in the Second Battle of Tarain in 1192. The Chauhan ruler Rai Pithaura or Prithviraj was said to be harassing the shaikh and his disciples at Ajmer. Later traditions also suggest that the Sufi shaikh had to display his miraculous power to subdue the opponent. The shaikh’s charisma won him a large following, and his khalifas spread in different directions. Hamid-ud-Din, referred to above, went to live in a village near Nagaur. He cultivated a small plot of land, became a vegetarian, and seemingly led a life conforming to the Hindu environment.

Mu‘in-ud-Din Chishti chose a more sophisticated Qutb-ud-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 1235), preceptor (pir) of Shaikh Farid-ud-Din Ganj-i-Shakar (d. 1265), for the cosmopolitan wilayat, or spiritual territory, of Delhi. Bakhtiyar Kaki was born in Ush in the province of the Jaxarates, Transoxania, Central Asia. He met Mu‘in-ud-Din for the first time in Baghdad, and became his disciple. Amongst the noted Sufis in the Abbasid capital at that time were Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani and Shaikh Abun Najib Suhrawardi. Bakhtiyar Kaki, however, followed his pir Mu‘in-ud-Din, also referred to as the sultan of Hind, and reached Delhi during the reign of Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish (r. ce 1211–36). The sultan welcomed the shaikh and invited him to live in the city. Though he was hesitant initially, he agreed to the ruler’s request. Bakhtiyar Kaki had to compete for a space in the spiritual geography of the city. Besides the ulama, quite a few eminent Sufi shaikhs of various orders had come to settle there. Many of them had just arrived following the Mongol invasions in Central Asia and Iran. Bakhtiyar Kaki found the most powerful antagonist in Shaikh-ul-Islam Najm-ud-Din Sughra, a Sufi of his own order. Najm-ud-Din and Kaki’s pir Mu‘in-ud-Din were disciples of the same shaikh, Khwaja Usman Harwani. Najm-ud-Din did not take the growing popularity of Kaki and his influence in political circle kindly.

To prevent the tension between Najm-ud-Din and Bakhtiyar Kaki from escalating further, Mu‘in-ud-Din, who was on a visit to Delhi, asked his disciple to leave the place and accompany him to Ajmer.⁵ The news of the departure of the saints was perceived as a sign of calamity by the sultan and the people. They followed the two for miles, crying and wailing. Touched by the grief of the ruler and the ruled alike, Mu‘in-ud-Din allowed Kaki to remain in Delhi.⁶ As a patron saint of the city, Bakhtiyar Kaki enjoyed prestige and authority, and in a measure influenced Iltutmish’s style of governance. We shall return to the question of the significant social and political activities of the Sufis.

RAZIYA SULTAN

The weakness of the rulers and the supremacy of the nobles were two important features of the period following the death of Iltutmish. Within a decade of his death, the nobles put four of his descendants on the throne and removed them at will. The next twenty years saw the slaves of Iltutmish exterminating his dynasty by executing all the male members of his family. Iltutmish had nominated Raziya as his heir-apparent.⁷ Disregarding her claim, the Turkish slave-officers had enthroned Rukn-ud-Din Firuz Shah as the sultan of Delhi. However, Rukn-ud-Din did not display much interest in matters of governance. Instead of the court, the reins of power got transferred to the harem from where his mother Shah Turkan controlled the affairs of the dominion. According to reports, unleashing a reign of terror, the queen mother started persecuting her detractors. The nobles began to distrust the government, leading to rebellion and disorder.⁸ Raziya took advantage of the situation to stake her own claim to the throne. Putting on red garments, usually worn by aggrieved persons seeking justice, she went to the Jama Masjid (the Qubbat-ul-Islam Mosque of Delhi) at the time of the congregational prayer and complained to the people that Shah Turkan had planned to kill her. Invoking the name of her father, she appealed for protection. In a rare example of sensitivity shown by the people of Delhi, the palace was attacked, Shah Turkan was seized and Raziya was placed on the throne. The nobles and the soldiers p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue: Some Historiographical Concerns
• 1. Dispatching Kafirs to Hell?: The Making of Islam in Medieval India
• 2. Mahfil-i-Sama/Qawwali: Celebrations and Contestations
• 3. Hunuz Dilli Dur Ast: Sufi Karamat, Legitimacy and Authority
• 4. From Dar-ul-Harb to Dar-ul-Islam: Miraculous Conversion and Islamization
• 5. The Study of Islam and Indian History: An Urdu-Muslim Perspective
• Epilogue: Politics of History in the Public Domain
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index