THE MAGNITUDE OF MUSLIM ATROCITIES
The world famous historian, Will Durant has written in his Story
of
Civilisation that the Mohammedan conquest of India was
probably the
bloodiest story in history .
THE MAGNITUDE OF MUSLIM ATROCITIES - I
The world famous historian, Will Durant has written in his Story
of
Civilisation that the Mohammedan conquest of India was
probably the
bloodiest story in history .
India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly a
zone of
peace. There were plenty of wars fought by Hindu princes. But in
all their
wars, the Hindus had observed some time-honoured conventions
sanctioned by
the stras. The Brahmins and the Bhikshus were never
molested. The cows were
never killed. The temples were never touched. The chastity of
women was never
violated. The non-combatants were never killed or captured. A
human
habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort. The civil
population was
never plundered. War booty was an unknown item in the
calculations of
conquerors. The martial classes who clashed, mostly in open
spaces, had a
code of honour. Sacrifice of honour for victory or material gain
was deemed
as worse than death.
Islamic imperialism came with a different code - the Sunnah of
the Prophet.
It required its warriors to fall upon the helpless civil
population after a
decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. It required
them to sack
and burn down villages and towns after the defenders had died
fighting or had
fled. The cows, the Brahmins, and the Bhikshus invited their
special
attention in mass murders of non-combatants. The temples and
monasteries were
their special targets in an orgy of pillage and arson. Those
whom they did
not kill, they captured and sold as slaves. The magnitude of the
booty looted
even from the bodies of the dead, was a measure of the success
of a military
mission. And they did all this as muj hids (holy warriors) and
gh z s
(k fir-killers) in the service of Allah and his Last Prophet.
Hindus found it very hard to understand the psychology of this
new invader.
For the first time in their history, Hindus were witnessing a
scene which was
described by K nhaDade Prabandha (1456 AD) in the following
words: The
conquering army burnt villages, devastated the land, plundered
people s
wealth, took Brahmins and children and women of all classes
captive, flogged
with thongs of raw hide, carried a moving prison with it, and
converted the
prisoners into obsequious Turks. That was written in
remembrance of Alauddin
Khalji s invasion of Gujarat in the year 1298 AD. But the
gruesome game had
started three centuries earlier when Mahmud Ghaznavi had vowed
to invade
India every year in order to destroy idolatry, kill the k firs,
capture
prisoners of war, and plunder vast wealth for which India was
well-known.
MAHMUD GHAZNAVI AND SON
In 1000 AD Mahmud defeated Raja Jaipal, a scion of the Hindu
Shahiya dynasty
of Kabul. This dynasty had been for long the doorkeeper of India
in the
Northwest. Mahmud collected 250,000 din rs as indemnity. That
perhaps was
normal business of an empire builder. But in 1004 AD he stormed
Bhatiya and
plundered the place. He stayed there for some time to convert
the Hindus to
Islam with the help of mullahs he had brought with him. In 1008
AD he
captured Nagarkot (Kangra). The loot amounted to 70,000,000
dirhams in coins
and 700,400 mans of gold and silver, besides plenty of precious
stones and
embroidered cloths. In 1011 AD he plundered Thanesar which was
undefended,
destroyed many temples, and broke a large number of idols. The
chief idol,
that of Chakraswamin, was taken to Ghazni and thrown into the
public square
for defilement under the feet of the faithful. According to
T r kh-i-Yam n
of Utbi, Mahmud s secretary, The blood of the infidels
flowed so copiously
[at Thanesar] that the stream was discoloured, notwithstanding
its purity,
and people were unable to drink it. The Sult n returned with
plunder which is
impossible to count. Praise he to Allah for the honour he
bestows on Isl m
and Muslims.
In 1013 AD Mahmud advanced against Nandana where the Shahiya
king, Anandapal,
had established his new capital. The Hindus fought very hard but
lost. Again,
the temples were destroyed, and innocent citizens slaughtered.
Utbi provides
an account of the plunder and the prisoners of war: The
Sult n returned in
the rear of immense booty, and slaves were so plentiful that
they became very
cheap and men of respectability in their native land were
degraded by
becoming slaves of common shopkeepers. But this is the goodness
of Allah, who
bestows honour on his own religion and degrades infidelity.
The road was now clear for an assault on the heartland of
Hindustan. In
December 1018 AD Mahmud crossed the Yamuna, collected 1,000,000
dirhams from
Baran (Bulandshahar), and marched to Mahaban in Mathura
district. Utbi
records: The infidels deserted the fort and tried to cross
the foaming
river but many of them were slain, taken or drowned Nearly
fifty thousand
men were killed. Mathura was the next victim. Mahmud seized
five gold idols
weighing 89,300 miskals and 200 silver idols. According to Utbi,
The Sult n
gave orders that all the temples should be burnt with naptha and
fire, and
levelled with the ground. The pillage of the city continued
for 20 days.
Mahmud now turned towards Kanauj which had been the seat of
several Hindu
dynasties. Utbi continues: In Kanauj there were nearly ten
thousand
temples Many of the inhabitants of the place fled in
consequence of
witnessing the fate of their deaf and dumb idols. Those who did
not fly were
put to death. The Sult n gave his soldiers leave to plunder and
take
prisoners. The Brahmins of Munj, which was attacked next,
fought to the last
man after throwing their wives and children into fire. The fate
of Asi was
sealed when its ruler took fright and fled. According to Utbi,
the Sult n
ordered that his five forts should be demolished from their
foundations, the
inhabitants buried in their ruins, and the soldiers of the
garrison
plundered, slain and captured .
Shrawa, the next important place to be invaded, met the same
fate. Utbi
concludes: The Muslims paid no regard to the booty till they
had satiated
themselves with the slaughter of the infidels and worshippers of
sun and
fire. The friends of Allah searched the bodies of the slain for
three days in
order to obtain booty The booty amounted in gold and silver,
rubies and
pearls nearly to three hundred thousand dirhams, and the number
of prisoners
may be conceived from the fact that each was sold for two to ten
dirhams.
These were afterwards taken to Ghazni and merchants came from
distant cities
to purchase them, so that the countries of Mawaraun-Nahr, Iraq
and Khurasan
were filled with them, and the fair and the dark, the rich and
the poor, were
commingled in one common slavery.
Mahmud s sack of Somnath is too well-known to be retold here.
What needs
emphasising is that the fragments of the famous ivali ga were
carried to
Ghazni. Some of them were turned into steps of the Jama Masjid
in that city.
The rest were sent to Mecca, Medina, and Baghdad to be
desecrated in the same
manner.
Mahmud s son Masud tried to follow in the footsteps of his
father. In 1037 AD
he succeeded in sacking the fort of Hansi which was defended
very bravely by
the Hindus. The T r kh-us-Subuktig n records: The Brahmins
and other high
ranking men were slain, and their women and children were
carried away
captive, and all the treasure which was found was distributed
among the
army. Masud could not repeat the performance due to his
preoccupations
elsewhere.
MUHAMMAD GHURI AND HIS LIEUTENANTS
Invasion of India by Islamic imperialism was renewed by Muhmmad
Ghuri in the
last quarter of the 12th century. After Prithiviraj Chauhan had
been defeated
in 1192 AD, Ghuri took Ajmer by assault. According the T j-ul-
M s r of Hasan
Nizami, While the Sultan remained at Ajmer, he destroyed the
pillars and
foundations of the idol temples and built in their stead mosques
and colleges
and precepts of Isl m, and the customs of the law were divulged
and
established.
Next year he defeated Jayachandra of Kanauj. A general massacre,
rapine, and
pillage followed. The Gahadvad treasuries at Asni and Varanasi
were
plundered. Hasan Nizami rejoices that in Benares which is the
centre of the
country of Hind, they destroyed one thousand temples and raised
mosques on
their foundations . According to K mil-ut-Taw r kh of Ibn
Asir, The
slaughter of Hindus (at Varanasi) was immense; none were spared
except women
and children, and the carnage of men went on until the earth was
weary. The
women and children were spared so that they could be enslaved
and sold all
over the Islamic world. It may be added that the Buddhist
complex at Sarnath
was sacked at this time, and the Bhikshus were slaughtered.
Ghuri s lieutenant Qutbuddin Aibak was also busy meanwhile.
Hasan Nizami
writes that after the suppression of a Hindu revolt at Kol
(Aligarh) in 1193
AD, Aibak raised three bastions as high as heaven with their
heads, and
their carcases became food for beasts of prey. The tract was
freed from idols
and idol-worship and the foundations of infidelism were
destroyed. In 1194
AD Aibak destroyed 27 Hindu temples at Delhi and built the
Quwwat-ul-Isl m
mosque with their debris. According to Nizami, Aibak adorned
it with the
stones and gold obtained from the temples which had been
demolished by
elephants . In 1195 AD the Mher tribe of Ajmer rose in revolt,
and the
Chaulukyas of Gujarat came to their assistance. Aibak had to
invite
re-inforcements from Ghazni before he could meet the challenge.
In 1196 AD he
advanced against Anahilwar Patan, the capital of Gujarat. Nizami
writes that
after Raja Karan was defeated and forced to flee, fifty
thousand infidels
were despatched to hell by the sword and more than twenty
thousand slaves,
and cattle beyond all calculation fell into the hands of the
victors . The
city was sacked, its temples demolished, and its palaces
plundered. On his
return to Ajmer, Aibak destroyed the Sanskrit College of
Visaladeva, and laid
the foundations of a mosque which came to be known as ADh
Din k JhoMpaD .
Conquest of Kalinjar in 1202 AD was Aibak s crowning
achievement. Nizami
concludes: The temples were converted into mosques Fifty
thousand men came
under the collar of slavery and the plain became black as pitch
with Hindus.
A free-lance adventurer, Muhammad Bakhtyar Khalji, was moving
further east.
In 1200 AD he sacked the undefended university town of Odantpuri
in Bihar and
massacred the Buddhist monks in the monasteries. In 1202 AD he
took Nadiya by
surprise. Badauni records in his Muntakh b-ut-Taw r kh that
property and
booty beyond computation fell into the hands of the Muslims and
Muhammad
Bakhtyar having destroyed the places of worship and idol temples
of the
infidels founded mosques and Khanqahs .
THE SLAVE (MAMLUK) SULTANS
Shamsuddin Iltutmish who succeeded Aibak at Delhi invaded Malwa
in 1234 AD.
He destroyed an ancient temple at Vidisha. Badauni reports:
Having destroyed
the idol temple of Ujjain which had been built six hundred years
previously,
and was called Mahakal, he levelled it to its foundations, and
threw down the
image of Rai Vikramajit from whom the Hindus reckon their era,
and brought
certain images of cast molten brass and placed them on the
ground in front of
the doors of mosques of old Delhi, and ordered the people of
trample them
under foot.
Muslim power in India suffered a serious setback after
Iltutmish. Balban had
to battle against a revival of Hindu power. The Katehar Rajputs
of what came
to be known as Rohilkhand in later history, had so far refused
to submit to
Islamic imperialism. Balban led an expedition across the Ganges
in 1254 AD.
According to Badauni, In two days after leaving Delhi, he
arrived in the
midst of the territory of Katihar and put to death every male,
even those of
eight years of age, and bound the women. But in spite of such
wanton
cruelty, Muslim power continued to decline till the Khaljis
revived it after
1290 AD.
THE KHALJIS
Jalaluddin Khalji led an expedition to Ranthambhor in 1291 AD.
On the way he
destroyed Hindu temples at Jhain. The broken idols were sent to
Delhi to be
spread before the gates of the Jama Masjid. His nephew Alauddin
led an
expedition to Vidisha in 1292 AD. According to Badauni, Alauddin
brought
much booty to the Sultan and the idol which was the object of
worship of the
Hindus, he caused to be cast in front of the Badaun gate to be
trampled upon
by the people. The services of Alauddin were highly appreciated,
the jagir of
Oudh also was added to his other estates.
Alauddin became Sultan in 1296 AD after murdering his uncle and
father-in-law, Jalaluddin. In 1298 AD he equipped an expedition
to Gujarat
under his generals Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan. In an earlier
chapter I have
already quoted T r kh-I-Wass f on the achievements of
this expedition. The
invaders plundered the ports of Surat and Cambay. The temple of
Somnath,
which had been rebuilt by the Hindus, was plundered and the idol
taken to
Delhi for being trodden upon by the Muslims. The whole region
was subjected
to fire and sword, and Hindus were slaughtered en masse. Kamala
Devi, the
queen of Gujarat, was captured along with the royal treasury,
brought to
Delhi and forced into Alauddin s harem. The doings of the
Malik Naib during
his expedition to South India in 1310-1311 AD have already been
described.
THE TUGHLAQS
Muslim power again suffered a setback after the death of
Alauddin Khalji in
1316 AD. But it was soon revived by the Tughlaqs. By now most of
the famous
temples over the length and breadth of the Islamic empire in
India had been
demolished, except in Orissa and Rajasthan which had retained
their
independence. By now most of the rich treasuries had been
plundered and
shared between the Islamic state and its swordsmen. Firuz Shah
Tughlaq led an
expedition to Orissa in 1360 AD. He destroyed the temple of
Jagannath at
Puri, and desecrated many other Hindu shrines. According to
S rat-i-F r z
Sh h which he himself wrote or dictated, Allah who is the
only true God and
has no other emanation, endowed the king of Isl m with the
strength to
destroy this ancient shrine on the eastern sea-coast and to
plunge it into
the sea, and after its destruction he ordered the image of
Jagann th to be
perforated, and disgraced it by casting it down on the ground.
They dug out
other idols which were worshipped by the polytheists in the
kingdom of
J jnagar and overthrew them as they did the image of
Jagann th, for being
laid in front of the mosques along the path of the Sunnis and
the way of the
musallis (Muslim congregation for nam z) and stretched them in
front of the
portals of every mosque, so that the body and sides of the
images might be
trampled at the time of ascent and descent, entrance and exit,
by the shoes
on the feet of the Muslims.
After the sack of the temples in Orissa, Firuz Shah Tughlaq
attacked an
island on the sea-coast where nearly 100,000 men of J jnagar
had taken
refuge with their women, children, kinsmen and relations . The
swordsmen of
Islam turned the island into a basin of blood by the massacre
of the
unbelievers . A worse fate overtook the Hindu women. S rat-i-
F r z Sh h
records: Women with babies and pregnant ladies were haltered,
manacled,
fettered and enchained, and pressed as slaves into service in
the house of
every soldier.
Still more horrible scenes were enacted by Firuz Shah Tughlaq at
Nagarkot
(Kangra) where he sacked the shrine of Jvalamukhi. Firishta
records that the
Sultan broke the idols of Jv l mukh , mixed their
fragments with the flesh
of cows and hung them in nosebags round the necks of Brahmins.
He sent the
principal idol as trophy to Medina.
AMIR TIMUR
The climax came during the invasion of Timur in 1399 AD. He
starts by quoting
the Quran in his Tuzk-i-Tim r : O Prophet, make war upon
the infidels and
unbelievers, and treat them severely. He continues: My
great object in
invading Hindustan had been to wage a religious war against the
infidel
Hindus [so that] the army of Islam might gain something by
plundering the
wealth and valuables of the Hindus.
To start with he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of
Kashmir. He
ordered his soldiers to kill all the men, to make prisoners
of women and
children, and to plunder and lay waste all their property .
Next, he
directed towers to be built on the mountain of the skulls of
those obstinate
unbelievers . Soon after, he laid siege to Bhatnir defended by
Rajputs. They
surrendered after some fight, and were pardoned. But Islam did
not bind Timur
to keep his word given to the unbelievers . His Tuzk-i-
Tim r records: In
a short space of time all the people in the fort were put to the
sword, and
in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut
off. The
sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all
the goods and
effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year
had been
stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set
fire to the
houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings
and the fort
to the ground.
At Sarsuti, the next city to be sacked, all these infidel
Hindus were slain,
their wives and children were made prisoners and their property
and goods
became the spoil of the victors . Timur was now moving through
Haryana, the
land of the Jats. He directed his soldiers to plunder and
destroy and kill
every one whom they met . And so the soldiers plundered
every village,
killed the men, and carried a number of Hindu prisoners, both
male and
female . Loni which was captured before he arrived at Delhi
was predominantly
a Hindu town. But some Muslim inhabitants were also taken
prisoners. Timur
ordered that the Musulman prisoners should be separated and
saved, but the
infidels should all be despatched to hell with the proselytising
sword .
By now Timur had captured 100,000 Hindus. As he prepared for
battle against
the Tughlaq army after crossing the Yamuna, his Amirs advised
him that on
the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be
left with the
baggage, and that it would be entire
