CHAPTER 12 ASSIMILATION AND SYNCRETISM IN THE TURKO-PERSIANATE WORLD : INDIA, HINDUTVA AND HISTORY
CHAPTER 12: ASSIMILATION AND SYNCRETISM IN THE TURKO-PERSIANATE WORLD
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Some scholars say that relations between India and
Arabia go back thousands of years (338). This is not so surprising considering
the ancient Arab dominance of the sea trade at the ports of India along Gujarat,
Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
A relatively small, navigable and calm expanse of
water lies between the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf of Cambay off the coast
of Gujarat, and similarities in dress and music of the Bedouin of Arabia and
the itinerant communities of the deserts of Indo-Pak are also clearly visible.
The historian SK Aiyangar writes that the first
Muslims did not come to India as invaders from the north, rather, “we have
considerable evidence of pre-Mussalman trade of the Arabs and other people
[with the west coast of India]. Arab settlements, after the introduction of
Muhammadanism were made in several places on the coast whose principal object was
merely trade, for which the Hindu states of the interior apparently gave all
facilities (338A).”
Piracy on the Konkan coast to the south of the ports
of Cambay and Broach as well as favourable customs and docking laws led Arab
and Chinese trading ships to prefer the South Indian ports off the coasts of
Kerala, Tamil and Andhra country (338A).
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Sea
routes between India and Arabia in the 1st century BC. Map by Arienne King on Wikimedia Commons.We have seen how Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism travelled out of India into Bactria and Gandhara. Buddhism reached as far Iran, even when this religion had more or less disappeared from India. Therefore, we have to assume that Islam would have similarly permeated into the Indian mainland far before the arrival of Muslim kings here.
As we saw in our discussion in previous chapters, Indian
ports were administered by Arab officials appointed by Jain and Hindu rajas
along the coasts, such as the Rashtrakutas. These ports had associated Muslim
settlements. Later, the rajas of the Deccan, including those of Vijayanagar,
vied with each other for exclusive trade relations with the Arabs. This was a
matter of strategic and military importance for them owing to the high quality
of Arab horses. Arab steeds were so prised that the Pandya kings even paid for
those that might die en route (338A).
The Pandyas, who had defeated the other powers in
Tamil country by the 13th century had Arabs officiating in their
coastal territories. There are references to positions of “Wazir” on the
Malabar coast, which were hereditary and occupied by Arabs. The town of
Kannanur near Srirangam had a Muslim settlement that pre-dated arrival of the
Delhi Sultanate to the South. Historians believe that these Muslim settlements
could have grown into larger Arab settlements in the seaports all along the
southern coasts of India before the arrival of the Delhi Sultanate armies from
North India (338A, 60).
Madurai (in Tamil Nadu) has a mosque and dargah, the
“Kazimar Mosque”, with an inscription stating that it was built on land
purchased by an Omani Kazi from a Pandya king. As the Pandyas ruled here before
the establishment of the Sultanate in Madurai (which we will read about in
later chapters), this indicates friendly Muslim presence in the region before
the arrival of Muslims from North India. The street where the mosque is located
came to be called “Kazimar” street. Descendants of the Omani Kazi live there
till today (339).
The Kazimar mosque complex includes a dargah with the graves of three sufi pirs. Two of them are called “Periya” (Elder) Hazrat and “Chinna” (Younger) Hazrat. The third is believed to be the son of one of the others. Hindus and Muslims come to this dargah till today. It has become famous for granting the wish of healing to the sick.
In Trichy (Tamil Nadu) there is a 9th
century mosque, as well as a rock-cut mosque called the “Abdullah Ibn Mohammad”
mosque with Arab inscriptions dated AD 733-4 (340). The Cheraman Juma Mosque in
Kerala is considered to have been the site of the oldest mosque in India and
the second-oldest mosque in the world. Some scholars hold that it was built in
629 AD when the last Chera king of Kerala converted to Islam after visiting the Prophet
himself (338).
Very soon after the founding of Islam, in the 7th
and 8th century, Muslim Arabs conquered areas from Iran and Central
Asia to Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the immediate borders of today’s India.
Kingdoms in the Indo-Gangetic plains, and on the west of today’s India in Rajasthan
and Gujarat, could not have been unaware of developments in the kingdoms of Persia,
Sogdania, Bactria (Balkh), Balochistan, Sindh, Multan and Lahore, with whom
they had centuries of communication and trade. Bactria included Gandhara and
Taxila.
Around the time of the conquest of Sindh by the Arabs,
the Pallavas send an embassy to the Chinese Emperor asking for “permission” to
attack the Arabs. The Pallavas sent gifts to the Chinese Emperor and appeared
to accept a degree of overlordship from there. However, as it turned out, the
Pallavas seem to have decided that this was not required. Trade flourished with
the Arabs in South India, and life in Greater Asia continued as before with the
Arab Caliphs and their tributaries joining the extant networks of emperors,
maharajas, rajas and warrior chiefs in the region (338B).
As we have seen in our study of ancient India in
previous chapters, the possibility of raids and annexation was ever-present
from neighbouring kingdoms. There is no indication that Indian rajas saw this
as a special threat to them as non-Muslims.
Even after conquering Sindh and Multan, in keeping
with the convention of the times, the Arabs kept the local rajas in place as
tributaries. As we read in Chapter 11, Hindu and Buddhist scholars were sent
from there by the Arabs to the Abbasid Caliphate for the latter to learn about
Hindu and Buddhist thought.
The Melting Pot of Greater Asia
The arrival of the Arabs to Afghanistan and the
northern parts of the Indian sub-continent has to be seen in the context of Bactria,
Balochistan, Sindh and Multan-Lahore having been a melting pot of different
religions and ethnicities since ancient history.
Hinduism was never the sole or most dominant religion
in these territories. These regions were populated by native tribal peoples and,
as we have studied in previous chapters, saw the arrival at various times of
Persians, Greeks, Parthians, Scythians (Shakas), Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Turks
and Mongols.
For centuries together these regions functioned as
allies, capitals or satrapies of various Persian, Greek, Central Asian and Arab
empires. In these periods they were oriented westwards to these other empires
and civilizations, rather than eastwards towards today’s India.
Since the 6th century BC, Multan and
Bactria (including Gandhara and Taxila) came under the Persian Achaemenid empire.
In the 4th - 3rd century they, along with Sindh, came
under the Alexandrians, and then the Seleucids.
Bactria was a major centre of Zoroastrianism under the
Persians. It also had a large Greek and Roman population. Greco-Romans began settling
in Bactria in the time of the Persian Emperor Darius, and their numbers grew
after the arrival of Alexander.
The Mauryans succeeded the Alexandrians in Afghanistan
and today’s Pakistan. As we have studied in previous chapters, the Mauryans were
Jain and Buddhist. Accounts of travellers from Arabia and China to these
regions abound with references to Jain and Buddhist ascetics.
Buddhism remained an important religion here even
after its decline in the Indo-Gangetic plains and South India. A Bactrian king
named Menander famously espoused Buddhism. He is known as “Milinda” in South
Asia. This is a popular Buddhist name, including in Sri Lanka, till today. Ancient
Buddhist stupas, idols and other structures have been found from Iran through
Afghanistan to Pakistan.
Under a treaty between the Seleucids and Chandragupta
Maurya, Bactria remained independent of the Mauryan Empire. The Bactrians took
over Sindh after the Mauryans. From the 3rd century BC to the 1st
century AD, Bactria, Balochistan and Sindh saw successive rule by the Scythians
(Shakas), Parthians and Kushans who emerged from the Eurasian Steppes in waves,
as described in previous chapters.
Each of these peoples pushed further into today’s
India, eventually reaching Indian Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Central India and Andhra country. Some believe that the Pallavas of Tamil
country were of Parthian origin.
The Shakas and Kushans adopted Buddhism. Kanishka was
a famous Kushan-Buddhist King of North India. In Balochistan, Manichaeism,
Zoroastrianism and Hinduism were to be found.
Between the 5th and 6th
centuries, Multan and Lahore came under the Huns, who also pressed into today’s
India. In Multan and Lahore, the Huns espoused Buddhism. They are said to have
adopted Hinduism when they reached Rajasthan. Some scholars believe that the
first Hun king in India espoused Jainism (154).
In Lahore, the Huns were followed by the Turks, who
were the next to come out of the Eurasian Steppes. These Turks also espoused
Buddhism, and, to a lesser extent, Hinduism. Under these Turks, Lahore was part
of a larger kingdom that included Kabul, Gandhara and Taxila. The ruling Turks acknowledged
the Tang dynasty of China as their suzerains, and took their protection when
fending off the Arabs in the 8th century. So there were non-Indian
affiliations here, even under Hindu or Hinduised Turks in the 6th
century, right at the doorstep of today’s India.
In the meantime, Sindh came under the Buddhist Rai
dynasty in the 5th century. These Rais had connections with Kashmir,
Kabul, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It was only now that the influence of Hindu rajas
began to grow in Sindh and the other north-western regions of the Indian
sub-continent. There were a number of matrimonial alliances with Indian princesses,
and Hindu names begin to appear among the rulers of Balochistan, Sindh, Lahore
and Multan. The influence of the Hindu rajas in these regions grew to full
possession in the 6th to7th centuries, with Hindu
dynasties coming to power in Sindh and Multan. These dynasties were either
independent or allied with the Sassanids against the Arabs. In other words,
they were oriented in a different direction to today’s India.
In the 7th to 8th centuries, Sindh,
Multan, Balochistan and Bactria came under the suzerainty of the Arabs. Lahore,
Kabul, Gandhara and Taxila were able to hold out against the Arabs for longer owing
to the alliance of the ruling Turks with the Chinese.
The local Hindu rajas remained in place under Arab
suzerainty in Sindh and Multan for about a century. A Hindu dynasty rose in
Lahore replacing the Turks in the 9th century.
From the 10th century onwards Bactria,
Gandhara, Balochistan, Sindh, Multan and Lahore, i.e., the areas comprising
today’s Afghanistan and Pakistan came under various Turko-Persianate governorships
or kingdoms described in Chapter 11. These were initially governorships under Abbasid
suzerainty, but soon declared independence. Multan saw the rule of Ismailis in
the 10th century.
There are records of Muslims living in Benares from
the time of Sabuktegin of Ghazn in the late 10th century AD. Sufi
cults had come up around the graves of soldiers fallen in the raids of Sultan
Mahmud Ghazni, long before the invasion of Mohammad Ghuri. A well-known writer,
Maulana Razi-ud-din Hasan Saghni, was born in Badaun long before Ghuri came there.
There are records of Muslims living in Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj before the
arrival of Ghuri. There are also dargahs and graves of Muslims in Badaun, Bilgram,
Gopamau and Unao in Uttar Pradesh; and in Hajipur and Maner in Bihar, that
local tradition dates to before the conquest of Ghuri (343).
In the 11th to 12th centuries,
most of today’s Afghanistan and Pakistan came into the Ghaznavid Empire. Mahmud
of Ghazni annexed Sindh and Multan-Lahore in the early 11th century.
Under him, Ghazn abutted the Hindu Chauhan kingdom of Delhi-Rajasthan-Gujarat.
It was only in the 13th century, with the
Delhi Sultanate, that Sindh, Multan and Lahore came to be ruled from Delhi.
These areas declared independence from time to time until they were decisively
integrated under the umbrella of Delhi-Agra by the Mughals, and later the
British.
So this is the historical reality of areas that
Hindutva ideologues falsely and maliciously present as having been Hindu, and united
as one civilisation or empire with today’s India, until the arrival of Sultan
Mohammad Ghuri into Rajasthan and the Indo-Gangetic plain.
The Assimilation of Islam on the Indian
Sub-Continent
To gain some perspective on the closeness of these
regions, and hence their cultures and faiths, to Delhi, the capital of today’s
India, Lahore is a mere 500 kilometres’ distance from the former. Delhi and Lahore
were considered twin cities under the British. The flight between them is
around an hour long.
Multan is around 350 kilometres from Lahore. It is
less than 600 kilometres away from Delhi as the crow flies. These are areas
that were connected with or ruled under Zoroastrian, Greek, Muslim or Chinese suzerainty
from the 6th century BC, except for about a century and a half of
rule under Hindu kings in the 6th to 7th centuries AD,
and in Lahore in the 9th century. So there is no question of the
arrival of Islam or Muslim rulers to India as being a “shock”.
Not only was Islam known in the Indian subcontinent
from its founding in the 7th century, the Turko-Persianate and sufi culture
of the Delhi Sultanate described in Chapter 11 was established in the
north-western parts of the Indian subcontinent since its formation in the 8th
to 9th centuries. This culture grew in the milieu and out of the legacies
of the melting pot of cultures extant in the north-west of the Indian
sub-continent, including Gandhara, Taxila, Sindh and Multan since the Sassanid
Empire of the 6th century BC.
All this occurred well before the raids of Ghazni into
Rajasthan and Gujarat in the 11th century and the arrival of Ghuri into
the Indo-Gangetic plain in the 13th century. And what is true of the
Delhi Sultanate is even more so of the Mughals who came nearly three hundred
years later, well after the establishment of Islam in India. The Mughals took
Delhi from another Muslim ruler, Ibrahim Lodhi, and not from any Hindu raja.
So the Hindutva notion that India experienced Islam,
Turko-Persianate culture or Muslim sultans in the 13th century as a civilizational
shock or a traumatic breach from aeons of a so-called “Hindu” age is entirely
incorrect, assuming for the moment that such claims are made sincerely. In
fact, the discussion above reveals that it was Ghuri and the Delhi Sultanate in
the 13th century that integrated areas comprising today’s
Afghanistan and Pakistan with the Indo-Gangetic plains for the first time in
1000 years since Mauryan rule in the 3rd century BC.
With the Mongol take-over of the Turko-Persianate
kingdoms from parts of Turkey to Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, Russia upto the
River Volga, Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan in the west, and of China,
Champa, Hanoi, Thailand and the Indonesian islands in the east, where Chengiz’s
grandson Kublai Khan founded the Yuan Empire, all these areas came under the
titular sovereignty of China. Coins were struck in the name of Kublai Khan.
Only the Indian subcontinent under the Delhi Sultanate from Punjab to Assam was
independent of Mongol rule and Chinese suzerainty.
The Attitude of the Delhi Sultanate to
Religion and Culture
Sultan Mohammad Ghuri defeated and executed Prithviraj
Chauhan in 1192. He did not annex the Chauhan possessions in Rajasthan, but
placed them under Prithviraj’s sons in the familiar pattern of appointing the
defeated king’s successors as tributaries that we have seen over-and-over again
in our study of the rajas of South India (355).
After Ghuri was assassinated on his way back to Ghazn,
his slave commander, Qutubuddin Aibak, took the throne establishing his capital
at Lahore, as the Mongols under Chengiz Khan had now taken Ghazn. Qutubuddin
Aibek found it necessary to place the principality of Ajmer under direct rule
owing to instability in the region. The Chauhan princes were given the kingdom of Ranthambore as compensation.
Qutubuddin Aibek was succeeded by Iltutmish, who moved
the capital to Delhi in 1211, founding the Delhi Sultanate (356).
Iltutmish was a brilliant slave commander who had been
appointed governor of Badaun when Mohammad Ghuri conquered North India.
Iltutmish was a great devotee of the sufis. He had patronised
them since his early days when serving various masters as a boy in Bukhara (in Transoxiana)
and Baghdad. The sufis are said to have predicted that Iltutmish would one day be
king (357).
Legend has it that Iltutmish had been sold into
slavery by his brothers. Iltutmish used to say that once as a slave boy he lost
the money that his master had sent him out to the market with for some
purchase. The little boy that he was, he wandered around crying, afraid of
being punished by his master on returning home. A passing sufi fakir stopped
and asked him the reason for his tears. When the boy told his story, the fakir gave
him the money he had lost, and went on his way telling him to be generous with
fakirs when he grew up (358).
Iltutmish is said to have wished very much for the
sufi Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti to settle as his preceptor in Delhi. The Khwaja
preferred to remain in Ajmer, sending his disciple, Qutubuddin Bakhtiya Kaki,
to Delhi. Another sufi who came to Delhi at the time of Iltutmish was Qazi Hamiduddin
Nagauri Suhrawardy (not to be confused with Hamiduddin Nagauri who was
described in Chapter 11). The ulema opposed Qazi Nagauri’s practice of “sama”,
that is sufi singing and dancing, known as “qawwali” on the Indian subcontinent.
They presented their objections to Iltutmish. But the Sultan overruled them
(359).
Iltutmish was himself in need of support against the
Muslim orthodoxy at the time as they wanted him to impose Islam on his newfound
Hindu subjects – a measure that he did not favour.
When asked as to why he was not giving his Hindu
subjects the option of “death or Islam” Iltutmish had his prime minister nip
the matter in the bud with a written declaration stating that Muslims in
Hindustan were as small relative to Hindus as the sprinkling of salt in a dish,
and that there would be an uprising if Islam were to be forced on the populace.
The choice of “death or Islam” would be offered, said Iltutmish’s Nizam-ul-Mulk,
when Muslims were sufficient in number (360). There the matter was closed.
The sufis, with their more tolerant approach to other
religions, gave Iltutmish the support that he needed in this regard. Iltutmish was
not a rigid conservative, being instead very much in the mould of the sufi and
Turko-Persianate culture discussed in the previous chapter that had flowered in
Ghazn and its neighbourhood. He designated his daughter Razia as his successor,
which was in the tradition of Persian rule which permitted women to be rulers.
Razia Sultan was extraordinarily successful despite facing challenges from the
many contenders in her time for the throne of Delhi (361).
As discussed before, from the time of their earliest
settlement in Central, West and South Asia when they came down from the
Eurasian Steppes, the Turko-Mongol tribes had adopted an assimilative and
accepting attitude to the culture, religion and language of their subjects.
This was part of their own transition from their ancestral peripatetic
lifestyle to the settled one. This receptive and tolerant attitude was the
hallmark of their rule wherever they went.
To understand the attitude of the Delhi Sultanate to
their Hindu subjects, one also has to understand the impact of the Mongol
invasions beyond India in her neighbourhood. This was the time of the collapse
of Muslim rulers to the Mongols from the borders of Rum to the Indus. There was
no longer a Caliphate. For a while Delhi looked like the sole refuge of the
aristocratic and elite Turko-Persianate Muslims from kingdoms neighbouring
India in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Persia.
They flocked to Delhi in a state of demoralisation and
confusion, which is echoed in Muslim histories till today. It was essential for
their own future that the newly founded Delhi Sultanate should be a success in
that it should thrive and endure, thus providing a home for those displaced by
the Mongols. Conversion to Islam was the last thing on anyone’s mind (381).
Even when the issue was raised, it was as much, if not
more, an expression of the resentment of the well-born Turko-Persianate
refugees towards the slave kings of the Delhi Sultanate, as it was an
expression of religious orthodoxy. We must not forget that the sultans had
risen in Delhi by betraying the Kingdom of Ghazn.
In the demands for the imposition of Islam on the
natives by the ulema, there was also an element of rivalry with the rising
influence of the sufis, who were popular with the Hindus, and had made a point
of not taking a hard line on Islam with them.
As is clear from the blunt public statement of
Iltutmish’s prime minister quoted above, the Turko-Persianate sultans were
acutely aware of their status as a tiny minority in Hindustan, and the need to
make peace with the natives. This was a situation with which they had an
ancestral familiarity, as this was exactly the circumstance that they had faced
when they first came to rule in South, Central and West Asia. In many cases
their own adoption of Islam had been owing to political expediency, both in
terms of gaining acceptance among their subjects, as well as gaining allies in
their internal rivalry with fellow Turko-Mongol tribes in the theatre of
Central, West and South Asia. The solution that they found then, and which they
adopted in India, was to accept and assimilate with the language, religion,
culture and administrative machinery of the natives.
The Delhi Sultanate took a pragmatic and accepting
attitude even toward the Mongols. After all, it was their invasion that had
sufficiently weakened the Kingdom of Ghazn to enable the governors of what
became the Delhi Sultanate to declare independence. And Chengiz Khan had
stopped short at crossing the Indus. So, two years after Hulegu had defeated
the Abbasids and killed the Caliph, his envoys were received with great
ceremony by the Delhi Sultan, even as
coins had continued to be struck in the name of the dead Caliph as an outward
expression of solidarity with the Abbasid Caliphate (367).
Balban, one of the early Delhi Sultanate kings, is said not to have applied strict Sharia law when dealing with his enemies. His successor, Sultan Kaiqubad, was a liberal who did not bother with obligatory prayers or fasts (362). It was Sultan Kaiqubad who began Amir Khusroe’s career as court poet in the Delhi Sultanate (368).
Of Balban’s court, the historian KA Nizami writes:
“Balban frequently arranged convivial parties during his Khanate and invited
Khans, maliks, and other notables to them. Gambling, drinking, and music formed
a regular feature of these gatherings. Nadims, kitab-khwans (reciters of
books), and singers were kept in regular service and paid handsome salaries
(369).”
Of the times of Sultan Muizuddin Kaiqubad, the historian Al Baruni draws a picture that is charming to contemplate despite his obvious disapproval: “…seekers of pleasure, purveyors of wit, and inventors of buffooneries, who had been kept in the background, lurking unemployed, without a customer for their wares, came into request. Courtesans appeared in the shadow of every wall, and elegant forms sunned themselves on every balcony. Not a street but sent forth a master of melody, or a chanter of odes. In every quarter a singer or a song-writer lifted up his head……
….The mosques were deserted by their worshippers and
the taverns were thronged…peerless smooth-faced boys with their ear-drops of
pearl, and damsels robed like brides….and the masters of minstrelsy and subtle
conjourers who had in secret prepared plays in Persian and Hindi….
….all these came from far countries to feed on the
bounty of the Sultan (370).”
Exquisite
detail of balcony of Qutub Minar, New Delhi built by various Delhi Sultans.Nizami writes: “With the settlement of the Mussalmans in India, conciliation and concord between the various culture groups was not only a moral and intellectual demand but an urgent social necessity…
….[the sufis] rose to the occasion and released
syncretic forces which liquidated social, ideological and linguistic barriers
between the various culture groups of India and helped in the development of a
common cultural outlook (370A).”
According to Nizami, the “broad and cosmopolitan
outlook” of the sufis helped integrate the different communities of the new
Delhi Sultanate with each other.
The rulers of the Delhi Sultanate were closely
associated with the sufis from the start. Iltutmish’s relationship with the
sufis has been described above. This closeness continued under the later rulers
of the Delhi Sultanate. Balban was the devotee of the great sufi, Baba Farid,
who had been the disciple of Khwaja Qutubuddin of Iltutmish’s Delhi.
Years before coming to Delhi, Khwaja Qutubuddin had initiated
the young Farid into sufi-ism. Farid’s father had been a Qazi who had moved
from Kabul to Lahore, and then to Multan fleeing Ghuri and the Turks. Farid had
travelled to Delhi where he served Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti. The Khwaja was
deeply impressed with Farid and prophesied his future fame. It was in Delhi
that Baba Farid acquired the name of “Ganj-e-Shakar” or “storehouse of sugar”.
After some years in Delhi, he went to Hisar in Haryana and eventually returned
to Multan, settling in Ajodhan (371).
Baba Farid was disliked by the Qazi and governor of Ajodhan, but was protected by his popularity among the people. Ajodhan acquired the name of Pakpattan or “Holy Ferry” in honour of Baba Farid (372). Balban served under the governor of Ajodhan in Baba Farid’s time. One of Baba Farid’s sons served in Balban’s armies (373).
Nizamuddin Auliya and Amir Khusroe
Two years after the death of Iltutmish, in 1238, a boy
was born in Badaun who would go on to become North India’s most famous and
beloved sufi – Nizamuddin Auliya (374). Nizamuddin’s grandfather had moved to
Badaun from Bukhara during the time of Chengiz Khan’s invasions in that region.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Amir Khusroe’s family had also immigrated
from Balkh to India in the wake of the Mongol invasions.
In this way, India owes a debt to Chengiz Khan for being
the catalyst for bringing to her two of her greatest sons – Amir Khusroe and
Nizamuddin Auliya. Together they set off cultural, linguistic and political
trends that live on till today in India. More than that, the values that Khusroe-Nizamuddin
espoused and the expression of a syncretic people that they articulated in the
Delhi Sultanate lie at the very heart of the modern Indian project (putting
aside for the moment the attack currently being conducted on it by the Hindu
Right). They left the stamp of their legacy in our languages, arts and
composite social order as we know them today. In fact, they played a formative
role in all these things.
Nizamuddin lost his father at the tender age of five,
but was sent to the best teachers in Delhi by his mother. The family must have
been prestigious, for, despite his espousal of poverty and austerity as a
fakir, Nizamuddin was close to the aristocratic family of Amir Khusroe, and
even stayed at the home of Khusroe’s maternal uncle at one point. Khusroe
received the blessings of Nizamuddin as a young boy, and was his devoted murid
all his life.
Nizamuddin was initiated as a disciple by Baba Farid
in 1257-8. He settled in a suburb of
Delhi, which today bears his name, and was at that time known as Ghiyaspur. He
spent his time in study and ascetic practices, and had built up a large
following, including among the Hindus, by the time of the Khiljis in the late
13th century (375).
In the established tradition of the Delhi Sultans of placing
themselves under the spiritual guidance of the sufis, the Khiljis placed
themselves under the guidance of Nizamuddin (376). Amir Khusroe continued as
court poet under the Khiljis. As a compliment to his poetry, Amir Khusroe came
to be known all over Greater Asia as Tuti-e-Hind, the Parrot of Hindustan.
Readers may note that in Greater Asia, the parrot is much prized for its beauty
and intelligence.
Khusroe used Persian, but also developed Hindavi, a
new language that emerged out of the mixture of the native Khari Boli, Braj and
Awadhi that was spoken among the common people in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh at
the time, and the Persian and Arabic that came with the Sultans.
Khari Boli, Braj and Awadhi are today considered
dialects of Hindi, but there was no Hindi then as is spoken today at the time.
Both Hindi and Urdu emerged later out of the Hindavi, Arabic and Persian of the
Delhi Sultanate.
Khusroe was an immensely gifted artist the range of whose
talents went beyond literature into music. He is said to have developed the
tabla in the form in which it is used today, as well as the sitar.
The tarana, a type of song belonging to the Hindustani Classical repertoire that uses syllables rather than words, is attributed to him. These syllables are said to have been evolved from the “nom-tom” chanting of the Hindus, which is used in Dhrupad till today, and was fused with “la-la-lai” syllables from the Islamic tradition that are said to have been used in Turkic sufi compositions of Khusroe’s time. This was among the many ways in which Amir Khusroe attempted to fuse native artistic and linguistic traditions with Turko-Persian ones to evolve a new syncretic aesthetic, literature and art under the Delhi Sultanate.
Listen to this qawwali for a demonstration of the things spoken of here. Note how the “la-la-lai” and “ta-na-rey- -na” flow in and out of each other.Khusroe’s work in this regard was so prolific and
publicly executed that it must surely have been carried out as an imperial
project under the instructions of the sultans to reach out to their Hindu subjects
and facilitate an assimilation of the Delhi Sultanate court with the native
culture.
As stated above, this historic project has left an
enduring legacy in India. This period of time, alteast so far as North India is
concerned, has defined its culture, languages and arts for the next 700 years,
right upto present times.
While the Mughals, who came 300 years after the Delhi
Sultans, are more spoken of, culturally, it was the arrival of the Delhi
Sultanate, and particularly the work of Amir Khusroe, that the marked
commencement of a new epoch in India, an epoch of which the Mughal Age, for all
its brilliance, was a continuation, and not a beginning.
Even Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and the other
leaders of our Freedom Struggle stood ideologically and culturally in the
direct line of the epoch set off by Khusroe’s work under the Delhi Sultanate. The
British colonials never understood this, especially at the start of the Raj. But
they learnt from their experience in India and began their own experiment in
syncretism in the United Kingdom in the post-colonial era.
Ironically, the Hindu Right began its campaign to end
the Indian experiment in syncretism just as the British experiment in it came
to first bud with the elections of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London in 2016 and
Rishi Sunak as prime minister of the United Kingdom in 2022.
Hindustani classical music in its current form arises
from the work of Khusroe. Besides the development of the tabla and tarana, Khusroe
is also credited with having adopted and developed the melodic concept of the
“meand” which is sung or played by gliding from one note to the next, while including
all the intermediate notes.
“Meands” are to be found in the musical section of the
Natya Shastra as well. Such gliding sounds are one of the distinguishing
features of Indian classical music, both in North and South India. Khusroe’s
use of the meand probably came out of his intense engagement with native court
musicians, particularly of South India, which is described below.
Raga Yaman, a foundational raga of Hindustani
Classical Music, is attributed by some to Khusroe – his full name is “Abdul
Hasan Yamin ud-Din”. This raga is the melodic
base on which many popular songs, including ghazals and film songs are composed
in India till today. Yaman’s popularity with composers is owing to the fact
that it uses all the seven notes of the scale, giving the composer more
flexibility than most other ragas.
Yaman is very close to another raga called Yaman
Kalyan, and also to Raga Kalyan which tradition holds to be native to India.
Kalyan (or “Kalyanam”) is included among the ragas of South Indian Carnatic
music. The different between the North Indian Yaman and Yaman Kalyan is the
inclusion of the lower or “shudh” “ma” in the latter, whereas the former only
uses the higher or “tivra” “ma”.
We may take the closeness of shudha ma to tivra ma –
they lie next to each other on the harmonium – to be a metaphor for the
closeness of our Indian Muslim and Hindu culture. As any singer will tell you,
the crowning beauty of a composition using both shudh and tivra “ma” is when
they are sung next to each other as in Raga Basant……
Amir Khusroe’s work is a testament to his love for the
Hindu natives of India. An example of how India inspired Khusroe is his institution
of the celebration of the Hindu spring-festival of Basant Panchami among the
followers of Nizamuddin. It is said that charmed by the sight of Hindu villagers
carrying offerings of yellow flowers one Basant Panchami morning, he went
before Nizamuddin with his turban festooned in these flowers. This evoked a
laugh from his pir, who had been morose owing to a recent bereavement. Since
then, Basant Panchami is celebrated by Hindus and Muslims together with great
joy every year at the Dargah of Nizamuddin in Delhi.
Khusroe left a magnificent repertoire of qawwalis that
are sung all over South Asia till today. Some of his best qawwalis evoke the
joy of the North Indian spring – a lyrical tradition that has ancient roots in
North Indian literature, painting and music. The ragas in which these qawwalis
are set also bear the names of the spring – Basant and Bahar.
A fascinating work by Khusroe is the Nuh Sipihr, or
“Nine Skies”, in which he celebrates India and the achievements of Hinduism (377).
This work was a precursor to Abul Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari from the age of the
Mughals centuries later. Abul Fazl too was effusive in his praise of India. He
wrote a wide-ranging anthology of Hindu beliefs, practices and literature in
the Ain-e-Akbari, in an attempt to, in his words, demonstrate the accomplishments
in all fields of the Hindus to the Muslims of the land:
“It has long been the ambitious desire of my heart to
pass in review to some extent, the general conditions of this vast country, and
to record the opinions professed by the majority of the learned among the
Hindus…..
….It was indispensable in me, therefore, to bring into
open evidence the system of philosophy, the degrees of self-discipline, and the
gradations of rite and usage of this race in order that hostility towards them
might abate and the temporal sword be stayed awhile from the shedding of blood,
that dissensions within and without be turned to peace…..
Hindustan is described as enclosed on the east, west
and south by the ocean…to the north is a lofty range of mountains, part of
which stretches along the uttermost limits of Hindustan….With all its magnitude
of extent and mightiness of its empire it is unequalled in its climate, its
rapid succession of harvests and the equable temperament of its people….
….Shall I praise the refulgence of its skies or the
marvellous fertility of its soil? Shall I describe the constancy of its
inhabitants or record their benevolence of mind? Shall I portray the beauty
that charms the heart or the sing of purity unstained? Shall I tell of heroic
valour or weave romances of their vivacity of intellect and their lore?
The inhabitants of this land are religious,
affectionate, hospitable, genial and frank. They are fond of scientific
pursuits, inclined to austerity of life, seekers after justice, contended,
industrious, capable in affairs, loyal, truthful and constant.
When the day is doubtful they dismount from their
steeds and resolutely put their lives to hazard accounting the dishonour of
flight more terrible than death while some even disable their horses before
entering the fight.
…They one and all believe in the unity of God, and as
to the reverence which they pay to images of stone and wood and the like, which
simpletons regard as idolatry, it is not so. The writer of these pages has
exhaustively discussed the subject with many enlightened and upright men, and
it became evident that these images of some chosen souls nearest in approach to the throne of God, are fashioned
as aids to fix the mind and keep their thoughts from wandering, while the worship
of God alone is required as indispensable.
In all their ceremonial observances and usage they
ever implore the favour of the world-illumining sun and regard the pure essence
of the Supreme Being as transcending the idea of power in operation. Brahma…..they
hold to be the Creator; Vishnu the Nourisher and Preserver; and Rudra, called
also Mahadeva, the Destroyer….The godliness and self-discipline of this people
is such as is rarely to be found in other lands.
…..When they go forth to battle or during an attack by
an enemy, they collect all their women in one building, and surround it with
wood and straw and oil, and place on guard some trusty relentless men, who set
fire to it when those engaged in fight despair of life, and these chaste women
vigilant of their honour are consumed to death with unflinching courage.
In times of distress, moreover, should anyone, though
unconnected by ties of intimacy, implore their protection, they are prompt to
aid and grudge neither property, life nor reputation in his cause (378).”
An important prong of the cultural project of the
Delhi Sultanate conducted under the leadership of Khusroe was his close association
with Nizamuddin. This visionary pir did everything in his power to build a
composite and tolerant order between the Muslims and Hindus in his sphere of
influence. Nizamuddin Auliya is said to have remarked of the Hindus that:
“Every community has its own oath and faith, and its
own way of worship.”
His approach to conversion is best expressed in his
comment that people remain untouched by preaching, and that only pious example
can result in conversion (379).
Amir Khusroe wrote:
“Though
the Hindu is not faithful like me
He
often believes in the same thing as I do.”
Another saying of the early sufis in India was:
“O
you who sneer at the idolatory of the Hindu
Learn
also from him how worship is (380).”
Victorian
wood engraving. Photo Credit: whitemay on iStock.
The Composite Indian Socio-Religious Consciousness
A phenomenon related to cross-religious attitudes of
spirituality in India is the tendency to accord a special significance to
renunciation. Both the act of renunciation and renunciates themselves are held
to have attained a higher moral standard and special closeness to the Divine, above
those who participate in daily life.
This can be seen in practices of ritual fasting or
other “giving up” that Indians of all religious backgrounds customarily do in
order to be granted a wish, or express gratitude to god for some good fortune.
It can also be seen in the special respect accorded to those who live a simple
or austere life. Mahatma Gandhi’s massive following in India owes atleast
something to this reverential attitude to renunciation and personal austerity.
An interesting (though very different!) version of
this belief in renunciation was the idea in ancient India that vaishyas or
courtesans had achieved a high level of ascetic detachment in surmounting their
subjective feelings to give themselves to their patrons.
The idea of renunciation as a blessed state acts as a
bridge between the faiths in India. All the major religions of the
sub-continent, whether they originated here, as in Hinduism, Jainism or
Buddhism, or originated elsewhere, such as Christianity and Islam, have had
cults of renunciates who have won hearts and minds in India across faiths.
These ascetics, whether yogis, munis, missionaries or
sufis, have acted for some as a doorway to full espousal of a new faith. But
more commonly, they have established a composite religious consciousness, in
which people developed a respect and reverence for a diverse array of faiths,
creeds and related practices, without in any measure giving up their original
religious identity.
This phenomenon of a composite religious consciousness
that does not cancel your particular religious identity is especially to be
found among those who personally experience the fulfilment of a cherished
desire, or the recovery of a sick loved one, or the birth of a longed-for child
and so on, after appealing to a living ascetic, or his or her shrine. Over time
an ascetic or their shrine or relics acquire a reputation for the grant of
favours, and people of all faiths flock to it. A number of studies of sufi
cults in India have demonstrated this phenomenon very well (382).
Hindu Bhakti and Indian Sufi writing share a number of
metaphors that also act as an affective and philosophical bridge between these
creeds and their associated cultures. A
particularly touching shared metaphor is the use of the figure of the bride -
the “suhagan” - as a metaphor for joy. Thus you have Amir Khusroe in the 13th
century singing to his pir Nizamuddin Auliya in his famous qawwali “Chaap
Tilak”: “mohe suhagan ki ni re tose naina milaeeke” - “I became a suhagan at the moment that I
beheld you”.
In another verse, Khusroe uses the metaphor of the
bride on her first embrace with her husband for the union of the devotee with
his god:
“Khusroe
rain suhag ki
Jo
main jagi pi ke sang.
Jeet
gayi to piya more
Jo
main hari, pi ke sang”
“O
Khusroe, the night of the joyous wager
That
passed unslept with Him
Where
if I won, then would He be mine
And
if I lost, then would I be His.”
The female voice as a poetic device is widely used in
both North Indian Bhakti and Sufi poetry for the devotee’s expression of his
love and longing for God. This technique has an ancient history in India. An
early example is the use of the voice of the nayika or heroine to express her
yearning for her lover in the Satvahana King Hala’s Gatha Sattasai.
There are also some common elements between Sangam and
later Bhakti and Sufi poetry, including Amir Khusroe’s, such as the figure of
the “sakhi”. The sakhi appears in Sangam poems as the heroine’s confidant who
acts as a go-between between her and her lover. This device was used to great effect
in the Gita Govinda, a famous early Bhakti work of the 12th century
of Jayadeva from Bengal-Odisha country. Jayadeva uses the figure of the sakhi
in the Gita Govinda’s depiction of the love between Radha and Krishna.
The writer and music expert Jameela Siddiqi has said
that the early qawwalis of Khusroe bear a striking resemblance to the style of the
Gita Govinda (383).
According to legend, at the instance of Amir Khusroe,
Sultan Alauddin Khilji invited to Delhi a famous court musician called Gopal Nayak
from the Karnataka region. This legend grew in the context of Khilji’s alliance
with the Yadavas of Deogarh and the Hoysalas of southern Karnataka, which we
will read about in the chapters to follow.
Amir Khusroe is said to have been swept off his feet
by Gopal Nayak’s music. One of the legends about Raga Yaman is that it grew out
of this musical encounter. Nayak and Khusroe set out to learn from each other
and the classical music of India that we have today – of both the
Carnatic and Hindustani traditions - owes much to the innovations and fusions
that emerged from their historic musical collaboration.
The Hindu Right have made a project of poisoning this
tender nugget of inter-communal history. They say that Khusroe hid and stole Nayak’s
music, and then blackmailed the hapless visiting artist into teaching him.
This is a complete fabrication. There were any number
of musicians that would have happily taught their music to the famous court
poet of Delhi. Khusroe’s interest in Nayak was as one great musician’s in
another’s.
What makes this Hindutva intervention so insidious is
how it manipulates a long-standing tradition in Indian music where artists are
said to have stolen each other’s music by hiding and memorising compositions
while they were being performed. The context for these tales is that in the
days before recorders, a good musician was expected to so train his ear as to
be able to memorise new compositions at the first hearing. My own Ustad told me
stories of how his grandfather would scold him if could not recall a melody the
day after it had been taught to him.
Another traditional convention that provides the
context for the legend of the encounter between Khusroe and Nayak is that great
musicians part with their learning only if the aspiring pupil demonstrates the
talent and commitment they feel is worthy of their precious art. So Khusroe may
well have tried to impress Nayak by learning a piece of his music at once while
listening to it.
It would take the malice of the Hindu Right to twist
these stories into one of a Muslim besting a Hindu. For all we know Nayak and
Khusroe may never have actually met. Indeed, in all my study of South Indian
history I have never come across the name of a Gopal Nayak. "Nayaka"
was typically the title of Telugu chiefs and rajas, and so it would be unusual
for a musician to have had this name. Perhaps the musician came from the Andhra
court of Kapala Nayaka, with "Kapala" becoming "Gopala" on
the North Indian tongue. Kapala Nayaka did have encounters with the
Delhi Sultanate.
But these matters are irrelevant. What counts is that
this legend, true or not, is the fact of the mutual admiration and exchange between
Turko-Persian and Indian music in the time of the Delhi Sultanate; and the emergence
of two great Indian musical traditions, Carnatic and Hindustani, from this
encounter.
The mutual influence of North Indian and South Indian
music on each other continued into the age of the so-called “Carnatic Trinity” comprising
of Thyagaraja, Syama Sastri and Muthuswami Dikshitar. All three of these
musicians lived in Tanjore in the 1700s. The route between Tanjore and Kashi in
North India was one well-travelled at the time. This was probably owing to the
connection of Kashi to Lord Shiva, as large numbers of Shaivite Brahmin Aiyars
had long been settled in Tanjore.
Muthuswamy Dikshithar had spent time in Kashi,
studying Hindustani Classical Music. Syama Sastri received his initial training
from a guru freshly returned from there. This was also the time when the Kerala
Raja, Swathi Thirumal, composed music in Hindustani ragas (4).
The dialogue between Carnatic and Hindustani music
continues till today. India’s greatest 20th century exponent of
Hindustani classical music was Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, who came from Karnataka. He
did not come from a musical background, but is said to have been transported by
the voice of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan which he heard over the radio once when he
was wasting time loitering around the local market.
So affected was the young Bhimsen by the voice of
Abdul Karim Khan, that he ran away from home, taking a train to Kolkata, which
was then (as it continues to be till today) a great hub of Hindustani classical
music. Pt Bhimsen Joshi’s renditions of this music bear the stamp of the
energetic gamakas of Carnatic Music.
Ultimately, you would have to deny our music to deny
the wonderful encounter of Khusroe and Nayak. This is what makes the Hindutva
re-telling of history so heartbreaking to people like me whose patriotism and
love for India lives in things such as its beautiful music and art. How does it
add to the glory of India to reject our music; and how many things of beauty
and love are the Hindutvavadis going to throw out before they are ready to call
something authentically Indian?
But the lies and distortions never end. The Hindu
Right has cast Khusroe as a villain. They claim that he reeled Hindus into
Islam with his qawwalis. His most popular qawwalis have been interpreted in
social media posts deliberately planted on all the major platforms, such as
“X”, Quora, and so on, as carrying covert embedded messages for conversion.
If that is so, it has not worked on me, as I have
listened to qawwali all my life (even when living in Pakistan as a child!) and
never once thought of converting.
Another instance of Hindu-Muslim cultural friendship
is in the case of the South Indian poet Kumaragurupara from the time of
Tirumala Nayaka (17th century). He is said to have spent time in North
India learning Urdu, engaging in debates with Muslims, and even obtaining the
gift of land in Benares from the Emperor Aurangzeb (384)!
Kumaragurupara is depicted in statues and carvings in
South India as riding on the back of a lion. The legend is that hearing of his
fame, the Emperor sent Kumaragurupara a lion to carry him to his court and
present his poetry. Such legends must have sprung from the decades spent by
Emperor Aurangzeb in the Deccan, and are testament to efforts on his part to
establish bonds and cultural discourse with the people of South India.
It is interesting to note that unlike in North India, where
Mohammad bin Tughlaq and Aurangzeb today enjoy a universally bad reputation, in
South India of the turn of the last century there were many friendly legends
about these two figures of history. Could this have something to do with the
fact that the Hindutva project for South India has only now begun to be
implemented?
To return to the story of Khusroe and Nizamuddin: as
the fakir was so closely associated with the Khiljis, he fell out of favour
with the Delhi Sultanate when the Tughlaqs replaced the Khiljis. Nizamuddin and
Amir Khusroe died just as the second Tughlaq, Sultan Mohammad, came to the
throne of Delhi.
One of Baba Farid’s grandsons, Azizuddin, who was
initiated by Nizamuddin Auliya, was sent by him to Deogarh in Maharashtra, the
gateway to the Deccan, before Tughlaq decided to move his capital there (387).
A famous Chistia sufi who came to the Deccan was Gisu Daraz, also known as
Khwaja Bande Nawaz (meaning “one who sees your need”; a name also
affectionately given to Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti).
Gisu Daraz fled Delhi in anticipation of an attack by
Timur of Samarqand in 1398. He eventually settled in Gulbarga in the time of
the Bahmani Sultanate in the year 1400 where his dargah is visited till today
(388).
The Tughlaqs kept their distance from the cult of
Nizamuddin, perhaps owing to its close association with their defeated rivals.
However, they continued to follow sufism, and generously patronised the dargahs
(mausoleums) of both Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer and Baba Farid in Punjab.
It is said that fugitives who took refuge with Baba
Farid’s successor in Tughlaq’s time were never extradited by him. Despite his
differences with Nizamuddin, Tughlaq added structures to the fakir’s mausoleum
after his death (385).
The historian Richard Eaton has suggested that the conversion of Jats and Rajputs to Islam in Pakpattan, where Baba Farid had lived and died, was accelerated once the Tughlaqs gave grants of land to his shrine there. Eaton argues that this prompted the diwans of the shrine to generate revenues by encouraging farming and settlement by the Jat and Rajput pastoralists that used to roam the area, and that in doing so they gradually adopted Islam (386).
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