CHAPTER 13 THE MONGOLS AND THE MUGHALS : INDIA, HINDUTVA AND HISTORY
CHAPTER 13: THE MONGOLS AND THE MUGHALS
Pax Mongolica
Muslim historians tend, as do Christian ones, to
record the Mongol conquests under Chengiz Khan as times of great trauma and
threat to their faith. But in fact, as we will see, Chengiz Khan and his
successors never engaged in any project of religious persecution.
They descended from the Eurasian Steppes with their
Tsengrist faith, which they never imposed on anyone. Over time, they adopted
the faith of their subjects, maintaining at all times a policy of tolerance and
protection to all the religions practiced in their lands.
This was the same attitude as those of their Turkic
and Mongol predecessors, who, as we have studied in previous chapters, had been
coming in waves to the same areas since the Shakas of the 3rd century BC.
Kublai Khan, the grandson of Chengiz through his son
Tolui, who conquered China to establish the Yuan Empire, is known to have been
a Buddhist. He was equally well disposed toward Nestorian Christianity, which
had been the faith of his mother.
This was a faith that had reached Mongolia from
Byzantine by the time of Chengiz. When Marco Polo arrived in China he found
Nestorian Christianity thriving in Kublai’s domains. Kublai engaged Christians
and Muslims in his services, and even as governors. Marco Polo served as
governor in Yangchow near Nanking for three years (389).
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Hulegu faced the same need as the Arabs when they
conquered the Persian Sassanid Empire of establishing a system of
administration and finding the men to run it (390). As had the Abbasids, the Mongol
lords of the Il Khanate kept on the administrative system, language and
associated culture of the defeated regime.
So Persian literature, and Turko-Persian
court-organisation, culture and aesthetics continued to flourish as before.
Tolui, like Chengiz Khan, had been Tsengrist. His
wives were Nestorian Christians. Hulegu patronised Buddhism and Nestorian
Christianity equally. He might have even continued with his Tsengrist faith. Hulegu’s
son, Abaka, was a Buddhist.
The Il Khans were interested in an alliance with the
Christian world to keep the Muslim sultans, whom they had defeated, at bay. So
Abaka even entered into a matrimonial alliance with the Byzantines. He also
sent envoys to Pope Gregory X, and extended his protection to the Nestorians.
Out of this patronage, the convention evolved of the
Nestorian head priest being appointed by the Il Khanate. Abaka’s son and
designated successor was baptised “Nicolas” in honour of the then reigning
Pope.
Abaka established his capital at Tabriz in Iran, which
was a major centre of sufism. Rumi’s preceptor came from here. After Abaka died,
succession battles arose in the Il Khanate where challengers to the throne tried
to obtain support by espousing Islam, which was the majority religion in the
kingdom. This led to a succession of Muslim and Buddhist rulers, and rising
communal violence in the land.
Abaka’s son, Arghun, a practising Buddhist with a
Nestorian Christian mother, who had been briefly ousted by a Muslim uncle, had
an able Jewish minister who took a number of steps to restore communal harmony
in the land. One of them was to obtain Arghun’s permission for Muslim citizens of
the Il Khanate to be subject to Muslim and not to Mongol law.
But communal tensions that had been set off by
Arghun’s Muslim uncle could not be calmed. A rumour was spread that the Jewish
minister had plans to convert the Kaba at Mecca to a Buddhist temple.
Religious tension continued in the Il Khanate under
Arghun’s son Ghazan. He appointed a Muslim minister, Nawruz, to help restore harmony.
Ghazan was also challenged by another uncle who had strategically espoused
Islam to gain support for his claim to the throne.
Nawruz advised Ghazan to convert to Islam himself. One
advantage they anticipated from such a move would be the advancement of an
alliance with the Mamluks of Egypt against the Syrians. So Ghazan converted to
Islam, and also ordered his Mongol nobles to do the same.
But this only worsened the communal situation, as
Nawruz saw this as a license to unleash hostilities against Buddhists and
Christians in the land. Ghazan was also disappointed in that the hoped-for
alliance with the Mamluks of Egypt never materialised. Nawruz was executed by
Ghazan in the end. The beleaguered king himself died young.
In the meantime, Kublai Khan, the putative lord of all
the Mongols, in whose name coins were struck in their newly-acquired kingdoms
all across Asia, died. This was followed by in-fighting among the Mongols. Soon
their Turkic generals and governors began to rebel, in the familiar pattern of
restive generals and governors throughout history, as we have studied in
previous chapters.
What is interesting for purposes of our story is that
the Mongol lords of the Il Khanate converted to Islam only in 1295 under Ghazan,
fifty years and three generations after they came to Persia, and that this
conversion was engineered by political considerations. The travails of Ghazan
and his father and grandfather are a lesson to us in India of the dangers of playing
politics with religion.
Like the other Mongol kingdoms in West, Central and
South Asia, the “Chagatai Khanate” was home to a multiplicity of religions. Chagatai’s
subjects in the east around the Ili river tended to be Tsengrist, and to a lesser
extent, Buddhist and Christian. His subjects around Transoxiana had been Muslim
for centuries. They spoke Persian, and the culture of the nobles and soldiers
was Turko-Persianate.
Chagatai followed a policy of religious tolerance towards
all his subjects, as had the Mongols elsewhere. He also followed the convention
of leaving native rulers on their thrones, subject to regular payment of
tribute, only deposing those who rebelled or defaulted in paying the tribute. The
governor in Transoxiana at the time of Chagatai was a Muslim.
Later, a non-Muslim, most likely Buddhist Chagatai
Khan called Duwa took Transoxiana. He was sympathetic to Islam, but, as in the
Il Khanate, there was trouble between the various religious communities. Under
Duwa and his son, Kebek, the town of Naqshband, whose Mongol name was Karshi, came
up in Transoxiana. It developed into an important sufi centre, but Kebek did
not espouse Islam.
Kebek was succeeded by his brother, Tarmashirin, who is
said to have been Buddhist. Tarmashirin converted to Islam, taking the name
Alauddin. He led his armies into Ghazn and Multan. He attacked Delhi in 1329,
then under Sultan Mohammad bin Tughlaq, which was probably among the spurs for
the latter’s push into the Deccan, which we will read about later.
Alauddin’s conversion was resented by the Tsengrists
in the east of Transoxiana, who revolted. To calm the situation, Alauddin was
replaced by a Tsengrist nephew called Changshi.
Pope Benedict XII appointed the Franciscan Richard of
Burgundy to the see of Almaligh here. But religious tensions continued to
simmer, especially among the Christians and Muslims, and eventually the
Tsengrist east seceded from Transoxiana.
The Chagatai Khans were now in a position in Transoxiana
where the majority of their subjects were Muslim, and the prevailing culture
was Turko-Persianate.
Eventually, in 1360, more than a century-and-half
after Mongol rule was established here, a Chagatai called Tughluk Temur rose to
the throne of Transoxiana. He is said to have taken Transoxiana by tactically
adopting Islam.
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Between 1370 to 1405, Timur conquered all the Mongol
possessions in Central and West Asia, consolidating them under the new dynasty
founded by him, which he called the House of Chagatai. He raided Delhi in 1398,
taking back many Indian artisans whose skills were legendary all over the
world. They were deployed in building his capital of Samarqand.
Timur was the forebear of Babur. By the time of Babur,
the Timurids had come to identify themselves as Turkic, though they were
atleast partly ethnically Mongol. Babur distanced himself from Chengiz Khan,
and emphasized his connection to Timur as a Chagatai Turk. But the fact remains
that Chagatai was a Mongol, and not just any Mongol, but the son of Chengiz
Khan himself.
The down-playing of the association with Chengiz Khan
may have been owing to Hulegu’s conquest of the Abbasid Caliphate and the
conquest by the Mongols of the Turks in the past, which was now embarrassing to
the Timurids given their espousal of Islam, and the fact that the majority of
their subjects were Turkic Muslims.
The Mongols who continued to identify as such rather
than as Turks came to be known as “begs” and “amirs”. They acquired the
position of governors and courtiers in the Timurid empire. These amirs forever
conspired against their Turkic sovereigns and were the bane of Babur’s life,
conspiring to throw him out of Transoxiana, and later de-stabilising his reign in
Hindustan by refusing to settle there as its hot climate was not to their
taste! It is one of the ironies of history that the dynasty that Babur went on
to found came to be known after the Mongols as the “Mughal” Dynasty.
Sufism among the Forebears of the Mughals
By the time of Timur, it was an established practice
among the Turko-Persianate sultans for them to place themselves under the guidance
of a sufi pir. Great pirs were given the title of “Sheikh-ul-Islam”. In some
cases, the Sheikh-ul-Islam was a formal court appointment (393).
In this way, the role of the sufi was institutionalised
in Turko-Persianate society in parallel with the ulema, that is, the qazis,
imams, maulvis and clerics who led prayers in mosques or were experts in
Islamic law. The sufis had a close personal relationship with their royal murids,
as they did with all their murids. This is the nature of the murid-murshid
relationship.
The murshid or pir acted as a family elder, blessing
children, giving advice in times of trouble, offering comfort on a bereavement,
giving amulets or offering prayers for the grant of a cherished wish, and so
on. As we have seen in the description of the South Indian rajas in
pre-medieval times, this kind of relationship between spiritual gurus and the
rajas was well-known, and may have existed all over Greater Asia even before
the founding of Islam.
The sultan would often request his pir to accompany
him when he set out for battle. The pir would offer prayers and spiritual
counsel on the sidelines of the battlefield. Some pirs, such as the Naqshbandis
of Sogdania (Transoxiana), even gave military advice.
Timur is said to have been the follower of a pir
called Amir Kulal whose disciple Khwaja Bahauddin founded the Naqshbandi
silsila of sufis (394).
The Naqshbandis were more overtly political than sufis
generally tended to be. They acquired enormous wealth and estates, and openly intervened
in the power struggles among the royals of the times.
Khwaja Bahauddin Naqshband advocated that sufis should
not isolate from the world, but should participate in it while always maintaining
their inner focus on god (395). Incidentally, this is similar to the “Karma
Yogi” doctrine of Hinduism, which advocates participation in worldly life as a
duty, while maintaining an inner detachment.
A Naqshbandi sufi called Khwaja Ahrar became the
preceptor of Babur’s grandfather, Abu Said (396). The Khwaja had accompanied
Abu Said as a prince on a successful conquest of Samarqand, and settled there.
Abu Said sent his son Umar Sheikh Mirza to Tashkent as governor. Khwaja Ahrar
accompanied the young prince.
In Tashkent, Khwaja Ahrar took over the entire tax
burden of the province, making him immensely popular and powerful there. The
Mirza is said to have asked Khwaja Ahrar to name his son, born in 1483.
The Khwaja gave him the name of Zahiruddin Mohammad
but Abul Fazl writes in the Akbarnama that the Chagatai Khans were unable to
pronounce this name, and instead called him "Babur" (397)!
This little tale opens up delicious possibilities that
would be worth exploring. As we know,
the Chagatai domain which Chengiz Khan gave to his son of that name in the
1220s was divided between Muslim Transoxiana on the west and Tsengrist Mongols
on the east. This was both a religious and an ethnic divide, as the
Transoxianians would be of mixed Persian, Arab and Turkic extraction, whereas
the eastern Chagatais would be predominantly Mongol and Sinized.
It may well be that Babur’s family retained strong
ties with the Tsengrist and other non-Islamic Chagatais of the region, and
hence the preference for the name “Babur” over the heavily Muslim name of
Zahiruddin Muhammad.
The espousal of Islam by his family, that is the House
of Chagatai, at the time of Babur’s birth was of only about a 120 years’
vintage. The Chagatai women may well have continued to practice their
Tsengrist, Buddhist and Christian faiths or remained closely connected with them,
as we have seen among womenfolk of other newly converted clans.
This story from Abul Fazl hints at a fluidity of
identity and a greater closeness to their non-Islamic cultures of origin among
the Islamised Chagatai Khans of Babur’s time than is commonly understood. The
adoption of Islam by the Timurids may not have been as “categorical” as it is
assumed to be today.
For people living in religiously heterogenous
environments with a long history, such as India or Transoxiana, query whether their
religious (or cultural, or linguistic) identity is ever “categorical”.
Shail Mayaram’s work on the “fuzzy” (her term) line
between Hinduism and Islam among the Meos of Indo-Pak, regardless of their
self-identification as Muslims, in their persistence of belief in local deities
that might not even be part of the Hindu pantheon, and their history of
conflict with the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals despite being co-religionists,
is a case in point (398).
Coming back to the story of the Timurids, Samarqand was
threatened from time to time by the Uzbegs. The Uzbegs were descendants of Chengiz
from his son Ogedei. They reigned in the region of the Volga River, and coveted
Samarqand. But the influential Ahrari sufis supported the Timurids against them.
An Ahrari sufi, Khwaja Yahya, and his sons even paid for this with their lives,
when they were killed in an attack by the Uzbegs (399).
Babur took the help of the Shah of Khwarizm against the
Uzbegs. The relationship with the Shahs became so close, that Babur is said to
have thought of converting to Shia-ism himself. The Khwarizm Shahs are said to
have formally espoused Shia-ism in the early 16th century. Note
again, the willingness of the Mongol to mould his espousal of a creed in order
to make allies. This pragmatic approach to the communal question has ever been
a hallmark of Mongol rule.
Perhaps this is what laid the foundation of the close
relationship between Humayun and the Persians; and of the generally liberal
attitude of the Mughal Emperors towards the Shias. As is well known, Humayun
spent several years taking refuge in Persia when temporarily defeated in North
India by the Suris.
Babur was reproached for his closeness to the Shahs by
the Naqshbandis, whose communal dislike of the Shias trumped even their enmity
with the Uzbegs. The Naqshbandis said that it would be better for Babur to
accept the overlordship of the Uzbegs than to ally with the Shias of Khwarizm.
Babur claimed to have seen Khwaja Ahrar in a dream
prophesying that Samarqand would be his. We know that this never came to pass,
and that Babur found his destiny elsewhere. However, it took him several
failures in Samarqand before he turned his attention to Hindustan.
In the meantime, the Lodhis had come to the throne of
Delhi. As with the Mamluks and the Khiljis before them, the Lodhis too placed
themselves under the discipleship of the Chistia sufis. Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi’s
pir in Delhi was the Chistia sufi Sheikh Abdul Quddus Gangohi (400).
The Mughals
The Sheikh was an Afghan, like Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi.
He accompanied Ibrahim Lodhi in his final battle against Babur. Gangohi fell into
the hands of Babur’s men when Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi was killed.
It is said that Gangohi was manhandled and made to
take off his turban, a mark of great humiliation for all turban-wearing
communities But this may have been because his status as a pir was not
recognised, for he was eventually released.
Gangohi tried to instigate revolts against Babur and
Humayun by allying with Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. Gangohi’s disciple
Dattu Sarwani put it about that his teacher had appeared before him in a dream
and said to him that, “Humayun Padishah is destroying Islam. He makes no
distinction between infidelity and Islam, plunders it all.” (402)
So much for the idea that the Mughal conquest of Delhi
was a Muslim attack on Hindus. Babur defeated a fellow-Muslim – Ibrahim Lodhi,
and was opposed by various Muslim old-timers in India, including fellow-Muslims, Gangohi and the Sultan of Gujarat.
Hindu rajas, chiefs and generals allied with various
of these factions. Religion was ancillary to all these developments.
The Naqshbandi sufis of Transoxiana, whom Babur had
invited to India, did not stay long (402A). The reason may have been the same
as drove Babur’s Mughal begs away from Agra back to Transoxiana – the detested heat
of the Indo-Gangetic plains. One beg is said to have decamped leaving a note on
his door that read:
“If
safe and sound I cross [the] Sindh,
Blacken
my face before I wish for Hind (403).”
The exodus of the begs was in such large numbers, that
Babur was forced to issue a decree barring them from leaving!
When Humayun came to power, he is said to have taken a
great interest in Indian ascetics. This may have been as he was fascinated with
astronomy, in which Transoxiana lead the world at the time.
But the fact is that Humayun was going native. He was
visited by Naqshbandi sufis from Transoxiana who went back when they found that
Humayun already had a native sufi teacher, and had no thought of appointing a Naqshbandi
to the post of royal preceptor (404).
The pirs who had replaced the Naqshbandis with the
Mughals were also of an order that had originated in Transoxiana, called the
Shattariya Silsila. Like the Naqshbandis, the Shattariyas also counted breath
control (similar to yogic breath control) as central to the ritual chanting of
zikr (405). The Shattariyas recommended the sitting posture of yogis and sought
to achieve supernatural powers through mystical and magical practices.
They also began the practice of having zikr (prayer)
in Hindavi (or related local dialects), and not only in Arabic or Persian. Their
practices seem to have been deeply influenced by the Jain ascetics of Gwalior
where the Shattariyas were based.
Gwalior was a great centre of Jainism, and magnificent
Jain statues can be seen till today in the hills leading up to the Fort of
Gwalior. Atleast one of the Shattariya sufis, Mohammad Ghaus, is known to have
spent years undertaking ascetic exercises in the caves of Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.
The equal respect shown by Mohammad Ghaus to Hindus as to Muslims is noted by
the Mughal historian, Badauni (405A).
Humayun’s first Shattariya pir was one Sheikh Phul. He
was sent by Humayun to negotiate a peace with his rebellious brother Mirza Hindal.
Sheikh Phul was killed by Mirza Hindal. Mohammad Ghaus was the brother of Sheikh
Phul who had married a lady from the family of Baba Farid.
Ghaus was subjected to some persecution under the Suri
Regime when Humayun was defeated by Sher Shah Suri. The ulema accused Mohammad
Ghaus of heresy. But other pirs interceded on his behalf, and Sher Shah Suri
did not see fit to push the case against Ghaus. Note the influence of the sufis
and the protection they garnered in society even when they were associated
with a defeated king.
Akbar is said to have visited Mohammad Ghaus in
Gwalior. Though he did not take Ghaus as his pir, he built him a
beautiful mausoleum when he died. Akbar also engaged Ghaus’s son, Sheikh Budh
Abdulah as a senior officer in his military services. Sheikh Budh Abdulah was
said to have been of an ascetic bent of mind. He ended his life by giving up
nourishment, very much as Jain ascetics commit sallekhana. His affiliation to
Jainism or Buddhism may also be indicated by his unusual name of “Budh”.
Tomb
of Mohammad Ghaus built by Akbar. Tansen is buried in a structure to the right
of this monument.
For centuries there had been sufi ascetics who renounced clothing as did the Jains. Some believe that this may have been from the influence of Jain ascetics encountered by wandering sufis in Balkh and Gandhara. One such naked fakir, Sheikh Muhammad Ji Barahna, is said to have visited the tomb of Ghaus.
The legendary singer Tansen, the father of Dhrupad
music, and one of the “Nava Ratnas” or “Nine Gems” of Akbar’s court, was a
disciple of Mohammad Ghaus. The tale of Tansen and Ghaus is of a pattern with
legends of Hindu-Muslim love and solidarity that we hear of over and over again
associated with the sufis of India.
Tansen is said to have been born after his parents
took the blessings of Ghaus. Many sufis acquired a following in India for having
the gift of granting children to (or, as we say, filling the laps of) the
childless.
Tansen’s musical guru was Pt Haridas, but he remained
devoted to his pir, Ghaus, asking in the end to be buried next to him. The
grave of Tansen can be found there till today. A tamarind tree grows by it
whose leaves are said to give you a sweet voice.
The importance given by Akbar to Dhrupad, a form of music that had deep roots among the Hindus, and its association with the popular sufi fakir Ghaus, is in the tradition of the project of the Delhi Sultanate, Amir Khusroe and Nizamuddin Auliya described in the previous chapters of weaving the Hindus and Muslims of Hindustan into a shared and composite culture.
Dhrupad compositions to Lord Shiva came to be sung in the temples by Muslim Dhrupadias. An associated form of music was Dhamar, which consists mostly of songs celebrating Lord Krishna. Dhamar is sung at the time of Holi, a festival particularly associated with Krishna and Radha.
Dhrupad and Dhamar are sung in India till today. Each
of its exponents is a living repository of this history. If the connection of
Jainism to Ghaus is correct, then in Dhrupad we are also seeing the very long
reach of Jainism into our living traditions of today. A lesson in the debt that
each of our traditions owes to others, near and far, past and present.
At the start of Akbar’s reign, the Naqshbandi sufis
enjoyed some influence. But once Akbar took up his project of religious
tolerance and free exchange in real earnest, they turned against him (406).
Most Indians may not know that while the Hindu Right
spends all its time cursing the Mughals, the Muslim orthodoxy was equally loud
in its criticism of Akbar for his liberal views. Akbar was even called a
heretic and defiler of Islam by some.
Till as late as the early 20th century, Muslim
scholars and historians outside of India (and some conservatives in India) took
a critical view of Akbar.
However, among the people, both Hindu and Muslim,
Akbar was an immensely beloved king and that memory of him endures in India
till today, as alive and resilient as the pettifogging misrepresentation of him
by the Hindutva-minded.
Eventually it was the Chistia sufis who came to the
aid of Akbar’s project of communal harmony and syncretisation, as they had with
the Delhi Sultanate before him.
Akbar was determined to integrate Hindus into his
court, instil a genuine understanding of Hindu traditions, religion, history
and culture among his Muslim nobles, and thereby integrate the Hindus and
Muslims of his domains into a composite people.
A major portion of Akbar’s project in this regard was
the translation of Hindu scriptures such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as
well as the writing of the Ain-i-Akbari by his minister Abul Fazl. The Ain-i-Akbari,
as mentioned in previous chapters, devoted large sections to describing the
beliefs and practices of the Hindus in sympathetic and even laudatory terms.
Akbar also appointed Hindus as officials, commanders
and ministers at all levels in his court, armies and general administration.
Adopting the convention of the Hindu rajas of appointing a number of “gems” to
the court as a sort of high council of chief advisors, artists and poets, he
instituted the position of the “Nava Ratnas” or “Nine Gems” at his court. He
consciously selected a diverse group as Nava Ratnas, including Hindu artists and
ministers, such as Tansen and Birbal, and Rajput rajas such as Man Singh and
Todar Mal.
With the Rajput rajas, Akbar entered into numerous
military and diplomatic alliances, sealed, in the tradition of the kings of the
time all over South Asia, with matrimonial alliances. In this way, he ensured
that Hindus were integrated not just into the Mughal court, but also into the Mughal
royal family.
He ensured that his heir, Jahangir, was born of a
Rajput princess. Jahangir in turn appointed his heir, Shahjahan, from the sons
of one of his Rajput wives. So by the time of Shahjahan, the Mughal Emperor was
three-fourth of Hindu Rajput extraction.
This was a conscious strategy of assimilation and
integration, which the Hindu Right has never understood, and which, in the many
parallels between the attitude of the Hindu Right and the Muslim orthodoxy of
the medieval age, was greatly disliked by the latter!
Akbar was also totally against any discrimination
against Shias, giving them various positions of honour, which also put out of
joint the noses of the orthodoxy, which was Sunni.
The resurrection of the Chistia sufis under Akbar was
connected with his battle against the Muslim orthodoxy. He found willing and
understanding support from the Chistia sufis, with their long history of
religious composition and syncretism in India. The Chistias declared that there
was no precedence of one religion over another, as the whole world was a
manifestation of “ishq”, meaning love, and “After you experience the
limitlessness of unbounded Beauty you can see His Grace present both in a kafir
and a Muslim (407).”
Abul Fazl wrote that Akbar was intrigued by Khwaja
Moinuddin Chisti when he heard people in a village near Agra singing Hindavi verses in his praise. Akbar seems to have engaged in an active exercise of
digging up the history of syncretic traditions in India, as many votaries of
communal amity in India before and since.
After pointedly visiting the tomb of Moinuddin Chisti
in Ajmer and reviving his mazhar with new structures and grants, including a
massive “degh” or cooking pot in which thousands of tons of sweet rise per day are
cooked for the needy till today, Akbar visited the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya
in Delhi (408).
Four years after Akbar’s first visit to the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya, he managed to find a living Chistia pir called Sheikh Salim near Agra in the town of Fatehpur Sikri. In a move that must have been meant among other things to signal a decisive move towards implementing his syncretic vision for the kingdom, it was decided to move the capital to Fatehpur Sikri.
Construction of the new capital was started next to
the khanqah of Sheikh Salim Chisti. Akbar also announced the birth of his son
and heir to be owing to the blessings of Sheikh Salim, after whom the baby
prince was named. Prince Salim went on to become Emperor Jahangir.
A measure of the Chistia support for the Mughal project
of communal harmony in Hindustan is that the great Chisti historian Sheikh
Abdul Rahman Chisti wrote praises of Ali and also quotes the Shi-ite saying
“Whosoever’s master I am, Ali is also his master, O God, befriend him who befriends
Ali …(409).”
Sheikh Abdul Rahman Chisti wrote that when Shahjahan
inquired of the Chistias as to the correct theological position regarding the Shias,
they replied that it was wisest to maintain silence on such matters (410).
Akbar famously adopted the sufi ideal of Sulh-e-Kul or
“peace with all” in celebrating and accommodating the diverse tongues, creeds
and cultures of his subjects. For a while he held gatherings in the style of
the ancient Indian rajas, like the sangams of Madurai, where thinkers, ascetics
and priests of all creeds were invited to engage in debate and discussion. The
gatherings took place in an especially built court called the “Ibadat Khana” (411).
Supporting the mission of the Sulh-e-Kul was Akbar’s
able minister, poet, and one of the Navaratnas, Abul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan. He wrote
wildly popular couplets in Hindavi called “dohas” that spoke of spirituality
and morality in the same style and philosophy as the Bhakti poetry of the time.
Popularly known as Rahim, he was very much in the mould of Amir Khusroe, and
his work is considered to be part of the repertoire of Bhakti poetry that
includes the sayings of Kabir and Tulsi Das, and which is sung and recited in
India till today.
The Naqshbandis are said to have been shocked at the
open debate in the Ibadat Khana on matters of Islamic theology, and at the
acceptance shown to people of other beliefs. But Akbar determinedly overruled
the conservative Naqshbandis. Emperor Jahangir continued Akbar’s policy of
Sulh-i-Kul and resisted attempts by the Naqshbandis and other conservative elements
to undo this (412).
The liberal and humane ethos of the types of sufis to
whom the Mughals turned for counsel is expressed in this story: once Jahangir
summoned a sufi for guidance saying that he was unable to give up drink to
which he had become habituated since youth, and nor was he always able to
perform the daily routine of prayers five times a day.
To this the fakir replied “According to our saints,
prayer is the principle part of religion and so is abstaining from drinking.
Because of your good intentions, however, you have entered already into the
circle of the Friends of Truth. God has created everyone for a particular task.
You have given been the khilafat and the country to rule. Your job is to
protect this God-given country and fulfil the needs of the people with justice.
Do keep remembering God all the time and regard Him as ever present and watchful.
This is your duty and that is sufficient (413).”
Princess Jahanara, the daughter of Shahjahan, and a
devoted follower of sufism whose is buried next to Nizamuddin, even closer to
his grave than Khusroe, said of sufism that “Piri-muridi (following a pir) is
an essential part of pious Islamic life….
…Thus all Muslims, men and women, are integrated or
organised into groups of one or the other Sufi order” She also said that on the
day of reckoning when all would be fearful, they would be protected under the
banners of their sufi masters (414).
At the time of Jahangir, the Naqshbandis went to Kashmir
where they tried to instigate a conservative movement among the Sunnis against
the Shias between whom there were the usual hostilities. Jahangir was compelled
to intervene. He exiled one of these Naqshbandis to Kabul. The Naqshbandis
continued to stir up communal sentiment in Kashmir under Shahjahan, who exiled
them to Lahore (412).
The Naqshbandis experienced a revival, perhaps not
surprisingly, under Aurangzeb (415). An
area deserving of deeper investigation, which I shall only touch upon here
briefly, is a study of the response of the Chistis and other sufis to Aurangzeb’s
usurpation of the throne from Shahjahan.
Aurangzeb had tried to enlist the Shattariyas to his
cause in his succession battle with his brother Dara Shukoh. However, the
Shattariyas were not receptive. The Shattariya sufi Sheikh Burhanuddin refused
to give an audience to Aurangzeb when he sought his blessing to fight against Dara
Shukoh.
Aurangzeb is said to have persisted in trying to
obtain the Sheikh’s blessing by going to his darbar in disguise. When the Sheikh
asked his name, the prince simply replied “Aurangzeb”. The Sheikh is said to
have neither replied nor blessed him.
When Aurangzeb returned the next day, the Sheikh is
said to have angrily declared that if the prince found his abode so attractive,
then he and his disciples would vacate it for him. In the end, the Sheikh was
persuaded to recite prayers over Aurangzeb outside the door of his khanqah when
he went for his usual prayers, but no greater recognition was given to the
prince (416).
Of Shahjahan’s incarceration in Agra Fort by Aurangzeb,
Abdul Rahman Chisti wrote that this was God’s way of giving Shahjahan, who had
been a devoted sufi and spiritualist all his life, the chance to spend his last
days in prayer and contemplation. He also records that Aurangzeb came to power
with the support of the ulema and not the divine intercession of the sufis
(417). Hardly a ringing endorsement of Aurangzeb.
Sufism in South India
I have spent some time in this and preceding chapters
on the history and culture of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals to give a
sense to the reader of the quality, cadence and texture of Islam that came to
South India through them.
The historian Susan Bayly says that the “most
important factor in the spread of Islam in South India was the influence of the
Sufis (418).” The ports of Tamil country such as in Nagapattinam (also known as
“Nagore”) have dozens of dargahs. Sea-faring merchants and fisher folk of all
communities were grateful for its blessing when casting out to sea.
Dargahs are to be found inland in Tamil country as
well. Nagapattinam and neighbouring areas had communities of Muslims called the
“Lebbai” involved in the sea trade with the South East Asian coastal kingdoms. These
communities are present in these places till today, and they maintain close
contacts with South East Asia.
There are records of the Kallar (Maravas) rulers of
Pudukkottai and Setupatis of the Ramnad Kingdom patronising places of worship
of all religions in their dominions, including dargahs and mosques.
It may be noted that the Setupatis are closely
associated with important Hindu traditions. Their name means guardians of the
“setu” or bridge. The name comes from the Hindu tradition that the coast off their
territory of Ramnad was the place where Lord Ram and his army of monkeys and
bears built the bridge – the Ram Sethu – to cross into Lanka to fight Ravana,
and regain Sita.
As was the case with some of the sufis of North India,
there is a tradition of sufis and qalandars in South India whose practices seem
to be heavily inspired by Jainism. Around the ancient Jain centre of
Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu, there is a legend of a naked fakir called “Kat Bava”.
Legends of such fakirs, called “mazdhubs”, abound in Tamil and Telugu country.
In the 17th and 18th centuries,
the Telugu Nayakas and Maratha rajas of Madurai and Tanjore settled large
numbers of Muslim weavers and craftsmen, including in areas with large
concentrations of Brahmin-dwellers. These Nayakas and rajas gave grants and
other support to dargahs and mosques for their Muslim subjects.
The dargahs soon became a hub for supplicants of all
religions. A great example is the dargah of Sahul Hamid Naguri in Nagore or Nagapattinam.
Five of the minarets of this dargah were built by Tanjore’s Maratha Raja Pratap
Singh (1739-63). Hindus and Muslims enthusiastically participate in the
dargah’s annual festival till today (419).
In the chapters to follow, we shall learn about
the other dargahs, mosques and inter-communal Hindu-Muslim traditions that
rose in South India from the 13th century onwards, and which
continue to flourish till today.
Conversion, Composition and Secularism
Religions take root in different ways. In the 3rd
century AD, there rose a Prophet in Sassanid Persia by the name of Mani, who
claimed to take forward the preaching of Zoroaster, the Buddha and Jesus
Christ. He found many followers, and for a while Manichaeism was a popular
faith, especially in Syria, where its teachings were written in the Aramaic
language.
However, Mani fell afoul of the Zoroastrian king of
Persia who threw him into prison, where he died. Manichaeism was thus driven
out of Persia. A century later it was driven out of Constantinople, with the
rise of Christianity there. Once Islam rose, Muslims too opposed Manichaeism,
and so the faith moved eastwards, eventually finding itself in China.
At this time, the Chinese T’ang Dynasty was in
alliance with the Uyghurs. A rebellion in eastern China which the T’ang emperor
asked the Uyghurs to quell, led to them to encounter Manichaeism for the first
time (420).
The Uyghurs were so impressed with Manichaeism that
they adopted this creed. They carried Manichaean priests back with them to
their Khaganate. These priests rose to become influential advisors of the Uyghurs.
The Uyghurs adopted the Aramaic script of the Manicheans,
thus becoming the first of the Turko-Mongol tribes to have a script. Chengiz
Khan also developed a script after his conquests, but some tradition of secrecy
entailed that his history was not widely disseminated – even the place of his
burial was kept secret.
For this reason, most of the known histories of the
Mongols were written by the terrified and resentful Muslims and Christians that
they worsted. This is the primary reason for Chengiz Khan’s unfair reputation
as a barbarian.
The adoption by the Uyghurs of Manichaeism was clearly
not a simple matter of acquiring a new religious belief. The recruitment of Manichean
priests as advisors, and the adoption of a script by the Uyghurs where they had
done without one for centuries, indicates that this was a time when the Uyghurs
were undergoing some internal process of change.
Perhaps their close alliance with the Ta’ng dynasty
had made them think about changing their tribal social organisation to one more
like those of the settled peoples.
This is an important point that requires more study by
those interested in how religions spread and so-called “conversions” occur. As
noted in earlier chapters, scholars have observed that tribal peoples
transitioning into settled life are particularly receptive to whatever religion
of the settled world that happens at the time to open its doors to them.
Perhaps it is understandable that the shift in
perspective from a tribal to settled way of life is aided, and even requires,
the adoption of a religion or worldview or spiritual (existential) position
that has evolved in the context of settled life. The transition from tribal to
settled life must require a drastic reconfiguration of many basic aspects of
life. The relationship with nature, to take but one example, of a nomadic
pastoralist would be very different that of a city dweller.
Acceptance into the fold of a settled religion would
also give the transitioning tribal peoples access to the material, economic and
social systems that are required to make settled life work.
The historian Richard Eaton asks us to adopt something
like this approach in analysing religious conversion, when he says that we
should not look upon conversion as the passive acceptance of a monolithic
outside belief system. Instead, he says, that we should adopt the perspective
of the society actually undergoing the change to the new religion, and look at
the “social and cosmological dynamics of the host population themselves (421).”
In an interesting essay on the conversion of Naga
tribes to Christianity, Eaton argues that there is no correlation between the
degree to which different Naga tribes were proselytised by Christian
missionaries during and after British colonial rule, and the speed or extent of
their conversion.
According to him, the data reveals that Nagas
converted at the greatest rate decades after the dismantling of the
British colonial state and the expulsion of foreign missionaries from there by
the Government of India. Therefore, Eaton says that when trying to understand
why and how people are converted “blanket explanations focussing on monolithic
abstractions like ‘colonialism’ or on activities of the missionaries alone – as
though these were independent, explanatory variables – clearly will not do
(422).”
Eaton also has a thesis (mentioned at the end of the
previous chapter) about the slow absorption into Islam of the nomadic Jats and
Rajputs that roamed between the Thar and the Punjab in the Indo-Pak region through
their association with the shrine of Baba Farid.
This is an interesting alternative to the picture of
traumatic and forced religious conversion that is drawn by Hindutva-readings of
the past. Eaton bases his thesis on persuasive evidence regarding the continued
use of non-Muslim names among the communities involved in the care of the
shrine (386).
He has a similar thesis about the process of
Islamisation in East Bengal, based on data about reclamation of land in its
delta-regions, and the process of bringing its wild and forested lands into
cultivation, and the setting up farming communities there.
Coming back to the story of Manichaeism. The Uyghurs
obtained royal protection for their new faith from the Ta-ng, and thus China
became a centre of Manichaeism for centuries thereafter, on the other side of
the world from where it had begun.
The Uyghurs later adopted Islam, and their domains
became a Chinese province. Their persecution by the Chinese government in
current times is well-known the world over.
Mention has been made earlier of Mayaram’s work on
“fuzzy” non-categorical religious identities in India, using the Meo community
as an example. Another striking example of blurred religious categories in
India is the Jains and Hindus today.
For the most part they seem to have forgotten their
fraught history in South India. Today, Jainism and Hinduism have developed
similar forms of worship, including temples, idols, the offering of libations
and the chanting of mantras. Hindus accept the Jain Thirthankara Mahavir as a
divine soul.
There are also striking similarities between the
dietary norms of the Jains and Tamil Brahmins. The iconography and auspicious
symbols of these religions have common elements, some of which are discussed in
Chapter 7.
All this shows the emergence of a composite religious consciousness
between Hindus and Jains, despite episodes of hostility, textual criticism, and
acute doctrinal and cultural differences.
It is important to understand the nature of this
compositeness, for it does not represent a complete synthesis between the two religions.
Doctrinally, there is a wide gulf between Jainism and Hinduism. A key
difference is that Jains do not believe in a god, but in karma and leading a
moral life based on the logic of karma. But you will nevertheless find Jains
paying obeisance to the Hindu god Ganesha, and celebrating the Hindu festival
of Diwali, besides their own major annual festival of Paryushan.
Jains and Hindus inter-marry, and have shared regional
and linguistic sub-identities, such as Maharashtrian, Gujarati, Tamil or
Kannada. At the same time, Jains have an abiding sense of being a distinct
religious community, with a separate history to that of the Hindus.
While the Hindutva project is heavily invested in
making Hinduism out to be the oldest religion of India, Jains hold their faith
to be older. Recall that Mahavir is considered to be the twenty-fourth of their
tirthankaras; and the Jain faith is a composite of the teachings of all the
previous Jain tirthankaras, who are also said to be born in repeated cycles
going back forever in time.
Jains express their distinct identity in many other
ways. For instance, they have community organisations from the national to the
international level that look out for their interests as a distinct and unified
group.
So what we are looking at is not a smoothly
complementary or intermeshed religious composition between Hindus and Jains,
but a composite identity that is aware of the contradictions and discrete-ness
of its constituent parts.
In the composite religious consciousness, such contradictions as exist between the faiths are overlooked or relegated to the background. The focus is on things such as the more abstract spiritual message of the other religion; or a generalised belief in the divine power or “good vibrations” of the gods, deities, places of worship or festivals of the other community.
This is also the spirit in which many Hindus will worship at a sufi dargah, or consider a Muslim pir or Sikh guru to be their own. This is also the background in which new cults and modern saints such as the Shirdi Sai Baba of the early 20th century continue to emerge in India till today.
This composite religious consciousness sounds
complicated only when you attempt to describe it formally, as I have attempted
to do here. In practice, it is a very natural and “felt” experience of being in
the presence of a higher force; of experiencing “shraddha” or “respect”; or of a
state of joyous inner peace - “ananda” - that for many Indians manifests when
they are in the presence of any place of worship or religious event, regardless
of its denomination.
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