Monday, August 27, 2007

When Islam First Came To India

INDIA - The scale of ‘loss of life’ and ‘social upheaval’ caused by militant Islam may be worse in India than any other land, simply by virtue of the number of individuals involved. By some estimates, over 60 million have died in conflicts with Muslims over the centuries. Jihadists have destroyed all native Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities from five of India's provinces (including North Kashmir, now called Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Islam first came into India as a Military force in the year 715 C.E., in the Province of Sindh, but it made inroads into the country proper between 1020 and 1194 after which Mohammedan power became dominant in north India.

The people of Kerala had their violent introduction to Islam in the 18th century, when Tipu Sultan, the usurper of the Mysore Principality marched into Kerala attacking the Zamorin Raja of Calicut and began 'converting' people to Islam.

Tipu went about with a Koran in one hand and a sword in the other giving the subject people of Kerala a choice of accepting Islam or death. Doing this, he marched from Calicut up to Alwaye where he was forced to retreat because of stiff resistance. In 1669 Aurangzeb issued a general order for the destruction of Hindu temples, and it is estimated that about 3000 temples were destroyed and converted into Mosques in the 750 years of Muslim rule in India.

During the sultanate and later under Aurangzeb, many hundreds of thousands of Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam. The sentences of criminals and prisoners of war were ruthlessly executed with mercy and allowances only available to individuals embracing Islam. The Jaziya tax was both a heavy financial burden and a badge of inferiority borne by the Hindu, which also stimulated conversions to Islam.

In the 1860s a Muslim cleric in the Punjab region of India launched a murderous jihad initially against Sikhs, and then against all non-Muslim groups. In South India in 1921, jihadists carried out massacres, the forced conversion of Hindus, and the desecration of Hindu temples.

The number of casualties over the centuries are at least and order of magnitude greater than suffered by the Jews in the holocaust, and the ongoing conflicts have been key to the economic and social disadvantages of Indian society. Although Indians are an industrious and educated people, the social, political, and economic costs of the ongoing conflicts are the cause of its poor economic performance compared to other industrialized nations.

Courtesy of IslamUndressed.com


Hat Tip: Aura of Arc

1 comment:

CRUSADER said...

Excellent article Aura...Thankyou