islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

Islamic Jihadnecessitated by the fact that Timur left Delhi after his barbarous invasion declaring himself the emperor ofIndia and placing the Sayyids at the throne. Realizing the threat of brutal Timur and the importance of hisapproval, the Sayyid sultans recognized Timur and his successors as the caliph and sent tribute to the Timuridcapital of Samarkhand. According to Ferishtah, the first Sayyid Sultan Khizr Khan, ‘held the government forTeimoor (Timur), in whose name he caused the coins to be struck, and the Khootba (prayer sermon) to beread. After the death of Teimoor, Khootba was read in the name of his successor, Shahrokh Mirza; to whomhe sometimes even sent tribute…’ 365 The Islamic overlordship of the Delhi Sultanate moved to Samarkhand,not abolished. Akbar the Great (r. 1556–1605)—as powerful as any other Muslim ruler: Ottoman or Persian—later declared his independence from foreign overlordship. Therefore, from 712 to early sixteenth century, theMuslim-ruled part of India was basically a province of the wider Islamic world.Besides sending revenue and gifts to the caliphal headquarters of Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo orSamarkand from India, Islam’s holy cities of Mecca and Medina amongst others also received generousdonations in money, gifts and presents even in the Mughal period, when the Indian rulers had declared theirindependence from foreign overlords. Emperor Babur (r. 1525–30) in his autobiography records the gifts andpresents he had sent "in the cause of God" to the holy men of Samarkhand, Khurasan, Mecca and Medina. Inone place, he wrote, ‘‘We gave one Shahrukhi (coin) for every soul in the country of Kabul and the vale-sideof Varsak, man and woman, bonded and free, of age or non-age.’’ Even apostate Akbar showed generositytoward the city of Mecca and Medina as records Humayun Nama: ‘‘Though debarred from leaving Hindustanhimself, he helped many others to fulfil this primary duty of their faith (Hajj), and opened wide his purse fortheir expenses. Each year, he named a leader of the caravan and provided him with gifts and ample funds forthe two cities. When Gulbadan Begum, his paternal aunt, went to Hajj, sultan Khawja took among otherpresents 12,000 dresses of honor.’’ Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605), Jahangir (r. 1605–27) andShahjahan (r. 1628–58) used to send subsistence to the religious men of Persia, Rum (Constantinople) andAzerbaijan as allowance "from God’" for "His servants", be they in Hindustan or any other Muslim countries.Emperor Shahjahan also used to send expensive gifts to Mecca. 366This is how the money and resources, extracted from the sweat and toil of non-Muslim subjects ofIndia, used to be siphoned to the treasuries of the Islamic caliphate in Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo or Tashkent,to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and to the pockets of the Muslim holy men throughout theIslamic world. At the same time, the infidels of India were being reduced to awful misery.It is a well-documented, but deliberately ignored, paradigm that Muslim conquests, from the time ofProphet Muhammad, were intended for plundering and looting the wealth and resources of the conqueredpeople. The second purpose was to capture slaves, predominantly the women and children, who wereconverted to Islam and sold to Muslim owners and employed in all manner of menial servitude in thehouseholds of their Muslim masters (see Chapter VII on Slavery). The young and beautiful female captivesbecame sex-slaves in the harem and households of rulers, generals, nobles and common Muslims. Theyserved triple purposes: firstly, they provided labor for the comfort of their Muslim master; secondly, theyserved the master sexual pleasures; and thirdly, they acted as breeding tools for swelling the Muslimpopulace. The third purpose of the Muslim conquest of foreign lands was to impose the grinding jizyah,kharaj and other sundry taxes upon the vanquished people and a part of the revenue went to the centraltreasury.Prophet Muhammad set a paradigm of conquest and the expansion of Islamic rule, whereby he usedto conquer foreign lands by aggressive threats or violent attacks. Once a foreign land or community has beendefeated, their wealth and treasures were invariably looted and one-fifth of the plunder went to state treasury,belonging to Allah and his Prophet, handled by the latter. When a community offered resistance, such as BanuQuraiza or Khaybar, after defeating them, he slaughtered their grown up men en masse and enslaved thewomen and children. The Prophet imposed taxes, namely kharaj (land-tax, tribute) and jizyah (poll-tax), onthe conquered people. The revenue was remitted to the treasury overseen by him. After Muhammad’s death,365. Ferishtah, Vol. I, p. 295; Lal (1999), p. 210366. Lal (1999), p. 212123