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

Islamic Imperialism in IndiaIndia did not support the Sepoy Mutiny as enthusiastically as did Muslims. The Sikhs and Ghurkhassupported the British. The Sikhs obviously did not forget the extreme brutality they had suffered underAurangzeb (see p. 183–84). They helped the British to recapture Delhi. The Scindia in the North and manyother states were on the British side, too.Why should the Sikhs and Hindus participate in the mutiny anyway? Although the British held theexecutive power, Muhammad Shah Jaffar was still the official head of India at the time. Shah Jaffar is mucheulogized by today’s Indians—both Muslim and non-Muslim—as a great revolutionary patriot for instigatingthe Sepoy Mutiny. But he was essentially fighting to drive the British mercenaries out of India forreestablishing the lost Muslim sovereignty of the yesteryear, not for restoring political power to the people ofIndia. Upon Shah Jaffar’s appeal, Muslims across India considered the Sepoy Mutiny to be a Jihad against theBritish for reinstating the lost Islamic domination. In the course of the Sepoy Mutiny, Shah Jaffar declaredhimself the Emperor of India and issued coins in his name, the standard way of asserting Islamic imperialstatus. His name was added to the khutbah (sermon) in Muslim prayers, which symbolized the acceptance byMuslims that he was the Amir (leader) of India.The Ottoman stand on the Sepoy Mutiny did not help Muslim’s Jihad against the British Raj either.Following the ouster of Muslim rulers by the British, India’s Muslims—generally hateful of living under non-Muslim rule—pledged their allegiance to the powerful Ottoman sultan, accepting him as their caliph. But theBritish assistance to the Ottomans in the Crimean war against Russia helped the Raj obtain an Ottoman order‘advising the Indian Muslim not to fight against them (the British),’ which was read out in mosque sermonsaround India. The Ottoman sultan, instead of showing support, ‘condemned and abhorred the atrocitiescommitted by the Mutineers…’ 525 Obviously under the Ottoman influence, the prominent Muslim scholars andulema of India met in Calcutta in 1857 and issued a fatwa, in view of the British government’s cordialrelationship with the Ottoman sultan, the caliph of Islam, that ‘‘jehad against the British nation isunlawful.’’ 526 According to Salar Jang, the Muslim prime minister of Hyderabad, ‘‘the whole influence of the(Ottoman) Caliphate was used most unremittingly from Constantinople to check the spread of Mutiny’’ and torally the Indian Muslims around the British Raj in order to pay the debt, he owed, to Great Britain for theBritish support in the Crimean war. 527 Because of this discouraging position of the Ottoman sultan, the defacto political and spiritual head of Indian Muslims, their enthusiasm for the anti-British Jihad lost steam. ‘‘Atthe bidding of their caliph,’’ adds Salar Jang, ‘‘the most warlike of the native races (Indian Muslims)… gavetheir unstinted support to the British connection at the supreme moment (of the revolt).’’Following the suppression of the Mutiny, the British Raj understood that their prospect of long-termrule in India lies in exploiting the long-existing bitter religious discord between Muslim and non-MuslimIndians. Thereafter, they applied a divisive ploy, particularly in the army, by putting the Hindu, Muslim andSikh soldiers in separate quarters—never to serve in the same unit again. 528In their Jihad to oust the British rulers, the defunct Mughal leaders (Nawabs) tried to win the supportof Hindus by offering them various incentives. For example, they agreed to hand-over the hotly contentiousRam temple/Babri Mosque site in Ayodhya to Hindus in order to assuage their anti-Muslim discontent,thereby coaxing them to join the Mutiny. Many Hindu soldiers in the British force jointly revolted with theirMuslim colleagues. Hindus in the United Provinces, Delhi, parts of Central India and Bihar joined the revoltin large numbers. But, on the whole, the participation of Hindus and other non-Muslims in the mutiny wasless enthusiastic; elsewhere, they sided with the British.525. Ozcan A (1977) Pan Islamism, Indian Muslims, the Ottomans & Britain (1877-1924), Brill, Leiden, p. 16526. Ibid, p. 20527. Ibid, p. 17528. Braudel F (1995) A History of Civilizations, Translated by Mayne R, Penguin Books, New York, p. 242166