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

Islamic Imperialism in IndiaWhat are the continued legacies of European and Islamic colonialism—in the subcontinent, forexample? In India, the positive impact of the British-instituted education, legal and healthcare systems, roads,railway and irrigation systems, secular-democracy, rule of law and telecommunication, along with theirefforts to abolish a whole host of social ills cannot be discounted in today’s India. But what can India boast ofabout Islam’s beneficial legacy? Indian Muslim friends tell me that India had nothing before the Musliminvasion. ‘Islam gave India the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort,’ they say. Islam ‘inspired the king of what was thenthe world’s wealthiest empire to build a tomb—the Taj Mahal—in honour of his wife,’ argues Irfan Yusuf. 666India’s pre-Islamic standing in science, art and architecture has been discussed already. Also discussed, howthese fanciful follies, the so-called great Islamic contributions, were built by sucking the blood of thecolonized people, and of course, by their brain and labor, too. Most importantly, without these follies, Indiawill be as great a nation today, but not without the legacy of the British Raj. Naipaul writes on the distinctionbetween the British and Islamic legacies in Pakistan that,The Moguls had built forts, places, mosques, and tombs. The British in the second half of thenineteenth century had put up buildings to house institutions. Lahore was rich in the monumentsof both periods. Ironically, for a country that talks so much about Islamic identity, and evenclaimed to be a successor to Mogul power, it was the Mogul monuments that were in decay: thefort, Shah Jehan’s mosque, the Shalimar Gardens, the tombs of both Emperor Jehangir and hisgreat consort Noor-Jehan… The British administrative buildings live on. The institutions theywere meant to house are still more or less the institutions the country depends on. 667Waleed Iqbal, a grandson of Muhammad Iqbal, the man behind the Pakistan idea, told Naipaul that ‘goingback further to the times of the Mogul, the law was simply dictatorial. The British-given courts, and theBritish procedural laws of 1898 and 1908, were still all that the country had. They met a need; that was whythey had lasted.’ 668This does not mean that the British occupation was essential for these ideas and institutions to cometo India. Since ancient times, Indian civilization, while being creative itself, was very assimilative of foreignideas. The developments of the Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe would have trickled into India withrelative ease. However, Islam’s hold on India, if continued, would have been an impediment. The Muslimpower was decaying in India and many would believe that the Hindus and Sikhs were about to displaceMuslims from power. That was very much a possibility. However, it must be taken into consideration that,nowhere in the world, the Muslim colonists were dislodged from power without foreign interference. Muslimpower had decayed in India a few times previously. Amir Timur had thoroughly devastated the alreadydecaying Islamic power in Delhi; Muslims still came back and asserted their political control. If not withinternal power, with foreign reinforcements, Muslim could still keep their hold on power. Did not AhmadShah Abadali, upon fervent appeals from India’s pious Muslims, like great Sufi master Shah Walliullah, cometo India thrice to wreak havoc and decimate the Maratha opposition in his last foray in 1761? Earlier, amidstchaotic political situation in India, Muslims had appealed for outside help; responding to it, Babur came fromCentral Asia and founded the powerful Mughal Empire.The overall impact of the Islamic imperialism on India was undoubtedly worse than the British one.A look at the current mess in Islamic Bangladesh and Pakistan clearly shows the continued legacy of Islamicimperialism in the subcontinent. The Hindu India, absorbing progressive European ideas, has steadilymarched ahead after gaining independence. Pakistan and Bangladesh, the heirs of the legacy of Islamicimperialism, have harked back to Islam and regressed. If European imperialism deserves condemnation,Islamic imperialism deserves no less.666. Yusuf I, Violence against women won’t stop until men speak out, New Zealand Herald, 12 Sept. 2008667. Naipaul (1998), p. 255–56668. Ibid, p. 256200