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

Islamic Jihad‘I made prisoners of five lacs (500,000) of men and women and sold them. They all becameMuhammadans. From their progeny, there will be crores (one crore = ten million) by the Day ofJudgment.’ 195After Akbar’s death, Islamization was gradually revived during the subsequent reigns of Jahangir andShahjahan. On Emperor Jahangir, seen as a liberal and kind-hearted ruler, records Shash Fath-I Kangra that‘he devoted all his exertions to the promulgation of the Muhammadan religion…’ and that his ‘whole effortswere always directed to the extinguishing of the fire of Paganism…’ 196 According to Intikhab-I JahangirShahi, when Jains in Gujarat built splendid temples, attracting many devotees, ‘Emperor Jahangir orderedthem to be banished from the country and their temples to be demolished. Their idols were thrown down onthe uppermost step of the mosque, so that it might be trodden upon’ by Muslim worshippers. 197 EmperorShahjahan was more orthodox than his father Jahangir.It is Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), who brought back the full-scale profession of slavery and forcedconversion into the state policy. Even after the British capture of Bengal in 1757, slave-taking by Muslimrulers was still going on with vigor around India. According to Siyar-ul-Mutakhirin, after Ahmad ShahAbdali’s victory in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, the prisoners, famished due to deprivation of food anddrink, were paraded in long lines before being beheaded and the ‘women and children who survived weredriven off as slaves—twenty-two thousand, many of them of the highest rank in the land.’ 198 About twodecades earlier, Nadir Shah of Iran invaded India (1738). After committing harrowing atrocities and plunderin which some 200,000 people were slaughtered, he returned with thousands of slaves and a great sum oftreasure.It should not be difficult now to grasp that slave-taking helped swell the Muslim population in India,probably, like no other sources. General Abdulla Khan Uzbeg has described it most accurately in his boastfulstatement cited above. The contribution of the enslaved women in the growth of Muslim population has beensuccinctly described by Arnold: ‘Women slaves turned concubines could increase the Muslim population byleaps and bounds when captured in large numbers.’ 199 In agreement, Muhammad Ashraf opines that ‘theslaves added to the growing Muslim population of India.’ 200 However, he is somewhat incorrect in that theslaves did not simply add to the growing Muslim population; instead, it is slaves who formed the mass of theMuslim population in the initial years and decades. Whilst slaves continued to be added, it was the offspringof slaves, who mainly swelled the Muslim populace in the subsequent period.Opposed to the views of modern Islamic scholars—Sheikh al-Qaradawi, Dr Zakir Naik and DrFazlur Rahman et al.—the conversion and growth of the Muslim population clearly started right at the time ofconquests: through forced conversion of the vanquished by invaders like Sultan Mahmud and Yakub Lais,and through universal enslavement of the women and children on grand scales at the point of the sword, sincethe enslaved by default became Muslims. The women, especially the young ones, were the major target ofenslavement by Muslims right from the time of Prophet Muhammad. Subsequently, those enslaved womenbecame the major tool for the breeding and growth of the Muslim populace.Humiliation & economic burdens contributing to conversionIslam recognized the monotheistic Jews and Christians as dhimmi subjects. Although Allah gavePolytheists—namely Hindus, Buddhists, and Animists etc.—a choice between death and conversion, the195. Lal (1994), p. 73196. Elliot & Dawson, Vol. VI, p. 528–29197. Ibid, p. 451198. Lal (1994), p. 155199. Arnold TW (1896) The Preaching of Islam, Westminster, p. 365200. Ashraf KM (1935) Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan, Calcutta, p. 15177