Historical Back Ground of Invaders Muslim in India

Historical Back Ground of Invaders Muslim in India

Muslim community started claiming as religious minority only just before independence.  Islam came in India in 712 A.D. through foreign invaders.  First  invasion was made by Mohd. Bin Qasim and thereafter a series of invasions were made by Mohd. Gajni and Mohd. Gori etc.  Mohd. Bin Qasim established Islamic Rule in Sindh and Multan in 712 A.D.  After Mohd. Gori, Mohd. Qutubbuddin Aibak, Akram Shah, Altmus, Gyasuddin Blaban, Razia Sultan, Jalaluddin Khilji, Alauddin Khilji, Firoz Shah Tughlak, IbrahimmLodhi and other Sultans ruled India and thereafter Babar established Moghul rule in 1526 followed  Humaun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan, Aurangjeb and other Moghul rulers and lastly by Bahadur Shah Zafar in greater India.  Indian society other than Muslim minority was ruled by Muslim Rulers for about one thousand years over most parts of India.   For all these years Indian society other than Muslim minority was subjected to pay Jezia Tax in most parts of India to remain as Hindus and to perform their cultural and religious rites.
Relevant Paragraphs at page 50 of a  Book 'Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India (Vol. III: Medieval Indian Society and Culture) by J.L. Mehta is relevant in the present context, the same is being reproduced below:-
"Mohd. Bin Qasim, who laid the foundation of the Muslim Rule in Sindh and Multan (711-12), secured the status of Zimmis for his hindu subjects from the caliph and accorded protection to their lives and property on the receipt of jaziya.  Obviously, this step was necessitated as a matter of political expediency because in spite of the loss of independence, the hindu masses, in general offered odgged resistence to forced conversions.  It was physically impossible for Qasim and handful of his Arab followers to compel the vanquished multitude 'to choose between Islam and death', particularly, when they were 'armed to the teeth'.  Recognition of hindu 'idolators' of Arabia.  His example was followed by the turkaofghan rulers of Delhi in their dealings with the hindus.  The latter were not treated as full-fledged citizens of 'the Islamic stte' albeit they received status of zimmis-'the second-class' or 'inferior'  citizens, which denied them all political rights and made them suffer from certain socio=religious and economic disabilities so as 'to prevent them from growing strong.  In the words of Jadu Nath Sarkar,
"The very term zimmi is an insulting title.  It connotes political inferiority and helplessness like the status of a minor proprietor, perpetually under a guardian; such protected people could not claim equality with the citizens of the Muslim theocracy."
There developed, with the passage of time, four schools of though for the authoritative interpretation of shara or 'the Islamic law'; these were known as Malakite, Shafite, Hanbalite and Hanafite after the names of their founders-Malik Ibn Anas (715-95 A.D.), Ash-Shafi (767-820), Ahmad Bin Hanbal (780-855) and Abu Hanifah (699-766), Doctors of the first three schools offered no other alternative but death to 'the idolators' including the hindus, on their refusal to embrace Islam.  It were the exponents of the Hanifah school alone who permitted their existence in the Islamic state as zimmis.  That explains the intesne hatred of the non-muslims by the orthodox muslims fanatics, in general; whenever a muslim ruler fell under the spell of such orthodox ulema, he adopted the policy of religious intolerance and persecution of his hindu subjects.  It created a permanent gulf between the hindus and muslims which could not be bridged effectively for a long time.  According to an observation, 'the politcal and religious condition under which the hindus were forced to live in a muslim state raised a great barrier between the two communities.  The political supremacy of muslims was absolute; the hindus not only enjoyed no political status in practice, but could not even aspire to it under Islamic theory'.  While living in their own country and in possession of their own hearths and homes, the hindus were reduced to the status of inferior citizens of 'an Islamic state' as the sultanate of Delhi was usually styled.  On the other hand, the muslims, though in microscopic minority, constituted the privileged or the most favoured children of the state who enjoyed the bounties and benefited from all the public welfare and other state enterprises."