The Muslim victors
did not get time to raise their own structures from the ruins of Vijayanagar,
partly because the Hindu Raja succeeded in regrouping his forces and re-occupying
his capital and partly because they did not have the requisite Muslim population
to settle in that large city; another invader, the Portuguese, had taken
control of the Arabian Sea and blocked the flow of fresh recruits from
Muslim countries in the Middle East. What would have happened otherwise
is described by Alexander Cunningham in his report on Mahoba. “As Mahoba
was,” he writes, “for some time the headquarters of the early Muhammadan
Governors, we could hardly expect to find that any Hindu buildings had
escaped their furious bigotry, or their equally destructive cupidity. When
the destruction of a Hindu temple furnished the destroyer with the ready
means of building a house for himself on earth, as well as in heaven, it
is perhaps wonderful that so many temples should still be standing in different
parts of the country. It must be admitted, however, that, in none of the
cities which the early Muhammadans occupied permanently, have they left
a single temple standing, save this solitary temple at Mahoba, which doubtless
owed its preservation solely to its secure position amid the deep waters
of the Madan-Sagar. In Delhi, and Mathura, in Banaras and Jonpur, in Narwar
and Ajmer, every single temple was destroyed by their bigotry, but thanks
to their cupidity, most of the beautiful Hindu pillars were preserved,
and many of them, perhaps, on their original positions, to form new colonnades
for the masjids and tombs of the conquerors. In Mahoba all the other
temples were utterly destroyed and the only Hindu building now standing
is part of the palace of Parmal, or Paramarddi Deva, on the hill-fort,
which has been converted into a masjid. In 1843, I found an inscription
of Paramarddi Deva built upside down in the wall of the fort just outside
this masjid. It is dated in S. 1240, or A.D. 1183, only one year before
the capture of Mahoba by Prithvi-Raj Chohan of Delhi. In the Dargah of
Pir Mubarak Shah, and the adjacent Musalman burial-ground, I counted 310
Hindu pillars of granite. I found a black stone bull lying beside the road,
and the argha of a lingam fixed as a water-spout in the terrace
of the Dargah. These last must have belonged to
a temple of Siva, which was probably built in the reign of Kirtti Varmma,
between 1065 and 1085 A.D., as I discovered an inscription of that prince
built into the wall of one of the tombs.”31
Many other ancient
cities and towns suffered the same tragic transformation. Bukhara, Samarkand,
Balkh, Kabul, Ghazni, Srinagar, Peshawar, Lahore, Multan, Patan, Ajmer,
Delhi, Agra Dhar, Mandu, Budaun, Kanauj, Biharsharif, Patna, Lakhnauti,
Ellichpur, Daulatabad, Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda-to mention only
a few of the more famous Hindu capitals-lost their native character and
became nests of a closed creed waging incessant war on a catholic culture.
Some of these places lost even their ancient names which had great and
glorious associations. It is on record that the Islamic invaders coined
and imposed this or that quranic concoction on every place they conquered.
Unfortunately for them, most of these impositions failed to stick, going
the way they came. But quite a few succeeded and have endured till our
own times. Reviving the ancient names wherever they have got eclipsed is
one of the debts which Hindu society owes to its illustrious ancestors.
On the other hand,
a large number of cities, towns and centres of Hindu civilization disappeared
from the scene and their ruins have been identified only in recent times,
as in the case of Kãpišî, Lampaka, Nagarahãra, Pushkalãvatî,
UdbhãNDapura, Takshšilã, Ãlor, Brãhmanãbãd,
Debal, Nandana, Agrohã Virãtanagara, Ahichchhatra, Šrãvastî,
Sãrnãth, Vaišãlî, Vikramšîla, Nãlandã,
KarNasuvarNa, PuNDravardhana, Somapura, Jãjanagar, DhãnyakaTaka,
Vijayapurî, Vijayanagara, Dvãrasamudra. What
has been found on top of the ruins in most cases is a mosque or a dargãh
or a tomb or some other Muslim monument, testifying to Allah’s triumph
over Hindu Gods. Many more mounds are still to be explored and identified.
A survey of archaeological sites in the Frontier Circle alone and as far
back as 1920, listed 255 dheris32 or
mounds which, as preliminary explorations indicated, hid ruins of ancient
dwellings and/or places of worship. Some dheris, which had been
excavated and were not included in this count, showed every sign of deliberate
destruction. By that time, many more mounds of a similar character
had been located in other parts of the cradle of Hindu culture. A
very large number has been added to the total count in subsequent years.
Whichever of them is excavated tells the same story, most of the time.
It is a different matter that since the dawn of independence, Indian archaeologists
functioning under the spell or from fear of Secularism, record or report
only the ethnographical stratifications and cultural sequences.33
Muslim historians
credit all their heroes with many expeditions each of which “laid waste”
this or that province or region or city or countryside. The foremost heroes
of the imperial line at Delhi and Agra such as Qutbu’d-Dîn Aibak
(1192-1210 A.D.), Shamsu’d-Dîn Iltutmish (1210-36 A.D.), Ghiyãsu’d-Dîn
Balban (1246-66 A D.), Alãu’d-Dîn Khaljî (1296-1316
A.D.), Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-51 A.D.), Fîruz Shãh Tughlaq
(135188 A.D.) Sikandar Lodî (1489-1519 A.D.), Bãbar (1519-26
A.D.) and Aurangzeb (1658-1707 A.D.) have been specially hailed for “hunting
the peasantry like wild beasts”, or for seeing to it that “no lamp is lighted
for hundreds of miles”, or for “destroying the dens of idolatry and God-pluralism”
wherever their writ ran. The sultans of the provincial Muslim dynasties-Malwa,
Gujarat, Sindh, Deccan, Jaunpur, Bengal-were not far behind, if not ahead,
of what the imperial pioneers had done or were doing; quite often their
performance put the imperial pioneers to shame. No study has yet been made
of how much the human population declined due to repeated genocides committed
by the swordsmen of Islam. But the count of cities and towns and villages
which simply disappeared during the Muslim rule leaves little doubt that
the loss of life suffered by the cradle of Hindu culture was colossal.
Putting together
all available evidence-literary and archaeological-from Hindu, Muslim and
other sources, and following the trail of Islamic invasion, we get the
pattern of how the invaders proceeded vis-a-vis Hindu places of worship
after occupying a city or town and its suburbs. It should be kept in mind
in this context that Muslim rule never became more than a chain of garrison
cities and towns, not even in its heyday from Akbar to Aurangzeb, except
in areas where wholesale or substantial conversions had taken place.
Elsewhere the invaders were rarely in full control of the countryside;
they had to mount repeated expeditions for destroying places of worship,
collecting booty including male and female slaves, and for terrorising
the peasantry, through slaughter and rapine, so that the latter may become
a submissive source of revenue. The peasantry took no time to rise
in revolt whenever and wherever Muslim power weakened or its terror had
to be relaxed for reasons beyond its control.
1. Places taken
by assault: If a place was taken by assault-which was mostly the case
because it was seldom that the Hindus surrendered-it was thoroughly sacked,
its surviving population slaughtered or enslaved and all its buildings
pulled down. In the next phase, the conquerors raised their own edifices
for which slave labour was employed on a large scale in order to produce
quick results. Cows and, many a time, Brahmanas were killed and their blood
sprinkled on the sacred sites in order to render them unclean for the Hindus
for all time to come. The places of worship which the Muslims built for
themselves fell into several categories. The pride of place went to the
Jãmi‘ Masjid which was invariably built on the site and with the
materials of the most prominent Hindu temple; if the materials of that
temple were found insufficient for the purpose, they could be supplemented
with materials of other temples which had been demolished simultaneously.
Some other mosques were built in a similar manner according to need or
the fancy of those who mattered. Temple sites and materials were also used
for building the tombs of those eminent Muslims who had fallen in the fight;
they were honoured as martyrs and their tombs became mazãrs and
rauzas in course of time. As we have already pointed out, Hindus being
great temple builders, temple materials could be spared for secular structures
also, at least in the bigger settlements. It can thus be inferred that
all masjids and mazãrs, particularly the Jãmi‘ Masjids which
date from the first Muslim occupation of a place, stand on the site of
Hindu temples; the structures we see at present may not carry evidence
of temple materials used because of subsequent restorations or attempts
to erase the evidence. There are very few Jãmi‘ Masjids in the country
which do not stand on temple sites.
2. Places surrendered:
Once in a while a place was surrendered by the Hindus in terms of an agreement
that they would be treated as zimmis and their lives as well as
places of worship spared. In such cases, it took some time to eradicate
the “emblems of infidelity.” Theologians of Islam were always in disagreement
whether Hindus could pass muster as zimmis; they were not People
of the Book. It depended upon prevailing power equations for the final
decision to go in their favour or against them. Most of the time, Hindus
lost the case in which they were never allowed to have any say. What followed
was what had happened in places taken by assault, at least in respect of
the Hindu places of worship. The zimmi status accorded to the Hindus
seldom went beyond exaction of jizya and imposition of disabilities
prescribed by Umar, the second rightly-guided Caliph (634-44 A.D.).
3. Places reoccupied
by Hindus: It also happened quite frequently, particularly in the early
phase of an Islamic invasion, that Hindus retook a place which had been
under Muslim occupation for some time. In that case, they rebuilt their
temples on new sites. Muslim historians are on record that Hindus spared
the mosques and mazãrs which the invaders had raised in the interregnum.
When the Muslims came back, which they did in most cases, they re-enacted
the standard scene vis-a-vis Hindu places of worship.
4. Places in
the countryside: The invaders started sending out expeditions into
the countryside as soon as their stranglehold on major cities and towns
in a region had been secured. Hindu places of worship were always
the first targets of these expeditions. It is a different matter that sometimes
the local Hindus raised their temples again after an expedition had been
forced to retreat. For more expeditions came and in due course Hindu places
of worship tended to disappear from the countryside as well. At the same
time, masjids and mazãrs sprang up everywhere, on the sites of demolished
temples.
5. Missionaries
of Islam: Expeditions into the countryside were accompanied or followed
by the missionaries of Islam who flaunted pretentious names and functioned
in many guises. It is on record that the missionaries took active part
in attacking the temples. They loved to live on the sites of demolished
temples and often used temple materials for building their own dwellings,
which also went under various high-sounding names. There were instances
when they got killed in the battle or after they settled down in a place
which they had helped in pillaging. In all such cases, they were pronounced
shahîds (martyrs) and suitable monuments were raised in their
memory as soon as it was possible. Thus a large number of gumbads
(domes) and ganjs (plains) commemorating the martyrs arose all over
the cradle of Hindu culture and myths about them grew apace. In India,
we have a large literature on the subject in which Sayyid Sãlãr
Mas‘ûd, who got killed at Bahraich while attacking the local Sun
Temple, takes pride of place. His mazAr now stands on the site of the same
temple which was demolished in a subsequent invasion. Those Muslim saints
who survived and settled down have also left a large number of masjids
and dargAhs in the countryside. Almost all of them stand on temple sites.
6. The role
of sufis: The saints of Islam who became martyrs or settled down were
of several types which can be noted by a survey of their ziãrats
and mazãrs that we find in abundance in all lands conquered
by the armies of Islam. But in the second half of the twelfth century A.D.,
we find a new type of Muslim saint appearing on the scene and dominating
it in subsequent centuries. That was the sufi joined to a silsila.
This is not the place to discuss the character of some outstanding sufis
like Mansûr al-Hallãj, Bãyazîd Bistãmî,
Rûmî and Attãr. Suffice it to say that some of their
ancestral spiritual heritage had survived in their consciousness even though
their Islamic environment had tended to poison it a good deal. The common
name which is used for these early sufis as well as for the teeming breed
belonging to the latter-day silsilas, has caused no end of confusion.
So far as India is concerned, it is difficult to find a sufi whose consciousness
harboured even a trace of any spirituality. By and large, the sufis that
functioned in this country were the most fanatic and fundamentalist activists
of Islamic imperialism, the same as the latter-day Christian missionaries
in the context of Spanish and Portuguese imperialism.
Small wonder that
we find them flocking everywhere ahead or with or in the wake of Islamic
armies. Sufis of the Chishtîyya silsila in particular excelled
in going ahead of these armies and acting as eyes and ears of the Islamic
establishment. The Hindus in places where these sufis settled, particularly
in the South, failed to understand the true character of these saints till
it was too late. The invasions of South India by the armies of Alãu’d-Dîn
Khaljî and Muhammad bin Tughlaq can be placed in their proper perspective
only when we survey the sufi network in the South. Many sufis were sent
in all directions by Nizãmu’d-Dîn Awliyã, the Chistîyya
luminary of Delhi; all of them actively participated in jihãds
against the local population. Nizãmu’d-Dîn’s
leading disciple, Nasîru’d-Dîn Chirãg-i-Dihlî,
exhorted the sufis to serve the Islamic state. “The essence of sufism,”
he versified, “is not an external garment. Gird up your loins to serve
the Sultãn and be a sufi.”34 Nasîru’d-Dîn’s
leading disciple, Syed Muhammad Husainî Banda Nawãz Gesûdarãz
(1321-1422 A.D.), went to Gulbarga for helping the contemporary Bahmani
sultan in consolidating Islamic power in the Deccan. Shykh Nizãmu’d-Dîn
Awliyã’s dargãh in Delhi continued to be and remains till
today the most important centre of Islamic fundamentalism in India.
An estimate of
what the sufis did wherever and whenever they could, can be formed from
the account of a pilgrimage which a pious Muslim Nawwãb undertook
in 1823 to the holy places of Islam in the Chingleput, South Acort, Thanjavur,
Tiruchirapalli and North Arcot districts of Tamil Nadu. This region had
experienced renewed Islamic invasion after the breakdown of the Vijayanagar
Empire in 1565 A.D. Many sufis had flocked in for destroying Hindu temples
and converting the Hindu population, particularly the Qãdirîyyas
who had been fanning out all over South India after establishing their
stronghold at Bidar in the fifteenth century. They did not achieve any
notable success in terms of conversions, but the havoc they wrought with
Hindu temples can be inferred from a large number of ruins, loose sculptures
scattered all over the area, inscriptions mentioning many temples which
cannot be traced, and the proliferation of mosques, dargãhs, mazãrs
and maqbaras.
The pilgrim visited
many places and could not go to some he wanted to cover. All these places
were small except Tiruchirapalli, Arcot and Vellore. His court scribe,
who kept an account of the pilgrimage, mentions many masjids and mazãrs
visited by his patron. Many masjids and mazãrs could not be visited
because they were in deserted places covered by forest. There were several
graveyards, housing many tombs; one of them was so big that “thousands,
even a hundred thousand” graves could be there. Other notable places were
takiyãs of faqirs, sarãis, dargãhs, and several houses
of holy relics in one of which “a hair of the Holy Prophet is enshrined.”
The account does not mention the Hindu population except as “harsh kafirs
and marauders.” But stray references reveal that the Muslim population
in all these places was sparse. For instance, Kanchipuram had only 50 Muslim
houses but 9 masjids and 1 mazãr.
The court scribe
pays fulsome homage to the sufis who “planted firmly the Faith of Islam”
in this region. The pride of place goes to Hazrat Natthar WalI who took
over by force the main temple at Tiruchirapalli and converted it into his
khãnqãh. Referring to the destruction of the Sivalinga in
the temple, he observes: “The monster was slain
and sent to the house of perdition. His image namely but-ling
worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head separated from the body.
A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb
of WalI shedding rediance till this day.”35 Another
sufi, Qãyim Shãh, who came to the same place at a later stage,
“was the cause of the destruction of twelve temples.”36 At
Vellore, Hazrat Nûr Muhammad Qãdirî, “the most unique
man regarded as the invaluable person of his age,” was the “cause of the
ruin of temples” which “he laid waste.” He chose to be buried “in the vicinity
of the temple” which he had replaced with his khãnqãh.37
It is, therefore,
not an accident that the masjids and khAnqAhs built by or for the sufis
who reached a place in the first phase of Islamic invasion occupy the sites
of Hindu temples and, quite often, contain temple materials in their structures.
Lahore, Multan, Uch, Ajmer, Delhi, Badaun, Kanauj, Kalpi, Biharsharif,
Maner, Lakhnauti, Patan, Patna, Burhanpur, Daulatabad, Gulbarga, Bidar,
Bijapur, Golconda, Arcot, Vellor and Tiruchirapalli-to count only a few
leading sufi center-shave many dargãhs which display evidence of
iconoclasm. Many masjids and dargãhs in interior places testify
to the same fact, namely, that the sufis were, above everything else, dedicated
soldiers of Allah who tolerates no other deity and no other way of worship
except that which he revealed to Prophet Muhammad.
7. Particularly
pious sultans: Lastly, we have to examine very closely the monuments
built during the reigns of the particularly pious sultans who undertook
“to cleanse the land from the vices of infidelity and God-pluralism” that
had cropped up earlier, either because Islamic terror had weakened under
pressure of circumstances or because the proceeding ruler (s) had “wandered
away from the path of rectitude.” Fîruz Shãh Tughlaq, Sikandar
Lodî and Aurangzeb of the Delhi-Agra imperial line belonged to this
category. They had several prototypes in the provincial Muslim dynasties
at Ahmadabad, Mandu, Jaunpur, Lakhnauti, Gulbarga, Bidar, Ahmadnagar, Bijapur
and Golconda. There is little doubt that all masjids and mazãrs
erected under the direct or indirect patronage of these sultans, particularly
in places where Hindu population predominates, stand on the sites of Hindu
temples.
We give below,
state-wise and district-wise, the particulars of Muslim monuments which
stand on the sites and/or have been built with the materials of Hindu temples,
and which we wish to recall as witnesses to the role of Islam as a religion
and the character of Muslim rule in medieval India. The list is the result
of a preliminary survey. Many more Muslim monuments await examination.
Local traditions which have so far been ignored or neglected, have to be
tapped on a large scale.
We have tried
our best to be exact in respect of locations, names and dates of the monuments
mentioned. Even so, some mistakes and confusions may have remained.
It is not unoften that different sources provide different dates and names
for the same monument. Many Muslim saints are known by several names, which
creates confusion in identifying their mazãrs or dargãhs.
Some districts have been renamed or newly, created and a place which was
earlier under one district may have been included in another. We shall
be grateful to readers who point out these mistakes so that they can be
corrected in our major study. This is only a brief summary.
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