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India has a large Muslim population. Statistics reveal that there are approximately 172 million people in India who identify themselves as followers of Islam. A majority of Muslims in India belong to the Sunni sect of Islam and others belong to the Shia sect of Islam. For thousands of years coastal communities of India, particularly in the West Coast had trade relationship with the Middle East. Arab trade routes included trade with modern day Indian states of Kerala, Gujarat and even West Bengal. As Islam became a dominant religion of the Middle East, it quickly spread to all the areas the Middle East was trading with at that point including India, the Malaysian peninsula, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Monotheism and Islam.
Islam is a monotheistic religion that believes that Prophet Muhammad is the messenger of God. Islam is also a Abrahamic religion (like Judaism and Christianity). Followers of Islam are known as Muslims and most Muslims believe that the Arabic version of the Koran is the unaltered and also the final revelation from God. Islam originated in the 7th century AD (about 1300 years ago). Islam is very closely related to Christianity which is a few hundred years older than Islam. But unlike Christianity, which grew in the west, Islam grew rapidly in the East.
Polytheism and small groups of warring people believing in their own religion, philosophies and forms of worship was common in the Middle East during the time when Christianity and Islam were born. So a monotheistic religion with it’s belief in one God and one scripture had a certain appeal. Also, within each religious group there was hierarchy, with small groups of elites totally controlling and manipulating the rest of the population using concepts like caste and class. A monotheistic religion like Islam assures its followers that they are all the same and there will be no internal structure.
But in practice things were different. There are major schisms between the two major groups within Islam (Shia and Sunni). In places like India, Islam has caste system like the rest of Indian society. In addition Islam played a major role in the slave trade in the Middle East and in Africa for well over 1200 years. Slaves played a major role in building and defending the Middle East. Slavery was only recently abolished in most Middle Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia and Yemen abolished slavery only in 1962 and Oman abolished slavery in 1970!!
Shah Jahan. Wikimedia Commons.
The Middle East today for the most part is run by immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines among others. Many of them are Muslims. These immigrants are treated like second class citizens and they have very few basic rights even after living legally in these countries for decades. So the promises of monotheism, in particular the concept of an universal brotherhood, is yet to be fulfilled.
Islam in India.
There was not a single major consolidated religion in India in the 7th century. In addition, no major empire existed in India at that time as well. The Gupta Empire for the most part ended in the 6th century and the Chalukya Empire and the Harsha Vardhana Empires were just beginning. The Harsha Vardhana Empire for the most part was a Central Indian Empire and the Chalukya encompassed modern day Maharashtra. They were smaller empires and did not belong in the same category as the Guptas or the Mughals. This was the perfect opportunity for Muslim invaders from the Middle East and places like Afghanistan to start making forays into the Indian sub-continent (It should be noted that many of the initial forays into India were at the behest of small Indian kingdoms who were trying to overcome each other and needed support).
This is not to suggest that Islam entered India by means of the sword. Trade played a major role in the growth of Islam in India. Monotheism and the appeal of universal brotherhood had a tremendous appeal to those Indians who were at the receiving end of the Indian caste system. Indian society (particularly South India) was also in a state of flux. Brahmanical religions, particularly Vaishavism started taking grip. Buddhism and Jainism were losing ground to the much more rigid and hierarchical Vedic religions.
Some Hindus today would say that the caste system was setup to manage society and divide work (like dividing work between Engineers and Doctors). People point to Lord Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita when discussing caste. But the fact is caste system existed in India long before that. The Bhagavad Gita is a text that was inserted into the ancient text known as the Mahabharata (There is no consensus on when the Gita was written or by whom). To complicate matters, the Mahabharata itself was written and compiled over several centuries.
My guess is that the caste system is a result of 65,000 years of human migration from Africa, Middle East and other places to India. The Indo-Europeans are one of the newer set of migrants to India (Many Brahmins, but definitely not all Brahmins are Indo-Europeans, and they sit on top of the Hindu hierarchy today. Their religion, which is the Vedic religion (the religion of the fire and horse) is the most dominant religion within Hinduism now. This is surprising considering that a vast majority of Hindus worship gods and follow traditions that have only the faintest of connections to the religion of the Vedas). Some Indians deny that the Indo-European migration ever took place. This is in spite evidence to the contrary from DNA testing of the Indian population.
The first Mosque in India.
As stated before, Islam came in India through traders and travelers starting in the 7th century. The first Mosque in India was supposedly built in the year 629 AD. The mosque was built in the town of Kodungallur in my home state of Kerala. I say “supposedly” because I do not believe this to be true. According to Islamic traditions, the Koran was written between the years 609 AD and 632 AD (the year Prophet Muhammad died). Is it possible that Islam came to Kerala, established itself, found enough followers to justify building a mosque, three years before the Koran was finalized and three years before Prophet Muhammad died? Possible but highly unlikely. Which scripture were they preaching in the mosque between 629 and 632?
All three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have tried to inject themselves into Indian history as early as they can. Some followers of Judaism believe that some members of the lost tribes traveled to India (this places Judaism in India over 2300 years ago). Some Christians in believe that Saint Thomas visited South India thousands of years ago (Saint Thomas is known as the Apostle of India). No evidence exists in contemporary Indian literature to prove any of this (The myth of Saint Thomas visiting South India was retracted by Pope Benedict in 2006).
Population of Muslims in India.
India’s Muslim population is the third-largest in the world. There are approximately 172 million Muslims in India, almost 10% of the entire Muslim population in the world. About 47% of Muslims in India live in the states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Assam. Muslims in India have a higher birthrates than other communities. This is seen as a problem among certain sections of Indian society. However, this conveniently ignores the fact that majority of Muslims in India are poor and the states they mostly live in, like the states mentioned above, are the problematic states for India in general. For example, the population growth rate among Hindus in Uttar Pradesh is much greater than that of Hindus in Kerala.
Muslim denominations in India.
Sunni and Shia branches of Islam are the major denominations among Muslims in India. Sunnis follow the Hanafi School of Islamic Law. The Barelvi movement follows the Hanafi School of Islamic Law. The name Barelvi is derived from the North Indian city of Bareilly (State of Uttar Pradesh). The movement was founded by Ahmed Razi Khan. The Barelvi believe in the Koran and the Sunnah (traditional practices and customs of Islamic society). But many of them also follow the Sunni “Sufi” orders (Sufism is Islamic mysticism. Sufism has a long history in India and blends well with Indian mysticism). It is believed that almost two thirds of Muslims in India today adhere to the Barelvi movement.
Shia Muslims, on the other hand, form about 13% of all Muslims in India. There are also small Muslim communities like Ahmadiyya, Khojas, and Sufis. The Khojas and the Ahmadiyya’s are groups within Islam that have Indian origins. Some orthodox Muslims consider these groups as heretical (The Indian government considers the Ahmadiyya as Muslims).
Islam’s contribution to India.
Islam is an essential part of India’s religious and cultural heritage for the past 1000 years. Although, small Muslim kingdoms existed in India starting in the 8th and 9th centuries, the real control started with the Delhi Sultanate and continued on with the Mughal Empire. The Delhi Sultanate was from 1206 to 1526 and the Mughal Empire from 1526 to 1857. The British Empire replaced the Mughal Empire. It can be argued that the Mughal Empire took India to heights never seen before or since.
The Europeans including the British, Dutch, Portuguese and French always looked at India as a place that they can exploit. They tried to squeeze as much as they can from India to benefit their citizens back home. The British East India Company pretty much ran India from 1700 to 1858. From 1858 to 1947, India was under direct British rule. From 1858 to 1947, India’s GDP grew at an annual rate of 0.55%. During this same period, Britain became one of the greatest empires in the history of the planet!! In 1820, India’s GDP was 16% of the world’s GDP. But when the British were kicked out of India in 1947, India’s GDP was only 4% of the world’s GDP.
On the other hand, the Muslim rulers were very invested in India. Most of them staked their future on India and had no plans to return anywhere. Many of them were born and brought up in India. They had no plans to take the revenue and send it some place else.
Obviously most of them enriched themselves, their family and friends, but that is no different than what many Indian politicians are doing today (It is also important to note that what the Mughals, the Delhi Sultanate and other Muslim rulers did was no different than what Shaivite, Vaishnavite or Hindu kings did to Indian society).
Interestingly, many Indians today look at the Europeans favorably when compared to those Muslim rulers who governed India successfully for centuries. Sometimes I feel that we Indians lack a sense of pride in our own history. We are proud of Chandragupta Maurya and Asoka (both of whom had Greek heritage) but not proud of Akbar, Shah Jahan or Tippu Sultan.
What are your thoughts on Islam and Muslims in India?
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