88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Tuesday, 23 February 2010 00:00 Circe
India has a deep, long cultural history. Hinduism began there around 1,500 BC and Buddhism around the 6th century BC. This culture had evolved impressive intellectual, religious and artistic pursuits. Pre and post the early days of Islam, Indian scholars took their works in science, maths (zero, algebra, geometry, the decimal system, so-called ‘Arabic’ numbers are actually Hindu ones!), medicine, philosophy etc to the courts of others (including Muslims eg Baghdad).
Others came to study in India’s established universities. Indian children (boys and girls) were educated in the relatively widespread education system in a wide variety of subjects eg science, medicine and philosophy. India’s art and architecture was magnificent. They were a prosperous people. Then came Islam - slaughter, slavery, rape, violence, pillage; destruction of religious sites, art and architecture; poverty, exploitation, humiliation, famine, forced conversion, decline in intellectual pursuits, social destruction and a worsening of social ills. To Islam, anything that is not Islamic is from a time of ignorance –Jahiliyya- and must be destroyed (or appropriated and called Islam’s!). The onslaught created the Roma (gypsies), destroyed ‘Hindu’ Afghanistan and formed Pakistan (Kashmir) and Bangladesh .
The cost of the Muslim invasions is massive in lives, wealth and culture. Estimates suggest that 60-80 MILLION died at the hands of Muslim invaders and rulers between 1000 and 1525 alone (ie over 500 years-the population FELL). (Lal cited in Khan p 216) Impossible you think? In the war of Independence of Bangladesh, 1971, the Muslim Pakistani army killed 1.5-3 million people (mainly Muslims ...) in just 9 MONTHS. (Khan p 216). The world looked the other way—but don’t we always when it’s Muslims committing the violence!
Based on the figures that are available, the number of Indians enslaved is enormous!
Three articles cover India: Part I concentrates on slavery while parts J and K examine the Islamic jihad against India not as a list of battles but as a record of the need by pious Muslims to exterminate idolatry and polytheism and make India ‘Muslim’ as expressed in their own memoirs and the writings of Muslim historians.
The Muslim conquest of India was probably the bloodiest in history:
The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with utmost glee and pride of the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave-markets, and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by the sword in this period” (historian Durant cited in Khan p 201)
And Rizwan Salim (1997) writes what the Arab invaders really did:
‘ savages at a very low level of civilisation and no culture worth the name, from Arabia and West Asia, began entering India from the early century onwards. Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples, shattered uncountable sculpture and idols, plundered innumerable forts and palaces of Hindu kings, killed vast numbers of Hindu men and carried off Hindu women. .........but many Indians do not seem to recognize that the alien Muslim marauders destroyed the historical evolution of the earth’s most mentally advanced civilisation, the most richly imaginative culture, and the most vigorously creative society.” (cited in Khan p 179)
Of course Indians pre-Islam, fought, but it was NOT the practice to enslave or ravage, or massacre, or destroy religious sites, or damage crops and farmers. Battles were usually conducted on open soil between military personnel. (Khan p 205-207) There was no concept of ‘booty’ so Indians were unprepared for Islam’s onslaught. Indigenous Indians were forced to flee to jungles and mountains, or face gruelling exploitation and taxes, slaughter or enslavement while their society was demeaned and destroyed. Muslims constantly attacked the indigenous, idolatrous population and also fought against each other in ceaseless revolts by generals, chiefs and princes during the entire time of Islamic rule (Khan p 205).
Slavery: Initially ‘India’ included part of today’s Pakistan (Sindh), Bangladesh/Bengal and Kashmir. Hinduism and Buddhism flourished in Afghanistan pre the Islamic takeover (7th century). In the 16th century Afghanistan was divided between the Muslim Mogul (Mughal) Empire of India and the Safavids of Persia.
Initially the godless Umayyads, allowed Hindus dhimmi status – possibly because of their large numbers, resistance to Islam and their value as a source of tax income. This violates Islamic text and law which demands death or conversion for idolaters and polytheists. When Sultan Iltutmish (d 1236) was asked why Hindus weren’t given the choice between death and Islam, he replied:
“but at the moment in India...the Muslims are so few that they are like salt (in a large dish) ...however after a few years when in the capital and the regions and all the small towns, when the Muslims are well established and the troops are larger....it would be possible to give Hindus the choice of death or Islam” (cited in Lal [c] p 538) (Can we learn anything from this???)
Despite their supposed ‘dhimmi’ status, mass slaughter, mass forced conversion and mass enslavement with the resulting forced conversion to Islam were practised throughout Islamic rule and into the 20th century as many demanded the idolaters/polytheists convert or die. Hindu fighters and males were slaughtered with women and children enslaved. Eunuch slavery was practised on young boys.
Often actual numbers aren’t given, just comments like ‘countless captives/slaves,’ or ‘all the women and children were taken.’ Where numbers are recorded, they are terrifying. Along with people, the Muslims took everything they could—coins, jewels, cloths, clothes, furniture, idols, animals, grain etc or destroyed it.
Muslim rulers were foreigners. Until the 13th century, most slaves were sent out of India but following the Sultanate of Delhi (1206) they were retained to work for the sultanate, sold in India or sent elsewhere. Slaves from elsewhere were imported and Muslim armies were composed of a wide array of foreign slave groups ‘converted’ to Islam and ‘Hindus’ and Indian ‘converts.’
Slaves were the promised booty from allah and obtaining them was a strong motivation for jihad.
“slaves were so plentiful that they became very cheap; men...were degraded....but this is the goodness of god, who bestows honours on his own religion and degrades infidelity”. (Muslim chronicler Utbi on Sultan Subuktigin of Ghazni’s slave raid [942-997] in Sookdheo p166)
In Sindh (first area attacked successfully) the early ‘Muslim’ community was composed mainly of slaves forced into Islam and a small number of Arab masters (Khan p 299). Initially slaves were forced out of India eg Qasim (Arab), the conquerer of Sindh sent by Hajjaj bin Yusuf Sakifi in the caliphate of Walid I, took 300,000 from a 3 year campaign in 712-715 (Khan p 299, Trifkovic p 109). Muslim fighters came from everywhere to partake in this ‘jihad.’ Qasim was suddenly recalled and executed (possibly by being sown in an animal’s hide) for supposedly violating 2 Sindhi princesses destined for the caliph’s harem!!(Lal [c] p 439)
Many raids taking slaves were carried out under various caliphs in the 8th and 9th century.
The Ghaznivids-Turks from Ghazni, Afghanistan (997-1206) who subdued the Punjab.
From 17 raids (997-1030) Sultan Muhmud Ghazni (Turk from Afghanistan, 997-1030) sent hundreds of thousands of slaves to Ghanzi (Afghanistan) resulting in a loss of about 2 million people via slaughter or enslavement and sale outside India (Khan p 315). Chroniclers (eg Utbi, the sultan’s secretary) provide some numbers eg -from Thanesar, the Muslim army brought 200,000 captives back to Ghazni (Afghanistan). In 1019, 53,000 were taken. At one time the caliph’s 1/5th share was 150,000 suggesting 750,000 captives. 500,000 were taken in one campaign (at Waihind)(Lal [c] p 551) Mahmud’s secretary al-Utbi records:
“Swords flashed like lightening amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting star. The friends of god defeated their opponents....the Musalmans wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of god killing 15,000 of them...making them food of the beasts and birds of prey....god also bestowed on his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and calculations, including 500,000 slaves beautiful men and women” (Khan p 191)
The Ghaznivid’s ruled in the ‘Islamic sultanate of the Punjab’ till 1186. Attacks in Kashmir, Hansi, and districts of the Punjab resulted in mass slaughter and enslavement eg 100,000 in a 1079 attack in the Punjab (Tarik –i-Alfi in Khan p 276-7, Lal [d] p 553).
The Gaurivid invasion: The Delhi Sultanate 1206-1526) Turks who conquered northwestern India, and the Gangetic valley.
1)Under the Ghaurivid rulers (Turks) eg Muhammad Ghauri (Afghani) and his military commander then ruler, Qutbuddin Aibak (r1206-1210), the Delhi sultanate was set up. Mass beheadings, enslavements, forced conversions, plunder and the destruction of temples continued. Slaves were incredibly plentiful. In 1195, Aibak took 20,000 slaves from Raja Bhim and 50,000 at Kalinjar (1202) (Lal [c] p 536).
“even the poor (Muslim) householder became owner of numerous slaves.’ (Khan 103, Lal [c] p 537).
Following the formation of the Delhi Sultanate (1206) slavery and attacks across India escalated from the Delhi base. Slave trading centres operated in India selling slaves to merchants and ordinary Muslims. Slaves could be taken anywhere. While 1/5 of the booty including slaves was nolonger automatically sent to the caliph, slaves were still sent at times to Caliphs and other prominent Muslims and as gifts eg to China.
2) Sultan Iltutmish (d 1236) continued to enslave and force Islam onto slaves (Lal [c] p 538). The ‘slave’ commander Ulugh Khan Balban (1250s-1260s) took so many captives they ‘couldn’t be counted.’ A chronicler records –
“all the infidel’s wives, sons and dependents...and children ..fell into the hands of the victors.” (Chronicler in Lal [c] p 538)
At Katehar, Balban ordered a general massacre of the male population OVER 8 years of age and carried away women and children (Lal [c] p 539).
Throughout ‘Hindustan’ towns and villages were raided, people enslaved in droves. Hindus returned to villages decimated by fire and sword but the Turkish Muslim armies returned (Lal [c] p 539). Slaves were lost forever!
3) Rule by the Kiljis (1290-1320) and Tughlaqs (1320- 1413).
Through the 13/14th century ruled by the Khilji (Khaljis) and Tughlaq’s, slavery grew as Islam spread. Thousands of slaves were sold at a low price everyday (Khan p 280). Alauddin Khilji’s (r 1296-1316) capture of slaves was stupendous and he shackled, chained and humiliated slaves (Lal [c] p 540). In the sack of Somnath alone he:
“took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 and children of both sexes ..more than the pen can enumerate. The Mohammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, destroyed the lives of inhabitants, and plundered the cities and captured their offspring.” (historian cited in Bostom p 641, Lal [c] p 540)
Many thousands were massacred. Alauddin Khilji (r 1296-1316) had 50,000 slave BOYS in his personal service and 70,000 slaves worked continuously on his buildings.(Lal [c] p 541)
Women practised Jauhar (burning or killing oneself to avoid enslavement and rape) and sati.
Others came to study in India’s established universities. Indian children (boys and girls) were educated in the relatively widespread education system in a wide variety of subjects eg science, medicine and philosophy. India’s art and architecture was magnificent. They were a prosperous people. Then came Islam - slaughter, slavery, rape, violence, pillage; destruction of religious sites, art and architecture; poverty, exploitation, humiliation, famine, forced conversion, decline in intellectual pursuits, social destruction and a worsening of social ills. To Islam, anything that is not Islamic is from a time of ignorance –Jahiliyya- and must be destroyed (or appropriated and called Islam’s!). The onslaught created the Roma (gypsies), destroyed ‘Hindu’ Afghanistan and formed Pakistan (Kashmir) and Bangladesh .
The cost of the Muslim invasions is massive in lives, wealth and culture. Estimates suggest that 60-80 MILLION died at the hands of Muslim invaders and rulers between 1000 and 1525 alone (ie over 500 years-the population FELL). (Lal cited in Khan p 216) Impossible you think? In the war of Independence of Bangladesh, 1971, the Muslim Pakistani army killed 1.5-3 million people (mainly Muslims ...) in just 9 MONTHS. (Khan p 216). The world looked the other way—but don’t we always when it’s Muslims committing the violence!
Based on the figures that are available, the number of Indians enslaved is enormous!
Three articles cover India: Part I concentrates on slavery while parts J and K examine the Islamic jihad against India not as a list of battles but as a record of the need by pious Muslims to exterminate idolatry and polytheism and make India ‘Muslim’ as expressed in their own memoirs and the writings of Muslim historians.
The Muslim conquest of India was probably the bloodiest in history:
The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with utmost glee and pride of the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave-markets, and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by the sword in this period” (historian Durant cited in Khan p 201)
And Rizwan Salim (1997) writes what the Arab invaders really did:
‘ savages at a very low level of civilisation and no culture worth the name, from Arabia and West Asia, began entering India from the early century onwards. Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples, shattered uncountable sculpture and idols, plundered innumerable forts and palaces of Hindu kings, killed vast numbers of Hindu men and carried off Hindu women. .........but many Indians do not seem to recognize that the alien Muslim marauders destroyed the historical evolution of the earth’s most mentally advanced civilisation, the most richly imaginative culture, and the most vigorously creative society.” (cited in Khan p 179)
Of course Indians pre-Islam, fought, but it was NOT the practice to enslave or ravage, or massacre, or destroy religious sites, or damage crops and farmers. Battles were usually conducted on open soil between military personnel. (Khan p 205-207) There was no concept of ‘booty’ so Indians were unprepared for Islam’s onslaught. Indigenous Indians were forced to flee to jungles and mountains, or face gruelling exploitation and taxes, slaughter or enslavement while their society was demeaned and destroyed. Muslims constantly attacked the indigenous, idolatrous population and also fought against each other in ceaseless revolts by generals, chiefs and princes during the entire time of Islamic rule (Khan p 205).
Slavery: Initially ‘India’ included part of today’s Pakistan (Sindh), Bangladesh/Bengal and Kashmir. Hinduism and Buddhism flourished in Afghanistan pre the Islamic takeover (7th century). In the 16th century Afghanistan was divided between the Muslim Mogul (Mughal) Empire of India and the Safavids of Persia.
“but at the moment in India...the Muslims are so few that they are like salt (in a large dish) ...however after a few years when in the capital and the regions and all the small towns, when the Muslims are well established and the troops are larger....it would be possible to give Hindus the choice of death or Islam” (cited in Lal [c] p 538) (Can we learn anything from this???)
Despite their supposed ‘dhimmi’ status, mass slaughter, mass forced conversion and mass enslavement with the resulting forced conversion to Islam were practised throughout Islamic rule and into the 20th century as many demanded the idolaters/polytheists convert or die. Hindu fighters and males were slaughtered with women and children enslaved. Eunuch slavery was practised on young boys.
Often actual numbers aren’t given, just comments like ‘countless captives/slaves,’ or ‘all the women and children were taken.’ Where numbers are recorded, they are terrifying. Along with people, the Muslims took everything they could—coins, jewels, cloths, clothes, furniture, idols, animals, grain etc or destroyed it.
Muslim rulers were foreigners. Until the 13th century, most slaves were sent out of India but following the Sultanate of Delhi (1206) they were retained to work for the sultanate, sold in India or sent elsewhere. Slaves from elsewhere were imported and Muslim armies were composed of a wide array of foreign slave groups ‘converted’ to Islam and ‘Hindus’ and Indian ‘converts.’
Slaves were the promised booty from allah and obtaining them was a strong motivation for jihad.
“slaves were so plentiful that they became very cheap; men...were degraded....but this is the goodness of god, who bestows honours on his own religion and degrades infidelity”. (Muslim chronicler Utbi on Sultan Subuktigin of Ghazni’s slave raid [942-997] in Sookdheo p166)
In Sindh (first area attacked successfully) the early ‘Muslim’ community was composed mainly of slaves forced into Islam and a small number of Arab masters (Khan p 299). Initially slaves were forced out of India eg Qasim (Arab), the conquerer of Sindh sent by Hajjaj bin Yusuf Sakifi in the caliphate of Walid I, took 300,000 from a 3 year campaign in 712-715 (Khan p 299, Trifkovic p 109). Muslim fighters came from everywhere to partake in this ‘jihad.’ Qasim was suddenly recalled and executed (possibly by being sown in an animal’s hide) for supposedly violating 2 Sindhi princesses destined for the caliph’s harem!!(Lal [c] p 439)
Many raids taking slaves were carried out under various caliphs in the 8th and 9th century.
The Ghaznivids-Turks from Ghazni, Afghanistan (997-1206) who subdued the Punjab.
From 17 raids (997-1030) Sultan Muhmud Ghazni (Turk from Afghanistan, 997-1030) sent hundreds of thousands of slaves to Ghanzi (Afghanistan) resulting in a loss of about 2 million people via slaughter or enslavement and sale outside India (Khan p 315). Chroniclers (eg Utbi, the sultan’s secretary) provide some numbers eg -from Thanesar, the Muslim army brought 200,000 captives back to Ghazni (Afghanistan). In 1019, 53,000 were taken. At one time the caliph’s 1/5th share was 150,000 suggesting 750,000 captives. 500,000 were taken in one campaign (at Waihind)(Lal [c] p 551) Mahmud’s secretary al-Utbi records:
“Swords flashed like lightening amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting star. The friends of god defeated their opponents....the Musalmans wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of god killing 15,000 of them...making them food of the beasts and birds of prey....god also bestowed on his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and calculations, including 500,000 slaves beautiful men and women” (Khan p 191)
The Ghaznivid’s ruled in the ‘Islamic sultanate of the Punjab’ till 1186. Attacks in Kashmir, Hansi, and districts of the Punjab resulted in mass slaughter and enslavement eg 100,000 in a 1079 attack in the Punjab (Tarik –i-Alfi in Khan p 276-7, Lal [d] p 553).
The Gaurivid invasion: The Delhi Sultanate 1206-1526) Turks who conquered northwestern India, and the Gangetic valley.
1)Under the Ghaurivid rulers (Turks) eg Muhammad Ghauri (Afghani) and his military commander then ruler, Qutbuddin Aibak (r1206-1210), the Delhi sultanate was set up. Mass beheadings, enslavements, forced conversions, plunder and the destruction of temples continued. Slaves were incredibly plentiful. In 1195, Aibak took 20,000 slaves from Raja Bhim and 50,000 at Kalinjar (1202) (Lal [c] p 536).
“even the poor (Muslim) householder became owner of numerous slaves.’ (Khan 103, Lal [c] p 537).
2) Sultan Iltutmish (d 1236) continued to enslave and force Islam onto slaves (Lal [c] p 538). The ‘slave’ commander Ulugh Khan Balban (1250s-1260s) took so many captives they ‘couldn’t be counted.’ A chronicler records –
“all the infidel’s wives, sons and dependents...and children ..fell into the hands of the victors.” (Chronicler in Lal [c] p 538)
At Katehar, Balban ordered a general massacre of the male population OVER 8 years of age and carried away women and children (Lal [c] p 539).
Throughout ‘Hindustan’ towns and villages were raided, people enslaved in droves. Hindus returned to villages decimated by fire and sword but the Turkish Muslim armies returned (Lal [c] p 539). Slaves were lost forever!
3) Rule by the Kiljis (1290-1320) and Tughlaqs (1320- 1413).
Through the 13/14th century ruled by the Khilji (Khaljis) and Tughlaq’s, slavery grew as Islam spread. Thousands of slaves were sold at a low price everyday (Khan p 280). Alauddin Khilji’s (r 1296-1316) capture of slaves was stupendous and he shackled, chained and humiliated slaves (Lal [c] p 540). In the sack of Somnath alone he:
“took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 and children of both sexes ..more than the pen can enumerate. The Mohammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, destroyed the lives of inhabitants, and plundered the cities and captured their offspring.” (historian cited in Bostom p 641, Lal [c] p 540)
Many thousands were massacred. Alauddin Khilji (r 1296-1316) had 50,000 slave BOYS in his personal service and 70,000 slaves worked continuously on his buildings.(Lal [c] p 541)
Women practised Jauhar (burning or killing oneself to avoid enslavement and rape) and sati.
I FORGOT THAT islam created the caste system..
