The Golden Era of Mughal Rule
(Chapter 12)
Mughal Rule lasted in India just about 250 years but the Muslim leaders stretch it to 1000 years which is the timing of the Turkish Ottoman Empire not the Mughal Empire.
Mughals were Chugtai Turks. They spoke Chugtai Turk. Their official Court biographies were initially written in Chugtai Turkish. Later they started using Persian and eventually Hindvi or Hindustani.
The British translators however gave them the name “Mughal.” They were keen to indianise them. Mughal sounded like a name from India not Uzbekistan. Cartographers were not to be left behind. To support the renaming they renamed part of central Asia as Mughalistan. No inhabitant of that area call himself as resident of Mughalistan.
H.G. Keene a British employee referred to the Mughal as Tamarinds which would have shown their foreign origin as descendant of Taimur. This was also not acceptable.
It however does not change one fact. Robbery, rape, pillage, plunder and murder of non-combatant civilians are the grand features of an Islamic war. As per Al Quran non Muslims are less than four legged animals, the obvious fall out is that their life matters less than animals. (see verse 47.12, 8.55 and 4.89) Mughals were no exception.
Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. Schadenfreude is a complex emotion where, rather than feeling sympathy, one takes pleasure from watching someone’s misfortune. Unfortunately the invaders displayed the symptoms of schadenfreude when they were not being cruel. It appears the invading Muslims, as they inflict injury and pain upon Kafirs suffer from Schadenfreude. Does the same psychology govern those who execute ‘Sar Tan Se Juda?’ (See Chapter 10)
Always at War
Muslims were as much invaders of India as they were in wars among the Muslims themselves. This fact has remained hidden because the invaders are all lumped together as Muslims without distinction. But as a matter of fact, they were Tartars (Turks), Afghans and Mongols. Muhammad of Ghazni was a Tartar, Mahommed of Ghori was an Afghan, Taimur was a Mongol, Babar was a Tartar, while Nadirshah and Ahmadshah Abdalli were Afghans. In invading India, the Afghan was out to destroy the Tartar and the Mongol was out to destroy the Tartar as well as the Afghan. They were not a loving family cemented by the feeling of Islamic brotherhood. They were deadly brutal rivals of one another and their wars were often wars of mutual extermination.
Fast forward the previous century, the army of Saddam Hussain repeats this in Kuwait in 1990 and later the curtsey was reciprocated in Iraq. Frisk sums up in very few words:
“ What was one to think when one walked, as I did, through the smoking embers of the National Museum, fired by the Iraqis on Tuesday? Or the gutted interior of the parliament? Or the still burning library in the Sief Palace—its magnificent golden clock tower smashed by a tank shell— when I found, lying on a chair, the remains of a book published by the government of India, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi? What kind of people burn museums and libraries? Fast-forward. Would I not be writing these same words, 800 kilometres north of here, in Baghdad, in almost exactly twelve years from now?
Outside the museum, Kuwait’s collection of antique wooden boats had been burned to cinders. The “Islamic house” lay in ruins. The walls of the emir of Kuwait’s Dasman Palace were torn down with explosions and bulldozers. The Iraqis used tanks to shoot at the parliament. The great hotels had been systematically fired. The Iraqis planted explosives in the bedrooms of the Meridien. It was like a medieval army that conquered, looted and then burned even on an individual level. Boat owners found their yachts stolen or sunk in the marinas. Shopkeepers found their stores burned if they could not be looted.”
Now Pakistan is repeating the same in Afghanistan, it’s fellow Islamic country. But it chose to create a proxy to do it and named it Taliban which means students. What an innocent name for a cruel barbarian force. But that is what the politicians of Islam had been doing for last 1400 years. That is to give new name to same old phenomenon of invasion, robbery, plunder and destruction. They destroyed Bamian Budhha without blinking an eye and now they blame Pakistan for it.
To take what is not yours is human greed but why destroy beauty and art without any logic?
This is what invaders into India did. They burned down the libraries of Universities like Taxila and Naland, robbed temples from Som Nath to Vishnu temple in Delhi (Kutub), Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, Ram Lallla Temple in Ayodhya to count a few. It is estimated that 40,000 temples were destroyed. Even the Akbar built towers with skeletons of those killed in pillage to instill terror in the minds of masses. Akbar did become moderate in later life but that does not undo what he did earlier. There is a royal painting of Aurungzeb with a tower of human carrions in the background. Official painter of the court must have painted it.
While clergy and politicians tell the crowds of Muslims that their ancestors ruled this country, they forget to admit about the pillage, carnage, and brutality of that rule. Of course the invaders were of different ethnicity but then intoxication of ‘Peace’ would not work effectively.
Buildings in Golden Era
There is not a single building built during reign of ‘Peace’ which may serve the people. Be it a library, hospital, school or toilet. The only buildings they built were their palaces, harem for women and mausoleums for the dead. The last one is prohibited in Islam of Arab. No Mauloleum of any King or ruler can be found in Arabia. Prophet is the only exception for whom a green-coloured dome has been built.
So much for following the Islam to its spirit. But such examples are a plenty.
Brutality and Destruction
The tale of brutality and destruction during Islamic rule is recorded by court historians in graphic details. These were originally written in Chugtai Turkish language and were meticulously translated into English by the British. Presently all these translations are available on Archive.Org. The biography of Babur is called Baburnama, that of Akbar is called Akbarnama, Jahangir’s Jahangirnama and so on. Auranzeb’s biography was written after his death. It is called AHKAM‐I‐ALAMGIRI and Jadunath Sarkar has compiled ‘Anecdotes of Auranzeb’ from this book to show glimpse of his tyrannical rule. He sums up the beginning or the reign of Auranzeb:
“In April, 1669 he ordered the provincial governors to “destroy all the temples and schools of the infidels and toutterly put down their teachings and religious practices.” The wandering Hindu saint Uddhav Bairagi was confined in the police lock‐up. The Vishwanath temple at Benares was pulled down in August 1669. The grandest shrine of Mathura, Kesav Raiʹs temple, built at a cost of 33 lakhs of Rupees by the Bundela Rajah Birsingh Dev, was razed to the ground in January, 1670, and a mosque built on its site. “The idols of this temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of Jahanaraʹs mosque that they might be constantly trodden on” by the Muslims going in to pray. About this time the temple of Somnath on the south coast of the Kathiawar peninsula was demolished, and the offering of worship there ordered to be stopped. The smaller religious buildings that suffered havoc were beyond count. The Rajput War of 1679‐80 was accompanied by the destruction of 240 temples in Mewar alone, including the famous one of Someshwar and three grand ones at Udaipur. In the loyal State of Jaipur 67 temples were demolished. On 2nd April, 1679, the jazia or poll‐tax on non‐Muslims was revived. The poor people who appealed to the Emperor and blocked a road abjectly crying for its remission, were trampled down by elephants at his order and dispersed. By another ordinance (March, 1695), “all Hindus except Rajputs were forbidden to carry arms or ride elephants, palkis, or Arab and Persian horses.”
“With one stroke of his pen he dismissed all the Hindu clerks from office.” Custom duties were abolished on the Muslims and doubled on the Hindus.
Following is another example of his justice:
“During the siege of the fort of Satara, in the blessed month of Ramzan, four Muslims and nine Hindus out of a party that had made a sortie from the fort, were taken prisoner. The Emperor ordered Qazi Muhammad Akram, the Court Qazi, to investigate the question with the help of the muftis and report as to what should be done. After examining (the books of Canon Law), he told the Emperor that if the infidels accepted Muhammadanism it would be a ground for releasing them, and that the Muslims should be kept in prison for three years.
Across the sheet of the legal opinion His Majesty wrote, “This decision (is) according to the Hanafi school; decide the case according to some other school, so that control over the kingdom may not be lost. Ours is not the rigid Shia creed, that there should be only one tree in an entire village. * Praised be God! there are four schools (of Sunni theology) based on truth, (each) according to a particular age and time.”
After he had written this, the qazi and muftis pronounced another decision, saying, “From the Fatawa‐i‐Alamgiri we derive the sentence that the Hindu and Muslim (prisoners of war) should be executed as a deterrent.” The Emperor wrote, “I agree to it. They must be executed before I break the fast (of Ramzan, at sunset), for I shall not break my fast till I have seen the (severed) heads of the rebels.” So, Muharram Khan, with the help of Sarbarah Khan kotwal, about sunset brought the heads and placed them before the Emperor in the court of justice.”
For an enemy, even conversion to Islam was not an option during the reign of Aurangzeb.
This was the golden rule of Islam in India. The worst part is that in this rule, even Muslims were discriminated against based on the nature of their profession. That will be discussed in next Chapter 13.
References:
- HG Keene: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Mughal-Empire-Hindustan-Annotated-ebook/dp/B07ZBJRM3W
- Caste based Discrimination: https://www.newageislam.com/books-documents/masood-alam-falahi-tr-new-age-islam/caste-caste-based-discrimination-among-indian-muslims-part-9-evidence-mughal-period/d/3658
- See all chapters on Modern Jihad: https://sandeepbhalla.in/tag/modern-jihad/