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Ok mr @kvpakIt's funny to see a moron like you put a quote, from Bhagat Singh in your signature.
Protesters assault Sanjay Leela Bhansali at ‘Padmavati’ set
- Thread starter The Eagle
- Start date
Ok, let's get serious.
Can you cite a single work of scholarship published in some reputable journal (such as Journal of Archaeological Research, Indian Journal of Archaeology) that supports the story of Padmavati? Maybe the discovery of an authentic stone tablet or manuscript that records the event? Or the discovery and subsequent exhumation of her body (as was done for Richard III last year)?
Let's make it easier - suppose you do and let's say it is a proven fact.
What's wrong with Bhansali making up a fictionalised account of it? He's not a historian and he's not claiming his movie is a historical fact. If his story is absurd nobody will watch it. Simple as that. By that logic Bollywood and Hollywood should stop making movies that are not 100% certified genuine fact.
First they took the two most beautiful & polished Hindu box office superstars of recent times, & made a movie to push a proven fictitious story of an arranged cum love marriage style syncretic romance. This was complete with tacky sets, bad Urdu in speech & song, almost no reference to the actual socio-political dynamics of the time & a completely made-up villain.
The points of discussion were predictably the stars’ onscreen chemistry & designer clothes & how it would help them break the international market (though that didn’t occur for the poor, co-opted *challenger* to the Khan cinematic hegemony). Did this bear any resemblance to the stocky, Mongoloid homicidal maniac Akbar & the whole cloth creation Jodha Bai? None. But the point was not *historicity*, anyway, since Bharat’s history has been largely written by invaders and post-independence, by the compromised.
The completely fictional story of Akbar and Jodha Bai has been used since time immemorial, to glorify Akbar as a secular, tolerant monarch & to gloss over Bharat’s partial conquest by an upstart branch of Chengiz Khan’s Mongols, owing to bitter infighting and inability of the then leadership, to look beyond their petty quarrels to unite and fight a common, larger than life, history-altering enemy. But it is the most persistent fiction of a Mughal emperor marrying a Hindu princess, and her being important enough in an age of 500 women in one harem, to be remembered and celebrated.
From here starts the cynical money trail.
Next, they picked the story of a syncretic romance between one of late medieval Bharat’s most famous warrior icons (who also happened to be a Brahmin) & the illegitimate daughter of a Rajput king. What was one of several chapters in an eventful, adventurous life, was blown up into a lesson about the purity of love regardless of religion, its subsequent conjugal acceptability & therefore, a subtle promulgation of inter-religious love in designer anarkali kurtas & statement eyebrows & lips on its leading lady. Ranveer Singh’s moustachioed, intense face became an icon for Hindu males, ever ready to conflate Bajrangi with Bhaijan, and the anti-Brahmin theme of the movie, refusing to accept the child of this union as a Hindu, was the sort of ghar wapsi antidote/ counter argument needed in these interesting times. Hindus and Muslims marrying for love (or falling in love after marriage) while there was a genocide on – well, *history* said so! It didn’t matter what were the sources of this history, which point of view, which version, which provenance.
A happy consequence was that the Rajputs were now not Sangram Singh & Maharana Pratap, battle-scarred vajras of Indra, but effete partners of the Mughaliya sultanate in pearl earrings. The invaders were now more macho than the Rajputs who were ready to kill or be killed for their honour.
Flush with success, they started to pick their brains about which irredeemable villain to redeem next. Aurangzeb needs a 180 degree redemption but apart from cinematic narrative issues, he’s largely known for his humiliation by the charismatic, larger-than-life Hindu icon Shivaji Maharaj. Shah Jahan’s debauched life story is missing a Hindu female lead, Jahangir wafts by on drugs and booze while making a mushy movie on Babur might win the BJP the UP elections and 2019.Tughlaq is shorthand for gross incompetence and on the whole, the Mamluks weren’t wild about female companions.
But there WAS one story that had a Muslim man and a Hindu woman and a LOT of syncretic possibility, along with the Rajasthani setting that allows runaway costume and choreography budgets.
Which brings me to the angle that was to be taken here.
Modern love (even that portrayed in Bombaiyya movies) is now very different, in keeping with a largely young, socially mobile & relatively affluent population. Availability of vast choice adds sexual attraction as the predominant element to entertainment made for this audience. It helps that their NCERT history text books mirror the *history* of these revisionist movies, and they’re conditioned to be Liberal in values (with a capital L, signifying ideology).
Several filmmakers have pushed the artistic, PG13 envelope recently regarding portrayal of man-woman relationships, and smouldering glances are as much an integral part of a movie as are faux Sufi music with lyrics picked off the backs of trucks. Lust, as Bhansali’s punny Ramleela established, was a genuine, identifiable emotion (whether or not combined with Love), pulling in potent box office esp. when the leads were attractive and comfortable with each other onscreen.
The most famous version of the story of doomed Ratan Singh and his wife, the peerless beauty Padmini, was told by Malik Muhammed Jayesi in his Awadhi poem, Padmavat. It’s a fictionalised version of the siege of Chittor by Alauddin Khilji, one of the most irredeemably bloodthirsty and repulsive tyrants ever to gain control of Bharatavarsha. Padmavati, married to Ratansen, is celebrated in countless stories of her matchless beauty & piety; one of these stories is carried to Khilji by an exiled, vengeful bard to incite lust and the madness of possession in the tyrant. Predictably the siege turns bloody. Ratan Singh ties the kesariya safa on his head, indicating fight unto death, and leaves the fort with a depleted band. Behind him, the entire female population of the kingdom, led by its jewel and the cause of the siege, jump into a fire to avoid falling into the hands of the invading forces. Their fate, were they left alive, would be exactly the same as that of the Yazidi slave women of ISIS today.
Bingo, this story made sense then! It’s the Twilight recipe for success. A stalker hero, a gorgeous, unattainable woman, an ineffective third wheel husband and this situation could mirror ‘Lunchbox’? The Nanavati case? Just about any newspaper headline or even, the breakup of its famous, attractive stars. Many themes in the Padmavat resonate with the Ramayana. This however, is a conscienceless, consequenceless retelling of history. The poet couldn’t make Khilji any more than the straight up villain he was, with no shades of grey. But the carefully picked cast gets it.
The actor playing Khilji described him as an anti-hero with *shades of grey*,indicating he was behind the director and his vision; it was echoed by Ms. Padukone, who abandoned her graduate studies mid-way to focus on her career, a point overlooked by the supportive historians who decry anyone objecting to these *historical* movies for being not well read enough. Mr. Singh capitalised off his Baji Rao persona to reign in 2016, but that he – in fact both of them – are willing to stake their *brand* on this movie, says a lot about them as actors, individuals, and their desire to be part of a post-modern narrative whitewash. The further softening of public sentiment towards irrational longing or even lust, as the *visionary conqueror* (as referred to, by an Indian Express historian) mopes about in brocade peshwaz, singing bad Urdu songs in Arijit Singh’s voice, to a woman he can’t have because her religion and backward traditions (and an evil Brahmin or two) prohibits her from entertaining his advances.
The first invading wave of bloodthirsty Turkic slave-marauders also brought with them biographers & hagiographers who – unlike Hindus who kept their histories largely oral & carefully handed down as a mix of allegories so as to not attract attention & destruction – were bold and meticulous in their recording of their masters’ various exploits. From the 10th century onwards, the history of invasions of this divided country were closely documented, painted, circulated & preserved. This meant countless sources, but as we have already seen, History and an Alternate Retelling of History from Several Points of View from Locals, are two different beasts, specially when it comes to pushing the narrative of love conquering all, especially a Muslim man/ woman who is ready to kill or be killed, for your sorry, backward, orthodox, religion-above-love behind.
Next up, Baz Bahadur & Roopmati. Brace yourselves.
Islamic Invasion Of India: The Greatest Genocide In History
Muslim historian Firishta [full name Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah, born in 1560 and died in 1620], the author of the Tarikh-i Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahim, was the first to give an idea to the medieval bloodbath that was India during Muslim rule, when he declared that over 400 million Hindus got slaughtered during Muslim invasion and occupation of India. Survivors got enslaved and castrated. India’s population is said to have been around 600 million at the time of Muslim invasion. By the mid 1500’s the Hindu population was 200 million.
By the time the British arrived to the shores of India and after centuries of Islamic law ruling India, the Hindu population was not behaving like their normal self; they were behaving like Muslims. There are many witness reports from the British archives of horrendous Hindu incidents that were shocking in cruelty to the British – and they therefore sometimes referred to the people as “savages”. Yes, anyone who gets contaminated by the association with Islamic ‘culture’ truly gets tainted and savaged. That is exactly why it is so detrimental and dangerous.
Today, like other cultures with a soul massacred by Islam, India is not truly a Hindu nation. India is a shadow of Islam, a Hindufied version of Islam, where every human atrocity has been emulated and adopted into a culture previously alien to such brutality. And in association with it’s foreign mohamedan pest, these Islamic habits have become adopted and accepted as a “normal” part of Indian culture. But if we look at pre-Islamic Indian culture it was a in general a benevolent culture of knowledge and learning, much more so than it is today.
From the time of the Umayyad Dynasty (711AD) to the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar (1858), so widely praised as great leaders by Indian historians themselves, entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindus skulls. Thus, the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. “Hindu slaughter.”
The Mughal Empire’s spread and occupation of India.
The genocide suffered by the Hindus and Sikhs of India at the hands of Arab, Turkish, Mughal and Afghan occupying forces for a period of 800 years is as yet formally unrecognised by the World.
The only similar genocide in the recent past was that of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis.
The holocaust of the Hindus in India was of even greater proportions, the only difference was that it continued for 800 years, till the brutal regimes were effectively overpowered in a life and death struggle by the Sikhs in the Punjab and the Hindu Maratha armies in other parts of India in the late 1700’s.
We have elaborate literary evidence of the World’s biggest holocaust from existing historical contemporary eyewitness accounts. The historians and biographers of the invading armies and subsequent rulers of India have left quite detailed records of the atrocities they committed in their day-to-day encounters with India’s Hindus.
Paintings by Edwin Lord Weeks.
These contemporary records boasted about and glorified the crimes that were committed – and the genocide of tens of millions of Hindus, mass rapes of Hindu women and the destruction of thousands of ancient Hindu / Buddhist temples and libraries have been well documented and provide solid proof of the World’s biggest holocaust.
Dr. Koenraad Elst in his article “Was There an Islamic Genocide of Hindus?” states:
“There is no official estimate of the total death toll of Hindus at the hands of Islam. A first glance at important testimonies by Muslim chroniclers suggests that, over 13 centuries and a territory as vast as the Subcontinent, Muslim Holy Warriors easily killed more Hindus than the 6 million of the Holocaust. Ferishtha lists several occasions when the Bahmani sultans in central India (1347-1528) killed a hundred thousand Hindus, which they set as a minimum goal whenever they felt like punishing the Hindus; and they were only a third-rank provincial dynasty.
The biggest slaughters took place during the raids of Mahmud Ghaznavi (ca. 1000 CE); during the actual conquest of North India by Mohammed Ghori and his lieutenants (1192 ff.); and under the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526).”
He also writes in his book “Negation in India”:
“The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindus skulls. Thus, the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. Hindu slaughter.”
Will Durant argued in his 1935 book “The Story of Civilisation: Our Oriental Heritage” (page 459):
“The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride 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 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period.”
Francois Gautier in his book ‘Rewriting Indian History’ (1996) wrote:
“The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”
Writer Fernand Braudel wrote in A History of Civilisations (1995), that Islamic rule in India as a
“colonial experiment” was “extremely violent”, and “the Muslims could not rule the country except by systematic terror. Cruelty was the norm – burnings, summary executions, crucifixions or impalements, inventive tortures. Hindu temples were destroyed to make way for mosques. On occasion there were forced conversions. If ever there were an uprising, it was instantly and savagely repressed: houses were burned, the countryside was laid waste, men were slaughtered and women were taken as slaves.”
Alain Danielou in his book, Histoire de l’ Inde writes:
“From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of ‘a holy war’ of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races.”
Irfan Husain in his article “Demons from the Past” observes:
“While historical events should be judged in the context of their times, it cannot be denied that even in that bloody period of history, no mercy was shown to the Hindus unfortunate enough to be in the path of either the Arab conquerors of Sindh and south Punjab, or the Central Asians who swept in from Afghanistan…The Muslim heroes who figure larger than life in our history books committed some dreadful crimes. Mahmud of Ghazni, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, Balban, Mohammed bin Qasim, and Sultan Mohammad Tughlak, all have blood-stained hands that the passage of years has not cleansed..Seen through Hindu eyes, the Muslim invasion of their homeland was an unmitigated disaster.
“Their temples were razed, their idols smashed, their women raped, their men killed or taken slaves. When Mahmud of Ghazni entered Somnath on one of his annual raids, he slaughtered all 50,000 inhabitants. Aibak killed and enslaved hundreds of thousands. The list of horrors is long and painful. These conquerors justified their deeds by claiming it was their religious duty to smite non-believers. Cloaking themselves in the banner of Islam, they claimed they were fighting for their faith when, in reality, they were indulging in straightforward slaughter and pillage…”
A sample of contemporary eyewitness accounts of the invaders and rulers, during the Indian conquests.
The Afghan ruler Mahmud al-Ghazni invaded India no less than seventeen times between 1001 – 1026 AD. The book ‘Tarikh-i-Yamini’ – written by his secretary documents several episodes of his bloody military campaigns :
“The blood of the infidels flowed so copiously [at the Indian city of Thanesar] that the stream was discoloured, notwithstanding its purity, and people were unable to drink it…the infidels deserted the fort and tried to cross the foaming river…but many of them were slain, taken or drowned… Nearly fifty thousand men were killed.”
In the contemporary record – ‘ Taj-ul-Ma’asir’ by Hassn Nizam-i-Naishapuri, it is stated that when Qutb-ul- Din Aibak (of Turko – Afghan origin and the First Sultan of Delhi 1194-1210 AD) conquered Meerat, he demolished all the Hindu temples of the city and erected mosques on their sites. In the city of Aligarh, he converted Hindu inhabitants to Islam by the sword and beheaded all those who adhered to their own religion.
The Persian historian Wassaf writes in his book ‘Tazjiyat-ul-Amsar wa Tajriyat ul Asar’ that when the Alaul-Din Khilji (An Afghan of Turkish origin and second ruler of the Khilji Dynasty in India 1295-1316 AD) captured the city of Kambayat at the head of the gulf of Cambay, he killed the adult male Hindu inhabitants for the glory of Islam, set flowing rivers of blood, sent the women of the country with all their gold, silver, and jewels, to his own home, and made about twentv thousand Hindu maidens his private slaves.
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! [*The actual number of Hindus brutally slaughtered by Muslims were around 400 million, not 60-80 million, according to Firishta [1560-1620], the author of the Tarikh-i Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahim].
Based on the figures that are available, the number of Indians enslaved is enormous!
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 Allah, 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)
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
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).
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.
The Sufi Amir Khusrau notes “the Turks, whenever they please, can seize, buy or sell any Hindu” (Lal [c] p 541)
Enslaved and Castrated
Eunuchs: All over the Islamic world, the conquered were castrated, including in India. This was done so men could guard harems, provide carnal indulgence for rulers, give devotion to the ruler as they had no hope of a family of their own and of course, this quickly reduced the breeding stock of the conquered. Castration was a common practice throughout Muslim rule possibly contributing to the DECLINE in India’s population from 200 million in 1000 CE to 170 million in 1500 CE (Khan p 314)
Once Sultan Bakhtiyar Khilji conquered Bengal in 1205, it became a leading supplier of castrated slaves. This remained the case into the Mogul period (1526-1857).
Akbar the Great (1556-1605) owned eunuchs. Said Khan Chaghtai owned 1,200 eunuchs (an official of Akbar’s son Jahangir)! In Aurangzeb’s reign, in 1659 at Golkunda (Hyderabad), 22,000 boys were emasculated and given to Muslim rulers and governors or sold. (Khan 313).
Sultan Alauddin Khilji (r 1296-1316) had 50,000 boys in his personal service; Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq (r 1325-51) had 20,000 and Sultan Firoz Tughlaq (r 1351-1388) had 40,000 (Firoz Tulghlaq liked to collect boys in any way and had 180,000 slaves in total (Lal [c] p 542). Several commanders under various sultans were eunuchs. Muslim historians record the ‘infatuation’ of sultans Mahmud Ghazni, Qutbuddin Aibak, and Sikandar Lodi –for handsome young boys! Sultan Mahmud was infatuated by his Hindu commander Tilak (Khan p 314)
Conclusion: The inhuman behaviour applied to the whole Indian population by Muslims was the same whether the Muslims were Sufis, Arabs, Afghanis, Turks, or Mogul as all followed Islam’s laws, text and the fine example of Mohammad. It should also be noted that the violence and enslavement continued even after they had virtual control over India because the aim was not merely to conquer but to force all into Islam. Muslims did not come to join Indian society, they came to wipe it out and replace it with Islam—which tells them that they own everything because it’s the booty promised by allah. The pagans/idolaters, polytheists had to convert or die and only then could there be (Islamic) peace! Slaves were the just reward for Islam’s fighters–part of the booty promised by allah.
References:
1) Bostom, A. G. ‘The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic holy war and the fate of the non-Muslims.’ Prometheus Books. New York. 2005.
2) Khan, M. A. ‘Islamic Jihad: A legacy of forced conversion, imperialism and slavery.’ iUniverse, Bloomington, IN. 2009. (An Indian ex-Muslim) – FULL PDF BOOK HERE
3) Lal [a], K.S. Muslims invade India p 433-455 in Bostom (1) above.
4) Lal , K.S. Jihad under the Turks and jihad under the Mughals p 456-461 in Bostom (1) above.
5) Lal [c], K.S. Slave-taking during Muslim rule p535-548 in Bostom (1) above.
6) Lal [d], K.S. Enslavement of Hindus by Arab and Turkish invaders p 549-554 in bostom (1) above.
7) Lal [e], K.S. The Origins of Muslim slave system p 529-534 in bostom (1) above.
8) Reliance of the Traveller: A classic manual of Islamic sacred law. In Arabic with facing English Text, commentary and appendices edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller Al-Misri, Ahmad ibn Naqib; Amana publications Maryland USA 1994.
9) Sookhdeo, P. ‘Global Jihad: The future in the face of Militant Islam.’ Isaac Publishing. 2007.
10) Trifkovic, S. ‘The sword of the prophet.’ Regina Orthodox Press, Inc. 2002.
11) Ye’or, Bat. ‘Islam and Dhimmitude: Where civilisations collide’ translated from the French by Miriam Kochan and David Littman. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 2002, reprint 2005.
The points of discussion were predictably the stars’ onscreen chemistry & designer clothes & how it would help them break the international market (though that didn’t occur for the poor, co-opted *challenger* to the Khan cinematic hegemony). Did this bear any resemblance to the stocky, Mongoloid homicidal maniac Akbar & the whole cloth creation Jodha Bai? None. But the point was not *historicity*, anyway, since Bharat’s history has been largely written by invaders and post-independence, by the compromised.
The completely fictional story of Akbar and Jodha Bai has been used since time immemorial, to glorify Akbar as a secular, tolerant monarch & to gloss over Bharat’s partial conquest by an upstart branch of Chengiz Khan’s Mongols, owing to bitter infighting and inability of the then leadership, to look beyond their petty quarrels to unite and fight a common, larger than life, history-altering enemy. But it is the most persistent fiction of a Mughal emperor marrying a Hindu princess, and her being important enough in an age of 500 women in one harem, to be remembered and celebrated.
From here starts the cynical money trail.
Next, they picked the story of a syncretic romance between one of late medieval Bharat’s most famous warrior icons (who also happened to be a Brahmin) & the illegitimate daughter of a Rajput king. What was one of several chapters in an eventful, adventurous life, was blown up into a lesson about the purity of love regardless of religion, its subsequent conjugal acceptability & therefore, a subtle promulgation of inter-religious love in designer anarkali kurtas & statement eyebrows & lips on its leading lady. Ranveer Singh’s moustachioed, intense face became an icon for Hindu males, ever ready to conflate Bajrangi with Bhaijan, and the anti-Brahmin theme of the movie, refusing to accept the child of this union as a Hindu, was the sort of ghar wapsi antidote/ counter argument needed in these interesting times. Hindus and Muslims marrying for love (or falling in love after marriage) while there was a genocide on – well, *history* said so! It didn’t matter what were the sources of this history, which point of view, which version, which provenance.
A happy consequence was that the Rajputs were now not Sangram Singh & Maharana Pratap, battle-scarred vajras of Indra, but effete partners of the Mughaliya sultanate in pearl earrings. The invaders were now more macho than the Rajputs who were ready to kill or be killed for their honour.
Flush with success, they started to pick their brains about which irredeemable villain to redeem next. Aurangzeb needs a 180 degree redemption but apart from cinematic narrative issues, he’s largely known for his humiliation by the charismatic, larger-than-life Hindu icon Shivaji Maharaj. Shah Jahan’s debauched life story is missing a Hindu female lead, Jahangir wafts by on drugs and booze while making a mushy movie on Babur might win the BJP the UP elections and 2019.Tughlaq is shorthand for gross incompetence and on the whole, the Mamluks weren’t wild about female companions.
But there WAS one story that had a Muslim man and a Hindu woman and a LOT of syncretic possibility, along with the Rajasthani setting that allows runaway costume and choreography budgets.
Which brings me to the angle that was to be taken here.
Modern love (even that portrayed in Bombaiyya movies) is now very different, in keeping with a largely young, socially mobile & relatively affluent population. Availability of vast choice adds sexual attraction as the predominant element to entertainment made for this audience. It helps that their NCERT history text books mirror the *history* of these revisionist movies, and they’re conditioned to be Liberal in values (with a capital L, signifying ideology).
Several filmmakers have pushed the artistic, PG13 envelope recently regarding portrayal of man-woman relationships, and smouldering glances are as much an integral part of a movie as are faux Sufi music with lyrics picked off the backs of trucks. Lust, as Bhansali’s punny Ramleela established, was a genuine, identifiable emotion (whether or not combined with Love), pulling in potent box office esp. when the leads were attractive and comfortable with each other onscreen.
The most famous version of the story of doomed Ratan Singh and his wife, the peerless beauty Padmini, was told by Malik Muhammed Jayesi in his Awadhi poem, Padmavat. It’s a fictionalised version of the siege of Chittor by Alauddin Khilji, one of the most irredeemably bloodthirsty and repulsive tyrants ever to gain control of Bharatavarsha. Padmavati, married to Ratansen, is celebrated in countless stories of her matchless beauty & piety; one of these stories is carried to Khilji by an exiled, vengeful bard to incite lust and the madness of possession in the tyrant. Predictably the siege turns bloody. Ratan Singh ties the kesariya safa on his head, indicating fight unto death, and leaves the fort with a depleted band. Behind him, the entire female population of the kingdom, led by its jewel and the cause of the siege, jump into a fire to avoid falling into the hands of the invading forces. Their fate, were they left alive, would be exactly the same as that of the Yazidi slave women of ISIS today.
Bingo, this story made sense then! It’s the Twilight recipe for success. A stalker hero, a gorgeous, unattainable woman, an ineffective third wheel husband and this situation could mirror ‘Lunchbox’? The Nanavati case? Just about any newspaper headline or even, the breakup of its famous, attractive stars. Many themes in the Padmavat resonate with the Ramayana. This however, is a conscienceless, consequenceless retelling of history. The poet couldn’t make Khilji any more than the straight up villain he was, with no shades of grey. But the carefully picked cast gets it.
The actor playing Khilji described him as an anti-hero with *shades of grey*,indicating he was behind the director and his vision; it was echoed by Ms. Padukone, who abandoned her graduate studies mid-way to focus on her career, a point overlooked by the supportive historians who decry anyone objecting to these *historical* movies for being not well read enough. Mr. Singh capitalised off his Baji Rao persona to reign in 2016, but that he – in fact both of them – are willing to stake their *brand* on this movie, says a lot about them as actors, individuals, and their desire to be part of a post-modern narrative whitewash. The further softening of public sentiment towards irrational longing or even lust, as the *visionary conqueror* (as referred to, by an Indian Express historian) mopes about in brocade peshwaz, singing bad Urdu songs in Arijit Singh’s voice, to a woman he can’t have because her religion and backward traditions (and an evil Brahmin or two) prohibits her from entertaining his advances.
The first invading wave of bloodthirsty Turkic slave-marauders also brought with them biographers & hagiographers who – unlike Hindus who kept their histories largely oral & carefully handed down as a mix of allegories so as to not attract attention & destruction – were bold and meticulous in their recording of their masters’ various exploits. From the 10th century onwards, the history of invasions of this divided country were closely documented, painted, circulated & preserved. This meant countless sources, but as we have already seen, History and an Alternate Retelling of History from Several Points of View from Locals, are two different beasts, specially when it comes to pushing the narrative of love conquering all, especially a Muslim man/ woman who is ready to kill or be killed, for your sorry, backward, orthodox, religion-above-love behind.
Next up, Baz Bahadur & Roopmati. Brace yourselves.
Islamic Invasion Of India: The Greatest Genocide In History
Muslim historian Firishta [full name Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah, born in 1560 and died in 1620], the author of the Tarikh-i Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahim, was the first to give an idea to the medieval bloodbath that was India during Muslim rule, when he declared that over 400 million Hindus got slaughtered during Muslim invasion and occupation of India. Survivors got enslaved and castrated. India’s population is said to have been around 600 million at the time of Muslim invasion. By the mid 1500’s the Hindu population was 200 million.
By the time the British arrived to the shores of India and after centuries of Islamic law ruling India, the Hindu population was not behaving like their normal self; they were behaving like Muslims. There are many witness reports from the British archives of horrendous Hindu incidents that were shocking in cruelty to the British – and they therefore sometimes referred to the people as “savages”. Yes, anyone who gets contaminated by the association with Islamic ‘culture’ truly gets tainted and savaged. That is exactly why it is so detrimental and dangerous.
Today, like other cultures with a soul massacred by Islam, India is not truly a Hindu nation. India is a shadow of Islam, a Hindufied version of Islam, where every human atrocity has been emulated and adopted into a culture previously alien to such brutality. And in association with it’s foreign mohamedan pest, these Islamic habits have become adopted and accepted as a “normal” part of Indian culture. But if we look at pre-Islamic Indian culture it was a in general a benevolent culture of knowledge and learning, much more so than it is today.
From the time of the Umayyad Dynasty (711AD) to the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar (1858), so widely praised as great leaders by Indian historians themselves, entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindus skulls. Thus, the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. “Hindu slaughter.”
The Mughal Empire’s spread and occupation of India.
The genocide suffered by the Hindus and Sikhs of India at the hands of Arab, Turkish, Mughal and Afghan occupying forces for a period of 800 years is as yet formally unrecognised by the World.
The only similar genocide in the recent past was that of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis.
The holocaust of the Hindus in India was of even greater proportions, the only difference was that it continued for 800 years, till the brutal regimes were effectively overpowered in a life and death struggle by the Sikhs in the Punjab and the Hindu Maratha armies in other parts of India in the late 1700’s.
We have elaborate literary evidence of the World’s biggest holocaust from existing historical contemporary eyewitness accounts. The historians and biographers of the invading armies and subsequent rulers of India have left quite detailed records of the atrocities they committed in their day-to-day encounters with India’s Hindus.
Paintings by Edwin Lord Weeks.
These contemporary records boasted about and glorified the crimes that were committed – and the genocide of tens of millions of Hindus, mass rapes of Hindu women and the destruction of thousands of ancient Hindu / Buddhist temples and libraries have been well documented and provide solid proof of the World’s biggest holocaust.
Dr. Koenraad Elst in his article “Was There an Islamic Genocide of Hindus?” states:
“There is no official estimate of the total death toll of Hindus at the hands of Islam. A first glance at important testimonies by Muslim chroniclers suggests that, over 13 centuries and a territory as vast as the Subcontinent, Muslim Holy Warriors easily killed more Hindus than the 6 million of the Holocaust. Ferishtha lists several occasions when the Bahmani sultans in central India (1347-1528) killed a hundred thousand Hindus, which they set as a minimum goal whenever they felt like punishing the Hindus; and they were only a third-rank provincial dynasty.
The biggest slaughters took place during the raids of Mahmud Ghaznavi (ca. 1000 CE); during the actual conquest of North India by Mohammed Ghori and his lieutenants (1192 ff.); and under the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526).”
He also writes in his book “Negation in India”:
“The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindus skulls. Thus, the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. Hindu slaughter.”
Will Durant argued in his 1935 book “The Story of Civilisation: Our Oriental Heritage” (page 459):
“The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride 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 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period.”
Francois Gautier in his book ‘Rewriting Indian History’ (1996) wrote:
“The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”
Writer Fernand Braudel wrote in A History of Civilisations (1995), that Islamic rule in India as a
“colonial experiment” was “extremely violent”, and “the Muslims could not rule the country except by systematic terror. Cruelty was the norm – burnings, summary executions, crucifixions or impalements, inventive tortures. Hindu temples were destroyed to make way for mosques. On occasion there were forced conversions. If ever there were an uprising, it was instantly and savagely repressed: houses were burned, the countryside was laid waste, men were slaughtered and women were taken as slaves.”
Alain Danielou in his book, Histoire de l’ Inde writes:
“From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, and destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of ‘a holy war’ of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races.”
Irfan Husain in his article “Demons from the Past” observes:
“While historical events should be judged in the context of their times, it cannot be denied that even in that bloody period of history, no mercy was shown to the Hindus unfortunate enough to be in the path of either the Arab conquerors of Sindh and south Punjab, or the Central Asians who swept in from Afghanistan…The Muslim heroes who figure larger than life in our history books committed some dreadful crimes. Mahmud of Ghazni, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, Balban, Mohammed bin Qasim, and Sultan Mohammad Tughlak, all have blood-stained hands that the passage of years has not cleansed..Seen through Hindu eyes, the Muslim invasion of their homeland was an unmitigated disaster.
“Their temples were razed, their idols smashed, their women raped, their men killed or taken slaves. When Mahmud of Ghazni entered Somnath on one of his annual raids, he slaughtered all 50,000 inhabitants. Aibak killed and enslaved hundreds of thousands. The list of horrors is long and painful. These conquerors justified their deeds by claiming it was their religious duty to smite non-believers. Cloaking themselves in the banner of Islam, they claimed they were fighting for their faith when, in reality, they were indulging in straightforward slaughter and pillage…”
A sample of contemporary eyewitness accounts of the invaders and rulers, during the Indian conquests.
The Afghan ruler Mahmud al-Ghazni invaded India no less than seventeen times between 1001 – 1026 AD. The book ‘Tarikh-i-Yamini’ – written by his secretary documents several episodes of his bloody military campaigns :
“The blood of the infidels flowed so copiously [at the Indian city of Thanesar] that the stream was discoloured, notwithstanding its purity, and people were unable to drink it…the infidels deserted the fort and tried to cross the foaming river…but many of them were slain, taken or drowned… Nearly fifty thousand men were killed.”
In the contemporary record – ‘ Taj-ul-Ma’asir’ by Hassn Nizam-i-Naishapuri, it is stated that when Qutb-ul- Din Aibak (of Turko – Afghan origin and the First Sultan of Delhi 1194-1210 AD) conquered Meerat, he demolished all the Hindu temples of the city and erected mosques on their sites. In the city of Aligarh, he converted Hindu inhabitants to Islam by the sword and beheaded all those who adhered to their own religion.
The Persian historian Wassaf writes in his book ‘Tazjiyat-ul-Amsar wa Tajriyat ul Asar’ that when the Alaul-Din Khilji (An Afghan of Turkish origin and second ruler of the Khilji Dynasty in India 1295-1316 AD) captured the city of Kambayat at the head of the gulf of Cambay, he killed the adult male Hindu inhabitants for the glory of Islam, set flowing rivers of blood, sent the women of the country with all their gold, silver, and jewels, to his own home, and made about twentv thousand Hindu maidens his private slaves.
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! [*The actual number of Hindus brutally slaughtered by Muslims were around 400 million, not 60-80 million, according to Firishta [1560-1620], the author of the Tarikh-i Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahim].
Based on the figures that are available, the number of Indians enslaved is enormous!
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 Allah, 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)
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
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).
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.
The Sufi Amir Khusrau notes “the Turks, whenever they please, can seize, buy or sell any Hindu” (Lal [c] p 541)
Enslaved and Castrated
Eunuchs: All over the Islamic world, the conquered were castrated, including in India. This was done so men could guard harems, provide carnal indulgence for rulers, give devotion to the ruler as they had no hope of a family of their own and of course, this quickly reduced the breeding stock of the conquered. Castration was a common practice throughout Muslim rule possibly contributing to the DECLINE in India’s population from 200 million in 1000 CE to 170 million in 1500 CE (Khan p 314)
Once Sultan Bakhtiyar Khilji conquered Bengal in 1205, it became a leading supplier of castrated slaves. This remained the case into the Mogul period (1526-1857).
Akbar the Great (1556-1605) owned eunuchs. Said Khan Chaghtai owned 1,200 eunuchs (an official of Akbar’s son Jahangir)! In Aurangzeb’s reign, in 1659 at Golkunda (Hyderabad), 22,000 boys were emasculated and given to Muslim rulers and governors or sold. (Khan 313).
Sultan Alauddin Khilji (r 1296-1316) had 50,000 boys in his personal service; Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq (r 1325-51) had 20,000 and Sultan Firoz Tughlaq (r 1351-1388) had 40,000 (Firoz Tulghlaq liked to collect boys in any way and had 180,000 slaves in total (Lal [c] p 542). Several commanders under various sultans were eunuchs. Muslim historians record the ‘infatuation’ of sultans Mahmud Ghazni, Qutbuddin Aibak, and Sikandar Lodi –for handsome young boys! Sultan Mahmud was infatuated by his Hindu commander Tilak (Khan p 314)
Conclusion: The inhuman behaviour applied to the whole Indian population by Muslims was the same whether the Muslims were Sufis, Arabs, Afghanis, Turks, or Mogul as all followed Islam’s laws, text and the fine example of Mohammad. It should also be noted that the violence and enslavement continued even after they had virtual control over India because the aim was not merely to conquer but to force all into Islam. Muslims did not come to join Indian society, they came to wipe it out and replace it with Islam—which tells them that they own everything because it’s the booty promised by allah. The pagans/idolaters, polytheists had to convert or die and only then could there be (Islamic) peace! Slaves were the just reward for Islam’s fighters–part of the booty promised by allah.
References:
1) Bostom, A. G. ‘The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic holy war and the fate of the non-Muslims.’ Prometheus Books. New York. 2005.
2) Khan, M. A. ‘Islamic Jihad: A legacy of forced conversion, imperialism and slavery.’ iUniverse, Bloomington, IN. 2009. (An Indian ex-Muslim) – FULL PDF BOOK HERE
3) Lal [a], K.S. Muslims invade India p 433-455 in Bostom (1) above.
4) Lal , K.S. Jihad under the Turks and jihad under the Mughals p 456-461 in Bostom (1) above.
5) Lal [c], K.S. Slave-taking during Muslim rule p535-548 in Bostom (1) above.
6) Lal [d], K.S. Enslavement of Hindus by Arab and Turkish invaders p 549-554 in bostom (1) above.
7) Lal [e], K.S. The Origins of Muslim slave system p 529-534 in bostom (1) above.
8) Reliance of the Traveller: A classic manual of Islamic sacred law. In Arabic with facing English Text, commentary and appendices edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller Al-Misri, Ahmad ibn Naqib; Amana publications Maryland USA 1994.
9) Sookhdeo, P. ‘Global Jihad: The future in the face of Militant Islam.’ Isaac Publishing. 2007.
10) Trifkovic, S. ‘The sword of the prophet.’ Regina Orthodox Press, Inc. 2002.
11) Ye’or, Bat. ‘Islam and Dhimmitude: Where civilisations collide’ translated from the French by Miriam Kochan and David Littman. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 2002, reprint 2005.
What is your point exactly? Please just post a link and not copy-paste ten pages of text.
All this writing only proves broad facts - that there was a series of muslim invaders and they won battles and the proselytizing nature of Islam encouraged a degree of subjugation of local populations - and like any other war, there was plenty of death, rape, looting, etc.
The degree of savagery and brutality is debatable - and this particular article seems to revel in embellishment.
Who is the author btw? And where is it published?
And like I said even if it true, nothing justifies harassing Bhansali who's out to make a commercial film, not a history book.
It shows the greatest genocide in Human history. Killing of 400 MILLION HINDUS by Islamic jihadis.
How does it matter where it is published or who wrote it ? a complete list of reference for all claims is listed below.
About Bhansali's hero "Alauddin khilji" written by Amir Khusro himself.
As for Bhansali, here is the whole story.
http://www.opindia.com/2017/01/bhansalis-padmavati-fiasco-what-it-is-and-how-it-started/
History is always a contentious issue. Some want it depicted their way and others just want to know the truth. While limited to scholarly and historic texts, history may well be preserved objectively, but when history crosses into the realm of drama and popular culture, the legacy emanating out of them sometimes threatens to overshadow the reality.
On Friday, Sanjay Leela Bhansali was roughed up outside Jaigarh fort in Jaipur by members of Karni Sena sena, who claimed that Bhansali had distorted the history of Rajashtan by allegedly depicting romance between Islamic ruler Alauddin Khilji and Rajput Queen Padmini. Bhansali was roughed up while he was shooting for his upcoming film Padmavati at that fort.
To very loosely describe history, in the year 1303 Alauddin Kihlji decided to attack Chittor of which Padmini was the Queen. Historians claim that his intention behind the attack was his infatuation for the queen. Khilji won the battle and rather than getting captured by him and his forces queen Padmini chose to commit Jauhar that is self-immolate herself in order to protect her honor.
Even if one considers the claim that Padmini was a fictional character who first appeared in Malik Mohd Jaisi’s poem Padmavati in 1540 – 200 years after the actual events – she has over time become a symbol of women committing Jauhar in order to spare themselves the tyranny of Sultanate rulers. Furthermore, the claim of Padmini/Padmavati being a fictitious character itself is disputed, however, we are agreeing to that for the sake of argument.
Coming to the film and the controversy around it, Deepika Padukone plays the role of Queen Padmini and Ranveer Singh plays the role of Khilji. Just back in around November 8th there were reports in the national media which claimed that there was to be no romance between the duo. The reports cited historical inaccuracies arising due to the same and that Bhansali was very sensitive towards people’s sentiments.
The episode could have been avoided but the regional media clearly didn’t get the message and ran reports of Deepika and Ranveer romancing and warring in Vaishali. This report was carried on November 8th by widely circulated Dainik Jagran group which has higher penetration and influence among the masses and could have possibly led to many people believing that a Bollywood filmmaker was planning to twist history in such a manner where the Queen they so revered was being depicted having a romance with a man who was actually responsible for her death. It remains to be seen as to from where the Karni Sena got their information. Also, some Rajput groups had tried to get in touch with Bhansali to get clarification, but it is not clear if there was any communication back from the filmmaker.
However, one can not blame people for believing that history could be twisted, for it has become fashionable to gloss over the crime of tyrants and portray them as acceptable mainstream characters. this was evident after how Tipu Sultan’s birthday was celebrated by the Karnataka Government, the Taimurepisode or how effort was put in to normalize even Aurangzeb.
Now, Deepika and other actors have claimed that there is no distortion of history. But it remains to be seen how the movie portrayed Khilji. Would he depict Khilji indulging in usual tyranny like collecting 50,000 slave boys, 20,000 women and children, ensuring that countless women committed Jauhar, imposing jizya (poll tax), kharaj (land tax), kari (house tax) and chari(pasture tax) on Hindus, etc.?
James-bond
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Brothelwood only work for money and pimps but why shameless north Indians still watch these bolly$hit movies... Why?? 
MagicMarker
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Brothelwood only work for money and pimps but why shameless north Indians still watch these bolly$hit movies... Why??
"ganga jamuna" tahazeeb.........also known as secular Dhimmis.
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