Games Muslims play: Islam freed lower caste Hindus

[pert]

Islamic apologetics claim Islam spread in India because lower caste Hindus converted to it to escape the caste system, can this be refuted?

[pr126]

In any case, it was still a forced conversion. There was a choice of remaining the oppressed (and killed) or becoming the oppressor.
We know that polytheist only had two choices. Convert or die.
The third choice was only given to people of the book, Jews or Christians. Quran 9:29

[Yohan]

Islamic apologetics claim Islam spread in India because lower caste Hindus converted to it to escape the caste system, can this be refuted?

I don't think it can be refuted. Many lower castes became muslims to escape the caste system, but not all. For example, there are low caste Hindus today in Pakistan who refuse to convert to Islam.

Most Hindus, of all castes, converted to Islam duped by Sufi missionary work across the the subcontinent, who presented a sugar coated Islam to the masses. Rest became Muslims to align themselves with the Muslim rulers so they could benefit in so many ways. Forced conversions were rare and exceptions, but they make news because of its sensititvity.

[manfred]

I think that the assumption behind such a claim, that somehow Muslims saw a social problem, and therefore decided to address this perceived problem in order to better people's lives, by introducing Islam, is highly debatable.

It is much more probable that they saw the cast system as a useful angle to gain conversions, an unexpected bonus, which was used to full advantage. Imagine telling an "untouchable" Indian, that by simply saying the shahadda he would be come superior to ALL Hindu... no more subservience, no more being the lowest of the low, much better economic and marital prospects, being able to sneer at a Brahmin in the street... That is a temptation to join Islam more enticing than anything a dhawa- missionary could possibly say.

Ironically, as time progressed Muslims adopted elements of of the caste system with the Ahrafs at the top, the Ajafs i.somewhere n the middle and the Arzal at the bottom. So, while Muslims see themselves as superior to Hindus of any cast, they have re-created a sort of social hierarchy like casts for themselves. This phenomenon suggests that to many conversion to Islam was a rather superficial issue, and the perceived need to preserve the semblances of Indian society was greater than any feelings for "ummrah", at least for some. Similar behaviour is also found in Indian converts to any other religion, by the way, so Islam is not an exception there.

This alone puts a question mark behind any assertion that Muslims converted India to eradicate the cast system. If that was the aim they failed. I would suggest the cast system was more of a stroke of luck for Muslims. Altruistic motives would rather look out of place in Islam, in particular towards non-Muslims. I don't know of any Muslim charitable efforts extended towards non-Muslims, not one. While such altruistic motives may possibly have been present in some or even most missionaries of other faiths, not many have really succeeded to eradicate that idea of casts, not even within their own followers. I seriously doubt Muslims had a lot of interest or energy for social reform in India.

I guess that idea of cast is as deep a part of the Indian psyche as the aversion to pork amongst Jews. Some may have tried to change that, without much success, some will have used that to their advantage. It would be more accurate to say that Islam was partially spread with a PROMISE to provide a way out of the cast system. That promise was manifestly not kept.

[Auzer]

Well it is true.

Over-whelming majority of 'converts to Islam' in Sub-continent came through Sufi preaching. Sufi Islam is probably one of the best things Muslims gave to us. I'm a big fan of Sufi poetry.... what remarkable works!!!

"Forced conversions" is a bull ... It happened...but rarely...people converted to Islam for other reasons...

[manfred]

Well, that is not entirely accurate. Islam spread through India through conquest, violence and deception. Anything that could be used, such as the existing cast system, was of course used. Any means were quite acceptable.

It is an insult to the many thousands of victims of Islam in India to pretend that the foul ideology was spread with poetry. Muslim rulers and conquerors in India behaved with violence comparable to the fascists of later days.

here and also here

[Nosuperstition]

Well, that is not entirely accurate. Islam spread through India through conquest, violence and deception. Anything that could be used, such as the existing cast system, was of course used. Any means were quite acceptable.

It is an insult to the many thousands of victims of Islam in India to pretend that the foul ideology was spread with poetry. Muslim rulers and conquerors in India behaved with violence comparable to the fascists of later days.

here and also here

The first of these bloody sultans, Kutb-dDin Aibak, was a normal specimen of his kind – fanatical, ferocious and merciless. His gifts, as the Mohammedan historian tells us, “were bestowed by hundreds of thousands, and his slaughters likewise were by hundreds of thousands.”

Firoz Shah, invaded Bengal, offered a reward for every Hindu head, paid for 180,000 of them, raided Hindu villages for slaves, and died at the ripe age of eighty.

https://hinduawaken.wordpress.com/2010/08/

1.1367 Muhammad I launched a successful attack on Vijayanagara and slaughters 400,000 Hindu civilians, including 10,000 Brahmins amongst them, within a span of a week.

7.1423 Ahmad decides to erase the Kaffrs along the Tungabhadra river. He starts systematic destruction of all temples in the region along with large scale cow-slaughter to drive home his message to the Hindus. Upto 500,000 Hindus were killed in two months.

http://www.historum.com/asian-history/2 ... sm-10.html

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

http://www.historum.com/general-history ... ide-5.html

The magnitude of massacres is in hundreds of thousands not just thousands.But I read somewhere that the population of India increased from 74 million to 130 million in the period before and immediately after Muslim rule.Elsewhere I read that muslim rulers levied heavy taxes on Hindus as a result of which Hindus had to clear forests to meet their daily needs.I also read in the Old Forum that Christianity , an Abrahamic religion values quantity of life whereas pre-Christian pagans valued quality of life.So one might conclude that the number of Hindus under Islam , another Abrahamic religion actually increased due to its influence.

But China which was not under Islam for any period of time is now the most populous country.So might be when left to their natural state even pagans reproduce at high rate and might be they too might cause a restoration of the reigning of the principle of quantity of life.

[Nosuperstition]

In any case, it was still a forced conversion. There was a choice of remaining the oppressed (and killed) or becoming the oppressor.
We know that polytheist only had two choices. Convert or die.
The third choice was only given to people of the book, Jews or Christians. Quran 9:29

When one looks at Hindus worshipping multiple gods and goddesses one gets the impression that Hinduism is indeed polytheistic.But Hinduism has the concept of Bhagwan or most powerful god who can be rightfully translated into the English 'God'.The multiple deities are said to be part of this all encompassing deity.Might be Hindus invented/copied this concept just before Islamic invasions but it worked and Hindus were given the rank of dhimmis though they were not given the rank of people of Book.Sikhs on other hand had one standard religious book hence some Islamic scholars of India also gave them the rank of People of Book.

[Nosuperstition]

Aurangzeb's campaigns in Deccan alone are said to have cost as many as a million lives.

[Nosuperstition]

The reason I think so many Hindus got butchered within such short spans of time is because of their religion of those times as well as these times requiring they abstain from eating meat on days holy to their gods.If you are a total vegetarian it is still good.

Muslims on the other hand can eat meat on any day,that too beef which is the most beneficient of all meats in terms of nutrition while Hindus abstain from it.

[Nosuperstition]

The Indologist Stanley Wolpert, emeritus professor at UCLA,[63] says that:

the conquest of the Deccan, to which, Aurangzeb devoted the last 26 years of his life, was in many ways a Pyrrhic victory, costing an estimated hundred thousand lives a year during its last decade of futile chess game warfare. The expense in gold and rupees can hardly be accurately estimated. Aurangzeb's encampment was like a moving capital – a city of tents 30 miles in circumference, with some 250 bazaars, with a 1⁄2 million camp followers, 50,000 camels and 30,000 elephants, all of whom had to be fed, stripped the Deccan of any and all of its surplus grain and wealth ... Not only famine but bubonic plague arose ... Even Aurangzeb, had ceased to understand the purpose of it all by the time he was nearing 90 ... "I came alone and I go as a stranger. I do not know who I am, nor what I have been doing," the dying old man confessed to his son in February 1707.[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurangzeb#Death_and_Legacy

[Nosuperstition]

As to Muhammad, Firishtah glories in the statement that he had slaughtered 500,000 Hindus, and so wasted the districts of the Carnatic that for several decades they did not recover their natural population.

http://ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBookLibrary.com/fevch.htm

[Nosuperstition]

In any case, it was still a forced conversion. There was a choice of remaining the oppressed (and killed) or becoming the oppressor.
We know that polytheist only had two choices. Convert or die.
The third choice was only given to people of the book, Jews or Christians. Quran 9:29

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)

http://islammonitor.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3312:islams-indian-slave-trade-part-i-in-islams-genocidal-slavery-&catid=170&Itemid=67
But

The Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi,11 an autobiographical memoir of Jahangir, mentions that on one occasion he inquired from his father why all inhabitants of India could not be made Musalmans, and Akbar is reported to have said: �My dear child� with all of God�s creatures, I am at peace; why should I permit myself, under any consideration, to be the cause of molestation or aggression to any one? Besides, are not five parts in six of mankind either Hindus or aliens to the faith; and were I to be governed by motives of the kind suggested in your inquiry, what alternative can I have but to put them all to death? I have thought it therefore my wisest plan to let these men alone.�12

Jahangir is supposed to have repeated this ratio at another place. �Of the whole population of Hindustan it is notorious that five parts in six are composed of Hindus, the adorers of images, and the whole concerns of trade and manufacture� are entirely under the management of these classes. Were it, therefore, ever so much my desire to convert them to the true faith, it would be impossible, otherwise than through excision of millions of men� but the massacre of a whole people can never be any business of mine.�13

[url]
http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/imwat/ch4.htm[/url]

All muslim rulers were not chauvinistic enough in that they did not think it fit to massacre millions of people by convert or die policy.

[Nosuperstition]

In any case, it was still a forced conversion. There was a choice of remaining the oppressed (and killed) or becoming the oppressor.
We know that polytheist only had two choices. Convert or die.
The third choice was only given to people of the book, Jews or Christians. Quran 9:29

When an Islamic state was established over parts of northern India, the Ulama raised a great controversy. By now the interpreters of Islamic law had become divided into four schools - Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafii. The Hanafi school alone was in favour of extending the status of zimmîs to the Hindus. The other three schools were insistent that the only choice the Hindus had was between Islam and death. Ziyauddin Barani voiced his opinion against the Hanafi school when he wrote as follows in his Fatwa-i-Jahãndãri: “If Mahmud… had gone to India once more, he would have brought under his sword all the Brahmans of Hind who, in that vast land, are the cause of the continuance of the laws of infidelity and of the strength of idolators; he would have cut off the heads of two or three hundred thousand Hindu chiefs. He would not have returned his Hindu-slaughtering sword to its scabbard until the whole of Hind had accepted Islam. For Mahmud was a Shafiite, and according to Imam Shafii the decree for Hindus is Islam or death, that is to say, they should either be put to death or accept Islam. It is not lawful to accept jiziya from Hindus who have neither a prophet nor a revealed book.”

The Muslim monarchs, however, knew better. They did not live in a fool’s paradise like the mullahs and the sufis. The exponents of the “law” of Islam lived amidst leisure and luxury in towns protected by Islamic armies. They could very well afford to blow any amount of hot air about the “beauties” of their “religion”. The Muslim monarchs, on the other hand, had to live mostly on the battlefields, and could feel in their guts the power equations of a situation in which they had to wage a constant war against stiff Hindu resistance and repeated reassertion of Hindu independence. They had discovered very soon that Hindus hated Islam as a system of black barbarism, and would fight rather than submit to this criminal creed.

The mullahs and the sufis howled at this “sacrilege”. Barani mourned: “Should the king consider the payment of a few tankas by way of jiziya as sufficient justification for their allowing all possible freedom to the infidels to observe and demonstrate all orders and detail of infidelity, to read the misleading literature of their faith, and to propagate their teachings, how could the true religion get the upper hand over other religions, and how could the emblems of Islam be held high? How will the true faith prevail if rulers allow the infidels to keep their temples, adorn their idols, and to make merry during their festivals with beating of drums and dhols, singing and dancing?”

http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/siii/ch10.htm

[Nosuperstition]

Balban became the sultan in 1265 assuming the title of Ghiyasuddin Balban. As the commander of the previous sultan, Balban showed great military prowess, leading numerous expeditions against the infidels. After assuming power, his first job was, as noted already, to exterminate hundreds of thousands of recalcitrant Hindu rebels, the Muwattis etc. He ordered to ‘destroy the villages of the marauders, to slay the men, to make prisoners of the women and children.’[7]

http://www.faithfreedom.org/articles/op-ed/islamic-slavery-part-4-enslavement-by-muslims-in-india-during-the-sultanate-period/

Afghani, Ahmad Shah Abdali attacked 3 times (1757, 1760, 1761) around Mattra, Delhi, Luni, winning the Third Battle of the Panipat against the resistant Marathas in 1761. He slaughtered hundreds of thousands, beheaded and burnt people alive and looted,

Nehru notes Islam: [color=#FF0000]“made its caste system, which still had an element of flexibility in it, more rigid and fixed’ [/color](Khan p 250)

Under Islam the lower castes increased as people were stripped of their wealth and position right down to farmers whose property was taken while people were subjected to crushing taxes –hence many were pushed to the lowest level.

Even Nehru who gives a rosy picture of Islam noted:

“The Moslems who came to India from outside brought no new technique or political or economic structure. In spite of a religious belief in the brotherhood of Islam, they were class bound and feudal in outlook. In technique and in the methods of production and industrial organisation, they were inferior to what prevailed in India..” (cited in Khan p 185)

http://islammonitor.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3312

[Nosuperstition]

Jahangir, in his autobiography "Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi" wrote that under Akbar and Jahangir "five to six hundred thousand (500,000 to 600,000) Hindus were killed." (Tarikh-i-Salim: Trans. By Price, pp. 225-6)

Abbas Khan Sherwani in his chronicle Tarikh-i-Farishtah recorded: "The Hindoos were pursued and slain by (Muslim) allies with such success, that the river was dyed red with their blood. It is computed by the best authorities, that above one hundred thousand (100,000) infidels were slain during the action and in pursuit.

http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_040117.htm

Secondly, rulers like Alu-ud-din Khilji, had a set number of Kafirs to be killed every year - the modes being trampling under elephants, pouring hot oil, etc. Of course, Jaziya was also an option. So was conversion. The Slave dynasty was also known to be particularly inhumane.

The Mughal dynasty, well they were so paranoid about Hindus, they did everything in their bit to control that. Jaziya was introduced. Atleast 10,000, if not more, temples were destroyed. Even major ones like those at Kashi and Mathura.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewt ... sc&start=0

[Nosuperstition]

When we can raise your voice for 2,000 Muslims (the official figures are much less) killed in Gujarat and we should, we must cry from the roof tops for [b]2.4 million Hindus killed in 1971[/b]

http://news.rediff.com/column/2010/mar/26/the-genocide-we-and-the-world-forgot.htm

If Gandhi had been prudent enough in ensuring a complete population exchange right in 1947,the genocide of 2.4 million Hindus would not have happened nor would have terrible atrocities such as thrusting swords into the vaginas of Hindu women have happened.We pay for the folly of our leaders.

[Nosuperstition]

The king of Benares was the greatest king in India, and possessed the largest territory, extending lengthwise from the borders of China to the province of Malawa (Malwa), and in breadth from the sea to within ten days' journey to Lahore. When he was informed of this inroad, he collected his forces, and in the year 590 (1194 A.D.), he entered the territories of the Muhammadans, [p.108] Shahabu-d din Ghori marched forth to oppose him, and the two armies met on the river Jumna, which is a river about as large as the Tigris at Musal. The Hindu prince had seven hundred elephants, and his men were said to amount to a million. There were many nobles in his army. There were Mussulmans in that country since the days of Mahmud bin Subuktigin, who continued faithful to the law of Islam, and constant in prayer and good works. When the two armies met there was great carnage; the infidels were sustained by their numbers, the Musulmans by their courage, but in the end the infidels fled, and the faithful were victorious. The slaughter of the Hindus was immense; none were spared except women and children, and the carnage of the men went on until the earth was weary

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/indic_mandala_frameset.htm

Therefore approximately 1 million Hindu soldiers got killed that day if one assumes that number of Hindu soldiers who fled is minimal.Might be Hindus fled once they knew that their king got killed.That is the disadvantage in having monarchy as form of government.

[Nosuperstition]

Even Nehru who gives a rosy picture of Islam noted:

“The Moslems who came to India from outside brought no new technique or political or economic structure. In spite of a religious belief in the brotherhood of Islam, they were class bound and feudal in outlook. In technique and in the methods of production and industrial organisation, they were inferior to what prevailed in India..” (cited in Khan p 185)

http://islammonitor.org/index.php?optio ... le&id=3312

This is in line with classifications that were clearly defined in the Qur’an <<Qur’an 43:32 Is it they who apportion thy Lord's mercy ? We have apportioned among them their livelihood in the life of the world, and raised some of them above others in rank that some of them may take labour from others;

http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewt ... ht=#567669


Perhaps that explains why the muslim rulers of India were feudal in their outlook though for a commoner Islam allowing all men to enter the Mosque to pray irrespective of their caste background would appear as more egalitarian.

[Nosuperstition]

In 1398, Timur the Lame, known more familiarly to us as Tamberlaine, a devout Muslim, the "scourge of God", roared in from the north-west and laid north India to waste. In the space of six months he is believed to have been responsible for 5 million deaths.

http://forum09.faithfreedom.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14695

Amir Timur or Tamberlaine is said to have attacked Hindu temples and other pilgrimage sites during the holy festival of Maha Kumbh Mela that occurs once every 12 years in order to massacre and plunder.Hindus believe that bathing in the sacred rivers during that auspicious occasion washes away their sins and increases their pious merit and giving alms to religious institutions/priests during that period also increases their pious merit.So one should not be surprised even if 5 million got slaughtered,the biggest slaughter of its kind in the subcontinent.

One more example to show that supernatural forces could not protect their ardent believers for the simple reason that they do not exist.