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| Source - The Economist |
The focus was more on the process of conversion itself. The author again admits that his study does not cover the entire process of conversion. For example, he does not focus on what led the Hindu elites (Brahmans or Kayasthas) in places like Allahabad, Kashmir, or Lucknow to convert to Islam. Nor could he cover, the organized conversion efforts such as those of the Shi'i da'wa, which successfully integrated trading and agricultural castes of Sind and Gujarat into the Muslim community.
Rather, the thrust of his essay was to understand the mass Islamization of the geographical periphery regions of Eastern Bengal and Western Punjab (Muslims of Northwest frontier and Baluchistan were not converted communities as they were mainly descendants of the immigrants from the Iranian Plateau), which had the highest population of Islam in the pre-partition era.
Popular theories on Conversion to Islam and their problems
Theory - Islam is the "religion of the sword"- This theme draws from the Western historiography of Islam, claiming it has a long and weary history that dates from the time of the Crusades.
In India, this theory forwards that Indian Muslims were forcibly converted. This forceful conversation was linked with the extension of Turko-Iranian rule in North India between 1200 and 1765, a confusion probably originating in a too-literal translation of primary Persian accounts narrating the "Islamic" conquest of India.
However the most serious problem with this theory is its incongruence with the geography of Muslim conversions in South Asia. One would expect that those areas of heaviest conversion would correspond to those areas of South Asia exposed most intensely and over the longest period to rule by Muslim dynasties. Yet the opposite is the case: those regions of the most dramatic conversion of the population, such as Eastern Bengal or Western Punjab, lay on the fringes of Indo-Muslim rule, whereas the heartland of that rule, the upper Gangetic Plain, saw a much lower incidence of conversion
The theory of "political patronage" – argues that Indians of the medieval period converted to receive some non-religious favors from the ruling class—relief from taxes, promotion in the bureaucracy, and so forth.
More important examples of the "political patronage" phenomenon were the cases of groups coming into the employment of Muslim rulers and in this way gradually acculturating themselves to Indian Islam. The Kayasthas and Khatris of the Gangetic Plain, the Parasnis of Maharashtra, and the Amils of Sind all cultivated Muslim culture by filling the government's great need for clerks and administrative servants at all levels.
However, it cannot explain the massive conversions to Islam that took place along the political fringe—especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Political patronage, like the influence of the sword, decreases rather than increases as one moves away from the Delhi heartland toward the periphery
Theory of Islam as "religion of social liberation"- It was forwarded by British ethnographers, Pakistani nationals, and Indian Muslims.
The substance of the theory is that the Hindu caste system is a rigidly discriminatory form of social organization, so the oppressed converted to Islam, having an ideology of social equality, to escape Brahmanical oppression.
Several problems
Did untouchables have this modern consciousness of the concept of Equality of all men which was denied to them?
Even after conversion, social status never improved, and, to the contrary, they simply carried over into Muslim society the same practice of birth-ascribed rank that they had had in Hindu society.
Hubs of mass conversion- E Bengal and W Punjab, lay not only far from the center of Muslim political power, but also of Hindu social structure. The local indigenous populations, at the time of their contact with Islam, had the lightest contact with the Hindu religious or caste structure.
For example, in Bengal, Muslim converts were drawn mainly from Rajbansi, Pod, Chandal, Koch, or other indigenous groups that had this lightest contact, and in the Punjab, the same was true for the various Jat clans that came to form the bulk of the Muslim community.
So, for the vast majority of South Asian Muslims, the question of "liberation" from the "oppressive" Hindu social order was simply not an issue
Then what converted these areas into a hub of Islamic conversion?
Eaton explained it through two subprocesses which he called
1) accretion and 2) reform.
The accretion aspect of conversion sees people either adding new deities or superhuman agencies to their existing cosmological stock or identifying new deities or agencies with existing entities in their cosmology. In this process, the supernatural agencies like Allah or jinn may either be grafted onto an already dense cosmological universe, or identified, by name, with existing agencies.
The accretion aspect does not result in communal exclusiveness or even distinctiveness. They will identify themselves as Muslim in as much as they worship Allah, for example, or refrain from eating pork— but this by no means prevents them from participating in village propitiation of a local goddess to ward off smallpox or in joining village devotions to an avatar of Krishna.
In accretion, Islamic elements were added to the existing stock of beliefs and practices, like some particular beliefs and practices associated with a local saint, a local Muslim judge, or the spiritual power of a local shrine.
In the reform dimension of the conversion process, however, the community perceives itself as socially distinct and consciously acts upon that perception. Accordingly, the group not only resists participation in non-Muslim rituals but will, for example, adopt Islamic inheritance customs for daughters as well as for sons, a practice which decisively separates the Muslim community from its neighbors- thus consciously adhering to a single model for social and ritual action.
The expansion of Indo-Muslim states (from the 12th century onwards) in the outer fringes (Western Punjab, Eastern Bengal) and the integration of this land and its people, were accompanied by a process of accretion.
As earlier mentioned, the native populations of these regions were far less integrated into the literate tradition of the Brahmans and Islam could sunk deeply into this land. In contrast, upper India had been for centuries the center of Muslim administration, and the incidence of conversion to Islam there was as a consequence relatively low.
It was not Hindus who most readily converted to Islam, but the fringe elements of these peripheral areas- non-agrarian forest or pastoral peoples whose contact with Brahmanism and caste stratification had been either casual or non-existent.
These indigenous non-Hindu non-agriculturalists, between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, gradually transformed into Muslim agriculturalists. Richard Eaton, thus, remarked, “Islam, in India at least, may properly be termed more a religion of the plow than a religion of the sword, as formerly conceived”.
Eaton, thus, linked the spread of Islam in this land with the situation in which the native community, in this land of loose Brahmanical control, witnessed socio-economic transformations (like sedentarization, conversion into agriculturalists, etc) at a time when Muslim state society had freshly extended into these lands.
Ecological changes in Bengal and linkage with conversion For many centuries the Ganges River had emptied into the Bay of Bengal down the western side of the province so that that area became both the (Hindu) spiritual and agricultural heartland of the region, with the aboriginals in the forests of East Bengal remaining somewhat beyond the pale and only lightly exposed to Brahmanical Hinduism.
In the sixteenth century, however, the river silted up its old channels and pushed eastward, opening up huge areas of East Bengal for rice cultivation
As these riverine shifts occurred roughly simultaneously with the Mughal conquest of Bengal, many of the colonists moving into the east were Muslims from North India.
In the process, indigenous Bengali peoples who had formerly practiced hunting, fishing, or a crude form of forest agriculture, became gradually transformed into rice farmers. The rice cultivation was firmly identified with Islam.
Punjab
Eaton linked the spread of Islam in Punjab with the migration of Jats into this land (from Sindh) and their gradual conversion into agriculturalists, in the era when irrigation facilities improved with the the introduction of the Persian wheel. This was also the time of the spread of Delhi's authority in this land. Many Jat groups, now agriculturalists, got attached to local Sufi shrines. Mughal government realized the political potential of these shrines and used them as intermediaries by which to control the turbulent Jat groups.
Coming back to accretion and reform
Punjabis and Bengalis who converted to Islam had clung to former religious habits and retained long-established social groupings.
The 1901 census of India reported Bengali Muslims joining in the Durga Puja, worshipping Sitala and Rakshya Kali when disease was present, and making use of Hindu astrologers.
However, the accretion gradually reformed in different phases at different places in medieval centuries, but mainly from the 17th century, with emphasis on the normative unity of Islam. The members of the ulama and even some groups of Sufis had urged this unitary reformist vision.
It was during the nineteenth century, when vastly improved world transportation systems brought masses of Indians in direct touch with Mecca, that such movements became most widespread of all. These reform movements assumed an increasing sense of urgency as more and more Indian Muslims became aware of the gap between the commands of the Book and the actual practices passing for Islam in their native villages. The other implication of the reform process was its self-conscious adoption of Arab culture.
Role of Sufis: Some people theorize the role of Sufis in Islamic conversions but the role should not be over-emphasized as the role of active involvement of Sufis in conversion is little. Their shrines were located all across the subcontinent but mass conversion was localised to some regions.
Nevertheless, Sufism had a role to play. If a living Sufi had only minimal influence in the religious life of non-Muslim Indians, a deceased Sufi, especially one blessed with sainthood by the local population, could work miracles, as his charisma, with time, transferred to his tomb
Understanding the term Islamization in the Indian Political context
Philip Wagoner used the term Islamicization as a political strategy that has nothing to do with religious conversion or syncretism. In this strategy, indigenous Indian elites attempt to enhance their political status and authority through participation in the more "universal" culture of Islam. Second, this participation is effected through the adoption of certain Islamic cultural forms and practices, in which the political nature of the process largely pertains to the broad sphere of secular culture, as opposed to the narrower domain of formal religion.
For example, the Hindu rulers of Vijayanagar started calling themselves Hindu-raya-suratrana or sultan among the Hindu kings or the transformation of the clothing of Vijayanagar's ability with Islamic influence.
The accretion aspect of conversion sees people either adding new deities or superhuman agencies to their existing cosmological stock or identifying new deities or agencies with existing entities in their cosmology. In this process, the supernatural agencies like Allah or jinn may either be grafted onto an already dense cosmological universe, or identified, by name, with existing agencies.
The accretion aspect does not result in communal exclusiveness or even distinctiveness. They will identify themselves as Muslim in as much as they worship Allah, for example, or refrain from eating pork— but this by no means prevents them from participating in village propitiation of a local goddess to ward off smallpox or in joining village devotions to an avatar of Krishna.
In accretion, Islamic elements were added to the existing stock of beliefs and practices, like some particular beliefs and practices associated with a local saint, a local Muslim judge, or the spiritual power of a local shrine.
In the reform dimension of the conversion process, however, the community perceives itself as socially distinct and consciously acts upon that perception. Accordingly, the group not only resists participation in non-Muslim rituals but will, for example, adopt Islamic inheritance customs for daughters as well as for sons, a practice which decisively separates the Muslim community from its neighbors- thus consciously adhering to a single model for social and ritual action.
The expansion of Indo-Muslim states (from the 12th century onwards) in the outer fringes (Western Punjab, Eastern Bengal) and the integration of this land and its people, were accompanied by a process of accretion.
As earlier mentioned, the native populations of these regions were far less integrated into the literate tradition of the Brahmans and Islam could sunk deeply into this land. In contrast, upper India had been for centuries the center of Muslim administration, and the incidence of conversion to Islam there was as a consequence relatively low.
It was not Hindus who most readily converted to Islam, but the fringe elements of these peripheral areas- non-agrarian forest or pastoral peoples whose contact with Brahmanism and caste stratification had been either casual or non-existent.
These indigenous non-Hindu non-agriculturalists, between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, gradually transformed into Muslim agriculturalists. Richard Eaton, thus, remarked, “Islam, in India at least, may properly be termed more a religion of the plow than a religion of the sword, as formerly conceived”.
Eaton, thus, linked the spread of Islam in this land with the situation in which the native community, in this land of loose Brahmanical control, witnessed socio-economic transformations (like sedentarization, conversion into agriculturalists, etc) at a time when Muslim state society had freshly extended into these lands.
Ecological changes in Bengal and linkage with conversion For many centuries the Ganges River had emptied into the Bay of Bengal down the western side of the province so that that area became both the (Hindu) spiritual and agricultural heartland of the region, with the aboriginals in the forests of East Bengal remaining somewhat beyond the pale and only lightly exposed to Brahmanical Hinduism.
In the sixteenth century, however, the river silted up its old channels and pushed eastward, opening up huge areas of East Bengal for rice cultivation
As these riverine shifts occurred roughly simultaneously with the Mughal conquest of Bengal, many of the colonists moving into the east were Muslims from North India.
In the process, indigenous Bengali peoples who had formerly practiced hunting, fishing, or a crude form of forest agriculture, became gradually transformed into rice farmers. The rice cultivation was firmly identified with Islam.
Punjab
Eaton linked the spread of Islam in Punjab with the migration of Jats into this land (from Sindh) and their gradual conversion into agriculturalists, in the era when irrigation facilities improved with the the introduction of the Persian wheel. This was also the time of the spread of Delhi's authority in this land. Many Jat groups, now agriculturalists, got attached to local Sufi shrines. Mughal government realized the political potential of these shrines and used them as intermediaries by which to control the turbulent Jat groups.
Coming back to accretion and reform
Punjabis and Bengalis who converted to Islam had clung to former religious habits and retained long-established social groupings.
The 1901 census of India reported Bengali Muslims joining in the Durga Puja, worshipping Sitala and Rakshya Kali when disease was present, and making use of Hindu astrologers.
However, the accretion gradually reformed in different phases at different places in medieval centuries, but mainly from the 17th century, with emphasis on the normative unity of Islam. The members of the ulama and even some groups of Sufis had urged this unitary reformist vision.
It was during the nineteenth century, when vastly improved world transportation systems brought masses of Indians in direct touch with Mecca, that such movements became most widespread of all. These reform movements assumed an increasing sense of urgency as more and more Indian Muslims became aware of the gap between the commands of the Book and the actual practices passing for Islam in their native villages. The other implication of the reform process was its self-conscious adoption of Arab culture.
Role of Sufis: Some people theorize the role of Sufis in Islamic conversions but the role should not be over-emphasized as the role of active involvement of Sufis in conversion is little. Their shrines were located all across the subcontinent but mass conversion was localised to some regions.
Nevertheless, Sufism had a role to play. If a living Sufi had only minimal influence in the religious life of non-Muslim Indians, a deceased Sufi, especially one blessed with sainthood by the local population, could work miracles, as his charisma, with time, transferred to his tomb
Understanding the term Islamization in the Indian Political context
Philip Wagoner used the term Islamicization as a political strategy that has nothing to do with religious conversion or syncretism. In this strategy, indigenous Indian elites attempt to enhance their political status and authority through participation in the more "universal" culture of Islam. Second, this participation is effected through the adoption of certain Islamic cultural forms and practices, in which the political nature of the process largely pertains to the broad sphere of secular culture, as opposed to the narrower domain of formal religion.
For example, the Hindu rulers of Vijayanagar started calling themselves Hindu-raya-suratrana or sultan among the Hindu kings or the transformation of the clothing of Vijayanagar's ability with Islamic influence.
Written by - Visha Jain
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