The fact that Muslim leaders during the last three hundred years, whether politicians or mullahs, have known no other psychology except the psychology of retreat, and that, thanks to them, all Muslim communities have been subject to recurrent waves of ever rising reactionary fanaticisms with the consequence that the Musalmans, unable to stand on their own feet and to adjust their ways of life and their institutions to the strenuous conditions of the modern world. . ., have been driven to seek the protection of some foreign imperialism or other -- all this should not blind us to the fact that
Somnath (1025-26)
Northern India had ceased to attract Mahmud, for the spoils of its most wealthy temples were already in his treasury. But the rich and prosperous province of Gujarat was still untouched, and on October 18, 1025, he started from Ghazni with his regular troops and thirty thousand volunteer-horsemen for the temple of Somnath, situated at the distance of a bow-shot from the mouth of the Saraswati, by the side of which the earthly body of Lord Krishna had breathed its last.
The temple of Somnath
"The people of Hind", says Ferishta (following Ibn-i Asir) "believed that souls after separating from their bodies came to Somnath, and the god assigned to each soul, by way of transmigration, such new body as it deserved. . . . Somnath was the king, while other idols were merely his door-keepers and chamberlains. A hundred thousand people used to collect together in the temple at the time of the solar and lunar eclipses. . . The princes of Hindustan had endowed it with about ten thousand villages. A thousand Brahmans worshipped the idol continuously. . ."
Battle of Somnath
. . . [After a fierce and close battle] Mahmud entered the temple and possessed himself of its fabulous wealth. `Not a hundredth part of the gold and precious stones he obtained from Somnath were to be found in the treasury of any king of Hindustan.' Later historians have related how Mahmud refused the enormous ransom offered by the Brahmans, and preferred the title of `Idol-breaker'(But-shikan) to that of `Idol-seller' (But-farosh). He struck the idol with his mace and his piety was instantly rewarded by the precious stones that came out of its belly. This is an impossible story. Apart from the fact that it lacks all contemporary confirmation, the Somnath idol was a solid unsculptured linga, not a statue, and stones could not have come out of its belly. That the idol was broken is unfortunately true enough, but the offer of the Brahmans, and Mahmud's rejection of the offer, is a fable of later days.
It is a situation to make one pause. With a new faith everything depends on the method of presentation. It will be welcomed if it appears as a message of hope, and hated if it wears the mask of a brutal terrorism. Islam as a world force is to be judged by the life of the Prophet and the policy of the Second Caliph. Its early successes were really due to its character as a revolutionary force against religions that had lost their hold on the minds of the people and against social and political systems that were grinding down the lower classes. . . Now Hinduism with its intense and living faith was something quite unlike the Zoroastrianism of Persia and the Christianity of Asia Minor, which had so easily succumbed before the invader; it suffered from no deep seated internal diseases and, a peculiarity of the national character of the Hindus,. . . was their intense satisfaction and pride in their customs. . . People with this insularity of outlook were not likely to lend their ears to a new message. But the policy of Mahmud secured the rejection of Islam without a hearing.
It was inevitable that the Hindus should consider Islam a deviation from the truth when its followers deviated so deplorably from the path of rectitude and justice. A people is not conciliated by being robbed of all that it holds most dear, nor will it love a faith that comes to it in the guise of plundering armies and leaves devastated fields and ruined cities as monuments of its victorious method for reforming the morals of a prosperous but erratic world.
`The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often buried with their bones!' Mahmud's work, whatever it might have been was swept off fifteen years after his death by the Hindu revival. . . East of Lahore no trace of the Musalmans remained; and Mahmud's victories, while they failed to shake the moral confidence of Hinduism, won an everlasting infamy for his faith. Two centuries later, men who differed from Mahmud as widely as two human beings can possibly differ, once more brought Islam into the land. . . With the proper history of our country Mahmud has nothing to do. But we have inherited from him the most bitter drop in our cup. To later generations Mahmud became the arch-fanatic he never was; and in that `incarnation' he is still worshipped by such Musalmans as have cast off the teachings of Lord Krishna in their devotion to minor gods. Islam's worst enemies have ever been its own fanatical followers.
Tilak, the Hindu
The career of Tilak, the Hindu, shows the rapidity with which Hindus and Musalmans were both forgetting their religious differences in the service of a common king and the superbly oriental feeling of loyalty to the salt. Though the son of a barber, he was of handsome appearance, had studied `dissimulation, amours and witchcraft' in Kashmir and wrote excellent Hindi and Persian. He had first entered the service of Qazi Shirazi but left it for the better prospects offered by the Khwaja, to whom he acted as secretary and interpreter and was entrusted by him with the most delicate affairs. Even the Khwaja's fall did him no harm, for Mahmud wanted clever and energetic young men and Tilak's fortune kept on improving. Soyand Rai, the general of the Indian troops, took the wrong side on the succession question, and when he was slain in the skirmish against Ayaz, Ma`sud appointed Tilak to the vacant post. `Thus he obtained the name of a man.' "Kettledrums were beaten in his quarters according to the custom of Hindu chiefs and banners with gilded tops were granted." He had an army under his command, the tent and the umbrella of a Ghaznavid general, and sat in the charmed circle of the sultan's confidential officers. "Wise men do not wonder at such facts," says the reflective Baihaqi,"because nobody is born great -- men become such. This Tilak had excellent qualities and all the time he lived he sustained no injury on account of being the son of a barber."
Tilak drew up the plan of his campaign [against the rebellious commander of Punjab, in 1033], and as soon as it was sanctioned by the sultan, hastened against the rebel. Niyaltigin was unable to hold Lahore and fled towards the desert, and Tilak followed close on his heels with an army consisting mostly of Hindus. . . Niyaltigin was defeated in battle and his Turkoman soldiers came over to Tilak in a body. . . [Niyaltigin] was ultimately slain by the Jats while attempting to cross the Indus.
Amber Habib / [email protected]