The Jihad in India Begins

THE JIHAD IN INDIA BEGINS - Conquering Sindh In 711, the same year that Tariq ibn Ziyad and his men crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in Count Julian’s boats and began the jihad against Spain, the Umayyad Empire was expanding eastward as well. Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the governor of Iraq, sent the general Muhammad ibn Qasim into Sindh, modern-day western Pakistan. It was the beginning of the jihad conquest of India. Hajjaj gave his commander ruthlessly precise instructions: My ruling is given: Kill anyone belonging to the combatants [ahl-i harb]; arrest their sons and daughters for hostages and imprison them. Whoever submits…grant them aman [protection] and settle their tribute [amwal] as dhimmah.19 This policy severely discouraged resistance. The Muslim invaders of India treated the native population with extraordinary harshness. In jihad campaigns in Europe, as well as in the Middle East and Persia, the warriors of jihad had subjugated the local populations and collected the jizya from them—the Qur’an-mandated (9:29) poll tax to be paid by the People of the Book, that is, the monotheistic Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. But the Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists whom Muhammad ibn Qasim and his jihadis encountered in Hindustan were not People of the Book, and hence no jizya could be demanded from them. Their only choices were to convert to Islam or face the sword of Islam. The Indians quickly realized just how ruthless their foe really was. As the Muslims besieged the city of Brahmanabad, its inhabitants saw the writing on the wall: If we unite and go forth to fight, we will be killed: for even if peace is [subsequently] made, those who are combatants [ahl-i silat] will all be put to death. As for the rest of the people; aman is given to the merchants, artisans, and agriculturalists. It is better that we be trusted. Therefore, we should surrender the fort to him on the basis of a secure covenant [ahd-i wathiq].20 However, not all of the Sindhis were that willing to give up without a struggle, even at Brahmanabad. The Muslim response was just as fierce; Muslims massacred between six thousand and twenty-six thousand Sindhis at Brahmanabad, six thousand more at Rawar, four thousand at Iskalandah, and six thousand at Multan. As Muhammad ibn Qasim’s jihad in India continued, however, it proved to be impractical to offer all the people in India the choice of conversion to Islam or death: there were simply too many people in India for them all to be converted to Islam or killed. Consequently, an adjustment had to be made, and Muhammad ibn Qasim ultimately granted the Hindus the status of the People of the Book, accepting their submission and payment of the jizya, with the ultimate objective remaining to bring all of these people into the fold of Islam.21 The jihadis, however, were unremittingly ruthless toward Hindu temples. The Qur’an says: “And were it not that Allah checks the people, some by means of others, there would have been demolished monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which the name of Allah is much mentioned.” (22:40) The Qur’an regards Jesus and the prophets of Hebrew Scriptures as prophets and the Torah and Gospel as legitimate revelations, although it contends that the Jews and Christians twisted their prophets’ words and altered the scriptures they received. Consequently, while many churches and synagogues were seized throughout the history of jihad and turned into mosques, this was never a thoroughgoing or universal policy. Hindu temples, by contrast, were always considered to be centers of idolatry, in which the “name of Allah” was not “much mentioned,” and consequently they were to be destroyed whenever possible. At Daybul, the Muslims faced a force of four thousand Rajputs (Indian warriors) and two to three thousand Brahmins (Hindu priests) defending a Hindu temple. Once victorious, Muhammad ibn Qasim had the temple destroyed and the Brahmins circumcised so as to convert them to Islam. However, seeing that his new converts were resisting, rather than embracing, their new religion, he ordered all of them over the age of seventeen to be executed.22 The victorious jihadis began a massacre so intensive that it lasted three days.23 Young women and children were enslaved, but in a rare act of mercy, older women were freed outright.24 Seeing the immensity of the task before him, Muhammad ibn Qasim began encouraging the locals to surrender rather than fight; but this aroused the ire of his boss. Hajjaj wrote to Muhammad urging him to be more discriminating between those who had surrendered sincerely and those who had not, and charged that his practice of granting protection was un-Islamic: I am appalled by your bad judgment and astounded by your policies. Why are you so intent on giving aman, even to an enemy whom you have tested and found hostile and intransigent? It is not necessary to give aman to everyone without discrimination.… In any case, if [the Sindis] sincerely request aman and desist from treachery, they will surely stop fighting. Then income will meet expenditures and this long situation will be concluded.… It is acknowledged that all your procedures have been in accordance with religious law [bar jadah-yi shar] except for the one practice of giving aman. For you are giving aman to everyone without distinguishing between friend and foe.25 His instructions to Muhammad ibn Qasim were ruthlessly precise: God says, “Give no quarter to infidels but cut their throats.” Then you shall know that this is the command of the great God. You shall not be too ready to grant protection, because it will prolong your work. After this give no quarter to any enemy except those of rank.26 Muhammad ibn Qasim may have been too lenient for Hajjaj’s taste, but as he subdued Sindh he was ruthless against manifestations of non-Muslim religion. At Nirun, he had a mosque built on the site of a Buddhist temple, and appointed an imam to instruct converts in the new, dominant religion. After a series of victories over Dahir, king of Sindh, Muhammad wrote triumphantly to Hajjaj: The forts of Siwistan and Sisam have been already taken. The nephew of Dahir, his warriors, and principal officers have been dispatched, and infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol temples, mosques and other places of worship have been built, pulpits have been erected, the Khutba [Islamic Friday sermon] is read, the call to prayers is raised so that devotions are performed at the stated hours. The takbir [“Allahu akbar”] and praise to the Almighty God are offered every morning and evening.27 At Multan, Muhammad ibn Qasim ordered the destruction of an immense idol made of gold, with eyes of rubies. According to the Chach Nama, a twelfth-century Persian history of the conquest of Sindh that may have been based on an earlier Arabic original, “Two hundred and thirty mans of gold were obtained, and forty jars filled with gold dust. This gold and the image were brought to the treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasures which were obtained from the plunder of Multan.”28 Muhammad ibn Qasim left another idol in place at Multan because of its popularity, intending to profit from the many offerings left there; however, to show his horror at Hindu superstition, and seeing that the cow was sacred to Hindus, he ordered that the idol’s necklace be removed and replaced with a piece of cow’s flesh.29 The idol did not protest. The great general and his followers told the Hindus that was a sign that their idols were false and the harsh god of the invaders was the only true god. The conquering jihad commander sent some of his massive haul back to the caliph Walid, along with two choice sex slaves, the daughters of the Sindhi king Dahir himself. One of them, named Janaki, particularly caught the caliph’s eye, but when he took her to bed, the panicked girl told him that she had already been raped by Muhammad ibn Qasim. Walid was enraged. Muhammad ibn Qasim had dared to send him damaged goods. Immediately he ordered that the victorious general, victories or no, be sewn up into a rawhide sack and shipped to his court. By the time the sack containing Muhammad ibn Qasim arrived, he was already dead. The cause of Walid’s monumental fit of temper, Janaki, was appalled. “The king has committed a very grievous mistake,” she exclaimed, “for he ought not, on account of two slave girls, to have destroyed a person who had taken captive a hundred thousand modest women like us and who instead of temples had erected mosques, pulpits and minarets.”30 In any case, the killing of Muhammad ibn Qasim stalled the jihad in India. But the subcontinent was never forgotten. A century or so after Muhammad ibn Qasim’s jihad in Sindh, words were put into the mouth of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, emphasizing the importance of jihad in India. Abu Huraira, one of Muhammad’s companions, is depicted in a hadith as saying: “The Messenger of Allah promised that we would invade India.”31 In another hadith, Muhammad himself says: “There are two groups of my Ummah whom Allah will free from the Fire: The group that invades India, and the group that will be with Isa bin Maryam [Jesus Christ], peace be upon him.”32