4 Muḥammad b. Qāsim invited the Hindu princes to embrace Islam, and the invaders who followed him were probably equally observant of the religious law. (Elliot, vol. i. pp. 175, 207.) ↑
8 “The military adventurers, who founded dynasties in Northern India and carved out kingdoms in the Dekhan, cared little for things spiritual; most of them had indeed no time for proselytism, being continually engaged in conquest or in civil war. They were usually rough Tartars or Moghals; themselves ill-grounded in the faith of Mahomed, and untouched by the true Semitic enthusiasm which inspired the first Arab standard bearers of [258]Islam. The empire which they set up was purely military, and it was kept in that state by the half success of their conquests and the comparative failure of their spiritual invasion. They were strong enough to prevent anything like religious amalgamation among the Hindus, and to check the gathering of tribes into nations; but so far were they from converting India, that among the Mahommedans themselves their own faith never acquired an entire and exclusive monopoly of the high offices of administration.” (Sir Alfred C. Lyall: Asiatic Studies, p. 289.) (London, 1882.) ↑
13 Sir Richard Temple: India in 1880, p. 164. (London, 1881.) Punjab States Gazetteers, vol. xxxvi A, Bahawalpur, p. 183. ↑
17 Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. xiv. part ii. p. 119. In the Cawnpore district, the Musalman branch of the Dikhit family observes Muhammadan customs at births, marriages, and deaths, and, though they cannot, as a rule, recite the prayers (namāz), they perform the orthodox obeisances (sijdah). But at the same time they worship Chachak Devī to avert small-pox, and keep up their friendly intercourse with their old caste brethren, the Thakurs, in domestic occurrences, and are generally called by common Hindu names. (Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. vi. p. 64.) ↑
19 Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. vi. p. 64. Compare also id. vol. xiv. part iii. p. 47. “Muhammadan cultivators are not numerous; they are usually Nau-Muslims. Most of them assign the date of their conversion to the reign of Aurangzeb, and represent it as the result sometimes of persecution and sometimes as made to enable them to retain their rights when unable to pay revenue.” ↑
21 Indeed Firishtah distinctly says: “Zealous for the faith of Mahommed, he rewarded proselytes with a liberal hand, though he did not choose to persecute those of different persuasions in matters of religion.” (The History of Hindostan, translated from the Persian, by Alexander Dow, vol. iii. p. 361.) (London, 1812.) ↑
28 A tomb in the cemetery of Pantalāyini Kollam bears an inscription with the date A.H. 166. (Innes, p. 436.) ↑
39 Oboardo Barbosa, p. 310.
Similarly it has been conjectured that but for the arrival of the Portuguese, Ceylon might have become a Muhammadan kingdom. For before the Portuguese armaments appeared in the Indian seas, the Arab merchants were undisputed masters of the trade of this island (where indeed they had formed commercial establishments centuries before the birth of the Prophet), and were to be found in every sea-port and city, while the facilities for commerce attracted large numbers of fresh arrivals from their settlements in Malabar. Here as elsewhere the Muslim traders intermarried with the natives of the country and spread their religion along the coast. But no very active proselytising movement would seem to have been carried on, or else the Singhalese showed themselves unwilling to embrace Islam, as the Muhammadans of Ceylon at the present day appear mostly to be of Arab descent. (Sir James Emerson Tennent: Ceylon, vol. i. pp. 631–3.) (5th ed., London, 1860.) ↑
42 They are found chiefly in the Tamil-speaking districts of Madura, Tinnevelly, Coimbatore, North Arcot and the Nilgiris. ↑
43 The Imperial Gazetteer of India (vol. xxiv. p. 47) spells his name Nādir Shāh; Qādir Ḥusayn K͟hān calls him Nathad Vali. ↑
44 Madras District Gazetteers. Trichinopoly, vol. i. p. 338. (Madras, 1907.) Qādir Ḥusayn K͟hān: South Indian Musalmans, p. 36. (Madras, 1910.) ↑
46 Qādir Ḥusayn K͟hān, op. cit. pp. 39–42. Madras District Gazetteers. Anantapur, vol. i. pp. 193–4. (Madras, 1905.) ↑
49 Report on the Census of the Madras Presidency, 1871, by W. R. Cornish, pp. 71, 72, 109. (Madras, 1874.) ↑
50 Report of the Second Decennial Missionary Conference held at Calcutta 1882–3 (pp. 228, 233, 248). (Calcutta, 1883.) ↑
51 Ibn Baṭūṭah, tome iv. p. 128. Ibn Baṭūṭah resided in the Maldive Islands during the years 1343–4 and married “the daughter of a Vizier who was grandson of the Sulṭān Dāʼūd, who was a grandson of the Sulṭān Aḥmad Shanūrāzah” (tome iv. p. 154); from this statement the date A.D. 1200 has been conjectured. ↑
53 Memoir on the Inhabitants of the Maldive Islands. By J. A. Young and W. Christopher. (Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society from 1836 to 1838, p. 74. Bombay, 1844.) ↑
64 At the time of the Arab conquest the dominions of the Hindu ruler of Sind extended as far north as this city, which is now no longer included in this province. ↑
71 Iṣṭak͟hrī, loc. cit. Ibn Ḥawqal, p. 230 sq. Idrīsī (Géographie d’Édrisi, traduite par P. A. Jaubert, vol. i. p. 175 sqq.). ↑
75 Khojā Vṛttānt, p. 208. Sir Bartle Frere: The Khojas: the Disciples of the Old Man of the Mountain. Macmillan’s Magazine, vol. xxxiv. pp. 431, 433–4. (London, 1876.) ↑
77 K. B. Fazalullah Lutfullah conjectures that Nūr Satāgar came to India rather later, in the reign of Bhīma II (A.D. 1179–1242.) (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ix. part ii. p. 38.) ↑
84 So Firishtah, but see H. Blochmann: Contributions to the Geography and History of Bengal. (J. A. S. B., vol. xlii. No. 1, pp. 264–6. 1873.) ↑
85 J. H. Ravenshaw: Gaur: its ruins and inscriptions, p. 99. (London, 1878.) Firishtah, vol. iv. p. 337. ↑
89 Charles Stewart: The History of Bengal, p. 176. (London, 1813.) H. Blochmann: Contributions to the Geography and History of Bengal. (J. A. S. B., vol. xlii. No. 1, p. 220. 1873.) ↑
91 Sir W. W. Hunter: The Religions of India. (The Times, February 25, 1888.) See also Wise, p. 32. ↑
100 Punjab States Gazetteers, vol. xxxvi A. Bahawalpur State. (Lahore, 1908), p. 160 sqq. The names of some of the tribes who ascribe their conversion to Mak͟hdūm-i-Jahāniyān are given on p. 162. ↑
103 The Indian Evangelical Review, vol. xvi, pp. 52–3. (Calcutta, 1889–90.) The Contemporary Review, February 1889, p. 170. The Spectator, October 15, 1887, p. 1382. ↑
104 Garcin de Tassy: La Langue et la Littérature Hindoustanies de 1850 à 1869, p. 343. (Paris, 1874.) ↑
105 Mawlavī Ḥasan ʻAlī furnished me with these figures some years before his death in 1896. In an obituary notice published in “The Moslem Chronicle” (April 4, 1896), the following quaint account is given of his life: “In private and school life, he was marked as a very intelligent lad and made considerable progress in his scholastic career within a short time. He passed Entrance at a very early age and received scholarship with which he went up to the First Art, but shortly after his innate anxiety to seek truth prompted him to go abroad the world, and abandoning his studies he mixed with persons of different persuasions, Fakirs, Pandits, and Christians, entered churches, and roamed over wilderness and forests and cities with nothing to help him on except his sincere hopes and absolute reliance on the mercy of the Great Lord; for one year he wandered in various regions of religion until in 1874 he accepted the post of a head master in a Patna school.… As he was born to become a missionary of the Moslem faith, he felt an imperceptible craving to quit his post, from which he used to get Rs. 100 per mensem. He tendered his resignation, much to the reluctance of his friends, and maintained himself for some time by publishing a monthly journal, ‘Noorul Islam.’ He gave several lectures on Islam at Patna, and then went to Calcutta, where he delivered his lecture in English, which produced such effect on the audience that several European clergymen vouchsafed the truth of Islam, and a notable gentleman, Babu Bepin Chandra Pal, was about to become Musalman. He was invited by the people at Dacca, where his preachings and lectures left his name imbedded in the hearts of the citizens. His various books and pamphlets and successive lectures in Urdu and in English in the different cities and towns in India gave him a historic name in the world. Some one hundred men became Musalmans on hearing his lectures and reading his books.” His missionary zeal manifested itself up to the last hour of his life, when he was overheard to say, “Abjure your religion and become a Musalman.” On being questioned, he said he was talking to a Christian. ↑
109 The Indian Evangelical Review, 1884, p. 128. Garcin de Tassy: La Langue et la Littérature Hindoustanies de 1850 à 1869, p. 485. (Paris, 1874.) Garcin de Tassy: La Langue et la Littérature Hindoustanies en 1871, p. 12. (Paris, 1872.) ↑
114 For an account of such Hinduising of the aboriginal tribes see Sir Alfred Lyall: Asiatic Studies, pp. 102–4. ↑
117 Sir Alfred Lyall (Asiatic Studies, p. 29) speaks of the perceptible proclivity towards the faith of Islam occasionally exhibited by some of the Hindu chiefs. ↑
119 To give one instance only: in Ghātampur, in the district of Cawnpore, one branch of a large family is Muslim in obedience to the vow of their ancestor, Ghātam Deo Bais, who while praying for a son at the shrine of a Muhammadan saint, Madār Shāh, promised that if his prayer were granted, half his descendants should be brought up as Muslims. (Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. vi. pp. 64, 238.)
The worship of Muhammadan saints is so common among certain low-caste Hindus that in the Census of 1891, in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh alone, 2,333,643 Hindus (or 5·78 per cent. of the total Hindu population of these provinces) returned themselves as worshippers of Muhammadan saints. (Census of India, 1891, vol. xvi. part i. pp. 217, 244.) (Allahabad, 1894.) ↑
120 Instances of such causes of conversion are given in the Census of India, 1901. Vol. vi. Bengal, part. i, Appendix II. ↑