Name of the book: Peaceful Expansion of Islam in India Author: Syed Ubaidur Rahman Pages, 439, Hardbound, Price: Rs 995. Publisher: Global Media Publications Contact: 9818327757
Syed Ubaidur Rahman’s latest book, ‘Peaceful Expansion of Islam in India’ gives a completely different outlook to the history of Islam and Muslims in the Indian Subcontinent. In fact it is shocking to read such a well-researched, very detailed account of the arrival of Islam in the country that destroys the long-held assumption that Islam came in India through north and was spread through the use of force and sword.
Syed Ubaidur Rahman proves through meticulous research and analysis that Islam came to India as soon as Islam started spreading in Arabia, along with the Arab traders and merchants. The Arab merchants who had a long tradition of having mercantile relations with India dating back to much before the arrival of Islam, started taking the new religion to wherever they went. Thus much before the arrival of Islam to Delhi and different parts of north India, Muslims had already settled in large number not just in Malabar and Kerala, but also in Tamil Nadu, Konkan, Goa, Gujarat and many parts of Maharashtra.
Syed says that traders and saints, together, have impacted India much beyond what has been appreciated thus far. He writes that the oft-repeated assertion that Islam spread in the South Asian nation by the use of sword or through brutal use of power has been obviously overdone in such a manner that almost everyone, even many Muslims, tend to believe it. However he adds that this is complete distortion of truth and many western experts, including the ones known for their strident anti-Muslim outlook, have gone on to accept the fact that in many regions of India, Islam spread through peaceful means, without even the slight use of power or intimidation.
While writing in the introduction of the book, Syed says, “Muslims, as has been proved beyond any iota of doubt, started trading and having mercantile relationship with India as soon as the arrival of Islam. Muslims who traded with India were either Arabs or Persians. Arabs’ maritime trade with India long predated Islam the same way as Zoroastrian and Nestorian Persians’ trade with India. The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea claims that even during the first century AD, the city of Muziris (Cranganore) was the undisputed or rather the principal international port of Malabar. He claims that the city abounds in mercantile ships dispatched there with cargoes from not just Arabia but also the Greeks. Arabs started settling down in Malabar long before the advent of Islam. Pliny, while writing in the same century, affirms the fact that a substantial number of Arabs had in fact settled across the Malabar Coast, mainly in the central and southern parts besides in different parts of Sri Lanka. According to him the people from Yemen and also from Hadramaut were especially found in large number on the Malabar Coast. However, the Arabs didn’t stop in Kerala and Malabar and from there they went further to the Gulf of Bengal besides almost every important port on the west coast in India. Arab merchants’ settlements are mentioned in Canton as early as in the fourth century. This is enough to suggest that the Arabs were frequent travelers to important ports across India, much before the advent of Islam”.
Syed asserts that the spread of Islam in much of India, especially in Malabar, Konkan, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, Gujarat and even the rest of the country was through peaceful means. The people converted through their own free will. While quoting TW Arnold he says that “…among the sixty-six millions of Indian Musalmans there are vast numbers of converts or descendants of converts, in whose conversion force played no part and the only influences at work were the teaching and persuasion of peaceful missionaries”.
If Islam spread in south India through merchants and traders, in northern regions of the country, Sufis played extremely important role in making it popular among the masses. Not just masses, their influence actually transcends the masses and in many cases influenced nobility and even kings. The conversion of Kashmir’s king Rinchen Shah at the hands of a renowned Sufi Bulbul Shah suggests that the Sufis influenced almost every aspect of life and impacted every segment of the population.
While writing in this richly referenced book, Syed says, “Both, the merchants and Sufis, by sheer dint of being Muslim, and part of an expanding and dominant religion at the time, used their higher status in the society to attract people of other faiths towards their religion that promised equality and parity with people of other faith. It ensured a sudden improvement in social stature from being outcast and lower in status to suddenly becoming equal and at par with the rest of the society. It also improved economic prospects, completely changing their fate”.
He says that the impact of forced conversion in India was nominal and while quoting Arnold says, “How little was effected towards the spread of Islam by violence on the part of the Muhammadan rulers may be judged from the fact that even in the centres of the Muhammadan power, such as Dehli and Agra, the Muhammadans in modern times in the former district hardly exceeded one-tenth”.
The book has detailed chapters on Islam’s early arrival to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Bengal, and Kashmir. It also has a detailed chapter on the Sufis who made profound impact and popularized Islam from north to South and eastern parts of the country to western parts.
The book is sure to have a long term impact on how we look at the history of Islam and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. It was much needed and Syed Ubaidur Rahman must be commended for coming out with this important volume when Islamophobia is at its extreme.
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