ISLAM IN ACTION I - A.Ghosh
CHAPTER 9
ISLAM IN ACTION I
It was around 627 A.D. that prophet Mohammed raided
the Jewish tribe of Qurayza. The Jews were defeated in the
fight and many prisoners were taken. They were either sold or
assassinated. In one place alone some 800 Jews were beheaded
in cold blood. One Jew was let go as he renounced his
ancestral religion and accepted Islam. In the year 629 A.D.
after the battle of Khaybar and the defeat of the Jews the
same play was enacted. All the Jews were put to the sword.
The raids undertaken by the prophet and the methods followed
became the guide-lines for the caliphs that followed him. The
blood that flowed in Persia when caliph Umar conquered that
land still horrifies the present-day Iranians. To indicate their
happiness at the demise of Umar, Iranians dress themselves up
in festive clothing on the death anniversary of this caliph,
even to this day.
a) THE PATTERN
The thoughts and deeds of prophet Mohammed and his caliphs
became the honorable examples to be followed by all Moslems
in later years. In his famous book 'Story of Civilisation' Will
Durant has written that "the Mohammedan conquest of India
was probably the bloodiest story in history". The magnitude
of
crimes credited to Moslem monarchs by the medieval Moslem
historians is beyond measure. What strikes as significant is
the broad pattern of those crimes. The pattern is that of a
'jihad' (holy war) against the infidels in which the 'ghazis'
(religious warriors and conquerors) of Islam undertake
'ghazzuas' or raids in order to
1 invade the lands of the infidels;
2 massacre as many infidel men, women and children as
they like after winning a victory;
3 capture the survivors to be sold as slaves and some
retained in their harems as slave-girls;
4 plunder every place and person for war booty, a fifth
of which (including the slaves) went to the caliph or
some other religious head;
5 demolish the places of worship of the infidels and
build mosques in their places; and
6 defile and desecrate the deities and other symbols of
the infidels' religions by throwing them into public
squares or making into steps leading to the prayer
area of the believers.
What is still more significant is that this is exactly the
pattern
1 revealed by Allah in the Koran;
2 practiced, perfected and prescribed by the prophet in
his own life-time and meticulously followed by the
caliphs that followed;
3 elaborated in the Hadis (the other religious book of
Islam) with great attention to detail;
4 certified by the mullahs in all ages including our own;
and
5 followed by all Moslem kings and leaders who aspired
after name and fame in this life and houris hereafter.
b) ALEXANDRIA, VISALDEVA, NALANDA, DACCA
When the conquering Moslem invaders arrived in Alexandria
and stood in front of the famous library there, the Moslem
general did not know if he should destroy such a renowned
store-house of knowledge. He sent his horseman to caliph
Umar for his instructions. The caliph replied: "If these
writings of the Greeks agree with the book of Allah, they are
useless and need not be preserved: if they disagree, they are
pernicious and ought to be destroyed". There was thus only
one fate for the infidels' seat of learning. The library of the
Ptolemies was thus burnt down and the episode settled for all
time, in the minds of the Moslems, the method of dealing with
libraries, universities, schools and colleges, which had nothing
to do with warfare, but belonged to the infidels.
Thus the capital of Gujarat was attacked by Qutbuddin Aibak
in the year 1196 A.D. and the famous Sanskrit College of
Visaldeva was destroyed and a mosque known as 'adhai din ka
jhompada' was built on the same foundations. The famous
Buddhist University of halanda had the same fate, in the year
1200 A.D. when Muhammad Bakhtyar Khalji attacked the
township and massacred the harmless Buddhist monks and
violated the nuns. When, in recent years, the Pakistani
Moslem army attacked the then East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh), the first attack was launched on Dacca Univer-
sity. Even the women students were not spared. They were
raped and then murdered.
c) NO CODE OF HONOR IN ISLAM
India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly
a zone of peace. There were plenty of wars fought by Hindu
kings. But in all their wars certain time-honored conventions
were observed by the warring factions. The priests and monks
were never molested. The houses of worship were never
touched. The chastity of women was never violated. The non-
combatants were never killed or captured. A human habita-
tion was never attacked unless it was a fort. The civil
population was never plundered. War booty was an unknown
item in the calculations of a conqueror. The martial classes
who clashed, mostly in open spaces, had a code of honor.
Sacrifice of honor for victory or material gain was deemed as
worse than death.
Islamic imperialism knew no code of honor. The only rule of
war they observed without fail was to fall upon the helpless
civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the
battlefield. They sacked and burnt down villages and towns
after the defenders had died fighting or had fled. The priests,
monks and nuns invited their special attention in a mass-
murder of non-combatants. The houses of worship were their
special targets in an orgy of pillage and destruction. Those
whom they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves.
WOMEN WERE THEIR PRIZE; THEY SEIZED THEM TO VIO-
LATE THEM AND CARRY THEM AWAY WITH THEM AS
BONDED SLAVES INTO THEIR HAREMS. As late as in 1971,
the Moslem army of Pakistan killed thousands of young
women, mostly Hindus or infidels in their language. The most
attractive among them were held to become sex-slaves in the
military cantonments. When a few of the girls attempted to
hang themselves with their saris or clothing, their garments
were taken away from them and held in captivity stark naked.
And these were the followers of the 'ghazis' in the service of
Allah and Islam.
The Hindus found it very hard to understand the psychology of
this new invader. For the first time in their history, the
Hindus were witnessing, as their counterparts, the Christians
did at the outset of Islamic invasion of Europe, a scene that
went beyond their imagination. One historian wrote: "The
conquering army burnt villages, devastated the land, plundered
people's wealth, took priests and children and women of all
classes captive, flogged with thongs of raw hide, carried a
moving prison with it, and converted the prisoners into
obsequious Turks."
d) MAHMUD OF GHAZNI
Utbi, the historian at the time of Mahmud of Ghazni wrote
about one such raid by the Moslem invader: "The Sultan
returned in the rear of an immense booty, and slaves were so
plentiful that they became very cheap and men of respecta-
bility in their native land were degraded by becoming slaves of
common shopkeepers in Moslem lands. BUT THIS IS THE
GOODNESS OF ALLAH, WHO BESTOWS HONOR ON HIS
OWN RELIGION AND DEGRADES INFIDELITY."
e) MOHAMMED GHORI
Mohammed Ghori attacked the Hindus several times and after
each attack a general massacre followed. Rapes and pillage
came afterward. The Gahadvad treasuries at Asni and
Varanasi were plundered. Moslem historian Hasan Nizami
rejoices that "in Benares which is the center of the country
of
Hind (India), they destroyed one thousand temples and raised
mosques on their foundations." According to Kamilut-
Tawarikh of Ibn Asr, "the slaughter of Hindus at Varanasi was
immense; none were spared except women and children, and
the carnage of men went on until the earth was weary."
f) FIRUZ TUGHLAK
Firuz Tughlak attacked Orissa in 1360 A.D. and destroyed the
temple of Jagannath. After the sack of the temple, he
attacked an island on the sea-coast where "nearly 100,000 men
of Jajnagar had taken refuge with their women, children and
kinsmen". The swordsmen of Islam turned 'the island into a
basin of blood by the massacre of the unbelievers'. A worse
fate overtook the Hindu women. Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi records"
"WOMEN WITH BABIES AND PREGNANT LADIES WERE
HALTERED, MANACLED, FETTERED AND CHAINED, AND
PRESSED AS SLAVES INTO SERVICE IN THE HOUSE OF
EVERY SOLDIER".'
g) TIMUR
Then came Timur the Terrible. Timur, in his Tuzk-i-Taimuri
starts by saying "O Prophet, make war upon the infidels and
unbelievers, and treat them severely. My great object in
invading Hindusthan had been to wage a religious war against
the infidel Hindus. . .the army of Islam might gain something
by plundering the wealth and valuables of the Hindus."
To start with he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of
Kashmir. He ordered the soldiers "to kill all the men, to
make
prisonerS of women and children, and to plunder and lay waste
all their property." NEXT HE "DIRECTED TOWERS TO BE
gUILT ON THE MOUNTAIN OF THE SKULLS OF THOSE
OBSTINATE UNBELIEVERS."
Soon after he laid siege to Bhatnir defended by the Rajputs.
They surrendered after some fight and were pardoned. But
Islam did not bind Timur to keep his word given to the
"unbelievers", His Tuzk-i-Taimuri records: "In a
short space
of time all the people in the fort were put to the sword, and in
the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut
Off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the
infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the
grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort
became the spoils of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses
and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and
the fort to the ground."
At Sarsuti, the next city to be sacked, "all these infidel
Hindus were slain, their wives and children were made
prisoners and their property and goods became the spoils of
the victors." Timur was now moving through the land of the
Jats, a martial people. He directed his soldiers to "plunder
and destroy and kill everyone whom they met". "And so
the
soldiers plundered every village, killed the men, and carried a
number of Hindu prisoners, both male and female."
Loni, which he captured before he arrived at Delhi was
predominantly a Hindu town. But some Moslem inhabitants
were also taken prisoner. TIMUR ORDERED THAT "THE
MUSULMAN PRISONERS SHOULD BE SEPARATED AND
SAVED, BUT THE INFIDELS SHOULD ALL BE DESPATCHED
TO HELL WITH THE PROSELYTISING SWORD".
By now Timur had captured 100,000 Hindus. As he prepared
for battle against the Tughlak army after crossing the Jumna
river, his advisers told him that on the great day of battle
theSe lOo,ooo Hindu prisoners could not be left unattended and
that it would be opposed to the rules of war to set these
idolators and enemies of Islam at liberty. ONE HUNDRED
THOUSAND UNARMED HINDU PRISONERS WERE SLAUGH-
TERED FORTHWITH [1].
Then came the sack of Delhi. Tuzk-i-Taimuri concludes:
"Many of the Hindus drew their swords and resisted. . . The
flames of strife were thus lighted and spread through the
whole city from Jahanpanah and Siri to Old Delhi, burning up
all it reached. The Hindus set fire to their houses with their
own hands, burned their women and children in them and
rushed to fight and were killed. . .On that day, Thursday, and
all night of Friday, nearly 15,000 Turks were engaged in
slaying, plundering and destroying. When morning broke on
Friday, all my army...went off to the city and thought of
nothing but killing, plunderin~s and making prisoners...The
following day, Saturday the 17th, all passed the same way, and
the spoil was so great that each man secured from fifty to a
hundred prisoners, men, women and children. There was no
man who took less than twenty. The other booty was immense
in rubies, diamonds, garnets, pearls and other gems and jewels.
Gold and silver ornaments of Hindu women were obtained in
such quantities as to exceed all account. EXCEPTING THE
QUARTER OF THE MULLAHS AND SOME AREAS WHERE
OTHER MOSLEMS LIVED, THE ENTIRE CITY OF DELHI WAS
SACKED."
h) MUZAFFAR SHAH
IN 1391 A.D. THE MOSLEMS OF GUJARAT COMPLAINED TO
NASIRUDDIN MUHAMMAD, THE TUGHLAK SULTAN OF
DELHI, THAT THE LOCAL GOVERNOR, FARHAT-UL-MULK,
WAS PRACTISING TOLERANCE TOWARD THE HINDIdS OF
GUJARAT. The sultan immediately appointed Muzaffar Khan
as the new governor sending Farhat-ul-Mulk away. Soon the
sultan of Delhi died and Muzaffar Khan declared himself an
independent king and took the name of Muzaffar Shah. In 1393
A.D. he led an expedition to destroy the famous temple of
Somnath which had been rebuilt by the Hindus after the pillage
by Mahmud of Ghazni. Muzaffar Shah killed many Hindus on
that occasion to "chastise' them for having had the
'impudence'
of rebuilding a temple that had been destroyed and desecrated
by a servant of Allah. He raised a mosque on top of the
foundation of the destroyed temple. The Hindus however
restarted restoring the temple. In 1401 A.D. the iconoclast
Sultan came back with a huge army and once again killed a
great number of Hindus and rebuilt another mosque at the
same place.
i) MAHMUD BEGARHA
Mahmud Begarha who became the sultan of Gujarat in 1458
A.D. was the worst fanatic of this dynasty. One of his vassals
was the chieftain of Junagadh who had never withheld the
regular tribute to the sultan. Yet in 1469 A.D. Mahmud
invaded Junagadh. IN REPLY TO THE CHIEFTAIN'S PRO-
TESTS, MAHMUD SAID THAT HE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN
MONEY AS MUCH AS IN THE SPREAD OF ISLAM. THE
CHIEFTAIN WHO WAS A HINDU WAS FORCIBLY CON-
VERTED TO ISLAM AND JUNAGADH WAS RENAMED
MUSTAFABAD. In 1472 A.D. Mahmud attacked Dwaraka,
destroyed the Krishna temple and plundered the city.
Jaysingh, the ruler of Champaner and his minister were
murdered by Mahmud for refusing to accept Islam after they
had been defeated and their country pillaged and plundered.
Champaner was renamed Mahmudabad.
j) MAHMUD KHALJI
Mahmud Khalji of Malwa (1436-69 A.D.) also destroyed Hindu
temples and revelled in building mosques at the same place.
He heaped many insults on the Hindus.
k) ILYAS SHAH
llyas Shah of Bengal (1339-79 A.D.) invaded Nepal and destroy-
ed the temple of Swayambhunath at Kathmandu. He also
~nvaded Orissa and demolished many temples and plundered at
many places. THE BAHMANI SULTANS OF GULBARGA AND
BIDAR CONSIDERED IT THEIR SACRED DUTY TO KILL A
HUNDRED THOUSAND MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN
EVERy YEAR. They demolished and desecrated Hindu tem-
ples all over South India.
l) BABUR
The scene shifted once more to Delhi after Babur came out
victorious against the Lodhis and the Rajputs. The founder of
the great Mughal empire has received much acclaim for his
fortitude in adversity, his daring against heavy odds, his
swimming prowess, his love of flowers and pomegranates, and
so on and so forth. But his face, presented by himself in his
Tuzk-i-Baburi, suffers an irreparable damage if denuded of the
rich hues of horrible cruelties in which he habitually indulged.
The lurid details he provides of his repeated massacres of the
'infidels' leave no doubt that he was very proud of his
performance. He was particularly fond of raising higher and
higher towers of Hindu heads cut off during and after every
battle he fought with them. He loved to sit in his royal tent to
watch this 'spectacle'. The prisoners were brought before him
and butchered by his tbrave' swordsmen. ON ONE OCCASION
THE GROUND FLOWED WITH SO MUCH BLOOD AND BE-
CAME SO FULL OF QUIVERING CARCASSES THAT HIS
TENT HAD TO BE REMOVED THRICE TO A HIGHER LEVEL.
He lost no opportunity of capturing prisoners of war and
amassing the booty. He only missed the merit of demolishing
temples and breaking images because his predecessors Firuz
Tughlak and others had hardly left any for him in the areas he
traversed. In the dynasty founded by him, it was incumbent
that every king should style himself a'ghazi', that is a warrior
for Islam who took part in 'ghazzua' or raids on infidels or
kaf irs.
m) SHER SHAH SURI
Sher Shah Suri's name is associated with the Grand Trunk Road
of North India, extending from Peshawar to Dacca, with
caravanserais and several other schemes of public welfare. It
is true that he was not a habitual persecutor of the Hindus.
But he did not betray Islam when the test came at Raisen in
1543 A.D. Shaikh Nurul Haq records in Zubadatul-Tawarikh as
follows: "In the year 950 Hijri, Puranmal, a Hindu chieftain,
held occupation of the fort of Raisen. . .He had 1000 women in
his entourage and amongst them several Moslem women. Sher
Khan's Moslem pride was offended and the servant of Allah
resolved to attack the fort. After he had been engaged in
investing the fort for some time, an accommodation was
prOposed It was finally agreed that Puranmal will be allowed
safe conduct along with his family and children as well as 4000
Rajputs.
SEVERAL MULLAHS GAVE HIM THE OPINION THAT ISLAM
DICTATES THAT THESE INFIDELS SHOULD ALL BE KILLED
NoTwlTHsTANDlNG THE AGREEMENT, FOR A MOSLEM IS
NOT BOUND BY ANY AGREEMENT MADE WITH AN INFI-
DEL. Consequently, the whole army was brought and placed in
position to attack the Rajputs when they were the most vulne-
rable. They were all killed to a man.
n) AKBAR THE GREAT
Humayun, the son of Babur and father of Akbar had hardly any
time free from troubles to devote in the service of Islam and
'kafir-kushi' [2] (killing of infidels). But his son Akbar made
quite a good start as a 'ghazi'. He struck the half-dead Hindu
king Himu with his sword after the second battle of Panipat.
The ritual was then followed by many more tbrave warriors" of
Islam led by Bairam Khan who stuck their swords in the dead
body. In 1568 A.D. Akbar ordered a general massacre at
Chitor, Rajputana after the fort had fallen. Abul Fazl records
in Akbar-nama as follows: "There were 8,000 fighting Rajputs
collected in the fortress, but there were more than 40,000
peasants who took part in watching and serving.
From early dawn till midday the bodies of those ill-starred
men were consumed by the majesty of the great warrior.
Nearly 30,000 men were killed. . . when Sultan Alauddin Khalji
took the fort after a siege of six months and seven days, the
peasantry were not put to death as they had not engaged in
fighting. But on this occasion orders were given for general
massacre. Akbar thus improved upon the record of Alauddin
Khalji. WATCHING AND SERVING WERE REINTERPRETED
AS ACTS OF WAR.
o) JAHANGIR
Jahangir was too indolent to keep his promise, given to Nawab
Murtaza Khan at the time of accession to the throne, that he
would uphold the laws of Islam or Shariat. He was just too
much devoted to the wine-cup and women of his harem and did
not care so much for Islam in his private life. But he
encouraged conversion to Islam by offering daily allowances to
those who renounced their ancestral faith and accepted the
Moslem creed.
In the eighth year of his reign he destroyed the temple of
Bhagwat at Ajmer. He persecuted the Jains of Gujarat. He
tortured to death the Sikh holy man and leader Guru Arjun
Dev. Guru Arjun Dev was murdered in a terrible way. THE
GURU WAS MADE TO SIT BY FORCE ON A HOT STEEL
PLATE WHICH HAD A BIG FIRE UNDERNEATH. HE WAS
THEN COVERED WITH HOT SAND POURED FROM OVER
HIS HEAD. AND TO INSULT HIM FURTHER, HIS BODY WAS
WRAPPED WITH THE SKIN OF A FRESHLY SLAUGHTERED
COW. The manner of assassination resembles what the Koran
advises for killing the infidels.
The fault of the Sikh Guru was that he had refused to give up
his own religion for Islam and to include some verses from the
Koran in the Sikh holy book, the Granth Sahib.
p) SHAH JAHAN
The pendulum started to swing toward the true spirit of Islam
at the very start of Shah Jahan's reign in 1623 A.D. Its outer
symbol was the reappearance of the beard on the face of the
emperor. Abdul Hamid Lahori records in his badshah-nama:
"It had been brought to the notice of the Emperor that during
the last reign, construction of many Hindu temples had been
started, but remained still unfinished in Benares, the holy city
of the Hindus, the infidels. The temples were now to be
completed. The emperor issued orders to destroy all temples
of Benares as well as elsewhere in his domain, before they
were finished. It was reported from the province of Allahabad
that 76 Hindu temples had been destroyed in Benares alone."
The year was 1633 A.D.
At the beginning of his reign, the people of Kashmir, both
Hindus and Moslems used to live amicably. They used to
intermarry, and the wife, whatever might have been her
fatherts faith, accepted the faith of the husband. In October,
1634 A.D., Shah Jahan forbade the custom and ordered that
every Hindu who had taken a Moslem wife must either
embrace Islam and be married anew to his wife, or he must
give her up to be wedded to a Moslem. The order was
rigorously enforced.
In 1635 A.D. Shah Jahan's soldiers captured some ladies of the
royal Bundela family after Jujhar Singh and his sons failed to
kill them in the time-honored Rajput tradition to avoid falling
into the hands of the enemy. In the words of Sir Jadu Nath
Sarkar, the eminent historian: "A terrible fate awaited the
captive ladies who survived; mothers and daughters of kings,
they were robbed of their religion, and forced to lead the
infamous life of the Mughal harem - to be the unloved play-
thing of their master's passions for a day or two and then
doomed to sigh out their days like bondwomen, without know-
ing the dignity of a wife or the joys of a mother. SWEETER
FAR FOR THEM WOULD HAVE BEEN DEATH FROM THE
HANDS OF THEIR DEAR ONES THAN SUBMISSION TO A
RACE THAT KNEW NO GENEROSITY TO THE FALLEN, NO
CHIVALRY TO THE WEAKER SEX."
Shah Jahan himself made a triumphal entry into Orchha, the
capital of the Bundelas, demolished the lofty and massive
temple of Bir Singh Dev and raised a mosque in its place. Two
sons and one grandson of Jujhar Singh who were of tender age,
were made Moslems. Another son of Jujhar Singh, Udaybhan
and a minister, Shyam Dawa, had fled to Golconda where they
were captured by Kutubul-Mulk and sent to Shah Jahan.
Udaybhan and Shyam Dawa were offered the alternative of
Islam or death. Both chose the latter and were sent to the hell
described in the Koran.
Shah Jahan was a notorious bigot. His early hatred of
Christians had been noticed by Sir Thomas Roe. After his
accession he grew averse to giving high posts to Rajputs who
were Hindus. The demolition of Hindu temples and desecra-
tion of images mark his reign only to a less extent than his son
Aurangzib'S He refused to release the Hindu Rajah of
Dhamdhera (Malwa) from prison for a ransom of Rs 50,000 and
insisted on his turning Moslem as the price of his liberation.
SHAH JAHAN ALSO COMMANDEERED THE FAMOUS SHIVA
TEMPLE OF AGRA KNOWN AS TEJO MAHALAYA BELONG-
ING TO THE MAHARAJA OF JAIPUR. HE COVERED THE
EDIFICE WITH OUTER STONE COATING-WALLS WITH
KORANIC INSCRIPTIONS AND TURNED THE TEMPLE OF
LORD AGRESHWAR INTO A SO CALLED MAUSOLEUM AND
NAMED IT THE TAJ MAHAL. Pandit P.N. Oak's research
work on this subject is irrefutable. Several beautiful palaces
belonging to the Hindus were similarly commandeered by the
Moslem rulers and turned into Imambaras as can be seen in
Lucknow, even today. Thus some of the Hindu edifices were
saved from complete destruction (unlike the Krishna Temple
of Mathura, the Vishwanath Temple in Benares or the great
temples of Dwaraka and Somnath and Puri), but were instead
covered up like the Imambaras and the Taj Mahal. Please see
Index II for more information on the subject. The picture of
Taj Mahal or Tejo-Mahalaya shown has been published on the
1983 calendar of the Amar Jyoti Ashram, Boulder, Colorado
with the legend mentioned on the picture.
Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son Aurangzib in the fort of
Agra before his death. The old man at first held out and did
not give in to his son who cut off the supply of water from the
Jurnna river. The old man was dying of thirst and eventually
capitulated. At that time, he wrote to his fanatically Islamic
son:
Praised be the Hindus in all cases,
As they ever offer water to their dead.
And thou, rny son, art a marvelous Musalman,
As thou causest me in life to lament for (lack of)
water!
q) AURANGZIB
Aurangzib became the king after Shah Jahan. In the process
he murdered two of his brothers held in captivity and banished
the third to the Arakan Hills to die in the hands of hillmen
there. Aurangzib was an infidel-baiter of exceptional hatred.
HE USED TO DESTROY ALL NON-MOSLEM HOUSES OF
WORSHIP IN INDIA AND SEND MONEY TO THE SHERIF OF
MECCA, THE HOLY CITY OF ISLAM. Those were the days
when there was no oil wealth in the desert kingdom and the
faithful had to eke out a precarious living from the pilgrims'
contributions. Aurangzib's heart went out to help the Moslem
mullahs of that distant holy land. However, he soon stopped
his direct contribution after a few payments when he became
suspicious about the actual disbursements going elsewhere and
not to the needy. He made some attempts to help the needy
of Arabia directly himself through an agency and not through
the Sherif of Mecca any more.
Aurangzib had started his life of an infidel-baiter long before
he ascended the throne. In 1645 A.D. he destroyed the temple
of Chintaman in Gujarat and built a mosque on top of it, with
the same building material obtained from the demolished
temple. On hearing that the Hindus had rebuilt some of the
temples destroyed by him earlier, he sent his order as the king
to the Moslem governor of Gujarat: "In Ahmedabad and other
areas of Gujarat in the days before my accession, temples
were destroyed by my order. They have been repaired and
idol-worship resumed. Carry out the former order."
In 1666 A.D. he ordered the police chief of Mathura, a holy
Hindu city, to remove a stone railing which had been presented
by Dara Shikoh, his elder brother and son of Shah Jahan, to the
temples of Keshav Rail HE EXPLAINED: "IN THE MOSLEM
FAITH IT IS A SIN EVEN TO LOOK AT A TEMPLE AND THIS
DARA HAD RESTORED A RAILING IN A TEMPLE!"
A general policy toward Hindu temples was proclaimed in
April, 1669. Maasir-i-Alamgiri records: "It has reached the
ears of His Majesty, the protector of the faith, that in the
provinces of Thatta, Multan and Benares, especially in the
latter, foolish Brahmans were in the habit of expounding
frivolous books in their schools and that students, Moslems as
well as Hindus, went there, even from great distances, led by a
desire to become acquainted with the wicked sciences they
taught. The Director of the Faith, consequently, issued orders
to all governors of provinces to destroy with a willing hand the
schools and temples of the kafirs and they were strictly
enjoined to put an entire stop to the teachings and practices of
idolatrous forms of worship. IT WAS REPORTED THAT IN
gEDIENCE TO HIS ORDER, THE GOVERNMENT OFFICERS
HAD DESTROYED THE FAMOUS TEMPLE OF VISHWANATH
AT BENARES."
Maasir-i-Alamgiri continues: "In the month of Ramazan
(January, 1670 A.D.) this justice-loving monarch, the constant
enemy of tyrants, commanded the destruction of the Hindu
temple of Mathura known by the name of Debra Keshav Rai,
and soon the stronghold of falsehood was levelled to the
ground. On the same spot was laid, with great expense, the
foundation of a vast mosque ...GLORY BE TO ALLAH WHO
HAS GIVEN US FAITH OF ISLAM THAT IN THIS REIGN OF
THE DESTROYER OF FALSE GODS, AN UNDERTAKING SO
DIFFICULT OF ATTAINMENT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO A
SUCCESSFUL CULMINATION. THE RICHLY JEWELED
IDOLS, TAKEN FROM THE INFIDELS' TEMPLES WERE
TRANSFERRED TO AGRA AND THERE PLACED BENEATH
THE STEPS LEADING TO THE NAWAB BEGUM SAHIB'S
(JAHANARA'S) MOSQUE IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY BE
PRESSED UNDER FOOT BY THE TRUE BELIEVERS.
MATHURAlS NAME WAS CHANGED TO ISLAMABAD AND
THIS WAS THE NAME THAT WAS USED IN ALL OFFICIAL
DOCUMENTS."
In the same year Sitaramji temple at Soron was destroyed as
also the shrine of Devi Patan at Gonda; news also came from
Malwa that the local governor had sent 400 troopers to destroy
all temples around Ujjain. The order was: "Every temple built
during the last 10 or 12 years should be demolished without
delay. Also, do not allow the despicable Hindu infidels to
repair their old temples. Reports of the destruction of
temples should be sent to the court under the seal of the Kazis
(Moslem judges) and attested by pious Shaikhs."
In Mathura, not being able to take this kind of persecution, the
JatS rebelled. The Jat leader Gokla and his family were taken
prisoner. The Jat leader's limbs were hacked off one by one on
the platform of the police office of Agra, his family forcibly
converted to Islam, and his followers were kept in prison in
charge of the provost of the imperial camp.
In 1672 A.D. several thousand Satnamis were slaughtered near
Narnaul in Mewat and in 1675 A.D. Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur
was tortured and finally beheaded for his resistance to forcible
conversion of the Hindus in Kashmir. His disciples were
slaughtered in front of him to frighten the Guru. The pictures
on pages 42, 44 and 46 show the manners in which the disciples
were murdered. The beheading of Guru Tegh Bahadur is shown
on the front cover of the book.
The special tax called the 'jiziya' was reimposed on the Hindus
and other non-Moslems after a lapse of several years. The
Hindus of Delhi organized a peaceful protest and presented
their case to the emperor while he was on his way to the
mosque. AURANGZIB ORDERED HIS ELEPHANTS TO BE
DRIVEN THROUGH THE MASS OF PEOPLE TRAMPLING
MANY TO DEATH.
It was specially during the reign of Aurangzib that the moral
degeneration of Moslem gentry became unbearable to the
kafirs. The prime minister's grandson, Mirza Tafakhkhur used
to sally forth from his mansion in Delhi with his ruffians,
plunder the shops in the bazaar or market, kidnap Hindu
women passing through public streets in litters or going to the
river for bath and prayers, and dishonor them; and yet there
was no judge to punish him or his friends, no police to prevent
such crimes. Everytime such an occurrence was brought to
the attention of the emperor, he referred the matter to the
prime minister and nothing was done. At last after a Hindu
artillerymants wife had been forcibly abducted and his com-
rades threatened mutiny, Aurangzib merely ordered the licen-
tious youth to be prevented from coming out of the mansion.
In Aurangzibts time in particular, the settled principle of Islam
ended by making the Moslems a privileged class, nourished on
State bounties taxed from the kafirs. The Moslems became
indolent in peace time and unable to stand on their own legs in
the arena of life. Public office came to be regarded as the
birthright of the Moslems and so every inducement to display
Superior ability or exertion was taken away from them. The
enormous areas of land given away by Moslem kings as grants
to mosques and other Islamic institutions, nourished thousands
Of Moslem families in a life of slothful ease, while the natural
increase of every succeeding generation turned their com-
petence into deepening squalor. The vast sums spent by the
Islamic state in maintaining Moslem poor houses and scatter-
ing alms during Ramazan and other Moslem holy days, were a
direct premium on laziness. It was more lucrative to be a
'faqir' (beggar calling Allah in the street) at the capital than
to
earn an honest living as a cultivator, subject to the caprices of
the seasons and the worst caprices of the revenue underlings
and officials on tour. Thus a lazy and pampered class was
created in the empire, who sapped its strength and was the
first to suffer when its prosperity was arrested. Wealth bred
indolence and love of ease; these soon led to vice; and vice
finally brought about ruin to the followers of Allah. The kafirs
of course had to bear the entire burden of these parasites all
along.
Although Aurangzib hated idolatry, he used to go round the
pretended foot-prints and hair of the prophet Mohammed, as if
these were representations of the Deity. From his death-bed
he wrote letters to his warring sons Azam and Kam Bakhsh
advising them not to fight and to cultivate brotherly love
which the emperor himself was unable to do in his life time.
Aurangzibts another name was Alamgir (conqueror of the
world) and many used to say about him: "Alamgir- zinda
Fir",
meaning Alamgir is a living saint, referring to his highly reli-
gious and Islamic conduct, an attribute that failed to generate
brotherly love in him. Blood, hatred, fire and sword, cunning
and subterfuge were his instruments for spreading the message
of his religion and the edifice naturally did not last long.
The kafirs had a terrible time under the Moslem king Aurang-
zib. A learned Kazi called Mughis-ud-din had declared that in
accordance with the teachings of the Islamic juris-
prudence: "The Hindus are designated in the Moslem law as
payers of tribute' (kharaj-guzar); and when the revenue officer
demands silver from them, they should without question and
with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer
throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance
Open their mouths wide to receive it. By these acts of
degradation are shown the extreme obedience of the 'zimmi',
the glorification of the true faith of Islam, and the abasement
Of false faiths. Allah Himself orders them to be humiliated, as
He says, 'till they pay 'jiziya' with the hand and are
humbled."
Aurangzib had a queer sense of humor. He used to tell his
temple-destroying soldiers that there was no need to hurry.
They could take their time as the temples could not go away
and escape by themselves. Aurangzib got his elder brother
Dara Shikoh murdered by his harem eunuchs. Murad, another
brother was invited to dinner, drugged with a somniferous
potion and finally arrested and murdered. Dara's beheaded
body was paraded in the streets of Delhi on the back of an
elephant. Dara's children were also murdered by opium
poisoning in the state prison at the orders of Aurangzib. His
own son, Muhammad Sultan, who once rebelled against the
father, was poisoned slowly with opium in the prison at
Gwalior.
Even for Allah, such actions were hard to take. Only two
centuries later a grim fate overtook the sons and grandson of
the last Moslem emperor of Delhi when in 1857 they were shot
in cold blood by an English soldier, while the royal heirs were
vainly protesting their innocence and crying for an inquiry into
their past conduct. The place they were executed is not too
far from Humayun's tomb.
Aurangzib, on ascending the throne of Delhi, declared himself
the 'Khalifa' or caliph of the entire Moslem world. He thus did
not give his recognition to the caliph of Turkey who had been
Considered by many as the temporal leader of all Moslems. It
Is an inscrutable twist of fate that several centuries later, a
Hindu named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born and brought
up among the Moslems of Gujarat, would declare his faith in
the caliph of Turkey as the temporal leader of all Moslems,
when most of the Islamic world had already renounced their
allegiance to this potentate.
r) ABDALI
This Afghan Moslem invader attacked India and destroyed the
Hindu holy city Mathura once again after all the ravages done
by his predecessors. His sacking of Mathura, the Bethlehem of
the Hindus, is worth recounting. After having killed thousands
of Hindus on his way, he finally arrived at the holy city. The
invader had issued his orders to sally and plunder (March 3,
1757 A.D.). His soldiers were assured that everyone would be
allowed to keep whatever plunder he took and would be paid
Rs 5 (a sizeable amount at the time) for every enemy head
brought in. It was midnight when the camp-followers went out
to attack. One horseman mounted a horse and took ten to
twenty others, each attached to the tail of the horse preceding
it, and drove them just like a string of camels. When it was
three hours after sunrise they were seen to come back. Every
horseman had loaded up all his horses with the plundered
property, and atop of it rode the girl-captives and the slaves.
The severed heads were tied up in rugs like bundles of grain
and placed on the heads of the captives...Then the heads
were stuck upon lances and taken to the gate of the chief
minister for payment. It was an extraordinary display! Daily
did this manner of slaughter and plundering proceed. And at
night the shrieks of the women captives who were being raped,
deafened the ears of the people...All those heads that had
been cut off were built into pillars, and the captive men upon
whose heads those bloody bundles had been brought in, were
made to grind corn, and then their heads too were cut off.
These things went on all the way to the city of Agra, nor was
any part of the country spared. . .Ahmed Shah Abdali also
destroyed the holiest temple of the Sikhs in Amritsar. To
desecrate the holy Golden temple, he slaughtered hundreds of
cows and filled the sacred tank of the temple with the cows'
blood.
s) TIPU SULTAN
Tipu was another Moslem ruler who claimed to be a good
believer and so quoting f rom the Koran used to carry out
abhorrent practices such as whipping in public, cutting away
limbs of kafirs and burying them alive, stoning to death and
beheading on the slightest pretext.
Tiputs well-known boast was: "I am the chosen servant of
prophet Mohammed, predestined in the eternal book of fate to
root out the infidels from India and cast them into the
bottomless pit of hell." He used to capture the children of
the
Europeans and when he felt the urge, he ordered them out of
the dungeons into his private chamber. There, he defecated
and urinated upon them, lashed them, hung them over slow-
burning fires, and having drugged thern to insensibility, mur-
dered each by decapitation. Sometimes he would employ a
pair of Abyssinian slaves who would twist the children by the
heads and legs to death.
Tipu forcibly circumcised thousands of Hindus and compelled
them to eat cow-meat, a monstrous act of impiety. He once
seized two thousand Nair women and delivered them to his
troops as prostitutes. His rule became unbearable to the non-
kloslem population living in his kingdom.
t) SIRAJ-UD-DAULA
At the age of twenty years Siraj-ud-daula had already made
the life of his Hindu subjects quite miserable. It was at the
hands of the British that this 'lion of Islam' met with defeat
and made an attempt to escape in disguise. He was captured
and brought to Murshidabad, where the British, unlike the
Hindus, cut him to pieces and paraded his remains through the
streets on an elephant before throwing them to the dogs in the
street. Thus ended the uneventful Islamic rule of fifteen
months headed by this young king.
u) YAHYA AND ZULFIKHAR ALI BHUTTO
Only recently the Islamic government of Pakistan enacted
similar dramas in Bangladesh, erstwhile East Pakistan. It was
1971 A.D. and while negotiations were still in progress be-
tween the two wings of Pakistan, the Moslem government of
West Pakistan UNLEASHED A SURPRISE ATTACK ON THE
UNARMED POPULATION OF EAST PAKISTAN.
Throughout the long night three battalions of soldiers (one
infantry, one artillery and one armored) killed defenseless
Dacca Bengalis with bayonets, rifles, machine guns, mortars,
artillery pieces, rockets, flame throwers and tanks. The
targets were: Dacca University, the police barracks, Sheikh
Mujib's home, the radio station, offices of pro-Mujib news-
paper and of course HINDU HOMES. Several hundred young
men, the cream of the country were mowed down at the Dacca
University. AT THE HINDU STUDENTS' DORMITORY, THE
STUDENTS WHO SURVIVED THE ATTACK WERE FORCED
TO DIG GRAVES FOR THEIR SLAUGHTERED FELLOW STU-
DENTS, EXACTLY LIKE THE 800 JEWS OF QURAYZA, AT
THE TIME OF MOHAMMED, THE PROPHET OF ISLAM. Then
they too were shot and stuffed into the graves dug with their
own hands. THOUSANDS OF HINDUS DIED THAT NIGHT.
MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED MOSLEM TROOPS
ATTACKED THE GIRL STUDENTS OF ROCKEY HALL,
DACCA UNIVERSITY. STRIPPING THEM NAKED, THE
TROOPS RAPED, BAYONETED, AND MURDERED LOVELY
BENGALI GIRLS. Dozens of girls jumped to their death from
the roof of the building rather than suffer the fate of their
sisters.
Simultaneously with the attack in Dacca, other units of the
Islamic Pakistani army smashed into cities and towns across
the country. They followed the same scenario now perfected
over the years: kill, rape, loot and burn. THE SECOND
ATTACK LAUNCHED AFTER A CALCULATED WAIT BY
THE PAKISTANI ARMY IN ANOTHER COLD-BLOODED
ORGY OF KILLING, RAPE, PLUNDER AND ARSON, SMASH-
ED THE COUNTRY'S .VIAIN POPULATION CENTERS.
WORKING FROM CAREFULLY PREPARED LISTS, SPECIAL
COMMANDO UNITS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE HUNTED
DOWN AND EXTERMINATED ALL BENGALI LEADERS, IN-
TELLECTUALS, PROFESSORS, STUDENTS, DOCTORS, LAW-
YERS, JOURNALISTS AND HINDUS, THE PRIME TARGET
OF ALL. THE TALES OF BUTCHERY AND BRUTALITY
WERE ENDLESS.
As the killings continued on land, Pakistani jets strafed and
rocketed defenseless villages. Strong mechanized units moved
out to execute a different kind of raid or 'ghazzua' making
them 'ghazis' too. The message of the Koran was interpreted
in a devious way. One would say that Allah did not like this
conduct from His followers and so eventually victory was
snatched away from the hands of Islamic Pakistan. The kafirs
of India not only defeated the Pakistanis but captured 90,000
of these ruffians passing off as soldiers. And, the soft-hearted
kafirs did not even try these murderers and punish those
among them who were guilty of such heinous crimes against
humanity, but let them go scat free, without even making a
few go to jail for a day. This act of misplaced kindness stands
in great contrast with the treatment meted out to helpless,
unarmed Hindu prisoners, hundreds and thousands of them, who
were summarily butchered by the Moslem kings, in the name
of Islam. The few Hindu and Sikh prisoners that Pakistan had
captured were of course liquidated right away for Pakistan
failed to return them saying that they had no Hindu prisoners
in their hands, worth the mention.
That Allah did not listen to the prayers of the believers after
this dastardly incident is also proven by the fact that the main
actor in the drama, Zulfikhar All Bhutto, was himself hanged
later by his own countrymen. And the then president of
Pakistan, a general named Yahya, was dismissed and died a
death devoid of glory or satisfaction because the land of
Islamic Pakistan became very much reduced as a result of the
diabolical enterprise of imperialism, slaughter, loot, arson and
murder undertaken by Pakistan.
v) SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Moslems in India and elsewhere have been led to believe by
mullahs and Moslem 'historians' that the conquest of India by
Islam started with the invasion of Sindh by Muhammad bin
Qasim in 712 A.D.; it was resumed by Mahmud of Ghazni in
1000 A.D. and completed by Mohammed Ghori when he defeat-
ed the Chauhans of Ajmer-Delhi and Gahadvadas of Kanauj in
the last decade of the 12 century.
Moslems of India have been persuaded to look back with pride
on those six censures, if not more, when India was ruled by
Islamic kings. In this make-belief, the British rulers are
treated as temporary intruders who cheated Islam of its Indian
empire for a hundred years, and the kafir Hindu, who succeed-
ed the British in 1947 A.D., as usurpers of what rightfully
belongs to Islam.
If we compare the Arab struggle on the frontiers of India with
their record elsewhere we will see some difference. Within
eight years of their prophet's death, they had conquered
Persia, Syria and Egypt. By 650 A.D. they had advanced up to
the Oxus river and the Hindu-Kush range. Between 640 and
709 A.D. they had reduced the whole of North Africa. They
had conquered Spain in 711 A.D. But it took them 70 long
years to secure the first foothold on the soil of India. No
historian worth his name should have the cheek to say that the
Hindus have always been an easy game for the invaders. THE
HINDUS' HUMANITARIANISM PLAYED A GREAT PART IN
GIVING UNNECESSARY ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE MOS-
LEMS AND THE INDO-PAKISTAN WARS, ALL THREE OF
THEM PROVED THAT THE KAFIR CAN HOLD HIS OWN
AGAINST ANY ISLAMIC INVADER.
SPAIN, GREECE AND ITALY HAVE ALL THROWN THEIR
MOSLEM INVADING POPULATIONS OUT AND THERE IS NO
REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THE SAME WILL NOT HAPPEN
ON THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT IF THE SITUATION SO
DEMANDS. Times have changed but the lessons of history
should not be forgotten. The past is not only history; it is also
a prophecy.
Footnotes
1. Compare this with the liberation of 90,000 Pakistani
soldiers that committed incredible crimes in East Paki-
stan.
2. The word Hindu-kush stems also from the fact that
many Hindus were butchered by the Moslems on that
Himalayan range at the time.
A.GHOSH
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