Download The Case of India: Turkic speaking peoples converted to Islam. The

The Case of India:
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Turkic speaking peoples converted to Islam.
The Turks became the third major carrier of Islam after Arabs and Persians
Turks would enter into conflicts with Hindu-based Indian civilization.
Early centuries were violent
Invaders smashed Hindu and Buddhist temples
Sultanate of Delhi 1206—Turkic rule became more systematic
Only a very modest penetration of Indian society
Substantial Muslim communities emerged in India
o Particularly in areas less integrated into the dominant Hindu culture
o Disillusioned Buddhists/ low caste Hindus and untouchables found
the more egalitarian Islam attractive
o Evade the tax— jizya
o Sufis missionaries were willing to accommodate local gods and
religious festivals, helped develop a popular Islam not so sharply
distinguished from Hinduism
In India, Islam was never able to claim more than 20 to 25 percent of
the total population.
Many major differences:
o Hindu was prolifically polytheistic—generated endless statues and
images of the divine in many forms vs. the monotheism of Islam
o Muslim equality vs. Hindu social stratification/hierarchy
o The sexual modesty of Muslims was deep offended by the open
eroticism of Hindu religious art
Sikhism: blended elements of Islam—devotion to one universal God
o Hindu influence—karma and rebirth
o There is no Hindu and no Muslim. All are children of God
“Muslims, usually living quite separately, remained a distinctive minority
within an Indian civilization, which they now largely governed but which
they proved unable to completely transform”
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived Islamic
kingdoms or sultanates of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates
ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the
Mughal dynasty.
The Case of Anatolia:
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Turkey
Turkic invaders
Largely Christian and Greek speaking population was governed by the
Byzantine Empire.
The invaders initially wreaked havoc as Byzantine authority melted away in
the 11th century
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Sufi missionaries likewise played a major role in the process of conversion.
A PROFOUND cultural transformation unlike India
By 1500 the population was 90 percent Muslim
Factors of differences:
 Population: India had 48 million people; Anatolia had 8 million
 Most of Anatolia was Turkic speaking peoples
 A smaller colonizing force in India
 Disruption in Anatolian society was more extensive
o Massacres, enslavement famine, led to drop in native population
o Byzantine state was weakened
o Church properties were confiscated
o Monasteries were destroyed or deserted
o Priests and bishops were unable to serve congregations
o Christians were discriminated
o Had to pay a special tax
o Fewer cultural barriers—common monotheism of Islam and
Christianity
 Sufis established schools, mills, orchards, hospices, and rest
places for travelers and thus replaced the destroyed or
decaying institutions of Christian Anatolia.
 Contributed to the religious transformation of Anatolia
and laid a foundation for the Ottoman Empire, which by
1500 became the most impressive and powerful state
within the Islamic
Differences with Islam and Turkish Culture:
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Turkish culture—much more inclusive towards women
The Case of West Africa:
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How—Muslim merchants across the Sahara
Not invading Arab or Turkic armies
Peaceful and voluntary
Already Islamisized North Africa
Accepted in primarily in urban centers of West African empires—Ghana,
Mali,Songhay, KanemBornu
For African merchant communities, Islam provided an important link to
Muslim trading partners, much as Buddhism had done in Southeast
Asia.
It had a religious appeal for societies that were now participating in a wider
world.
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Timbuktu –more than 150 lower level Quranic schools
In contrast to India and Anatolia, Sufi holy men played little role until at least
the 18th century
Scholars, merchants, rulers, rather than mystic preachers, initially
established Islam in West Africa
Islam remained the culture of an urban elite
Spread little into the rural areas of West Africa until the 19th century
No thorough religious transformation occurred in West Africa as it had in
Anatolia
Rulers made few efforts to impose Islam
The Case of Spain:
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Cite of the Islamic encounter with Catholicism
Conquered by Arab and Berber forces
Early 8th century
Muslims, Christians, Jews contributed to the high culture
More than a few Christians converted to Islam
Many others learned Arabic, veiled their women, stopped eating port,
appreciated Arabic music and poetry and sometimes married Muslims.
“Even assimilated or Arabized Christians, however, remained infidels in the
eyes of their Muslim counterparts, and by the late tenth century the era of
toleration began to erode”
Initially religious harmony
981-1002 an official policy of tolerance turned to one of overt persecution
against Christians –plundered churches
“The era of harmonious interaction between Muslim and Christian in Spain
came to an end, replaced by intolerance, prejudice, and mutual suspicion”
Christian reconquest of Spain
o Reconquista:
 Was a period of almost 800 years (539 years in Portugal)
in the Middle Ages during which several Christian
kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled
areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as AlAndalus.
 When the reconquest as completed in 1492 all Jews some
200,000 of them, were likewise expelled from the country.
Thus, as Christianty was displaced by Islam in Anatolia,
the opposite process was taking place in Spain