Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
HVK Archives: Tolerance is not cultural ecumenism! - Did Islam preside over India's cultural symbiosis?

Tolerance is not cultural ecumenism! - Did Islam preside over India's cultural symbiosis? - The Observer

Meenakshi Jain ()
September 5, 1998

Title: Tolerance is not cultural ecumenism! - Did Islam preside over India's cultural symbiosis?
Author: Meenakshi Jain
Publication: The Observer
Date: September 5, 1998

Lately, a section of the Muslim intelligentsia has been busy
propagating the thesis that a spiritual symbiosis between
Hinduism and Islam took place in the Indian subcontinent in
medieval times. India, they say, was the melting pot of two
great religions that lived in near-perfect harmony for thirteen
of the fourteen centuries of their coexistence.

It was only in the present century that this idyllic relationship
was disturbed. This unprecedented period of intimacy is
attributed to the omplementary philosophy Hinduism shared with
Islam.

The Vedas and Puranas, it is argued, matched the Quran and Hadith
word for word. Given this formidable history, argue advocates of
this thesis, political will can set matters right once again.

It is hardly surprising that this sanitised account of the Hindu-
Muslim encounter has elicited lukewarm response. Its political
motivation is too transparent to be overlooked.

It is a thinly veiled attempt at establishing parity between
Hinduism and Islam at a time when a major political movement.
among Hindus has questioned that very parity. Its motivations
apart, the theory itself is grievously flawed.

Synthesis is a difficult thesis to sell in the presence of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Hindus figured as the
'other' in Muslim psyche early in Islam history. The Prophet
himself prophesied that, of the two groups of his companions God
saved from hell-fire, one was destined to attack Hindustan. Under
the circumstances it is legitimate to ask what constituted
composite culture in Muslim India and when and under whose
auspices it developed.

Advocates of synthesis are difficult to find among Muhammad's
followers in India, so great was the abhorrence for the land and
its people.

The poet Amir Khusrau has been hailed as among the fore. runners
of 'synthetic' Islam, followed by Emperor Akbar and his great
grand son Dara Shikoh.

In Amir Khusrau's case, the position is fairly clear. The mockery
of foreign Muslims made him speak up for his half-Indian
heritage. Hindus, he said, were superior to all other types of
non-believers. The Brahmanical record in the field of rational
sciences, logic, mathematics and astronomy was in no way inferior
to that of the Greeks; the one Brahmanical shortcoming being
their Ignorance of Muslim religious law.

Khusrau went against the tradition of Indo-Persian poetry to
speak glowingly of the flora and fauna of India and the beauty of
Indian languages.

Such appreciation, however, in no way lessened his hostility to
the religion and ritual of Hindus. Again and again he specified
in his poems that the India he loved was the land of the
splendour of Islam, where the Shariat was honoured and secure and
Hinduism conquered and subdued.

India is 'a wonderful land, producing Muslims' and 'the vapours
of infidelity have been dispersed.'

Khusrau's contribution to the development of a composite language
is questionable. He has been projected as a bilingual poet but a
large part of the Hindu poetry credited to him, including the
famous Khaliq bari, has been found to be spurious. He acknowledge
the complex grammatical structure of Sanskrit, but gave it a
status inferior to Arabic.

There is no evidence to suggest that he ever attempted to study
this mother of Indian languages.

His contribution to the development of Indian music is also
difficult to quantify. So how much of a synthesis does he
represent?

The answer is unclear even in the case of Akbar. He began,
predictably enough, as a conservative Sunni, a position he
maintained well into the 1570s. A highlight of this period was
the repressive attitude he displayed towards Muslim 'heretical'
sects - Shias and Mahadavis.

In 1567, he ordered the exhumation of the mortal remains of Mir
Murtaza Shirazi from the vicinity of Amir Khusrau's tomb in Delhi
on the ground that a 'heretic' could not remain buried close to
the grave of a Sunni saint. And on imperial orders a leading
Mahadavi divine, Miyan Mustafa Bandagi, was brought to the court
bound in chains.

During this phase Akbar toed the official line even in the matter
of his infidel subjects. Forcible conversions, rechristening
Hindu holy cities, reimposition of the jaziya, he did them all
for, as the Mahzar Nama incident reveals, he aspired for the
status of Imam.

But then compulsions of real. politik set in. It was important to
gain access to Rajput military resources. Rajput adherence made
his position more secure. He could also use them and the Indian
Muslims as a counterweight to his immigrant followers - the often
quarrelsome and sometimes disloyal Turks and Iranians.

These considerations combined with his changing personal
predilections led Akbar to seek "a more neutral legitimation...
at least by way of supplement. " But this in no way implied
dilution of the Muslim ethos. The state remained "unmistakably a
Muslim state... Muslim in its foundation and in the ultimate
locus of its power."

The Din-i-Ilahi was not a royal attempt at synthesising Hinduism
and Islam whatever modern commentators may say. Even Akbar's
bitterest contemporary critics admitted that the roots of his
attitude lay within Islam itself, specially within Sufism. Nine
of the ten virtues enjoined by the Ilahi order were derived
directly from the Quran, while the tenth was a common place basis
of all Sufi thought and experience.

In its orientation and concerns the Din-i-Ilahi, in fact, showed
a surprising indifference to Hinduism. In any case, within a year
of its foundation, Akbar had reverted to the position of
'slightly superstitious Islam.' Taking Akbar's reign and
personality in totality, it has been said, he et the tone of
Mughal rule as one of public tolerance from a position of
strength. Can tolerance pass for cultural ecumenism?

In the history of Indian Islam it is Dara Shikoh who comes
closest to being a renegade. He began his spiritual journey as a
disciple of the Qadiri Sufis, but his attempt to understand the
Quranic concept of marmuz (mysterious, symbolic) led him to a
study of Hindu scriptures, especially the Upanishads. The Sirr-i-
Akbar was his translation of 52 Upanishads into Persian. This
tremendous endeavour convinced him that the Upanishads were the
original statement on the oneness of God, antedating the Quran.

The Quran itself, he said, made veiled references to the
Upanishads as the "first heavenly book and the fountainhead of
the ocean of monotheism."

This was undoubtedly a bold declaration to make. However, it in
no way implied that Dara had moved away from Islam towards
Hinduism. He merely wished to understand and highlight what he
erroneously believed was common to the two religions.

And it was because his arguments were so lacking in basis and so
contrary to the general thrust of Indian Islam that they found
virtually no acceptance within the Muslim community.

Two years after the completion of the Sirr-i-Akbar, Dara was
executed on the orders of his brother. Apostasy was the official
reason given for his execution. The orthodox Muslim community
welcomed the end of a man they branded as 'a heretic and a danger
to the state, the faith, and public order.'

In the face of such chilling evidence, it takes a brave heart to
talk of symbiosis and synthesis.

(The author is reader, Delhi University)


Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements