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Islam is the second-largest religion in India (after Hinduism - 76.5%), where Muslims number around 174 million (16.4%) Arrival of Islam Contrary to general belief, Islam came to India long before Muslim invasions of India. Islamic influence first came to be felt in the early 7th century with the advent of Arab traders. Trade relations between Arabia and the Indian subcontinent are very ancient. Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region, which was a link between the ports of South and South East Asia, to trade even before Islam had been established in Arabia. According to Historians Elliot and Dowson in their book The History of India, as Told by its Own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 AD. H.G. Rawlinson, In his book Ancient and Medieval History of India••. Hindus were often subjected to the Islamic law of poll tax or jizya where they were forced into the status of dhimmis unless they converted to Islam. See Also: Sufism and spread of Islam Sufis (Islamic mystics) played an important role in the spread of Islam in India. They were very successful in spreading Islam, as many aspects of Sufi belief systems and practices had their parallels in Indian philosophical literature, in particular nonviolence and monism. The Sufis' unorthodox approach towards Islam made it easier for Hindus to practice. Hazrat Khawaja Muin-ud-din Chisti, Nizam-ud-din Auliya, Shah Jalal, Amir Khusro trained Sufi groups for the propagation of Islam in different parts of India. Once the Islamic Empire was established in India, Sufis invariably provided a touch of colour and beauty to what might have otherwise been rather cold and stark reigns. The Sufi movement also attracted followers from the artisan and Untouchable communities; they played a crucial role in bridging the distance between Islam and the indigenous traditions. Even today Sufi tombs are visited by Hindus and Muslims alike. Role of Muslims in Indias freedom movement The contribution of Muslim revolutionaries, poets and writers is immense in India's struggle against the British. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Rafi Ahmed Qidwai are a few of Muslims who devoted their life for this purpose. Muhammad Ashfaq Ullah Khan of Shahjehanpur who conspired and looted the British treasury at Kakori (Lucknow) to cripple the administration and who, when asked for his last will, before execution, desired: No desire is left except one that some one may put a little soil of my motherland in my winding sheet. Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan (popular as Frontier Gandhi), a great nationalist who spent 45 of his 95 years of life in jail for the freedom of India; Barakatullah of Bhopal, one of the founders of the Ghadar party which created a network of anti-British organizations and who died penniless in Germany in l927; Syed Rahmat Shah of the Ghadar party who worked as an underground revolutionary in France and was hanged for his part in the unsuccessful Ghadar (mutiny)uprising in 1915; Ali Ahmad Siddiqui of Faizabad (UP) who planned the Indian Mutiny in Malaya and Burma along with Syed Mujtaba Hussain of Jaunpur and who was hanged In 1917; Vakkom Abdul Khadar of Kerala who participated in "Quit India" struggle in 1942 was hanged Umar Subhani, an industrialist and a millionaire of Bombay who provided Gandhi with congress expenses and who ultimately gave his life for the cause of independence. Among Muslim women, Hazrat Mahal, Asghari Begum, Bi Amma contributed heavily in the struggle of freedom from Britishers. The following is a list of some famous Muslims who fought for a unified India (as opposed to Pakistan): Maulana Azad, Hakeem Ajmal Khan, Tipu Sultan, Hyder Ali, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Hasrat Mohani, Professor Barkatullah, Dr. Zakir Husain , Saifuddin Kichlu, Allama Shibli Nomani, Vakkom Abdul Khadir, Dr. Manzoor Abdul Wahab, ,Bahadur Shah Zafar, Hakeem Nusrat Husain, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Samad Achakzai, Maulana Mohammad Ali, Colonel Shahnawaz, Dr. M.A.Ansari, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, Ansar Harwani, Tak Sherwani, Viqarul Mulk, Mustsafa Husain, VM Ubaidullah, SR Rahim, Badruddin Tyabjee, and Moulvi Abdul Hamid. However, Muslims such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy would lead the Muslim League party to desire a segregated Islamic Republic of Pakistan and, to that effectm instigate massive riots such as Direct Action Day against Hindus which eventually spread outwards into massive anti-Hindu pogroms such as the Noakhali Massacre, as well as retaliatory attacks by Hindus against Muslims in Punjab and the North Western Frontier Province. Law and politics Muslims in India are Governed by The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937.. it directs the application of Muslim Personal Law to Muslims in a number of different areas mainly related to family law which includes marriage, Mahr(Dower), Divorce, Maintenance, Gifts, Wakf, Wills and Inheritance. The courts generally apply the Hanafi Sunni law, with exceptions made only for those areas where Shia law differed substantially from Sunni practice. Although the Indian constitution provided equal rights to all citizens irrespective of their religion, Article 44 recommended a Uniform civil code. The attempts by successive political leadership in the country to integrate Indian society under common civil code was strongly resisted and is still viewed by Indian Muslims as an attempt to dilute the cultural identity of the minority group of the country. All India Muslim Personal Law Board was established for the protection and continued applicability of “Muslim Personal Law” i.e. Shariat Application Act in India. Hindu-Muslim Conflict India maintains a constitutional commitment to secularism and does not distinguish amongst the people on the basis of religious beliefs. However, Hindu-Muslim relations in India can be characterized as conflictual. This communal conflict is inherited from the convulsive and turbulent course of history, starting with the Islamic invasion of India. The aftermath of the Partition of India in 1947 saw large scale sectarian strife and bloodshed throughout the nation. Since then India have witnessed occasional bouts of large-scale violence sparked by underlying tensions between sections of its majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities. Violence against Hindus by Muslims took place in the Sindhi riots of 1980 when Muslims in Gujarat burnt Hindus alive *. In addition, Islamist attacks on Hindus in Kashmir such as the Wandhama massacre and Kaluchak Massacre contribute to the rising communal tensions in the region. The ethnic cleansing of the Hindu Kashmiri Pandits from the region by the Islamists has worsened the situation. For details see Terrorism in Kashmir. The sense of insecurity experienced by the Indian Muslims in the post partition period has been compounded in the last decade with the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 by Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its sister organisation like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh , Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, etc. In addition, the 1993 Mumbai Bombings perpetrated by the Muslim Mafia don Dawood Ibrahim and the D-Company, following the Bombay Riots against Muslims by Hindu Nationalists fomented the communal divide.Muslim-Hindu conflicts has also been formented due to the mushrooming of radical muslim organisations like SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) whose goal is to establilsh Islamic rule in India. Other groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have been formenting bias in the local Muslim populace against Hindus.These groups are believed to be responsible for the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings. Some of the most violent of such events took place in recent times during the infamous Gujarat riots in which around one thousand people died. The riots were in retaliation to the the Godhra Train Burning in which 50 Hindus belonging to group called the Vishwa Hindu Parishad returning from disputed site of Babri mosque were burnt alive at the Godhra railway station.The train burning was a planned act executed by the Ghanchi Muslims in the region against the Hindu Pilgrims as confirmed by the Gujarat police*. The commission appointed to investigate this finding alleged that the fire was an accident, but the results were refuted by the High Court in 2006*. This event is seen by many, including international "human rights" organizations as the "utter failure of the government of India to provide security to its citizens".In a report subtexted "State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat," the Human Rights Watch condemned the government for allegedly delaying protection to Muslims against the violence that followed. The muslim-planned Bombay bomb blasts of 1993 and the train bomb blasts in 2003 that followed has only aggraveted the conflict.Human rights organizations such as "Human Rights Watch" who made such allegations have been severaly criticized for bigotry and bias against Hindus. Their reports were claimed to hold a systemic anti-Hindu bias by academics such as Arvin Bahl of Princeton University *. Following are some of the issues that have the potential to be used in aggravating the communal divide for political mobilization as has been done in the past. It should be noted that most of the below issues are not only central to the integrity and practice of Hinduism, but also contribute to the inclination of Muslims to support Muslims across the border and the Ghettoism of Muslims. Islam is a minority religion in the country. whereas in India, Muslims are provided equal rights, oppurtunities and freedom. Muslims in Modern India Like in all minorities, Muslims have played roles in various fields of the country's advancement. Prominent Indian Muslims include: Muslims are also playing pivotal roles in the advertising industry, film industry (Bollywood), modern art, academics, theatre and sports. Some large industries like Wipro Ltd., Wockhardt, Himalaya health care, Hamdard Laboratories and Mirza Tanners are owned by Muslims. see: List of notable Muslims of independent India Muslim Institutes There are several well established Muslim institutes in India. Here is a list of reputed institutes established by Muslims. Population Statistics Islam is India's largest minority religion, with Muslims officially constituting 16.20% of the country's population, or 174 million people as of 2001census. However, unofficial estimates show a far higher figure supposedly discounted in censuses. For instance, in an interview with a well circulated newspaper of India The Hindu Justice K.M. Yusuf, a retired Judge from Calcutta High Court and Chairman of West Bengal Minority Commission, says that the real percentage of Muslims in India is at least 20%. *.Even Hindutva people say in their reports that the Muslim population has reached 30% * The largest concentrations--about 47% of all Muslims in India--live in the 3 states of Uttar Pradesh (30.7 million) (18.5%), West Bengal (20.2 million) (25%), and Bihar (13.7 million) (16.5%), according to the 2001 census. Muslims represent a majority of the local population only in Jammu and Kashmir (67 % in 2001) and Lakshadweep (95 %). High concentrations of Muslims are found in the eastern states of Assam (31 %) and West Bengal (25 %), and in the southern state of Kerala (25 %) and Karnataka (12.2%). Muslims are generally more educated, urban, integrated and prosperous in the Western and Southern states of India than in the Northern and Eastern ones; this could be due to partition when the more affluent and educated population migrated over the border, to Pakistan in the North and Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in the East. India has the second largest Muslim population (after Indonesia) and also the third largest Shia Muslim population (after Iran and Pakistan) in the world. The analysis on Religion Data, among the six major religious communities, the decadal growth of the Muslims was the highest (36.0%) at the 2001 Census. This statistics suggested while the growth rate for Hindus has fallen between 1991 and 2001 compared with 1981 and 1991, Muslims have actually grown faster in the last decade, this led Indian media and different Muslim bashing Pro-Hindutva parties raising an alarm at the growing number of Muslims and expressing concern about the demographic imbalance. Although the 1991 census did not include Jammu & Kashmir,the only Muslim majority state and strife-torn Assam, while the 2001 census does include Jammu & Kashmir. Adjusted for this, the Muslim growth rate plunged from 36 per cent to 29.3 per cent. Muslim population in Indian states according to 2001 Census.
Islamic Traditions in South Asia A large number of Indian Muslims follow Sunni Barelwi (Sufi) traditions attached to the memory of great Sufi saints. Sufism is a mystical path (tarika) as distinct from the legalistic path of the sharia. A Sufi attains a direct vision of oneness with God, often on the edges of orthodox behavior, and can thus become a Pir (living saint) who may take on disciples (murids) and set up a spiritual lineage that can last for generations. Orders of Sufis became important in India during the thirteenth century following the ministry of Moinuddin Chishti (1142-1236), who settled in Ajmer, Rajasthan, and attracted large numbers of converts to Islam because of his holiness. His Chishtiyya order went on to become the most influential Sufi lineage in India, although other orders from Central Asia and Southwest Asia also reached to India and played a major role in the spread of Islam. Many Sufis were well known for weaving music, dance, intoxicants, and local folktales into their songs and lectures. In this way, they created a large literature in regional languages that embedded Islamic culture deeply into older South Asian traditions. The leadership of the Muslim community has pursued various directions in the evolution of Indian Islam during the twentieth century. The most conservative wing has typically rested on the education system provided by the hundreds of religious training institutes (madrasa) throughout the country, which have tended to stress the study of the Qur'an, violence toward non-Muslims, and Islamic texts in Arabic and Persian but little else. Several national movements have emerged from this sector of the Muslim community. The Jamaati Islami (Islamic Party), founded in 1941, advocates the establishment of an overtly Islamic government. The Indian branch of the party had about 3,000 active members and 40,000 sympathizers in the mid-1980s. The Tablighi Jamaat (Outreach Society) became active after the 1940s as a movement, primarily among the ulema (religious leaders), stressing personal renewal, prayer, a missionary spirit, and attention to orthodoxy, and violence toward Non-Muslims. It has been highly critical of the kind of activities that occur in and around Sufi shrines and remains a minor if respected force in the training of the ulema. Conversely, other ulema have upheld the legitimacy of mass religion, including exaltation of pirs and the memory of the Prophet. A powerful secularising drive led by Syed Ahmad Khan resulted in the foundation of Aligarh Muslim University (1875 as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College)--with a broader, more modern curriculum -- and other major Muslim universities. Indo Islamic art and architecture
Post - Independence The Muslims of India have generally been treated well although there have been many anti-Muslim riots. See also Literature See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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