Islam in the later Abassid period

Sufist movement (Sufism)

Sufism was a mystical form of Islam. The Sufis were wandering mystics who sought personal and spiritual union with Allah. It was a reaction to the intellectual and scholarly type of Islam that many Islamic scholars of the Qu’ran had accepted. The Sufis believed that everyday life was illusionary; some of them gained reputations for healing and miracle working. They led militant bands to try to spread Islam to non-believers. They contributed significantly to the spread of Islam during the final part of the Abassid eara.

The coming of Islam to South Asia

Indian culture had always been very fluid and flexible; it could absorb into its society very different cultures without suffering any fundamental challenges to their existing order. With the introduction of Islam, this was no longer possible.

After the fall of the Gupta dynasty, Indian society lost its unity except for a periodic ruler (Harsha, for example). Its political divisions were primarily on the north and west regions of the subcontinent and in these places Islam would find opportunity for invasions.

To avenge an attack by pirates sailing from Sind in western India, Arab traders convinced rulers of the Umayyad Empire to attack the kingdom of Sind. The Muslims took this kingdom and it became the area through which Hindu and Islamic culture would meet and be influenced by each other.

The Muslims took over the lands of western India. They tolerated the beliefs of the Indians and for that reason little changes occurred for the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. But the foothold of the Arabs in Sind would provide contacts that would transmit Indian culture to the Middle East.

Indian scientific learning

Hindu mathematics and astronomy

Hindu numerals (later called Arabic, but originally Hindu, these became the basis for two scientific revolutions).

Medicine, Music

Indian and Muslim building styles merged (picture on page 161, compare with info about Mosques on 140-141.)

With the disputes between the ruling Umayyad and rising Abassid tribe, the Muslim stronghold on India had never been too great. As they retreated, they made room for a new rising Muslim tribe to invade India.

The second wave of Muslim Invaders

The second incursion of Islam into India was not by Arab Muslims but by Turkish Muslims seeking the legendary wealth of the subcontinent. These rulers set up their capital at Delhi and established the Delhi sultanate.

The Delhi sultanate was always plagued by factional struggles and their dependence on Hindu lords and village rulers. Thus their power was always limited.

Patterns of conversion

The Muslim belief system and social system were very different from those indigenous to India. Islam believed in one god and believed in equality of all people before Allah. Thus the new religion was attractive primarily to Buddhist, who had already rejected the caste system, and the lower castes of Hindu society. Some people converted to escape the tax that Muslim leaders placed on non-believers. This would have been a greater incentive for the lower classes than for the more financially stable upper classes. As a result of these patterns of conversion, the upper castes of Hindu society—the most powerful and most influential—remained Hindu. Muslim and Hindu communities remained separate from each other. Despite the fact that Islam won many converts in India, the religion made little impact on the Hindu community as a whole. Like Buddhism in China, it did not overthrow the existing system and simply served to make the religions texture of the culture more complex.

Hindus soon realized the threat of Islam to their culture. Not surprisingly, Hindu culture came to emphasize the devotional and mystic cults of its gods and goddesses. The cults that arose around these gods were open to all and did not differentiate between caste or creed. The most famous poet-mystic of this time was Kabir whose words of toleration and inclusivism became an expression of Indian popular culture during this time. Once again, Hinduism had adapted new modes of worship and devotion. (164)