What
drove Muslim invaders to loot and destroy Hindu temples? Was it greed? Was it
hatred of idol worship? Or was it contempt towards a conquered people? Ajmer
offers possible answers
First,
some trivia for history buffs. James Tod joined the Bengal Army as a cadet in
1799, presumably looking for a life of adventure in the heat and dust of India.
He swiftly rose through the ranks and, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, the records of
the times tell us, provided valuable service to the East India Company. His
uncanny ability to gather information helped the early colonisers smash the
Maratha Confederacy. Later, his assistance was sought during the Rajputana
campaign.
Colonel
Tod, as he was known, was a natural scholar with an eye for detail and a
curious mind. He was fascinated by the history of Rajputana and its antiquities
as much as by its palace intrigues and the shifting loyalties of its rulers and
their factotums. That fascination led to his penning two books that are still
considered mandatory reading for anybody interested in the history of the
Rajputs, although latter-day scholars of the Marxist variety would disagree
with both the contents and the style, neither leavened by ideological
predilections. The first volume of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan was
published in 1829 and the second in 1832, nearly a decade after he returned to
Britain.
And
now to present times. Thousands of people, Indians and foreigners, Muslims and
non-Muslims, visit Ajmer every day to offer a chaadar at Dargah Sharif of
Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, a shrine where all are welcome and every prayer
is answered, or so the pious choose to believe. Many stay on to visit the other
antiquities of Ajmer, among them a magnificent mosque complex which bears
little or no resemblance to its name: Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra.
People
gawk at the columns and the façade intricately carved with inscriptions from
the Quran in Arabic. They pose for photographs or capture the mosque’s ‘beauty’
on video cameras and carry back memories of Islam’s munificence towards its
followers. Don’t forget to visit Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, they will later tell
friends and relatives visiting Ajmer.
As
for Indian Muslims who travel to Ajmer and see Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, they would
be tempted to wonder why similar mosques are no longer built, a wonderment that
is only partially explained by the fact that sultans and badshahs no longer
rule India. The crescent had begun to wane long before a derelict Bahadur Shah
Zafar was propped up as Badshah of Hindoostan by the mutineers of 1857.
Such
speculation as may flit through troubled minds need not detain us, nor is there
any need to feel sorry for those who wallow in self-pity or are enraged by the
realisation of permanent loss of power. A century and a half is long enough
time to reconcile to the changed realities of today’s Hindustan.
So,
let us return to Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra in Ajmer. Few who have seen and admired
this mosque complex would be aware of Colonel Tod’s description of it in the
first volume of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: “The entire façade of this
noble entrance … is covered with Arabic inscriptions … but in a small frieze
over the apex of the arch is contained an inscription in Sanskrit.” And that
oddity tells the real story of Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra.
This
is no place of worship built over weeks and months for the faithful to
congregate five times a day, it is a monument to honour Shahabuddin Muhammad
Ghauri who travelled through Ajmer after defeating, and killing, Prithviraj
Chauhan in the second battle of Tarain in 1192 AD. Stunned by the beauty of the
temples of Ajmer and shocked by such idolatory, he ordered Qutbuddin Aibak to
sack the city and build a mosque, a mission to be accomplished in
two-and-a-half days, so that he could offer namaz on his way back.
Aibak
fulfilled the task given to him: He used the structures of three temples to
fashion what now stands as Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra. Mindful of sensitivities, his
men used their swords to disfigure the faces of figures carved into the 70
pillars that still stand. It would seem India’s invaders had a particular
distaste for Indian noses portrayed in stone and plaster.
The
story of Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra is not unique. Hindustan’s landscape is dotted
with mosques built on sites where temples stood, often crafted with material
from the destroyed places of worship. Quwwat-ul Islam, the first mosque built
in Delhi, bears testimony to the ruthless invader’s smash-and-grab policy, as
do the mosques Aurangzeb built in Kashi and Mathura, or the mosque Mir Baqi
built at Ayodhya on the site Hindus believe to be, and revere as, Ram
Janmasthan.
The
pillars and inner walls of Babri Masjid, as the disputed structure was known
till it came crashing down on December 6, 1992, were those of a temple that
once stood there, a fact proven beyond doubt. Somnath was fortunate: It was
sacked repeatedly, but no mosque came to occupy the land where it stood — and
still stands — in Gujarat, a coastal sentinel guarding faith, culture,
civilisation. The Vishwanath temple at Kashi was less fortunate as was Krishna
Janamsthan in Mathura.
Strange
as it may seem, such destruction, barring the illegitimate occupation by
Muslims of Temple Mount revered by Jews in Jerusalem, never happened in the
land considered holiest of all by followers of the three Abrahamic faiths. The
Church of Nativity in Bethlehem commemorates (and preserves) the manger where
Jesus Christ was born. In the walled city of Jerusalem stands the centuries old
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the spot where Jesus was crucified and the sepulchre
where he was buried and from where he rose. These and many other Christian
sites have remained untouched. As have Jewish sites.
What
then explains the extraordinary destructive trait displayed by Muslim invaders
who raided India again and again? It couldn’t just have been the wealth of
temples (as Marxist historians who grudgingly concede temples were indeed
attacked would forcefully argue in justification of the destruction), there has
to be something more. Was it polytheism that upset the early age Islamists? Was
it idol worship that enraged them? Or was it simply hate and contempt towards
the conquered that drove the destructive impulse of the conquering invader?
Ironically,
to ask these questions would be considered as ‘intolerance’ today. Positing
possible answers would be labelled as ‘hate speech’. And those asking the
questions and positing possible answers would be described as ‘Islamophobes’.
History has truly been hijacked by the perverse politics of our times.
(This appeared as Coffee Break in The Pioneer on
October 20, 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment