07-04-2007, 06:07 AM
Anyway, it is only fair for me to provide a quote on why I posted.
Talking about Sultan Raziya, John Keay writes in "India: A History"
Page 245, 247
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So too may have been the appointment as 'personal attendant to her majesty' of Jamal-ud-din-Yakut, an 'Abyssinian' who was probably once a slave and very definitely an African. A liaison so conspicuous duly brought unfavorable comment from the historian Isami. Declaring that a woman's place was 'at her spinning wheel [charkha]' and that high office would only derange her, he insisted Raziya should have made 'cotton her companion and grief her wine-cup'.
These lines, written in 1350, are of additional interest in that, according to Irfan Habib, Indian's most distinguished economic historian, they contain 'the earliest reference to the spinning wheel so far traced in India'.<b> Since the device is known in Iran from a prior period, 'the inference is almost inescapable that the spinning wheel came to India with the Muslims'. So did the paper on which Isami penned his patronising lines,....</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Page 247
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In adopting the charkha as the symbol of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party were not, however courting Muslim votes. The irony of predominantly Hindu India sporting a national icon of Islamic provenance went unnoticed.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, I tried to gather some verification on what I read. Simple.
Talking about Sultan Raziya, John Keay writes in "India: A History"
Page 245, 247
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So too may have been the appointment as 'personal attendant to her majesty' of Jamal-ud-din-Yakut, an 'Abyssinian' who was probably once a slave and very definitely an African. A liaison so conspicuous duly brought unfavorable comment from the historian Isami. Declaring that a woman's place was 'at her spinning wheel [charkha]' and that high office would only derange her, he insisted Raziya should have made 'cotton her companion and grief her wine-cup'.
These lines, written in 1350, are of additional interest in that, according to Irfan Habib, Indian's most distinguished economic historian, they contain 'the earliest reference to the spinning wheel so far traced in India'.<b> Since the device is known in Iran from a prior period, 'the inference is almost inescapable that the spinning wheel came to India with the Muslims'. So did the paper on which Isami penned his patronising lines,....</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Page 247
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In adopting the charkha as the symbol of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party were not, however courting Muslim votes. The irony of predominantly Hindu India sporting a national icon of Islamic provenance went unnoticed.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, I tried to gather some verification on what I read. Simple.