08-25-2009, 12:07 AM
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It is not true that marriages between Hindus and mUslims did not take place. But the Islamic regimes, including most "enlightened ones" viciously intervened and forbade marriage of Muslim women to Hindu men. They demanded, abducted, and forced Hindu women to get married to Muslim men. In fact the famous "Sufi" founder of Azmeer Sharif actually married because he had dream that chastised hime fro being without a wife, and he simply married the abducted daughter of a local Hindu rajah who was captured on a night attack by a Muslim army commander (an indication that the oh-so-peaceful Sufi success could have been closely relaed to proximity of Islamic armies).
There was one brief period in Kashmir, when a Muslim sultan gave his daughters in marriage to Kashmiri Hindu nobles of his court, although it is not vey clear that there were no hidden conditions of conversion. However, the reaction in edicts and firmans of Jehangir and ShaJahan indicate that conversion was not included in the condition, and they were outraged at this.
The Islamic regimes enforced this one way traffic of women from the Hindu into the Muslim. Why is it so difficult to unerstand that the Hindu might have simply internalized the effects of the trauma the Islamic rulers visited upon the family and community if a Hindu man dared to marry a Muslim woman without converting first - that they closed themselves off to marital interaction?
Ibn Battuta gives eye-witness accounts of the Sultanâs arranging marriages of enslaved girls with Muslims on a large scale on the two Ids â âFirst of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come, sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this the daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing and the Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives sons of Maliks etc. On the sixth day male and female slaves are married.â Ibn Battuta writes: âAt (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Wazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.â
In medieval India, beautiful women captives of Muslim warfare were kept mainly as sex-slaves called kanchanis, kanizes and concubines. Muslim nobles exchanged them widely and frequently and Hindu nobles shared in this practice of âtakingâ Muslim women. In the Delhi Sultanate, according to Nizamuddin Ahmad, âMusalmanâ women were taken by the Rajputs and sometimes taught the art of dancing and singing and were made to join the âakharasâ. Muslim women from the palace of Malwa Sultan entered, between 1512-1518, the household of his nayak or captain Medini Rai. Sultan Mahmud Sharqi (1436-58 ) was accused of handing over Muslim women to his âkafirâ captains. Similarly, the Muslim ruler of Kalpi and Chanderi, shortly after 1443, had made over Muslim women to some of his Hindu captains. Malwa was not an exception. In Kashmir, according to Jonraj, Shah Mir had gone to the extent of marrying his daughters to his Brahman chiefs.
Muslim military power being more effective, Islamic rulers in general discouraged Hindus from taking Muslim women. Sher Shah, represented by modern Hindu historians to be a âliberalâ, broke his treaty with Puran Mal of Raisen because of the latterâs âgravest of all offences against Islamâ in keeping some Muslim women in his harem. The Mughals demanded and freely married Hindu princesses (The liberal Jahangir writes this openly in his autobiography), but there is not a single instance of a Mughal princess being married to a Rajput prince. Akbar discouraged all types of inter-communal marriages. When Jahangir learnt that the Hindus and Muslims intermarried freely in Kashmir, and both give and take girls, (he ordered that) âtaking them is good but giving them, God forbidâ. And any violation of this order was to be visited with capital punishment. Shahjahan ordered that the Hindus in Kashmir could keep their Muslim wives only if they converted to Islam. Therefore, under him, 4,000 to 5,000 Hindus converted in Bhadnor alone. (there are similar references in Gujarat and Punjab)
Hindus sometimes rescued Hindu girls forcibly married to Muslims. Many Hindu Rajas and elite kept Muslim women in their seraglios, sometimes as a symbol of revenge and continued to capture Muslim women wherever they felt strong. Khafi Khan and Manucci both affirm that the Marathas used to capture Muslim women because, according to them, âthe Mahomedans had interfered with Hindu women in (their) territoriesâ.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is not true that marriages between Hindus and mUslims did not take place. But the Islamic regimes, including most "enlightened ones" viciously intervened and forbade marriage of Muslim women to Hindu men. They demanded, abducted, and forced Hindu women to get married to Muslim men. In fact the famous "Sufi" founder of Azmeer Sharif actually married because he had dream that chastised hime fro being without a wife, and he simply married the abducted daughter of a local Hindu rajah who was captured on a night attack by a Muslim army commander (an indication that the oh-so-peaceful Sufi success could have been closely relaed to proximity of Islamic armies).
There was one brief period in Kashmir, when a Muslim sultan gave his daughters in marriage to Kashmiri Hindu nobles of his court, although it is not vey clear that there were no hidden conditions of conversion. However, the reaction in edicts and firmans of Jehangir and ShaJahan indicate that conversion was not included in the condition, and they were outraged at this.
The Islamic regimes enforced this one way traffic of women from the Hindu into the Muslim. Why is it so difficult to unerstand that the Hindu might have simply internalized the effects of the trauma the Islamic rulers visited upon the family and community if a Hindu man dared to marry a Muslim woman without converting first - that they closed themselves off to marital interaction?
Ibn Battuta gives eye-witness accounts of the Sultanâs arranging marriages of enslaved girls with Muslims on a large scale on the two Ids â âFirst of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come, sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this the daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing and the Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives sons of Maliks etc. On the sixth day male and female slaves are married.â Ibn Battuta writes: âAt (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Wazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.â
In medieval India, beautiful women captives of Muslim warfare were kept mainly as sex-slaves called kanchanis, kanizes and concubines. Muslim nobles exchanged them widely and frequently and Hindu nobles shared in this practice of âtakingâ Muslim women. In the Delhi Sultanate, according to Nizamuddin Ahmad, âMusalmanâ women were taken by the Rajputs and sometimes taught the art of dancing and singing and were made to join the âakharasâ. Muslim women from the palace of Malwa Sultan entered, between 1512-1518, the household of his nayak or captain Medini Rai. Sultan Mahmud Sharqi (1436-58 ) was accused of handing over Muslim women to his âkafirâ captains. Similarly, the Muslim ruler of Kalpi and Chanderi, shortly after 1443, had made over Muslim women to some of his Hindu captains. Malwa was not an exception. In Kashmir, according to Jonraj, Shah Mir had gone to the extent of marrying his daughters to his Brahman chiefs.
Muslim military power being more effective, Islamic rulers in general discouraged Hindus from taking Muslim women. Sher Shah, represented by modern Hindu historians to be a âliberalâ, broke his treaty with Puran Mal of Raisen because of the latterâs âgravest of all offences against Islamâ in keeping some Muslim women in his harem. The Mughals demanded and freely married Hindu princesses (The liberal Jahangir writes this openly in his autobiography), but there is not a single instance of a Mughal princess being married to a Rajput prince. Akbar discouraged all types of inter-communal marriages. When Jahangir learnt that the Hindus and Muslims intermarried freely in Kashmir, and both give and take girls, (he ordered that) âtaking them is good but giving them, God forbidâ. And any violation of this order was to be visited with capital punishment. Shahjahan ordered that the Hindus in Kashmir could keep their Muslim wives only if they converted to Islam. Therefore, under him, 4,000 to 5,000 Hindus converted in Bhadnor alone. (there are similar references in Gujarat and Punjab)
Hindus sometimes rescued Hindu girls forcibly married to Muslims. Many Hindu Rajas and elite kept Muslim women in their seraglios, sometimes as a symbol of revenge and continued to capture Muslim women wherever they felt strong. Khafi Khan and Manucci both affirm that the Marathas used to capture Muslim women because, according to them, âthe Mahomedans had interfered with Hindu women in (their) territoriesâ.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->