இந்து கோவில்களில் மசூதிகளாக மாறியது குறித்து மௌலானா அப்துல் ஹாய் (Maulana Abdul Hai) இந்தியன் எக்ஸ்பிரஸ், பிப்ரவரி 5) குறிப்பிட்டது ஒரு சிறு குறிப்பு மட்டும் தான், இடைக்கால முஸ்லீம் வரலாற்றாசிரியர்களின் எழுத்துக்கள், இந்தியப் பயணம் செய்த பயணிகள் மற்றும் தொல்பொருள் ஆராய்ச்சி அறிக்கைகளில் மூழ்கியுள்ளது.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus
I செங்கல்பட்டு மாவட்டம். II கோவை மாவட்டம்.IV மதுரா மாவட்டம்.V வடக்கு ஆர்காட் மாவட்டம்.VI . ராமநாதபுரம் மாவட்டம்.VII . சேலம் மாவட்டம்.VIII . தெற்கு ஆர்காட் மாவட்டம்IX,. தஞ்சாவூர் மாவட்டம்.X. திருச்சிராப்பள்ளி மாவட்டம்.XI . திருநெல்வெல்லி மாவட்டம்.Did Muslims destroy Hindu temples?
The destruction of Hindu temples by Muslim invaders is a controversial topic in Indian history. There are conflicting views on whether widespread temple destruction occurred and the motivations behind such actions. This article will examine the evidence around temple destruction and assess whether it can be conclusively stated that Muslims destroyed Hindu temples on a large scale.
Table of Contents
Historical Overview
India came under Muslim rule starting from the early 8th century CE with the Umayyad conquest of Sindh. Over the next few centuries, parts of India were ruled by Muslim dynasties like the Ghaznavids, Ghorids, and Delhi Sultanate. The Delhi Sultanate controlled large parts of northern India from 1206 to 1526 CE when it was replaced by the Mughal Empire. Mughal rule over most of India lasted until the 18th century.
During these centuries of Muslim rule, there were instances of temple destruction recorded by Muslim historians and Hindu and Jain literary sources. Prominent among these were the campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni in the early 11th century CE, attacks on temples by Delhi Sultans such as Qutb ud Din Aibak, Sikandar Lodi, and Aurangzeb, and the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s policies towards Hindu temples in the late 17th century CE.
However, there is debate over whether these scattered instances over the centuries amount to widespread and systematic temple destruction.
Evidence of Temple Destruction
The best evidence we have for medieval temple destruction comes from the literary accounts of Muslim court historians and medieval Hindu and Jain writers:
- The early 11th century CE court historian Al-Utbi recorded Mahmud of Ghazni’s attacks on Hindu temples, including famous shrines like the Shiva temple at Somnath.
- The 14th century CE historian Ziauddin Barani mentioned the destruction of temples by the Delhi Sultans, including Qutb ud Din Aibak and Sikandar Lodi.
- There are accounts in Jain sources like Merutunga’s Prabandhachintamani on the destruction of Jain temples in Gujarat.
- Francois Bernier, a French physician present during Aurangzeb’s reign, wrote that Aurangzeb “utterly destroyed” temples, while building mosques on temple sites.
- Hindu sources like the Ramcharitmanas allude to temple destruction in Varanasi and Mathura during Aurangzeb’s rule.
Archaeological evidence also indicates temple desecration by some Muslim rulers, like traces of idols buried under mosques built during Aurangzeb’s reign.
Motivations for Temple Destruction
Historians have proposed the following motivations behind temple destruction by some Muslim rulers and invaders:
- Religious zeal – The desire to spread Islam by demolishing Hindu and Jain temples, which were seen as dens of infidelity.
- Political strategy – Temples were important political and economic centers. Destroying them weakened the ruled Hindu community.
- Plunder – Temple treasures and valuables were looted to finance military campaigns.
- Punitive acts – Retaliatory destruction of temples in response to revolts against Muslim rule.
The motivations likely varied from case to case – religious zeal was often mixed with economic motivations.
Scope and Scale
The key debate around this issue is regarding the geographic scope and scale of temple destruction:
- Some historians argue it was limited to just a few regions like the Ghorid campaigns in Gujarat and the Delhi Sultanate activities in a few northern Indian towns and cities.
- Others contend that it occurred on a much wider scale spanning most of northern, western and central India and was a result of policy under rulers like Aurangzeb.
Due to limited historical evidence, the precise scope remains unclear. But destruction does not seem to have covered most parts of South India, which was ruled by Hindu kingdoms for most of the medieval period.
Contrasting Perspectives
Given the limited and ambiguous evidence, there are differing perspectives on the phenomenon of temple destruction among historians:
Temple Destruction as Exaggerated or Mythical
Some modern historians believe medieval Hindu literary accounts exaggerated sporadic instances of temple desecration into a exaggerated narrative of widespread destruction. They argue against a simplistic “Hindus good, Muslims bad” version of history.
Temple Destruction as Real and Extensive
Other historians contend that literary accounts along with archaeological evidence point to real and substantial destruction of religious sites under many Muslim rulers. They criticize attempts to gloss over these difficult aspects of medieval Indian history.
Temple Destruction as Complex Phenomenon
Some scholars take a more nuanced perspective. They point out that both literal destruction and ritual desecration of Hindu temples occurred in particular periods and regions, but caution against generalizing it to entire eras and geographies. The motivations were complex, as were Hindu-Muslim relations.
There was also temple construction under some Muslim rulers – so the phenomenon of temple destruction has to be situated within the larger context of that period rather than simplified into a stereotype.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the available evidence confirms that destruction and desecration of Hindu and Jain temples did take place at the hands of some Muslim invaders and rulers during medieval India. But the scope, scale, motivations and historical implications are complex, defying simplistic characterizations.
There seems to be basis for arguing some level of extensive destruction in specific periods and areas based on both literary and archaeological evidence. At the same time, extrapolating isolated events into a generalized narrative of Muslim intolerance and nationwide temple destruction appears problematic.
Rather than outright denial or exaggeration, the phenomenon is perhaps best approached with nuance – frankly acknowledging religious violence in certain contexts while being cautious about broader generalizations either way. A careful, evidence-based assessment is needed, without reducing history into neat caricatures of villains and victims that distorts more than it reveals.
Destruction of Hindu
Temples by Muslim invaders
Article by @OGSaffronLittle discussed or highlighted is the psychosocial aspect that accompanied most of, if not all, the instances wherein Hindu temples were destroyed. As Jonsson (2006) points out: When “Muslim invaders broke and burned everything beautiful they came across in Hindustan,” they were “displaying the resentment of the less developed warriors who felt intimidated in [their] encounter with a more refined culture” (p. 86).
Indeed, for the Muslim invaders, the Hindu infidels—these “refined” pagans, the Kafirs—were “heathens, par excellence” (Jonsson, 2006, p. 86). Therefore, how could they build such extravagantly ornamented, finely constructed buildings if they were not Muslim? Are not the infidels supposed to be inferior in every respect to the zealous believer, to those who do not join other gods with the One True God?
When one examines the many architectural remnants that have survived in their “hybrid” form—as even the politically correct archaeologists would have us believe in “fusions” of Dharmic and Islamic “architecture” being congregational and intercultural rather than ferocious and resentful—visible is the mosque type that is the conquest mosque. The foundation of such “hybridity” is not the benign intercultural notion that secular ideologues would have us accept but instead a profound hatred of the Hindu and his place of worship. Almost every “hybrid” expression that has come down to us surviving in the form of the conquest mosque is a religious declaration, through architectural continuity, of Muslim superiority over Hindu heathenry.
To define the common feature of such “hybridity” is to capture the essence of the conquest mosque. Mosques of conquest are “mosques that are all built on the sites of dismantled temples and employ recut columns and other spolia taken from the destroyed monument” (Wagoner & Rice, 2001, p. 90).
To give an example, take for instance the inscription on the eastern gate of the Quwwat al-Islam mosque—a conquest mosque that stands as the “Might of Islam”—which records “that the mosque was built with spolia taken from twenty-seven different temples; these spolia include columns, bracket capitals, ceiling panels, and other decorative members, and the mosque can be seen to be founded on the plinth of one of the destroyed temples” (Wagoner & Rice, 2001, p. 90).
The usage of spolia from destroyed Hindu temples in the construction of conquest mosques, often on the sites of dismantled Hindu temples, is not entirely a matter of convenience and/or intercultural sharing, as secularist and Marxist historians often argue.
On the contrary, conquest mosques project quite vividly “the ghazis’ attitude toward the Hindu majority” based on “the virtues of [their] belief in Islam” where “the need to reinforce the spiritual and political authority of Islam through architecture” is in direct response to “the evils of idolatry and polytheism” (Welch & Crane, 1983, p. 124). Take, for example, Firuz Shah Tughluq’s assertion of Muslim orthodoxy when personally destroying the images of Hindu gods. These images “were burned in a place otherwise reserved for public executions and the punishment of criminals” (Flood, 2002, p. 648). The images of Hindu gods were destroyed, desecrated, or mutilated not only because of anti-heathenry, but also on the little discussed insight that the images represented the potency and purposefulness of a very sophisticated non-Muslim civilization that challenged the religious primacy of an Abrahamic faith whose zealous followers emphasized the superiority of its anti-idolatry creed (Wink, 1997). To render the idols powerless was to wash away the intimidation and shame brought on from encountering a more refined culture.
Therefore, the architectural patronage of Muslim sultans so incessantly praised by the rewriters of history is instead, and can be captured more realistically as, the religious declaration of Muslim supremacy over the nonbeliever, where Islam has been triumphant and idolatry has been subdued (Welch, Keshani, & Bain, 2002, p. 33). After all, “Muslim ghazis had brought the Jihad to India” (Welch et al., 2002, p. 31). And with that came the destruction of places of idol worship, and establishing “the foundation of congregations of Islam” in systematic fashion (Welch et al., 2002, p. 33).
To such a zealous mind, experiencing the existence of sophisticated heathenry, represented herein by the Hindu architectural tradition, was discontenting. As Lord Byron (1847, p. 293) put it: “They have raised a mosque…[and] they are not contented with their own grotesque edifice, unless they destroy the prior and purely beautiful fabric which preceded, and which shames them and theirs for ever and ever.”
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