Conquest of Persia and Islam.

Jimmy Jumshade wrote:

they the Arabs also destroyed the "Persian Civilization".the Parsees till today hate Arabs/Muslims for what they done to them in order to spread Islam by force.
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Dear Jumshade Sahab,

Some of the important facts that need to be kept in mind while passing any judgments about the expidition of Persia (often termed forced conversion) [by the Companions] and killing and expelling the Jews of the Banu Qurayzah and other tribes from Arabia:


The Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] was the last messenger of Allah. With his status as a Rasul, the Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] was in a position to do Itmamu'l-Hujjah [Final Argument] even as an individual. No one after him has that privilege. No individual can do Itmamu'l-Hujjah now because no individual can claim that his propagation has manifested the truth to the extent that no excuse is left to deny it. Indeed, an individual cannot even be absolutely certain of having understood the truth absolutely correctly. He can only be certain that God will reward him for doing his duty as he has 'been given the light to see it'. Only the Prophet Mohammad [PBUH]'s word are final in religion. After the Prophet [PBUH], the responsibility of bearing witness to the truth of Islam was passed on to his Companions [May Allah be pleased with them], who were declared Ummah Wasat (the intermediate people) and the shuhada 'ala'l-Nas (witnesses over people).

The Qur'an says:

وَجَاهِدُوا فِي اللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِ هُوَ اجْتَبَاكُمْ وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ مِّلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ هُوَ سَمَّاكُمُ الْمُسْلِمينَ مِن قَبْلُ وَفِي هَذَا لِيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ شَهِيدًا عَلَيْكُمْ وَتَكُونُوا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ فَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتُوا الزَّكَاةَ وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِاللَّهِ هُوَ مَوْلَاكُمْ فَنِعْمَ الْمَوْلَى وَنِعْمَ النَّصِيرُ

And strive for Allah with the endeavour which is His right. He hath chosen you and hath not laid upon you in religion any hardship; the faith of your father Abraham (is yours). He hath named you Muslims of old time and in this (Scripture), that the messenger may be a witness against you, and that ye may be witnesses against mankind. So establish worship, pay the poor-due, and hold fast to Allah. He is your Protecting friend. A blessed Patron and a blessed Helper! [AL-HAJJ (THE PILGRIMAGE) Chapter 22 - Verse 78]

وَكَذَلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيدًا

English Translation:

Thus We have appointed you a middle nation, that ye may be witnesses against mankind, and that the messenger may be a witness against you. [AL-BAQARA (THE COW) Chapter 2 Verse 143]


1- After the Prophet’s migration to Medinah, the Banu Qurayzah, with the other Jewish tribes of the locality, became a party to the Medinah declaration, according to which, these Jewish tribes and the Muslim state of Medinah were to act as alliances against any foreign attacks. According to this declaration, the Jews were allowed complete religious freedom and were granted protection of life and wealth as long as they honored the declaration;

2- Previously, the Banu Qurayzah were given a lesser status than the other Jewish tribe – the Banu Nadheer – which is evident from the fact that the blood money that they were granted, if any of their tribesman was killed by Banu Nadheer was half that of what was granted to Banu Nadheer. The Prophet (pbuh) corrected this injustice and granted the Banu Qurayzah the same political status as that of Banu Nadheer. (Abu Dawood, Kitaab al-Diyyaat, Baab al-Nafs bi al-Nafs, Hadith No. 3896)

3- The Jewish tribes did not honor their part of the Medinah declaration and on the instigation of the Qureish broke the agreement. At this the Banu Nadheer were sent into exile; while the Banu Qurayzah asked forgiveness and requested a renewal of the agreement, to which the Prophet (pbuh) agreed and allowed them another chance (Muslim, Kitaab al-Jihaad wa al-Siyar, Baab Ijlaa al-Yahood min al-Hijaaz, Hadith No. 3312)

4- Even after all this, the Banu Qurayzah joined the alliance that was gathered by the Qureish against the Muslims.

It was in this background that immediately after the confrontation with the confederates (Ahzaab), the Prophet (pbuh) decided to take the Banu Qurayzah to task. Even then, had the Banu Qurayzah sought forgiveness for their betrayal, the Prophet (pbuh) may have given them respite, as he did so in the past. Nevertheless, the Banu Qurayzah had decided to fight the Muslims. This was evident from the fact that when Ali (ra) reached their fort, they openly abused the Prophet (pbuh).

The Muslims kept the forts of Banu Qurayzah under siege for about one month. Ultimately, the Banu Qurayzah requested the arbitration of Sa`d Ibn Mu`aaz (ra) – one of the leaders of the tribe of Aws – a traditional ally of the Banu Qurayzah

and promised that they would accept whatever Sa`d ibn Mu`aaz decides for them. Later on, Sa`d decided that all those among the Banu Qurayzah, who could fight be killed, while all their women and children be taken as slaves and all their wealth and property be confiscated and distributed among the Muslims. Subsequently, the sentence pronounced by Sa`d was
implemented by the Muslims.

It should be clear from the facts given above that in the light of their behavior preceding the judgment the Banu Qurayzah deserved a very strict punishment. Furthermore, it is also clear that the punishment was not decided by the Prophet (pbuh), but was actually decided by a person, who was appointed as arbitrator, by the Banu Qurayzah, themselves.

However, one may still be of the opinion that the Prophet (pbuh) should have softened the punishment, even if it was pronounced by an arbitrator, who was appointed by the Banu Qurayzah themselves. On the contrary, the Prophet (pbuh) not only upheld and implemented the decision pronounced by the arbitrator, but also commended it as: ‘in accordance with God’s law’.

To fully understand why the Prophet (pbuh) did not soften or alter the sentence pronounced by Sa`d ibn Mu`aaz, we should keep in mind that Banu Qurayzah were actually Jews, who were subject to the laws of the Torah.

Deuteronomy 20: 10 – 14 says:

When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.

It was in accordance with this law that Moses (pbuh) ordered the killing of all the men of Midian and taking all their women and children as captives.

Numbers 31: 7 – 11 read as:

They did battle against Midian, as the LORD had commanded Moses, and killed every male… The Israelites took the women of Midian and their little ones captive; and they took all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods as booty. All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, but they took all the spoil and all the booty, both people and animals.

Obviously, on reciprocal basis, the Israelites themselves were subject to the same divine law. Thus, Sa`d Ibn Mu`aaz pronounced his judgment according to this law, upon which, the Prophet (pbuh) declared that his decision was 'in accordance with God's law'. Furthermore, because of this particular nature and basis of the judgment, the Prophet (pbuh) neither had the right nor the authority to alter it.

Because Sa`d ibn Mu`aaz’s decision was in accordance with the directives of the Torah, which the Jews accepted to be divine and were, therefore, subject to, the Prophet (pbuh) did not alter the decision. It was, in fact, because of this background of the judgment that when Hayee ibn Akhtab – one of the Jewish leaders – was brought to the place where he was to be killed, he looked at the Prophet (pbuh) and said:

By God, I have no regrets in opposing you, but the fact is that whoever tries to deceive God is Himself, ultimately, deceived.

Then he turned toward his people and said:

People, there is no harm in the implementation of God’s laws. This was a directive of God, it was decided, it is a punishment, which God had prescribed for the Israelites.

Thus, the Banu Qurayzah were, in fact, slaughtered by the sword of the Torah – the book, which they, themselves, held to be divine.

References:

This response is primarily based on Shibli Naumani’s “Seerat al-Nabiy”.

The Prophet (pbuh) sent Ali Ibn Abi Talib (ra) with his flag to the Banu Qurayzah and people started moving toward them. When Ali (ra) came close to their forts, he heard them say despicable things about the Prophet (pbuh).

According to Ibn Katheer’s Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihaayah, the Banu Qurayzah were misguided by some of their allies that if the Prophet (pbuh) were to decide their fate, he would kill them all.

Life of the Prophet [Seeratul Alnabwiya by Ibn-e-Hisham Volume 4 Page 201]

Islam in Spain - II

Jack Stone wrote:

NO, sorry, that is a lie.


The GREEKS gave us universities.


ARABS --- before there was Islam -- did make some scientific contributions. But mostly it was the GREEKS, like Aristotle and Socrates who gave us most of these scientific ideas. These are NOT Muslim or even Arab inventions. They were used by the Romans and Greeks hundreds of years before Mohammed was born.

Jack Stone

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Dear Mr Jack Stone,


Sorry Sir, you are wrong.


Shall we condemn Holy Prophet Jesus [Peace be upon him], or Christianity or only Lord Torquemada for massacring the Jews and Muslims in Spain?


"QUOTE"


1391

THE great fires which burned out the Jewish ghettos of Spain in 1391 were lit from the mouth of Archdeacon Ferdinand Martinez, canon of the cathedral of Seville. A man "more saintly than learned," one of his admirers once described him, on the widely held premise that these two qualities are mutually exclusive. He is, all the same, a type that History has always had to reckon with. Whether he be the Lord's Jew-Roaster in Germany, a prophet from the dungheaps of France, or a Spanish archdeacon in clerical weeds, he everywhere exhibits the stigmata of the inspired nihilist: virtue undefiled by honor, piety triggered by hate, and a sense of conviction which equates tolerance with treason-all fused into holy madness by a passion for violence and murder.


Martinez the Archdeacon had a single mission in life -- to wipe out the Jews. With a mighty eloquence he preached the gospel of slaughter to excited mobs in the streets and churches of Seville. The Jews, he said, were infidel dogs, and their synagogues were houses of the Devil where three times each day they cursed Christ and all His sheep. It was therefore the sacred duty of Christians to kill the wicked sons of Moses. This was not Martinez the man speaking; these were the words of the ancient Prophets and of Christ Himself, transmitted through their agent in Seville. He was accordingly in a position to guarantee absolution from all sin and the eternal bliss of Paradise to Jew-killers. And, with a sharp eye for terrestrial concerns, he promised his hearers that the royal authority would likewise concur in the heavenly scheme.


Whatever the Host of Heaven thought about the archdeacon's claims, their secular representatives - the kings of Castile - had some definite reservations. As we have seen, Henry of Trastamara had a taste for killing Jews himself: during his successful war against his brother Peter the Cruel he had massacred them by the thousands. However, his actions in that affair had stemmed from a calculated policy of statecraft. It was all right for the king to abuse the Jews-they were his property to do with as he pleased. But he was not going to allow his subjects to take the law into their own hands.

Henry's son, John I, shared his father's view. He too gratified his needs by an occasional persecution, but that was his royal right. The zeal of Archdeacon Martinez, he said, is "saintly and good," for the Jews indeed are a "wicked and perverse" people. Nevertheless, he insisted, they are "part of our treasure" and "under my protection and authority," and any necessary punishments will be administered "according to the law." For years the roads from Seville to the royal court were traveled by couriers bearing petitions from the Jews begging for royal protection against the "lies and slanders" of the archdeacon. The Crown, in turn, sent repeated warnings to Martinez to stop agitating the populace to violence and sedition. To the complaints of the Jews Martinez replied with volleys of invective, asserting that if he had his way he would personally kill them all and level their synagogues to the ground. He also refused to concede that the king had any authority to interfere with the inalienable right of Christians to kill Jews or with the holy mission of the Lord's personal representative on earth-Martinez, that is. In 1389 Martinez suddenly found himself facing a really formidable threat to his power. He had announced, in a recent sermon, that not even the Pope had the authority to allow Jews to build synagogues and live among Christians. For fourteen years the ecclesiastical shepherds had been standing silently by while the archdeacon vomited his hate on the Jews. But now he had ventured to question the authority of the Pope; now he was preaching not just mass murder, but heresy. His superior the archbishop of Seville, immediately convoked a solemn council of learned theologians who summoned Martinez to appear before them and explain himself. By this time Martinez was beyond all authority except that from God above and the People below, and he told the council he would allow his opinions to be judged only by the good folk of Seville. Furious, the archbishop and council declared him to be a "contumacious rebel, obstinate in his error, and suspect of heresy," and ordered him to stop preaching, under pain of excommunication.

What happened next almost persuades us that Martinez did have a supernatural ally in the wings. The archbishop of Seville died within a few months and until his replacement could be sent in, Martinez was first in command.

At almost the same time, King John I fell off his horse in a freak accident and was killed. He left a sickly son of tender years to succeed him and a conflict immediately broke out between opposing factions at the court over who was to run the government until the boy grew up. The result was political chaos, bringing a temporary halt to effective government in Castile.

Archdeacon Martinez would certainly have gone on with his work in any case. Mere human objections were nothing to a man whose head buzzed with heavenly voices. However, the fortuitous deaths of both the king and the archbishop suddenly opened the way to the ghetto of Seville. On March 15, 1391, Martinez celebrated Ash Wednesday with a thunderous sermon in the public square.

The People, assembled in great numbers, howled and applauded. When they were well heated up, their Leader sent them out to scour the streets. Running in packs they began beating up Jews and robbing them. Those who escaped ran to the ghetto and locked themselves in.

At any moment it seemed the whole city would be turned upside down. The governor and a body of magistrates, hoping to stop the disturbance short of revolution, seized two of the ringleaders and had them publicly flogged.

This only enraged the mob even more and considerable bloodshed and plunder followed before the authorities were able to restore some semblance of order. Three months later the final storm broke. At the first flush of dawn on June 6, 1391, by an obviously prearranged plan, the People of Seville suddenly burst from their houses, joined ranks all over town and converged on the ghetto. In their first onslaught they smashed down the gates and stormed over the walls. All day they raped, murdered, looted and burned. Men, women and children were axed, hammered, bludgeoned and chopped to death, while the hot voice of Archdeacon Martinez kept urging his army on to even greater slaughter in the name of the Lord. In one single day four thousand Jews were murdered. More thousands averted death by shouting out their desire for Christian baptism. Others fled into the country to become wanderers in a hostile land. A miserable remnant somehow survived and slowly gathered
itself together after the horror had passed. The ghetto became a Christian prize.

The houses and shops were taken over by the Faithful and the synagogues were purified with holy water and transformed into Christian churches. A whole Jewish community of thirty thousand souls, rich in the accumulated traditions of centuries, had disappeared in one day.

Even stranger than the convulsive suddenness of the disaster of Seville was the incredible speed with which similar massacres broke out all over Spain. During the next three months the spirit of Ferdinand Martinez erupted in violence and murder in at least seventy cities. In the north the bloody tide spilled across the Pyrenees into France; in the east it ran red into the Mediterranean Sea; in the south and west it did not stop until it reached the frontiers of Moorish Granada and Portugal. At Cordova, the birthplace of Moses Maimonides, greatest Jewish philosopher of the medieval world, the ancient Jewish quarter was reduced to ashes and two thousand corpses were left rotting in the streets. A like fate struck Toledo, center of European learning in the West, where Jewish savants kept alive the forgotten wisdom of the ancients. There the largest Jewish community in Spain was destroyed August 5, on the Fast Day when the Jews were mourning the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonian armies two thousand years before. Holy days, particularly Christian ones, were a popular choice for massacres. The first outbreak in Seville occurred on Ash Wednesday. The Toledo massacre fell on a Jewish Fast Day which was also the Christian Feast of Saint Dominic. The Feast of Saint Lorenzo was celebrated by wholesale atrocities in Perpignan and Gerona on opposite sides of the Pyrenees. One of the most spectacular of all Feast Day celebrations took place in Valencia in honor of Saint Christopher, barely a month after the purging of Seville. Refugees from the archdeacon's crusade began arriving at the port of Valencia with tales of horror and violence in other places.

The appearance of these wretched wanderers stimulated the normally sluggish pulses of the local riffraff, who began stoning Jewish men and growling lewd songs to the women. Within a few days the Jews had locked themselves inside their houses and the city fathers had posted heavy guards to patrol the ghetto day and night. Children, as every child soon discovers, make a game of everything, including persecution. The following Sunday morning a band of forty or fifty Valencian moppets, intoxicated by the assurance of their elders' approval, in the public square for a little sport with Jews. Waving small wooden Crosses and a large blue banner emblazoned with a white Crucifix, they marched on the Jewish quarter, a chorus boy sopranos singing praises to the Savior and insults to His Murderers. Other kids rushed to join the fun and by the time they arrived at the ghetto they made a considerable little army. They milled around outside the entrance, hurling jeers and catcalls at the Jews inside, warning them that Archdeacon Martinez himself was on his way to
clean up the city. This was the the Jews' last chance – they could take their choice between baptism and death.

The Jews quickly into the ghetto, but not before a few of the boy soldiers in the front ranks were pushed inside by their comrades in back. One of the boys let out a bloodcurdling howl when the door slammed shut on his hand. His companions on the outside went wild; they raced through streets shouting that the Jews were killing boys in the ghetto. The whole town came running, their nubers (and courage) reinforced by a detachment of soldiers who had been hanging around the town looking for excitement while waiting to be shipped overseas to Italy. The mob began battering at the gates, which the Jews had hurriedly braced with heavy beams and chains. The town officials, whose frightened efforts to restore order almost got them killed as Jew-loving spoil- sports, scurried off to the palace of the bishop of Valencia. There they begged their royal visitor, Don Martin of Aragon, brother of the king, to save the city from revolution. His Excellency mounted his horse. Gathered his retinue about him, and set out for the ghetto. At the sight of the royal colors the besiegers grudgingly laid down their battering rams and opened a path for their duke. The latter called upon the Jews to open the gate so the People could see that their young Christian soldiers were unharmed. In return he promised to station his personal guard inside the ghetto to guarantee its safety.


Paralyzed by fear, the Jews either would not or could not open the barrier, and the royal effort to thwart the People's pleasures was dissipated in a renewed thrust at the gate, which suddenly gave way under the sheer weight of numbers. In this first assault one of the attackers was killed. A terrible silence-the aura of doom-fell over the crowd while the body was reverently passed through the mob and laid at the feet of the duke.


For one brief moment the world seemed to stand still, and the smell of Death hung heavy in the air. Then a roar from ten thousand throats split the skies, heralding the return of mankind to the kingdom of the jungle. A boiling mass of humanity poured into the ghetto through the gate, over the walls and from the windows of adjoining houses. In blind terror the Jews locked themselves up in their homes, which quickly became their funeral pyres. Others ran into the synagogue seeking refuge in the otherworldly wisdom of their rabbis and elders. A pitifully small number, hoping to repeat the miracles of Gideon, armed themselves with crossbows and fought hopelessly until they were overwhelmed and slaughtered where they stood. The attacking horde set fire to the houses, beat down the doors of the warehouses and shops, looting them of property and women and killing the men and children. What they could not carry with them they smashed to rubble. Witnesses to these scenes reported that no sooner had one group abandoned a building they had just sacked when another band moved in behind them and stripped it right down to the nails in the walls.

In a short time (we are told) the entire ghetto was assaulted and looted and hundreds of bodies of both sexes and all ages lay strewn about in the streets and houses. Those Jews who escaped the killing ran. carrying came crosses in their hands, to the churches, crying for baptism. The synagogues were purified and converted into churches. The ghetto of Valencia had disappeared. Its unfortunate inhabitants were scattered throughout the land, some in hiding. Many others pretending a conversion which had been forced upon them, and all of them weeping over the loss of their worldly goods, their friends and their families.


From the political point of view, which automatically excludes any moral considerations, the most disturbing aspect of the Massacres of 1391 was the complete: breakdown of public order. In Seville and Valencia the local authorities were generally ignored. In other places they were not so lucky. The governor of Palma had his horse shot out from under him and was himself wounded while trying to quell the disorders there. The mob at Lerida stampeded right over the local magistrates and set fire to the town fortress, burning to death all the Jews inside along with the mayor who tried to protect them.

It was in Barcelona, where a Jewish community of ten thousand people disappeared via the twin roads of baptism and murder that the Great Massacre took on the dimensions of a proletarian revolution. On the Feast Day of Saint Dominic, a crowd of peasants, workers and screaming women, together with a group of sailors returning from the crusade at Valencia, set fire to the ghetto. Through the whole day and all during the night they murdered and plundered. The fleeing Jews took refuge in the great castle fortress in the center of town and the local governor posted a heavy cordon of troops around it to discourage the "little people" from further attacks. The following morning-Sunday-he threw some forty of the ringleaders in jail and on Monday he sentenced them to hang as an example to the rest. But when the martyrs were brought out for execution their homespun disciples, to the chant of "Long live the People," hurled themselves on the governor and his colleagues, killing one of them and trampling the rest under foot. They broke into the jail and freed all the prisoners. Then they chopped down the city gates while others climbed up to the bell towers of the churches and rang the bells to summon the peasants from the fields to join the revolution. All through the night on Monday the "little people" swirled around the city brandishing torches and shouting dark vengeance on the "big people" who were trying to oppress them.

On Tuesday they stormed the city hall and ransacked it, building great bonfires of the public documents and town records. Then they threw themselves at the castle fortress, demanding death or baptism for the Jews inside. The defenders, including the Jews themselves, fought back desperately and the battle raged until the next day before the castle fell. Some of the Jews killed themselves with their own hands; others flung themselves from the walls. The remainder were called upon to accept immediate baptism. Those who refused were killed on the spot and their corpses dragged about the city streets; the rest were hustled off to the baptismal font and purified. The Jews who had somehow escaped were rooted out of their hiding places and destroyed without mercy.


By the end of the summer of 1391 many of the Jewish communities of Spain, for centuries the repositories of learning, culture and industry for the whole Peninsula, had entirely disappeared. Some of them never recovered. Others were painfully rebuilt to provide future sport for the next generation of destroyers until their final extinction under the relentless holiness of Torquemada. The spoils were divided among the Christian victors: synagogues were converted into churches, the Faithful moved into former Jewish homes and took over their shops and warehouses. In Ciudad Real even the Jewish cemetery was the object of an untidy legal squabble among the Crown, nobility and Church. The latter finally secured possession and the Dominican order apparently sanctified the old graveyard with a new monastery, setting a pious example for Torquemada to follow in Avila a century later.

The number of, Jews killed in the Massacres of 1391 is usually estimated at fifty thousand. Nobody will ever really know how many perished, however, for it is only in modern times, with its enthusiasm for bookkeeping, that Westerners have begun to keep records of the Jews they murder. Nor can we do more than guess at the number of refugees, although we do know that many of the North African towns along the Barbary Coast were flooded with Jews seeking peace under the rule of the Moslems.

By far the greatest number accepted baptism in preference to death. An official report made five days after the massacre at Valencia announces that the Jews there begged for baptism in such large numbers that the supply of holy oil would long since have diminished had it not been replenished by a happy succession of miracles. In some towns the Jews forestalled a massacre by asking for baptism at the first sign of trouble. The total of such conversions throughout Spain in the spring and summer of 1391 varies from half a million to over two million, depending on whose guess the reader prefers. And once a Jew had committed himself to Christianity. no matter the circumstances, there was no turning back. Tn Teruel, for example, a young woman "convert" was heard to say in public that she still felt a yearning for the faith of Moses. The next morning she was found in a ditch at the edge of town with a knife through her heart. The conclusion of local criminologists was that she had done herself in "at the suggestion of the Devil." which the townsfolk accepted as a perfectly reasonable solution to the whole affair.

Saint Vincent Ferrer

Not so many years ago (writes a contemporary of Torquemada) there was a man, a native of the city of Valencia, named friar Vincent Ferrer, of the order of Preachers. He was a very famous theologian and wondrous preacher, a person of very pure life and saintly habits. In his lifetime he never ceased to illuminate the divine cult and exalt the Holy Faith. In public he preached and taught, exhorting, admonishing, advising and persuading, not only with fitting words and holy doctrine but by wondrous examples and habits and lessons. And as a result of the miracles which God performed because of this man's merits, Pope Calixtus ## canonized him and recorded his name among the Blessed. For God, who rewards the good, performed miracles through his works during his life and after his death. So it was that, being of such a holy life and great eloquence, and imbued with such saintly doctrine, he pointed out to the Jews, by strong arguments and evident reason, all
the errors and manifest deceptions by which they were blinding themselves. And in this manner he converted many of them to the holy faith. Having learned from him that the Christian religion, our faith, was both holy and true, they were baptized of their own free will and received all the sacraments of the Church.


Perhaps. There are, however, more prosaic accounts of friar Vincent's work by those who knew him when he was a mere man. From these we learn that he first came into public prominence during the Massacre of 1391 in his native city of Valencia. He appeared suddenly at the height of the slaughter, calling upon the Jews to accept the saving waters of Christian baptism. Inspired by the vast number of conversions he made that day, he thenceforth dedicated his life to missionary work among the Jews. For the next twenty years he traveled the length and breadth of the Spanish Peninsula, winning souls to Christ. His eloquence, it is reported, was stupendous. Although his speech was Catalan, his words were clearly understood by Greeks, Moors, Frenchmen, Italians, Hungarians and Germans. So great were his powers that his mere presence was enough to heal the sick and restore the dead to life.

Friar Vincent was fired by apocalyptic visions. Convinced that the end of the world was at hand, he knew that mankind could be saved only by adopting the True Faith. Through the land he marched, escorted by a company of flagellants and spearmen, a Crucifix in one hand and the Torah in the other, calling on the Jews to accept the Redeemer and save their souls from perdition. Where he went, holiness stalked the streets, purifying the world for the coming Day of Judgment. From a special platform in the center of town he recited with sobs the sufferings of Jesus and the horrors of permitting Jews to mingle freely with Christians, calling on Heaven and the king to separate from the Faithful all Jews who refused to see the Truth. By night his company of disciples marched through the streets in great torchlight parades flogging themselves with knotted cords, singing psalms and summoning repentant sinners to salvation.

In most cases these pyrotechnics were enough to bring results, for the Jews had already been coaxed by the Massacres of 1391 into a willingness to accept baptism. But when they still proved to be obstinate, friar Vincent could show his claws. Raising his Crucifix on high, and backed by the excited mob, he would thrust his way into the synagogues, drive the money changers from their temple and consecrate it in the name of the Blessed Virgin as a Christian church.

Meanwhile, the Crown of Castile, in response to the People's voice and its own inclinations, was contemplating new and more extensive legal restrictions on the Jews who still persisted in clinging to their ancestral faith. Action was temporarily delayed by the death in 1406 of Henry (III) the Invalid. His son and successor, John II, was only two years old, so once again the government reverted to a regency, this time in the persons of the Queen-mother Catalina and her brother-in-law Don Ferdinand of Antequera.

Despite the exhortations of friar Vincent and his like-minded colleagues at court, the regents of Castile were exasperatingly slow to take action against the Jews. But then that sure stimulus to action - the Ritual Murder charge-was brought into play to help achieve the desired end. By a truly remarkable coincidence, during a visit of Queen-mother Catalina to Segovia in 1410, a group of local Jews were accused of attempting abominations on a consecrated Communion wafer. After stabbing it for a
while they threw it into a cauldron of water. To their horrified amazement the wafer kept out of the water and remaining suspended in the air. Some of the Jews were so impressed by this miracle that they were converted on the spot and ran with the wafer to the nearby Dominican monastery where they blurted out the whole story.

The news was immediately conveyed to the Queen-mother. who ordered a vigorous investigation. Among those implicated was Don Meyer Alguades, royal physician. Under protracted torture not only confessed to participating in the wafer plot but also to poisoning the late king (Henry III). He and his accomplices were dragged through the streets of Segovia, then hanged, then pulled apart and their synagogue was turned into the Church of Corpus Christi as grim reciprocity for their sacrilege on Body of our Lord.

Friar Vincent was called immediately to the court for consultation, he urged the Queen-mother to the strongest possible measures against those Jews whose blind obstinacy still shut out the Light of the Evangel. On January 2, 1412, Queen Catalina issued the celebrated Ordinances of 1412. His work at court completed, friar Vincent took his departure parts where there still remained much to be done.

Where Martinez of Seville had sown, Vincent of Valencia had reaped a harvest. The Ordinances of 1412 were the act of a deadly drama which opened at Seville in 1391. (The final act only awaited the coming de Torquemada.) The Jews were now all to ghettos. Which were to be completely walled in and provided with only one gate. They were forbidden to leave the country or even to change their residence from one town to another. Contact with Christians was likewise taboo: they could not transact business with them nor hire Christians as servants or as nurses for their children, nor eat, drink or bathe with Christians, nor work in Christian houses or on
Christian lands, nor attend feasts, weddings or funerals with them. Christians were not allowed to enter the ghetto, and both Christians and Jews were forbidden to visit each other in sickness, exchange gifts, or engage one another in conversation.


Jews were further barred from public office, service as tax-collectors, and the practice of medicine and surgery. In fact, all but the most menial employments were denied to them: they could no longer work as grocers, apothecaries, farriers, blacksmiths, peddlers, carpenters, tailors, barbers or butchers. To make identification easy and contamination difficult, rigid rules of dress and toilet were laid down. Jews were required to put aside all jewelry and refinements of dress in favor of a standardized long cloak of the coarsest materials, decorated only by a red Jew badge which they must wear at all times. Both men and women were forbidden to cut their hair, and the men were also prohibited from trimming their beards.

The degradation of the Jews was virtually complete, and one Solomon Alami, an unhappy victim of the People's voice, wrote:

They forced strange clothing on us. They kept us from trade, farming and the crafts. They forced us to grow our beards and our hair long. Inmates of palaces were driven in to wretched hovels and dark low huts. Instead of the rustle of silk, we were forced to wear miserable clothes, which drew scorn and contempt upon us. The rich tax-farmers sank into poverty. For they knew no trade by which to make a living. The artisans found no work because their trades were closed to them. Starvation stared everyone in the face. and children died on their mothers' knees from exposure and starvation.


The mass murders of 1391, the militant evangelism of Vincent Ferrer, and the uncompromising Ordinances of 1412, had erected a permanent wall of death and persecution around the Jews of Spain. Their only escape was through the doors of the Holy Church. A vast number chose baptism as the way out. As the number of Jews dwindled, a new class arose, like Phoenix, from the ashes of the ghetto. The "Marrano," the "Anusim," the "Converso" became a unique phenomenon in the historical landscape of the Spanish Peninsula.


[Courtesy: The Age of Torquemada by John Edward Longhurst, Chapter 3]

"UNQUOTE"

Islam in Spain

Jack Stone wrote:


NO, sorry, that is a lie.


The GREEKS gave us universities.


ARABS --- before there was Islam -- did make some scientific contributions. But mostly it was the GREEKS, like Aristotle and Socrates who gave us most of these scientific ideas. These are NOT Muslim or even Arab inventions. They were used by the Romans and Greeks hundreds of years before Mohammed was born.


Jack Stone

=====================================

Dear Mr Jack Stone,



Sorry Sir, you are wrong.


Stanley Lane-Poole [Non - Muslim and Non Arab Historian] says:


Stanley Lane-Poole, The Moors in Spain: Introduction.


"QUOTE"


"For nearly eight centuries, under the Mohamedan rule, Spain set all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened state. Her fertile provinces rendered doubly prolific, by the industrious engineering skill of the conquerors bore fruit a hundredfold, cities innumerable sprang up in the rich valleys in the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana whose names, and names only commemorate the vanished glories of their past.


"...To Cordoba belong all the beauty and ornaments that delight the eye or dazzle the sight. Her long line of Sultans form her crown of glory; her necklace is strung with the pearls which her poets have gathered from the ocean of language; her dress is of the banners of learning, well-knit together by her men of science; and the masters of every art and industry are the hem of her garments.


"Art, literature and science prospered as they then prospered nowhere else in Europe...


"Mathematics, astronomy, botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone. Whatever makes a kingdom great and prosperous, whatever tends to refinement and civilization, was found in Muslim Spain...


"With Granada fell all Spain's greatness. For a brief while, indeed, the reflection of the Moorish splendour cast a borrowed light upon the history of the land which it had once warmed with its sunny radiance. The great epoch of Isabella, Charles V and Philip II, of Columbus, Cortes and Pizarro, shed a last halo about the dying monuments of a mighty state. When followed the abomination of dissolution, the rule of inquisition and the blackness of darkness in which Spain has been plunged ever since. "In the land where science was once supreme, the Spanish doctors became noted for nothing but their ignorance and incapacity. The arts of Toledo and Almeria faded into insignificance.



"The land deprived of skillful irrigation of the Moors, grew impoverished and neglected, the richest and most fertile valleys languished and were deserted, and most of the populous cities which had filled every district in Andalusia, fell into ruinous decay; and beggars, friars, and bandits took the place of scholars, merchants and knights. So low fell Spain when she had driven away the Moors. Such is the melancholy contrast offered by her history."



Conde as quoted in Prescott, Philip II of Spain, Vol. III.

"And so vanquished for ever from the Spanish territory this brave, intelligent and enlightened people, who with their resolution and labour inspired life into the land, which the vain pride of the Goths condemned to sterility, and endowed it with prosperity and abundance and with innumerable canals, this people whose admirable courage was likewise, in happiness and adversity, a strong rampart to the throne of the Caliphs, whose genius, progress and study raised in its cities an internal edifice of light which sent its rays into Europe and inspired it with the passion of study, and whose magnanimous spirit tinted all its acts with an unrivalled colour of grandeur and nobility, and endowed it in the eyes of posterity with a sort of extraordinary greatness and charming colour of heroism which invokes the magical ages of Homer and which presents them to us in the garb of Greek half-gods.





"Millions of Moors quitted Spain carrying their property and arts - the patrimony of a state. What have the Spaniards created in their place? We could say nothing, but an eternal sorrow fills this land in which the gayest natures breathed before. Indeed there are some ruined monuments which still look upon these gloomy districts, but a real cry resounds from the depths of these monuments and ruins: honour and glory to the conquered Moor and decay and misery to the victorious Spaniard!"

Gustav Lebon

"For five to six hundred years general books in Arabic language and particularly on various disciplines have been almost the only source of learning and teaching in the European universities. And we can safely assert that in certain disciplines like medicine the impressions of the Arabs are still at work in Europe. The medical writings of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) have been explained about the close of the last century in Monabiliah."

"Roger Bacon, Leonard, Erno Al Felquni, Raymond Lot, San Thoma, and Azfonish X Qashqani have solely depended on Arabic Books."

Renan

"Albert, the Great, is indebted to Ibn Sina and San Thoma owes it all to Ibn Rushd (Averroes)."

Homeld on Science

"It was the Arabs who for the first time invented the method of chemical preparation of medicines, and it was from this source that sound advice and the procedure of experiments came to us, which were taken up by the School of Saliram and from there after a long time spread to southern Europe. The medicine and the natural elements on which medication entirely depends became the cause of study of plants' Chemistry. In this way both these studies went on simultaneously in two different ways and thus the door on a new era of the study of this science was opened by the Arabs. Suffice it for the proof of the vast Arab knowledge of the plant kingdom that they made addition of two thousand herbs to those of Zulefuredas. There were many herbs in their pharmacy that the Greeks had not even dreamt of."

Sideo

"During the middle ages, the Arabs alone were the standard-bearers of a civilisation."


"When the Arabs gained expertise in Astronomy, they paid special attention to Mathematical sciences and gained a high degree of excellence and they were really our teachers in this field....When we take stock of all that got transferred from Arabic to Latin, we find that a great doorway was made in the name of Gerbert Sylvester II, through which during the period between 970-980 AD, all those sciences he had acquired in Andalusia had entered Europe."

..."Our searching gaze rests on the Malikite Law, since we have had contacts with Africa, and France had ordered its competent learned men to translate into French the short compendium on Fiqh (jurisprudence) compiled by Ishaq bin Yaqub (d. 1242 AD, his book titled "Kitab-e-Khalil")

..."For full six hundred years his (Ibn Sina, Avicenna) works held sway over the educational institutions of Europe. His book Al-Qanun (Canon) was translated in five volumes and had repeated reprints, since the instruction in the universities of France and Italy totally depended on it."

Martin Hume in 'Spanish People'

"The Sultan Abd-er-Rahman was one of the Heaven-sent rulers of men. Prompt yet cautious in council and in war, unscrupulous, overbearing and proud, he was as ready to wreak terrible vengeance, as he was politic to forgive when it suited him. Berber and Yamanite alike acknowledged that at last they had found their master....He ruled until his death, in 788, with the tempered severity, wisdom, and justice which made his domain the best organized in Europe, and his capital the most splendid in the world."

S.P. Scott in 'The History of the Moorish Empire in Europe.'

"Yet there were knowledge and learning everywhere except in Catholic Europe. At a time when even kings could not read or write, a Moorish king had a private library of six hundred thousand books. At a time when ninety-nine percent of the Christian people were wholly illiterate, the Moorish city of Cordova had eight hundred public schools, and there was not a village within the limits of the empire where the blessings of education could not be enjoyed by the children of the most indigent peasant, ...and it was difficult to encounter even a Moorish peasant who could not read and write."

Thomson in 'The Muslims in Andalusia.'

Europe was darkened at sunset, Cordova shone with public lamps; Europe was dirty, Cordova built a thousand baths; ..., Cordova changed its undergarments daily; Europe lay in mud, Cordovas streets were paved; Europes palaces had smoke-holes in the ceiling, Cordovas arabesques were exquisite; Europes nobility could not sign its name, Cordovas children went to school; Europes monks could not read the baptismal service, Cordovas teachers created a library of Alexandrian dimensions. (800-1000 C.E.)

Dozy in 'The Moslems in Spain.'

Cruel and fanatical, the Leonese rarely gave quarter; when they captured a town they usually put all the inhabitants to the sword. Tolerance such as that accorded by the Muslims to the Christians could not be expected of them.

H. Kamen, 'The Spanish Inquisition.'

"As a result of his (Cardinal Ximenes' coercive) endeavours, it is reported that on l8th December 1499 about three thousand Moors were baptized by him and a leading mosque in Granada was converted into a church. 'Converts' were encouraged to surrender their Islamic books, several thousands of which were destroyed by Ximenes in a public bonfire. A few rare books on medicine were kept aside for the University of Alcala...(Ximenes) claimed...the Moors had forfeited all their rights under the terms of capitulation (of Granada). They should therefore be given the choice between baptism and expulsion...At Andarax the principal mosque, in which the women and children had taken refuge, was blown up with gun-powder...all books in Arabic, especially the Qur'an, were collected to be burnt...Cardinal Ximenes:...was reported during his conversion campaign among the Granada Moors in 1500 to have burnt in the public square of Vivarrambla over 1,005,000 volumes
including unique works of Moorish culture."

H.C. Lea, 'The Moriscos of Spain.'

"...that cemeteries could be established near the churches changed from mosques, but old Christians were not to be debarred from burial there if they wished....it continued until 1591 when it was ordered that they should be buried inside of the churches, which was so abhorrent to them that they vainly offered more than thirty thousand ducats if king or pope would allow them to be interred elsewhere, even though in dunghills.

"... tailors were not to make garments nor silver-smiths jewels after their (Moorish) fashion; their baths were prohibited; all births were to be watched by Christian midwives to see that no Moorish rites were performed; disarmament was to be enforced by a rigid inspection of licences; their doors were to be kept open on feast-days, Fridays, Saturdays, and during weddings, to see that Moorish rites were abandoned and Christian ones observed...no Moorish names were to be used and they were not to keep 'gacis' or unbaptised Moors either free or as slaves."

"UNQUOTE"

Islam, Temples, Sufis and Spread of Islam in India.

Mahmud Ghaznavi

Contrary to the general belief that Mahmud Ghaznavi was a Hindu-killer or destroyer of Hindu religious places, he was extremely liberal towards them. His army consisted of a large number of Hindus and some of the commanders of his army were Hindus. Sonday Rai was the Commander of Mahmud's crack regiment and took part in several important campaigns with him. The coins struck during Mahmud's reign bore his on the one side and the figure of a Hindu god on the other.

Somnath Temple [Present]

Not only Mahmud Ghaznavi but his successors also were great patrons of Hindus. In fact some of the historians of the early period feel that the main cause of the fall of the Ghaznavid Empire was their excessive reliance on Hindus and the appointment of Hindus to positions of great responsibility. When in 1034 A.D. - 426 A.H., the Governor of Lahore, Ahmed Nial Tagin was suspected of rebellion, Sultan Masud Ghaznavi sent General Nath, a Hindu, to crush him. When Nath was killed in the fighting, Masud sent another of his Hindu generals, Tilak, who succeeded in killing Nial Tagin by treachery. This is the story of the Ghaznavids who are generally considered Hindu-killers.

Much of the evidence of what Hindu nationalists claim about demolishing and desecration of temples by Muslim rulers is found in Persian sources. Now this is projected as a proof of Muslim intolerance, tyranny and despotism against Hindu subjects or the vanquished people. But it does not tell all. Between 986 and 1192 AD several invaders plundered North India and took away a lot of movable wealth. These kings included Sabuktagin and Mahmood Ghaznavi (who ruled Kabul between 998 and 1130 AD). These raids were mainly targeted at material gain. They never sought permanent rule in India.



First Muslim in the Subcontinent.

Regarding Spread of Islam in the Sub Continent:

Mohammad Bin Qasim Al Tahqafi


Mohammad Bin Qasim Al Tahqafi nephew and son-in-law of Hajjaj Bin Yousuf had nothing to do with Pakistan's Foundation. This rant we only find in State Backed Pakistan Studies Text Book and it has nothing to do with authentic sources of History i.e. Ibn-e-Khaldun, Kamil Atheer and many others. By the way Hajjaj Bin Yousuf had sent his son-in-law Mohammad Bin Qasim to settle score with Raja Dahir because Raja Dahir had sheltered the murderers of Zaid Bin Aslam [the then Governor of Mekran], the murderers belonged to Shia School of Thought and Zaid Bin Aslam was of Bannu Ummaya.

The Arabs first came as Traders [NOT AS GENERALS LIKE MOHAMMAD BIN QASIM as mentioned in the article above] but not in Sindh but in South India. Facts are as under:

"QUOTE"

The first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 AD. H.G. Rawlinson, in his book: Ancient and Medieval History of India claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century AD.

The commercial contacts between Kerala and Arabia led to the advent of Islam into Kerala. As early as 643 AD, Malik Ibn Dinar, a disciple of the Prophet Mohammed to preach Islam and first mosque in Kerala, in fact the first in India was built around that time.

Shaykh Zainuddin Makhdum’s “Tuhfat al-Mujahidin” also is a reliable work.This fact is corroborated, by J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals

and also by

Haridas Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV.

It was with the advent of Islam that the Arabs became a prominent cultural force in the world. The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went.

The first Indian mosque was built in 612 A.D, at the behest of Cheraman Perumal, during the life time of Muhammad (c. 571–632) in Kodungallur by Malik Bin Deenar. In Malabar the Mappilas may have been the first community to convert to Islam because they were more closely connected with the Arabs than others. Intensive missionary activities were carried out along the coast and a number of natives also embraced Islam. These new converts were now added to the Mappila community. Thus among the Mapilas, we find, both the descendants of the Arabs through local women and the converts from among the local people.

Reference

Ancient and Medieval History of India by H.G. Rawlinson

Sturrock, J.,South Canara and Madras District Manual (2 vols., Madras, 1894-1895)

Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV

"UNQUOTE"

Much of the evidence of what Hindu nationalists claim about demolishing and desecration of temples by Muslim rulers is found in Persian sources. Now this is projected as a proof of Muslim intolerance, tyranny and despotism against Hindu subjects or the vanquished people. But it does not tell all.



[Pre 1992 Babri Mosque - Courtesy Wikipedia]

We had this Babri Masjid/Ramjanambhoomi movement built around this point which caused great upheavals in Indian politics and led to bloodshed. Conceptual framework for the same was provided by History books such as Sita Ram Goel’s two-volume Hindu Temples: What Happened to them? and Prafull Goradia’s Hindu Masjids.


Between 986 and 1192 AD several invaders plundered North India and took away a lot of movable wealth. These kings included Sabuktagin and Mahmood Ghaznavi (who ruled Kabul between 998 and 1130 AD). These raids were mainly targeted at material gain. They never sought permanent rule in India.


But as Muslims established their rule they took upon two tasks:

i - State patronage of India based sufi order. Chishtia order was thus patronised by all sultanates and Muslim kings.


ii - A policy of selective temple desecration in order not to loot and finance their military machine but to delink the Hindu state patronage to temples and divinity of the kings.


We will go into the second aspect in detail. The saffron historians hide this aspect. Those temples that housed the ruling dynasty’s state deity or rashtra-devata were normally desecrated, defiled or destroyed. This was to strip the rajah of the divine legitimacy. Temples that were not so identified were left untouched.



Hindu Kings also demolished Temples

But this was not alone with Muslim conquerors. This was a custom even before Muslim armies arrived. From 6th century onwards, all deities, sanctum sanctorum, images associated with dynastic authority were considered politically vulnerable. All Hindu kings, armies, kingdoms treated their Hindu rivals the same way. Even Historian R. M. Eaton has described this as a rule of the war. He writes, ‘Hindu rulers to effectively legitimise their rule over the conquered territory resorted to temple destruction of the vanquished raja. The temples were normally looted, the presiding deity of the dynasty as every Hindu rulers had his own presiding deity’.


(Ref. R. M. Eaton, Essays in Indian History, page 104)


Here are a few facts:


1089-1101 AD: King Harsha of Kashmir of the first Lohara dynasty indulged in ruthlessly looting the treasures of the temples of Bhimasai and also systematically confiscated and defiled the metallic statues of Gods by outcasts throughout the Kashmir valley in order to obtain the valuable material. He even imposed tax on the night soil.


(Ref. Kalhana, Rajataran-gini, Vol. 1, sec. 5, Motilal Banarsidas, page 113)



Between 986 and 1192 AD several invaders plundered North India and took away a lot of movable wealth. These kings included Sabuktagin and Mahmood Ghaznavi (who ruled Kabul between 998 and 1130 AD).



• 642 AD: Pallava king Narasimhavarman I looted the image of Ganesha from the Chalukyan capital of Vatapi (present day Badami in Belgaum dist.)


• 692 AD: Chalukyas invaded North India and brought back to the Deccan what would appear to be images of Ganga and Yamuna looted from defeated powers.


• 8th century AD: Bengali troops sought revenge on King Lalithaditya’s kingdom in Kashmir by destroying what they thought was an image of Vaikunta the state deity of Kashmir kingdom.


• 9th century AD: Rashtrakuta king Govinda III invaded and occupied Kanchipuram which so intimidated the King of Sri Lanka that he sent Govinda (probably Buddhist) images representing the Sinhala state.


• Rashtrakuta king Indira III not only destroyed the temple of Kalapriya at Kalpa near the Jamuna river, patronized by their deadly enemies, the Pratiharas, but they took special delight in recording the fact.


• 9th century AD: Pandyan King Srimara Srivallabha also invaded Sri Lanka and took back to his capital golden Buddha image.


• Early 10th century, Pratihara King, Hermabapala, seized solid gold image of Vishnu Vaikunta when he defeated the Sahi kings of Kangra (Himachal Pradesh)


• Early 11th century: Chola King, Rajendra I furnished his capital with images he seized from several prominent neighbouring kings: Durga and Ganesha images from the Chalukyas, Bhairava, Bhairavi and Kali images from the Kalingas or Orissa as Nandi image from the Eastern Chalukyans.



(Ref: David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence (ed.), Beyond Hindu and Turk, University Press of Florida, 2000.


In short, the temples were the sites where royal authority was challenged before the arrival of Muslim Turks in India. This generally happened with early Muslim rulers. But this practice declined after Muslims began to wrest territories and rule from the territories held by their preceding Muslim rulers.


Some more facts can be noted

• In many cases the temple desecration was never recorded.


• Between 1192 AD and 1729 AD, 89 instances of temple desecration are found recorded in the Indian history. Their historicity appears reasonably certain.


• Most such acts were undertaken by military officers.


• They happened mostly along the moving frontiers of conquests.


• These acts were never directed at people but at the enemy king and the image that incarnated and displayed his state deity.



But this attitude changed once these conquered land were integrated into the Muslim kingdoms. Then the religious properties were left unmolested. Some instances of patronage of temples:


1. Mohammad Ibne Kasim is quoted to have said: Temples shall be unto us like the churches of Christian, Synagogues of Jews and fire temples of Magians.



(Ref. William Jackson A.V., (ed) History of India, Vol. 5, The Grolier Society, London, Baroda edition 1907, page 12).



2. Muhammad bin Tughlaq appointed Muslim officials to repair Siva temple in Kalyana in Bidar district in 1326 thereby facilitating resumption of normal worship.




3. Sultan Shahabuddin Tughlaq (1355-73) rebuked his Brahaman minister for having suggested melting down Hindu and Buddhist images in his kingdom as a means of obtaining quick cash.



4. Sikandar Lodhi (1489-1517), was advised in these words by Muslim jurists : It is not lawful to lay waste ancient idol temples and it does not rest with you to prohibit ablution in a reservoir which has been customary from ancient times.

Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar [Source - Wikipedia]

5. In Mughal rule, Akbar allowed high ranking Rajput officers in his service to build their own monumental temples in the provinces to which they were posted.



6. Between 1590 and 1735, Mughal officials repeatedly oversaw and on occasion even initiated the renewal of Orissa’s cult, that of Jagannath in Puri. By sitting under a canopied chariot which accompanying the cult’s annual car festival, Shah Jehan’s officials ritually demonstrated that it was the Mughal emperor operating through the appointed officers (mansabdar), who was the temple’s and hence God’s representative.



Abul Muzaffar Muhiuddin Muhammad Aurangzeb [Source - Wikipedia]

7. Aurangzeb (1656-1707) ordered the local officials in Benares to protect the temples and Brahman temple functionaries. (Ref. Firman ordering mansabdar Abulhasan in Benares dt. Feb. 28, 1659, quoted by the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Page 689-90, 1911)



8. Sikandar Lodhi (1489-1517) received information that a lot of Hindus had gathered at Kurukshetra and were raising a lot of ruckus there. He wanted to demolish the temple and kill all the Hindus there. He sought advice from the ulema. Malikul Ulama Abdullah issued an edict: It is anti-sharia to demolish a traditional place of worship of Hindus (dhimmis) and discontinue the convention of bathing at the ghat or a pond. Sikandar flew into rage and warned him of dire consequences. Abdullah said: He did not fear anyone and the life and death are in the hands of the Almighty Allah. At this Sikandar gave up the idea.


(Ref. Sheikh Mohammad Ikram quotes Syed Ameer Ali from Islamic culture)


Muhammad bin Tughlaq appointed Muslim officials to repair Siva temple in Kalyana in Bidar district in 1326 thereby facilitating resumption of normal worship.


Mahmood Ghaznavi and Bamiyan Buddhas

Mahmood Ghaznavi ruled Afghanistan from Ghazni. He led 11 army expeditions between 1001 and 1055 AH on Hindustan and is accused of desecrating and demolishing temples. If indeed Mahmood’s objective was iconoclasm, he could have turned his ire against Bamiyan Buddhas which stood for nearly 2000 years in Bamiyan. He did not touch them. It could be asked as to why a confirmed ‘iconoclast’ merely passed by the Buddhas.



Mosques were also not spared


It was not merely temples but even mosques were not spared if the Muslim emperors suspected their edifices being used for purposes other than worship. Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of Jama Masjid of Golconda after sacking the Qutb Shahi kingdom in 1687 to get access to treasure that lay beneath the mosque floor.



It will be less than fair to attribute desecration or defiling of religious places to bigotry and hatred. It owed much to the customs of the age whereby vanquished kings had to be divested of the religious halo and authority. Rulers, Hindu or Muslims, followed the practice regardless of their own religious beliefs.



History in the Service of Imperialism by Dr. B. N. Pande



[Excerpted from Prof B. N. Pande's speech in the Indian Upper House of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, made on 29 July 1977. At the time of the publication of this article in Impact International (1987), Dr Pande was Governor of the Indian state of Orrisa. Dr. Pande died in New Delhi on June 1, 1998.]



Thus under a definite policy the Indian history text-books were so falsified and distorted as to give an impression that the medieval period of Indian history was full of atrocities committed by Muslim rulers on their Hindu subjects and the Hindus had to suffer terrible indignities under Islamic rule. There were no common factors in social, political or economic life.


Excerpts


I have the honour to move the following resolution for the consideration of this House:

'This House is of the opinion that the main factor retarding cultural and emotional integration of the Indian people is the communal interpretation of the medieval Indian history and its distortion by the British historians, while India was under British rule, portraying the Hindus and the Muslims as being divided into two warring camps with little in common between them, and that this distortion paved the way for the emergence of the two-nation theory, and therefore recommends that the government should take immediate steps for the re-orientation of the study of Medieval Indian History ...'




The task is not easy, because unfortunately the histories of India which have been taught in our schools and colleges for generations past were originally compiled by European writers. And Indians have not yet succeeded in shaking off the biases inclucated by their European teachers. These so called histories have presented Muslims as destroyers of Hindu culture and traditions; despoilers of Hindu temples and palaces; and brutal idol-breakers who have offered to their Hindu victims the terrible alternative of conversion or the sword.



It is hardly surprising that educated men in India drugged with such poisonous stuff from the most impressionable period of their lives grow up to suspect and distrust each other. The Hindu has been brought up to believe that the Muslim period of Indian history which extends over eight hundred years and more is a nightmare.



How British historians have used these sentiments would be clear from the following quotation from the well-known compilation, Sir H. M. Elliot's 'History of India as told by its own historians'. The passage occurs in the general preface to Volume 1. I quote -



'We behold kings ... sunk in sloth or debauchery and emulating the vices of a Caligula or a Commodus.



'Under such rulers we cannot wonder that fountains of justice are corrupted: that the state revenues are never collected without violence and outrage; that villages are burnt and their inhabitants mutilated or sold into slavery; that the officials far from affording protection, are themselves the chief robbers and usurpers, that parasites and eunuchs revel in the spoils of plundered provinces, and that the poor find no redress against the oppressor's wrong and proud man's contumely. The few glimpses we have even among the short extracts of this single volume of Hindus slain for disputing with Muhammadans, of a general prohibition against processions, worship or ablutions and other intolerant measures, of idols mutilated, or temples razed, of forcible conversions and marriages, of proscriptions and confiscations, of murders and massacres and of the sensuality and drunkness of the tyrants who enjoined them, show us that this picture is not over-charged'.


A glimpse into official British records will show how this policy of Divide-et-Impera was taking shape. The Secretary of State Wood in a letter to Lord Elgin [Governor General Canada (1847-54) and India (1862-63)] said: 'We have maintained our power in India by playing off one part against the other and we must continue to do so. Do all you can, therefore to prevent all having a common feeling.’



George Francis Hamilton, Secretary of State of India wrote to Curzon, ‘I think the real danger to our rule in India not now, but say 50 years hence is the gradual adoption and extension of Western ideas of agitation organisation and if we could break educated Indians into two sections holding widely different views, we should, by such a division, strengthen our position against the subtle and continuous attack which the spread of education must make upon our system of government. We should so plan educational text-books that the differences between community and community are further strengthened (Hamilton to Curzon, 26th March 1886).



Cross informed the Governor-General, Dufferin, that 'This division of religious feeling is greatly to our advantage and I look for some good as a result of your Committee of Inquiry on Indian Education and on teaching material' (Cross to Dufferin, 14 January, 1887).



Thus under a definite policy the Indian history text-books were so falsified and distorted as to give an impression that the medieval period of Indian history was full of atrocities committed by Muslim rulers on their Hindu subject and the Hindus had to suffer terrible indignities under Islamic rule. There were no common factors in social, political or economic life.




While I was doing some research on Tippu Sultan in 1928 at Allahabad, some office bearers of a college Students Union approached me with a request to inaugurate their History Association. They had directly come from the college with their text-books. I opened the chapter on Tippu Sultan. One of the sentences that struck me deeply was: 'Three thousand Brahmins committed suicide as Tippu wanted to convert them forcibly into the fold of Islam'. The author of the text-book was, Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. Har Prashad Shastri, Head of the Department of Sanskrit, Calcutta University. I immediately wrote to Dr. Shastri for the source of his information. After many reminders came the reply that he had taken that from the Mysore Gazetteer....


Tipu Sultan


... Prof Srikantia informed me that the episode of the suicide of 3,000 Brahmins is nowhere in the Mysore Gazetteer and he, as student of history of Mysore, was quite certain that no such incident had taken place. He further informed me that the Prime Minister of Tippu Sultan was a Brahmin named Punaiya and his commander-in-chief was also a Brahmin, named Krishna Rao. He supplied me with the list of 156 temples to which Tippu Sultan used to pay annual grants. He sent me 30 photostat copies of Tippu Sultan's letters addressed to the Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Srinageri Math with whom Tippu Sultan had very cordial relations....




Dr Shastri's book was approved as a course book of history for high schools in Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, U.P., M.P. and Rajasthan. I approached Sri Ashutosh Mukherjee, the then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, and sent him all the correspondence that I had exchanged with Dr Shastri, with Mysore University Vice-Chancellor, Sri Brijendra Nath Seal, and Prof. Srikantia, with the request to take proper action against the offending passages in the text-book. Prompt came the reply from Sri Ashutosh Mukherjee, that the history book by Dr Shastri has been put out of course.




However, I was amazed to find the same suicide story was still existing in the history text-books which had been prescribed in 1972 for Junior High Schools in U.P.




When I was the Chairman of the Allahabad Municipality I came across the dispute regarding the property of the Someshwar Nath Mahadev mandir. There were two rival claims, one of which prepared a file of Farmans issued, by Emperor Aurangzeb which confirmed the issue of a Jagir for the temple. I was shocked to find this reference regarding a man who is supposed to have been a destroyer of temples. At first I was inclined to believe that these (Farmans) were forgeries.




However, before I reached a definite conclusion, I thought it to be in order to consult Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, a renowned scholar of Persian language. Sir Sapru studied the Jagdambri Shiv Mandir documents and again found Farmans of Aurangzeb which bestowed a Jagir on this temple. A new Aurangzeb was unveiled before me and through further research and investigation, I discovered many more Farmans of like nature with regard to Mahakaleswar temple in Ujjain, Balaji Temple in Chitrakoot, Amparand Temple in Gauhati, Shatranjay Jain Temple and various Gurdwaras. These Farmans were issued between the year 1656 and 1686. [Aurangzeb's father Emperor Shah Jahan is famous for having built the Taj Mahal, considered as one of the wonders of the world]....



The story regarding demolition of Vishwanath temple is that while Aurangzeb was passing near Varanasi on his way to Bengal, the Hindu Rajas in his retinue requested that if a halt is made for a day, their Ranis may go to Varanasi, have a dip in the Ganges and pay their homage to Lord Vishwanath. Aurangzeb readily agreed.




The Ranis took their dip in the Ganges and went to the Vishwanath temple to pay their homage. All the Ranis returned except one, the Maharani of Kachh. When Aurangzeb came to know of it, he was very much enraged. He sent his senior officers to search for the Rani. Ultimately, they found that the Statue of Ganesh which was fixed in the wall was a movable one. When the statue was moved a flight of stairs led to the basement. To their horror, they found the missing Rani dishonoured and crying. The basement was just beneath Lord Vishwanath's seat. The Hindu Rajas expressed their vociferous protests. They demanded justice. Aurangzeb ordered that Lord vishawanath may be moved to some other place, the temple be razed to the ground and the Mahant be arrested and punished.



Dr Pattabhi Sitaramaiah, in his famous book 'The Feathers and the Stones' has narrated this fact based on documentary evidence. Dr. P. L. Gupta, former Curator of Patna Museum has also narrated this incident ...


Every civil building connected with Mahommedan tradition should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection. Letter No. 9 dated 9 October 1857, from Prime Minister Palmerston (1784-1865)to Lord Canning Viceroy of India, Canning Papers.


BABRI MASJID: HISTORICAL FACTS Vs. VHP's CLAIM Prem Vora

Since 1984, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other fundamentalist Hindus have been waging a battle against the Babri Masjid. The VHP unequivocally claims that the present Masjid was once the site of a magnificent temple which the Mughal emperor Babar demolished in the 16th century. The VHP also asserts that the Babri Masjid stands on the "undisputed" spot of Rama's birthplace. Thus, in order to redress the wrongs committed by the Muslim rulers, the VHP plans to destroy the Masjid and build a "new" Rama temple. The VHP's position is obviously highly contentious. This issue of Babri Masjid / Ram-Janam-Bhoomi has indeed aroused the passions of a large section of the Hindu and Muslim population. The dispute has exacerbated communal tensions leading to countless riots throughout northern India, including such tragedies as the Bhagalpur massacre late last October. Yet, a cursory glance at the evidence would show that the VHP's Ram- Janam-Bhoomi campaign is based on nothing but false propaganda.

The VHP refers only to records compiled by the British in the l9th century. Yet, this "evidence" is only a myth created by the colonial authorities. They propounded and popularized the belief that an anti-Hindu Babar demolished the Ram temple. This myth was created to divide the Hindus and Muslims. The British have not collected any historical evidence to justify their claim. In fact, the Archaeological Survey of India has concluded that a "temple to mark his (Rams's) birthplace was not built on the site of Babri Masjid." There are over a dozen temples in Ayodhya

that are claimed to be the true birthsite of Rama.

In addition, contrary to the VHP's assertion, the Hindus have not "struggled for centuries to regain complete control of their pilgrimage place. Before 1949, in fact, not a single Hindu leader claimed that the Babri Masjid was the location of Rams's birth! Yet, on December 22-23, 1949, certain individuals illegally entered the Masjid and installed an idol of Rama. The court declared the Masjid a disputed structure; it did not remove the idols as it should have. Muslims were prohibited from worshiping in the Masjid. Meanwhile, however, Hindus were granted permission for a priest to perform daily rituals to the installed deities. The court never issued a verdict on the title of the disputed structure. Thirty-seven years later on February 3, 1986, a certain Hindu filed a petition in the court requesting the unrestricted right to perform worship to the idols. The judge ignored the sentiments of the Muslims. Instead, he granted permission to unlock the gates, providing he received a guarantee of no disturbances. The police chief gave him an explicit assurance that there would be no threat to law and order. The Government in this case, which had the right to appeal the controversial decision, remained silent. All evidence seems to point that this was a stage-managed decision; "that the actual unlocking could have been carried out without the approval of the highest political authority is difficult to believe." In fact, within twenty minutes after the judgment was passed, a television crew from Doordarshan (Indian) state-owned television network was at the site, filming the "historic" breaking of the Masjid locks as a victory for the Hindu "community."

Undoubtedly, the religious rights of the minority community have been violated. The VHP, of course, does not agree. The VHP believes that the Hindus who allegedly constitute 85% of the Indian population, have become second class citizens. Thus, the Ram-Janam-Bhoomi campaign signifies an end to this reverse-discrimination. The VHP's argument is analogous to a white racist in white-dominated America, claiming that the Black minority suffers no discrimination. Equality is exactly what the Muslims want and have yet to completely receive. In fact, the VHP's Ram-Janam-Bhoomi project is part of a larger campaign to build a Hindu state. As VHP General Secretary Ashok Singhai has proclaimed, "the beginning of the Shilanyas ceremony (laying of the foundation stone) is a powerful expression of the Hindu spirit to see Bharat (India) resurrect herself as a Hindu Rashtra (Nation). This reference to Hindu Rashtra means nothing less than a nation in which all the policies and laws reflect a single cultural norm -- Hinduism. Obviously this movement has grave implications for the secular order of the present Indian state.

Unfortunately, however the Ram-Janam-Bhoomi movement has not been terminated. The VHP says there is no room for compromise. It claims that the Ram-Janam-Bhoomi issue is a religious issue, not a legal issue; thus, in the Parishad's view, no verdict of the court will be binding. The governing Board of VHP of America has even written that "if (the Indian) Government will interfere again, if the court rule will stop constructions, we are not going to hold back....without completing the construction we will not return (from Ayodhya)."

Without a doubt, unless steps are taken to resolve this issue soon, greater conflict seems imminent. The Indian Government must intervene to reach a peaceful and just solution; it must not keep silent. In the past, the State has played a significant role in supporting communalism; yet now, the State must demonstrate its firm commitment to secularism by not bowing down to any such communal forces. In addition, all parties concerned must be willing to settle this issue by non-violent means; bloodshed will only create even further divisions. Most importantly however the VHP must be willing to accept the verdict of the courts. In refusing to abide by the court's verdict, the VHP is undermining the very foundations of India's secularism.

It is important to state that preventing the VHP from erecting the temple is not the same as prohibiting the expression of religious freedom. A Hindu does not have to deny his religious identity in India. It may not even be practical to totally separate religion and politics in India. However, what is not in the interests of the nation is this dangerous mix of Hinduism and politics that is emerging gradually. November 9, 1989 was a day that this lethal mix manifested; it was not a day of celebration as the VHP proclaims.

Courtesy, Message International, New York, December 1990.

Prem Vora is a graduate from the University of California at Berkeley and works for a law firm.