Islam in India is often portrayed as a byproduct of the 16th century Persian Mughal Empire; but if you look past the Taj Mahal and Jama Masjid of Agra and Delhi, you find that Islam’s roots actually run far deeper in other parts of the country.
The claim that the Mughal Empire is responsible for the spread of Islam in the subcontinent, is often made by far-right (Hindu or Indian) nationalists, and has contributed to the common misconceptions that Islam is a recent phenomenon in South Asia, and that it spread from the north of the country to the south. However, evidence suggests that the religion first reached the shores of the Gujarati-Konkan and Malabar coasts (in the south) almost a thousand years earlier, in the 7th century, through trade in the Indian Ocean with East African and Arab merchants.
One of the oldest mosques in the world, Cherman Juma Mosque, is thought to have been built in Kerala, in the south of the country, in 629 AD, and a few years later the Palaiya Jumma Palli Masjid was built in Tamil Nadu.1 Ibn Battuta, who travelled throughout the Islamicate, even worked as Qadi (judge) in the Delhi sultanate in the 14th century, before his disastrous shipwreck.2
In this article, I want to concentrate on a part of India that is often overlooked in discussions of Islam: Gujarat.
A brief history
Sitting on the Arabian Sea, Gujarat is the most western state of India. Centuries of migration have seen it become a cosmopolitan melting pot. The state’s diverse religious and ethno-linguistic communities are reflected in both Gujarati architecture and the Gujarati language, which is interlaced with Persian, Arabic, Swahili and Sanskrit. Gujaratis, well-known for their influence in trade and business, were prime merchants in the Indian ocean in the centuries prior to the emergence of the East India company. It has also been argued that the lack of written Gujarati sources was due to Gujarati merchants not wanting outsiders to access this exclusive language of trade.3
Yemeni shipbuilders, Zoroastrian Parsi’s (who fled Iran due to religious persecution in the 8th century), and Ismaili Shias, are just some of the many groups that have settled in Gujarat, and influenced its culture for centuries. In the 10th century, Ibn Hawqal, Muslim Arab geographer and chronicler, even observed mosques in four cities of Gujarat that had Hindu kings, namely, Cambay, Kutch, Saymur and Patan.4
Tensions
In the decades since partition, and in recent years, communal tensions and violence have flared up periodically in Gujarat. Since 1950, over 10,000 people have been killed in Muslim-Hindu communal violence5 with horrific events such as the Bombay riots (1992) and Gujarat riots (2002)6 still heavily imprinted in recent memory. The cause of the unrest is often attributed to the multitude of diverse communities living in close proximity; however, this is a gross simplification that ignores the role of colonialism in instigating communal violence7 by emphasising religious difference.8 Though no one is suggesting that religious tensions didn’t exist in pre-colonial times, scholars have argued that the lines of religious practise were often blurred (as we shall see).
This colonial legacy, alongside increased ‘saffronisation’ of the Indian government9 and increased Hindutva mobilisation, has led to Muslim minority groups being attacked as “outsiders” or “invaders” to support the idea of a ‘Hindu Rashtra (nation)’.10 This ideology tries to omit the centuries long existence and contribution of Muslims within Gujarat and the Indian subcontinent.
Though there are no doubt numerous means by which this contribution can be demonstrated (i.e. social, lingual, economic, culinary (for example did you know that biryani is not actually Indian in roots but was introduced by immigrants from Iran?), here I will concentrate primarily on architectural, since in recent years, right-wing hardliners have sought to politicise monuments by calling into question their ‘true’ antecedents.11 As I will show, there are a number of Islamic monuments within Gujarat that reflect the presence of Islam and contribution of Muslims in India before, during and after the reign of the Mughals.
Chamapaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park
Forty-seven kilometres outside the city of Baroda in Gujarat, is the Champaner-Pavagadh
A fusion of both perceived Islamic and Hindu architecture, in its domes and arches, this site encapsulates the historical context of India prior to imperial rule: cultures defined by regions which incorporated significant aspects of all religions.12
Champaner-Pavagadh today is a pilgrimage destination for Hindus, Muslims and members of other religions, demonstrating how blurred the lines of religion once were in India’s pre-colonial past.
Hazira Maqbara
Away from the dusty hustle and bustle of the purana shehr, or old town, lies the Hazira Maqbara. It serves as a good example of how Islamic monuments in Gujarat are given little recognition and often overlooked completely.
Built in 1586, the monument contains the tomb of Qutubuddin Muhammad Khan, who was the tutor of Jahangir, the son and successor of Akbar. The significance of the mausoleum, as belonging to the teacher of one of the most famous Mughal emperors of all, is barely acknowledged in Gujarati history, let alone recognised in travel guides. For me, the tomb and its surrounding gardens offered a serene experience, that could be described as an ode to the education provided by Qutubuddin Muhammad Khan to the emperor in his lifetime.
The mausoleum now seems to be looked after by members of the Ismaili Shia community of Baroda. While visiting, the two men who were acting as ‘guards’ were eager to show us around, perhaps a reflection of the lack of visitors received by this hidden charm of the city. It’s almost ironic that the Hazira Maqbara, a Mughal monument, is even forgotten by the groups who over-emphasise the role of the Mughals in bringing Islam to India.
Laxmi Villas Palace
Laxmi Villas is the former palace of the Gaekwads of Baroda. The Hindu Gaekwad dynasty ruled the princely state of Baroda from the early 18th century until 1945. Under the rule of Sayajirao Gaekwad III (1875-1939), Baroda was seen as one of the most socially progressive states in India.
Built in 1890, Laxmi Villas embodies the elegant and ostentatious Indo-Saracenic
Three different sites, eras and locales; each in its own way represents the long-standing presence of Islam within Gujarat. The lazy attribution of Islam to the Mughals, and the limiting of its contribution in India to the Taj Mahal (though, bizarrely, even this is being challenged), is not difficult to refute- and when invented histories and political narratives (which often politicise monuments) are being used to challenge the rights and existence of minority communities, it must be refuted. In Gujarat, monuments such as Champaner-Pavagadh demonstrate the existence of Islam in India prior to Mughal rule, and the architecture of Laxmi Viilas Palace represents its influence and contribution more than a thousand years since it arrived on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
Footnotes
1 http://tamilnadu-favtourism.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/palaiya-jumma-palli-kilakarai.html and http://www.heritageonline.in/kilakarai-the-oldest-mosque-in-india/
2 Dunn, Ross E. (2005), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, University of California Press, p. 245.
3 Riho Isaka, ‘Gujarati Elites and the Construction of a Regional Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century’, in C. Bates (ed.), Beyond Representation.
4 Wink, André (1990). Al-Hind, the making of the Indo-Islamic world (2. ed., amended. ed.). Leiden: E.J. Brill.
5 ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad Naʻīm (2008). Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a. Harvard University Press. p. 161.
6 Varadarajan, Siddharth. Gujarat, the making of a tragedy. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2002.
7 Cohn, B., ‘The Census, Social Structure and Objectification in South Asia’, in B. Cohn (ed.), An Anthropologist Among the Historians (1987).
8 Bayly, C. A. “The Pre-History of ‘Communalism’? Religious Conflict in India, 1700-1860.” Modern Asian Studies 19, no. 2 (1985): p. 177-203.
10 Sumit Sarkar, ‘Indian Nationalism and the Politics of Hindutva’. in Ludden, David (ed.), Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community and the Politics of Democracy in India
11 Bhattacharya, Neeladri, ‘Myth, History and the Politics of Ramjanmabhumi’, in S. Gopal (ed.), Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhumi Issue. (further reading)
12 Metcalf, T. R., 1994. Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
