# India: A Modern History *Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.* --- > Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Percival Spear, India: A Modern History, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1961, bahai-library.com. > ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── > > 602:á35. c. 95 s3. > b28át. c.3s.3a > @J ffJ6r > (l á of Jt(, dv1:J q "" > > aJ0/~.~A á > v\ ~ I/ fat1~c~ fr~ > .~L01Jfc; J.ov /JPO ~ I ltJ INDIA > (Tcw~Dj > A Modern History > > BY PERCIVAL SPEAR > > The University of Michigan History of the Modern World > Edited by Allan Nevins and Howard M. Ehrmann > > Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press > INDIA: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL ISLAM IN INDIA > > 98 99 > clashes were not matters of ideology and opinion only, the disapproval, Tht: Muslims of India, beginning as traders on the Malabar Coast > for example, which a Baptist might feel for a Roman Catholic, or a Jnd 3 few thousand troops in Sind, became in course of time one-quarter > Christian Scientist for a Latter-day Saint. They ran through the warp of tht: whole population. Given the initial disharmony between the two > and woof of the two societies, they touched their deepest feelings about religions, the traditional Indian antipathy to foreigners, and the Hindu > their way of life; they could arouse their fiercest passions. Only if these genius for absorption, this fact demands some explanation. How did the > considerations are borne in mind will the historic relations of the two ;fuslim community grow so large? The first means of recruitment to be > communities in India be intelligible. mentioned was the popular traditional one, conversion by the sword. > Before proceeding further it is necessary to make an important There is no doubt that this occurred in times of crisis such as foreign > qualification. Islam, like Christianity, has not been the same every- invasion or of civil commotion. 4 It is equally certain that it was the > where. Again like Christianity, it has been modified by the nations which i:xception rather than the rule. The evidence of co-operation of Hindu > have accepted it and the cultures which pre-existed it. As Spanish Chris- officials with Muslim rulers from early days and of relations with Hindu > tianity differs from the American Middle Western or Greek forms, so chiefs is too strong to admit of the reign of terror which continuous > Indian Islam differs from the Arabian, and Persian from the Moroccan forcible conversion would mean in a country like India. Forcible converform. Islam as a socioreligious driving force has been modified both by sion happened, but exceptionally. The next factor was the natural one of > race and by culture. The Arabs gave the original revelation a legalistic palitical influence. One path to fame and power in a Muslim state led > and litigious twist. Their great contribution was the development of through conversion. Some ambitious men became Muslims and found > Islamic law or the Shariat. The Turks were a hardheaded, practical race. themselves in leading positions in the state. But Hindus could also be in- > They modified the religion to suit their convenience, a recent edition of fluential without denying their faith; in fact, the flow of converts from > the process being carried out by Ataturk in modern Turkey. Persia or this source was never more than a trickle. > Iran, with its culture and imagination, its proneness to mysticism and The largest accretions to the community came from two other sources > sensuousness, became the home of Islamic heresies. The Shias, domi- -migration and persuasion. Under migration can be counted the soldiers > nant in Persia since the sixteenth century, began as a dissenting sect. of the invading Turkish armies, who settled down in the country. They > The Aga Khan is the head of a heretical sect going back to the Persian either sent for their families or intermarried locally. In addition to > middle ages. A modern example is the Ba'hai sect. Its mystical sense individual adventurers, of which the records show there was a steady > found expression in the poets, of whom Hafiz and Rumi attained world flow, and the rank and file of the invading Turkish armies, whole clans > rank. In the cultural sphere the Arabs of the early Caliphate borrowed ' or tribes on occasion moved in. The most recent example of this on a > heavily from the classical Greek heritage of the countries which they large scale was the case of the Rohilla Afghans, who, uprooted from > conquered. Plato and Aristotle became familiar names in their thought; their homeland in the eighteenth century by Nadir Shah the Persian, > indeed the knowledoe of Aristotle was returned to the West at the moved into India in a body and settled in the submontane tract of Uttar > ' 0 > University of Paris through Arab channels. The Islamic light, after Pradesh between the upper Ganges and the hills. Migration accounted > passing through the Persian cultural prism, showed a spectrum of ele- for many of the upper-class Muslims in India, but the largest source > gance, grace, and toleration not evidenced elsewhere. Though the Arabs of recruitment was conversion through persuasion. It is this factor which > first brought Islam to northern India, they never got further than Sind. made the Indian Muslims as a whole a body Indian in blood as well as > The real bearers of Islam to India were the Turks, who were in different in outlook and affection. The process was carried on only to a limited > ages more or less influenced by Persian culture. In following the story extent by the orthodox maulvis of the cities and courts. Their interest > of Islam in India it should therefore be borne in mind that every act was the law and their preference coercion. The most persuasive and > of a Muslim is not necessarily an Islamic act. In tracing any action to effective agents of Islamic conversion were the Sufis. These were dediits source, whatever judgment may be made upon it, the racial and cated men, some leading ascetic lives, and some maintaining their > cultural as well as the religious factor must be taken into account. To families, who devoted their lives to the study and spread of Islam. > take a simple illustration, the Afghan blood feud or the cutting off of l They were often unorthodox, and included in their ranks many mystics > noses for infidelity is not an Islamic, but a tribal characteristic. i and near pantheists, but as a class they were loyal Muslims. Their religion > ft: > > — *India: A Modern History (Used by permission of the curator)*