The Culture of the Muslims in India

By: Allamah Sayyid Saeed Akhtar Rizvi
A lecture delivered at the Anthropology Department University of California Santa Cruz, on Thursday, 29th October, 1987
As Professor Pandya has told you, I am sup-posed to speak on the Muslim Culture in India. Although I know about religion, I do not know much about culture. Therefore, whatever I will say, will be based not on book knowledge, but on personal experience and observation.

Islam in India
The of Muslims in India is greater in any single Muslim country, except Indonesia. There are about 105 million Muslims in India, out of 750 million of the total Indian population, which comes to about 15%. Their number is in fact greater than the whole Mid-die East Muslim population taken together.
The Muslims have lived in India, in small or large numbers, since the beginning of Islam. There are legends and traditions which say that Islam reached Rajputana, in the heart of India, during the days of the Prophet himself. Even if there is some doubt about the authenticity of that legend, there is no doubt whatsoever that Islam had entered India within fifty years after the death of the Prophet. It was brought there by the refugees who had fled Arabia to escape from the persecution because of sectarian differences. Since then Islam has taken root in the Indian soil.
When two cultures meet, they cannot remain isolated from each other. There is always tangible and intangible action and reaction; there is always a continuous give and take. It affects the newly arrived culture as well as the old established one. The resulting culture is, in most cases, more vital and refined than the originals.
Islam was spread in India through the efforts, and the good virtuous lives, of the Sufis, i.e. the mystics. It may seem strange to many who are influenced by the common cliche that "Islam was spread by sword." Although this is not the place to talk on this subject; but I think some light should be thrown on it.
The fact is that it was not Islam that was spread by sword. It would be more to the point to say that the Muslim empire —or the Arab empire— was spread by sword. No doubt a great empire was established. But one or two examples will show how insignificant effect it had on the spreading of Islam: Some 88 years after the death of the Prophet, the Caliph 'Urnar ibn 'Abdu 'l-'Aziz came to the throne. The Muslim empire by that time had stretched from Spain and the north-west of Africa to the present day Pakistan, and going north to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan (in present day's Russia).[3]
But what was done to propagate Islam in the colonies? (he answer may he found in a circular letter sent by the Caliph to his governors, in which he, mfer d/m, wrote that it was a matter of concern that even after all those decades of Muslim rule, nothing was done to spread Islam in the colonies; therefore, the governors should do something to rectify the situation. But this directive did not please the governors. The governor of Egypt wrote back that if he tried to spread Islam and people became Muslims, the jizya (poll-tax levied on non-Muslims under Muslim rule —it was the only tax they had to pay) would stop and the treasury would he empty.
The governor of Persia wrote that even the few persons who had accepted Islam, had not done so with sincerity; that they had not got themselves circumcised. Caliph wrote to the former that it was preferable to have the treasury empty and encourage the Egyptians to embrace Islam, rather than having the treasury full and the Egyptians outside the fold of Islam. To the latter he wrote back that the Prophet had come to propagate the Creed: There is none to be worshipped except Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; he had not come to circumcise the people.
However, this attitude of the new caliph was not liked by the ruling clique, and when he died only after two and a half years, it was widely believed that he was poisoned, because he wanted to take the empire towards a new direction.
Therefore, it is wrong to say Islam was spread by sword, rather it was the empire that was spread in that way. It were the Sufis whose piety and spirituality made them immensely popular among the Indian masses, and as a result of it, they entered into the fold of Islam.* Even today, every year thousands and thousands of people, belonging to every religion and creed, visit their graves, to obtain blessings and peace of mind through them. Some shrines like those of Khwajah Mu'inuddin Chishti (in Ajmer) and Nizamuddin Awliya' (in New Delhi) are very famous and popular.
As I have said earlier, it was but natural that when Islam spread in India, neither Hinduism could remain unaffected by Islam, nor Islam could remain isolated from Hinduism.
Islamic belief in one God and the resulting brother-hood gave rise to many movements among the Hindus. Baba Kabir Das began his movement known as Kabir pant his, which was a revolt against idolatry and casteism. Thereafter, Guru Nanak established the Sikh religion with the same ideals. In recent past, Arya Samaj movement was started by Swami Dyanandji to preach against idol-worship and the caste system.
This much about the ideological side of culture. Now, we should turn our eyes to some other aspects.

Architecture
One of those aspects is architecture. Lotus is a very outstanding and holy motif in Indian culture. You must have seen pictures of the statues of Gantama Buddha in which he is shown sitting on lotus. Sometimes Shiva and Krishna are shown in the same position. It has its roots in the old legends and myths, going back to Brahma. When the Muslims settled in India, they brought dome and minaret from Middle East and Turkey. But the domes built by them in the early periods were, like those of the Middle East, simplistic in design. Then the process of mutual give-and-take began, until we come to the ultimate poetry in marble, which is know as Taj Mahal, pictures of which you must have seen every where. If you study the upper section of its dome, you will see that the architects have capped it with inverted lotus. Thus by combining the Muslim dome and Hindu lotus, they have created the master-piece of Indian architecture, which is rightfully called the eighth wonder of the world.
We also find many features and designs in Muslim buildings in India which show the influence of the ancient culture that was prevalent in India.

Languages
When the Muslims came to India, they gradually adopted the local languages. Many of their kings and military and religious leaders in the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western India acquired literaiy distinction in theii regional languages. Tipu Sultan of Mysore and Abdulluh Qutuh Shah of Golcanda were reputed poets. The Muslims spoke local languages, wrote in local languages and composed poetry in local languages, but it was not, and could not be, a one-way traffic. Their own language, i.e. Persian, also influenced the local languages. This is a natural process; language not remain static if it did, it would die. Every living language absorbs foreign words foreign ideas, and thus its strength grows and its beauty is enhanced. Thus, the daily contact in social gatherings, markets and administration gave birth to a composite language, Urdu.
"Urdu" is a Turkish word. Some say, it means army; others say, it means market. Be it as it may. The implication is the same: When people mingled with each other, in army or in market, this new language came into being. There is a difference of opinion concerning its birth-place. A group claims it was born at Delhi while another one says it was at Hyderabad (Deccan) in the South. What is certain is that the new language appeared in both places almost simultaneously; and it shows that there was a widespread inter-action and give-and-take ranging from Delhi in the north to Hyderabad in the south.
Urdu was, and still is, the commonly spoken language in a vast area of India and Pakistan. The Hindi-Urdu conflict is a bitter legacy of post-World War I politics in India. It may be said truthfully that as far as the spoken language is concerned there is little difference between Hindi and Urdu, The basic difference is in the scripts —the language written in Persian script is called Urdu, while that written in Devnagari script is Hindi. Of course when it comes to literary works, the Urdu writers and poets use many Arabic and Persian words and phrases, while those writing in Hindi lean mostly on Sanskrit expressions.
In some cases this tendency leads the writer* (who perhaps to prove their high erudition) to use per-sianised or Sanskritised and expression, as to make the Urdu or Hindi quite unintelligible to the common masses, However, the Urdu language was a common bond among the people of India, and especially between Hindus and Muslim, It was Urdu that gave India its famous revolutionary slogan, Inqildb zifida bad (Long live the revolution) which was heard from Assam to North-West Frontier, and from Kashmir to Ras KumariL It is still heard in political rallies and processions. Urdu was not confined to the Muslims; hundreds, even thousands, of its writers and poets were, and are, Hindu. Pandit Rattan Nath Sarshar, Munshi prem chand, Brij Narain Chakbast, Daya Shankar Nasim, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Sahir Lodhyanawi, Rajendra Singh Bedi, Jagannath Azad, Arsh Malsiyani, Tilok Chand Mahroom, Gopi Chand Narang, Molvi Mahesh Parshad are just a few names that have come to mind at random.
We may also say that the Urdu language, or more correctly the Islamic literature, was saved, preserved and put in the hands of the public by a famous Hindu publisher, Munshi Nawal Kishore of Lucknow. This great son of India opened his eyes during the reign of the East India Company, and lived to see India being ruled by Queen Victoria. He started a printing press, and unearthed rare books of Hindu and Islamic philosophies, religions and literatures in Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Sanskrit, and got them printed. This Hindu was held in such a great esteem that when the Muslim king of Afghanistan visited India, he made special request to the viceroy of India to make arrangements so that he could meet Munshi Nawal Kishore.
Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first prime Minister of India spoke Urdu. Dr. Rajendraprasad, the first President of India, has written in his auto-biography that his education began not with "Shri Canesh" (i. e.. the Hindu formula) but with " Bis-nultahi 'r-Rahmdni 'r-Rahim' (i. e . the Muslim formula). He took Hindi as a subject in his B. A. class.
It was Urdu which was chosen when the first attempt was made by Indians during the British Raj to use an Indian language as the medium of instruction at the university level. When Mir 'Usman ' Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam and last ruler of Hyderabad state, established the Osrnania University with this object in view, there were misgivings in many circles. But the attempt proved tremendously successful. Committees were formed to coin Urdu terms for scientific and other subjects. Men of repute in various fields of knowledge were engaged to write books for the courses of studies. And teaching in Urdu medium started upto the Master courses. And this was done without sacrificing the high standards of education. Soon the Oxford University in Britain recognised its degrees.
Unfortunately, the bitterness after the partition of India prompted the Indian leaders to deprive Urdu of its rightful place in India. Osmania University was turned overnight into a Hindi University; and all the academic and literary work done there in Urdu was relegated to oblivion and none of those titles are now available. Although, the Indian Constitution counts the Urdu as one of the 14 regional languages of India, the language has not been recognised yet as the regional language of any state or region. So, on governmental and official level, Urdu does not exist in India.
Pakistan has made Urdu its official language, although it is not a language spoken in any district of Pakistan. Punjabis speak the Punjabi language, Sindhis speak the Sindhi, Baluchis speak the Baluchi and the Pushto is spoken in the NWFR. Yet the official language of Pakistan is Urdu. Although it has been banished from U.P., Delhi and Hyderabad, the places where it was born, but —so far as the public support is concerned— it still flourishes in those areas. The number of l! e magazines am! newspapers published in Urdu surpasses that of every other official language except Hindi.

Azadari
Now we come to a particular manifestation of the inter-action between Muslim and Hindu cultures, that is ''Azadari". If is on Urdu word, which denotes mourning riies commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him) and is companions abom 1350 years ago at Karbala in Iraq, The Shf ahs and a great number of the Sunnis observe these rites during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, In India, this system was popularized by Abdullah Oubt Shah, the King of Golcanda, who founded the city of Hyderabad, Gradually it spread to the whole kingdom among the Hindus as well as the Muslims, In the month of Muharram, replicas are made of the mausoleum of Imam Husayn; these are called "ta'ziya" in Urdu, Processions are taken out with ta'ziyas in which poems are recited lamenting the tragedy of Karbala.
Legend says that ta'ziya was invented in India — not the Azadari on the whole, but only this particular system of making replicas of Imam Husayn's mausoleum. When Timur Lang (known in the West as lamedane) came to India, and could not go in the month of Muharram to Karbala to participate in the mourning ceremonies there, he built a replica of the to him in com-memorating the events of Karbala* (Those who are against ta'ziya, say that it was the influence of the Hindu culture, if claim is correct, it does not it automatically unlawful or condernnable