III. Competition and Co-existence

Indo-Islamic Interaction in Medieval North India

Bibliographic Data

ID11280910
AuthorsMuzaffar Alam (Jawaharlal Nehru University, corresponding author)
Year1989
Volume13
Issue1
Pages37-60
Publication date1989-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueItinerario (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-1153 • E-ISSN: 2041-2827
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0165115300004149
OpenAlexW2155591080
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited8

The study of Islam and Muslims in relation to local non-Muslim population and their religious beliefs and social practices in medieval India has often tended to be conducted eventually along two lines, seemingly opposed to each other. On the one hand, there are communal historians who have reduced the history of medieval India into the conflict between Hindus and Muslims, which they have projected as having resulted from their divergent religious outlooks. The period was Islamic in their view, and the state a conversion machinery and an organ to bring Hindus under the hegemony of Islam. This was a mission in which the state could not succeed fully, largely because of ‘Hindu’ resistance. On the other hand, there are a large number of ‘liberal’ historians to whom the hallmark of medieval Indian society has been an amity between the two communities, the various tensions and encounters over economic and political matters notwithstanding. The medieval period, in the opinion of such historians, saw the evolution and efflorescence of a composite culture to which medieval rulers, nobles, sufis and Persian and Urdu poets contributed significantly. The later animosity between Hindus and Muslims and clashes over religious matters, they argued, were the handiwork of the British

Asian Studies and History · Islamic Studies and History · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

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