Time to time appearances of personalities in a community who have been endowed with exceptional capabilities in the different branches of human endeavour is a proof of intrinsic strength and creative vitality of that community.
It shows that the sources of its thought and action have not yet run dry, its spirit is alive and it has not forfeited its right to existence with honour and dignity in the world.
The Indian Muslims have reason to be proud of themselves in this respect. They have remained well-supplied with their share of outstanding men who have risen gloriously above the common level in their respective spheres of living and doing.
Contents
Nuzhat-ul-Khawatir: Record of 5000 Great Indian Muslims
The eight volumes of Nuzhat-ul-Khawatir contain an account of 5,000 Muslims of confirmed excellence in various walks of life who sprang from the Indian dust.
It shows how inexhaustible, indeed, is the capacity of this land of ours to throw up sons of exceptional ability and unusual caliber in all branches of human activity.
The sapling of Islam which the early Muslims had planted on the Indian soil with their hands and nourished with their life-blood is still in bloom.
The Indian Muslims have during all the stages of their career produced such exalted personalities as have been the envy of the world.
Even under the British regime, where a deliberate policy was pursued to liquidate them intellectually and economically, they did not stop sending forth eminent legists, administrators, mathematicians and educationists and such brilliant masters of the English language whose proficiency and skill was acknowledged by Englishmen themselves.
Arrival of Talented Muslims in India
As soon as the foundations of a strong and enlightened Muslim Kingdom were laid in India in the 12th century, learned men and artists and skilled craftsmen had started to assemble under its benevolent shadow from all parts of the Islamic World.
Tartar Invasion of Islamic World
A tremendous impetus was given to this exodus by the Tartar invasion of the Muslim East.
The Tartars had laid desolate the entire Islamic Empire, but their wrath had fallen most ferociously on its capital, Baghdad and on its other important centers of learning and culture.
The result was that the process of migration was greatly speeded up from the cities that had fallen a victim to the barbarism of the Tartar and Mongol hordes.
Educated and aristocratic Muslim families fled from one country to another in search of peace and security against the uncivilized invaders.
At that time India was under the rule of monarchs belonging to what is known in history as the Slave Dynasty—a dynasty of Turkish slaves—and it stood out to be the only country that could finally hold at bay the savage attackers by repelling successfully their repeated inroads.
Consequently, a large number of enlightened, high-class families of Iran and Afghanistan abandoned their homes and took refuge in India during the fearful stretch of time.
Arrival of Great Muslims in India
Innumerable noblemen who for generations had been distinguished for high respect learning and cultural refinement and were holding positions of honour and trust in their countries came here to settle permanently, particularly during the reigns of Shamsuddin Iltutmish, Ghayasuddin Balban and Alauddin Khilji.
Discussing the huge exodus of Muslims from Islamic world and its causes, the noted historian, Ziauddin Barni writes:
“All these families of respected noblemen, accomplished scholars and exalted spiritual leaders left their homes and wended their way towards India as a result of the invasions by the Mongols and by Chengiz Khan.
Princes of the blood, experienced generals, celebrated teachers, learned jurists and illustrious religious and spiritual masters were included among the migrants.”
From these families and the families of Indian origin which came into the fold of Islam through their efforts there sprang up a steady stream of spiritual and intellectual luminaries, administrators, statesmen, army generals and conquerors.
Among them some were blessed with such uncommon greatness that they could legitimately be a source of pride and honour to the entire Muslim World.
Great Muslim Rulers of India
Sher Shah Suri
When one considers gigantic undertakings of Sher Shah Suri for public welfare, the mighty development plans he put through successfully, his splendid administrative achievements and revolutionary judicial reforms, and weighs them against the fact that his rule extended over a bare five years, one becomes convinced automatically of the unique versatility and brilliance of this genius among kings.
Some of his attainments during that brief span of time were so marvellous that many a well-established government would find it hard to accomplish them during much longer periods of time.
Sher Shah indeed, is one of the greatest rulers the world has yet seen.
Marshman Clarke says,
“Without doubt Sher Shah was a most wise, kind-hearted and sagacious person. He was as accomplished an administrator as he is famous as a soldier.
Though he got little respite front wars he reformed every branch of administration and made it perfect.
The laws and regulations enacted by him continued to be in force even after his death till Akbar adopted them as models for his administrative reforms which later became known as Ain-i-Akbari.”
Akbar
Then there is Akbar. Whatever,the difference between the teachings of Islam and his religious views and the Din-i-Ilahi he founded, and however much may a Muslim historian grieve at the intemperate developments that took place during the later part of his reign, it goes without saying that judged by his high-mindedness, legislative and administrative ability, conquests and annexations, and natural knack for leadership and the splendid patronage he extended to arts and learning, he was a magnificent ruler and empire-builder.
Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb’s equal also will not easily be found in history. His excellent virtues of mind and character, his eventful life loaded with destiny, half-a-century of continuous warfare and incessant struggle, his enormous conquests and far-reaching reforms, his simple, ascetic life, his matchless courage, fortitude and determination, the strict regularity of his hours, the management of a vast, sprawling empire, the direct personal command of armies in the battlefield even in old age, the zealous observance of the obligatory as well as supererogatory prayers, and unceasing love for learning and study in spite of extreme occupation mark him out as a man and an emperor of a class by himself.
He was a man of steel who knew not what fear, indecision and despair were. He is sure to walk in his own right, into any list that may be prepared impartially and with a due sense of responsibility of great men of all times.
Sultan Muzaffar Halim
Similarly, what a sublime picture of saintliness and scholarship does the life of Sultan Muzaffar Halim of Gujarat (d. 1525) present!
His faith and earnestness, his piety and moral excellence, integrity and self-denial, religious enthusiasm and high-mindedness, and his prodigious scholarship can scarcely be found even in those who have nothing to do with kingship and statecraft and spend their lives exclusively in religious and literary pursuits.
The following incident illustrating the loftiness of his character and utter, over-whelming unselfishness will always be remembered in the annals of imperial exploits, wars and conquests.
A historian of Gujarat says,
“For a hundred years, the rulers of Malwa had tried in vain to make war on Gujarat. But when Mahmud Shah II of Malwa was deposed by his minister, Mandli Rai, and the rites of Islam there began to be wantonly outraged, the religious pride of Muzaffar Shah, the king of Gujarat, was stirred.
Setting out with a powerful army, he covered the distance to Malwa with the utmost speed and besieged its fort.
Realising that he was no match for the besieging force, Mandli Rai begged Rana Sanga to come to his aid.
But before Rana Sanga could advance as far as Sarangpur, Muzaffar Shah dispatched a detachment of his valiant army to deal with him. Soon the fort of Malwa fell.
“The sum and substance of the story is that when Muzaffar Shah entered the fort and the chiefs of his escort beheld the enormous wealth the rulers of Malwa had amassed in it and heard accounts of the richness of the land, they ventured to suggest in his presence that since 2,000 of their horsemen had been killed in the fighting, it would not be wise to restore the kingdom back to the ruler, who owing, to his incompetence, had lost it to his minister.
As soon as Muzaffar Shah had heard it, he cut short the round of inspection and came out of the fort, instructing Mahmud Shah not to allow any member of his party into the fort.
The latter entreated him to stay on for a few days more but he firmly declined.
Explaining his action on a later occasion, Mahmud Shah said,
“I had waged that war simply for the sake of earning the good pleasure of God. When I heard the conversation of the chiefs, I became apprehensive lest some unwholesome desire cropped up in my heart to ruin the sincerity of my act.
I have not done any favour to Mahmud Shah. On the contrary, I feel indebted to him for it was through him that I was given the opportunity of doing a noble deed.”
As for his deep learning and passionate devotion to theological sciences and the Traditions of the Prophet, it will suffice here to reproduce the following words from the ‘public acknowledgement of boons conferred on him by God’ he made a short while before his death. He said,
“By the grace of God in addition to knowing the Quran by heart, I have a full command over the points of law and precepts arising out of every verse of it, the occasion of its revelation and the method of its recitation.
I remember by heart all the Traditions of the Prophet—their texts, references, the antecedents of their narrators and everything. I possess such knowledge of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) that I hope to bear testimony to the veracity of the Prophet’s words that
‘for whom God makes a decision of virtue, He makes them the jurists of His Faith’.
“I have now been engaged for some time in the purification of the self after the system of the Sufis and aspire for their blessings on the strength of the dictum that
‘he who makes himself resemble a people (ultimately) becomes one of them.’
I have read Tafseer Maalim-ul-Tanzeel once, I am now revising it and have completed about half of it. I hope to complete it in heaven.”
As death approached, the fallowing prayer of Prophet Yusuf was on his lips:
“O my Lord, Thou hast given me (something) of sovereignty and hath taught me (something) of the interpretation of events—Creator of the heavens and the earth, Thou art my Protecting Friend in the world and the Hereafter. Make me die submissive (unto Thee), and join me to the righteous.”
Quran [12 : 101]
Great Muslim Statesmen of India
Imaduddin Gilani alias Mahmud Gawan
Cutting short the story of kings and emperors, we will take up now the lives and attainments of some outstanding ministers and statesmen.
The first name to command notice is that of Imaduddin Gilani alias Mahmud Gawan (d. 1481) who besides being an administrator and statesman of exceptional brilliance was also a man of profound learning and a noted writer of his time.
It seems as if he combined in himself the goodness and greatness of both the worlds—temporal as well as spiritual.
His fame had spread to distant lands like Iran, Arabia and Turkestan. He was without a peer where devoutness, piety and administrative acumen were concerned.
Asaf Khan or Abul Qasim Abdul Aziz
The life of Abul Qasim Abdul Aziz Gujarati (d. 1515), who is famous by the name of Asaf Khan, Minister of Gujarat, presents another astounding picture of composite excellence and versatility.
Allama Shahabuddin Ibn-i-Hajar El-Makki, the most important Arab scholar of that time, wrote a book on him in which he paid glowing tributes to his high learning and spiritual merit.
In it he says, “A peculiar glow had come over Mecca during the period of Asar Khan’s stay. The wise and the learned considered it a privilege to converse with him. There was a great fostering of learning…….”
Several panegyrics were, written in his praise by the poets of Arabia. There is also a mournful elegy by a distinguished Arab poet on his death.
Abdul Rahim Khan-Khanan
The renowned Mughal commander-in-chief, Abdul Rahim Khan-Khanan wrote exquisite poems in Persian, Arabic and Hindi, apart from being a literary critic of a high order.
He was equally proficient with the pen and the sword and was also an excellent linguist.
An unimpeachable historian says of him :
“His intelligence and sagacity, his magnanimity and high mindedness, his liberality and munificence were beyond words.
He was excessively fond of poetry and literature, and was a voracious reader, particularly or historical books.
He admired greatly the company or men of learning and excellence and shunned the society of those who were otherwise.
His life was one of piety and rigid self-discipline. He loved to do magnanimous deeds and things that were outside the pale of pettiness.
He was such a versatile person and in him there was an assemblage of such diverse virtues that the like of him cannot be found far and wide in the world and over long stretches of time in history.”
In the same way, Abdul Razzaq Khawafi has observed in Maaser-ul-Umara that
“Abdul Rahim Khan stands unrivalled among his contemporaries for courage and generosity.
He enjoyed mastery over Persian, Arabic and Hindi. He could converse freely and compose beautiful verses in all the three- languages.”
Abdul Rahim Khan was a celebrated Hindi poet. He still commands a distinguished place in Hindi poetry.
He was among the front-rank poets in Persian also but the wealth and the many-sided splendour of his genius cast a veil over the quality of his Persian poetry. Had he made it the vehicle of his fame or chosen it for the display of his talents, he would surely have risen to as high an eminence as any of the Iranian poets of his Court with whose songs the mansion of Persian poetry is still resounding majestically.
Abul Fazl and Faizi
Abul Fazl and Faizi were the choicest glories of the court of Akbar. Irrespective of their religious and spiritual views and conduct and the harm they did thereby to the cause of Islam in India, they were without a doubt among the most outstanding men of their time not only in India but the whole literary world.
Both of them were gifted with exceptional mental faculties, a rare love for learning and an extraordinary poetic and literary taste and aptitude.
Faizi deserves a place among the all-time masters of Iran for his Persian poetry, while Abul Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari and Akbar Nama are marvels of knowledge and wisdom and observation and analysis.
Says Carra de Vaux of Akbar Nama:
“Akbar Nama is an extraordinary literary work; it is overflowing with life, ideas and facts.
A study of it reveals that all the fields of human existence have been thoroughly examined and the conclusions thus reached have been critically arranged and analysed.
The eyes are dazzled by the continuous evolution of ideas it contains.
It is a literary document of which the entire oriental civilization can be proud.
The persons whose mighty intellects have introduced themselves through this voluminous book scorn to be far ahead of their age in administration and state craft, and not only in administration and state craft but religious philosophy as well.
These poets and thinkers saw the material world with a highly penetrating eye. They were giver, to observe everything very deeply and to preserve in their minds what they saw.
They used to experience everything personally and examine their own views and notions against the background of facts.
On the one hand, their mode of expression was rich and eloquent, and, on the other, they supported and fortified their statements with facts and figures.”
Muslim World vs India during Muslim Rule
A sort of intellectual stagnation had come over the Muslim World after the Mongol invasion. Minds had become sterile and blindly imitative. Intellectual activity was brought almost to a standstill.
The picture of degeneration became complete with the approach of the 14th century when lethargy and inertia crept also into the other branches of life.
With a few exceptions, like Ibn-i-Khaldun, the Islamic World could not produce anyone during the period under review who was above the general level of mediocrity.
But India on account of its physical remoteness from the scene, managed comparatively to escape from the ravages of the decay.
The Tartars who had descended upon the World of Islam like a terrible scourge; spelling ruin and destruction wherever they went, could not spread their tentacles fully over India because of its geographical isolation.
Consequently a major proportion of the finest brains of the Muslim World had sought safely by migrating to India and settling down here as permanent citizens.
Because of them intellectual activity here was kept going for a considerable length of time, brisk endeavours continued to be in evidence in the literary field, and men of learning and wisdom did not cease to come forward who can rightfully be ranked among the foremost thinkers and scholars of Islam.
For example, one discovers in the writings of Sheikh Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri (d.1370), Sheikh-ul-Islam Shah Waliullah Dehlavi (d. 1762), Shah Rafiuddin Dehlavi (d. 1817) and Shah Ismail Shaheed Dehlavi (d. 1830) new literary values and original modes of thinking that are generally absent from the works of their contemporaries in the other parts of the Muslim World.
Great Muslim Reformers of India
Owing to various natural and historical factors, India had come to be the nerve-centre of religious and spiritual correction and reform during the declining phase of Islamic supremacy.
Proselytizing and reformationist activities made such an advance in India that many other countries were also influenced by them.
Religious preachers and renovators were born here who on the strength of their earnestness, learning and popularity, the effectiveness of their appeal and the great number of people who profited by their efforts and by their natural harmony with the real spirit of Islam and its call constituted the choicest examples of Islamic missionaries and reformers.
Shiekh Ahmad Sirhindi
The most elevated among these religious guides and redeemers was Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624) upon whom men of vision and understanding have conferred the title of Mujaddid Alf-i-Sani (the Renovator of the Second Millennium).
It was he who renewed and strengthened the bond of Indian Muslims with Islam and saved the Shariat from being corrupted by innovations and the apostasy of the extremist Sufis, who were openly inclined towards the pantheistic doctrine of Wahdat- ul-Wajood (God is everything and every tiling is God).
It was Shiekh Ahmad Sirhindi again, who rescued the Mughal Empire from the whirlpool of irreligiousness it had got caught into, and put a check on the highly dangerous movement for the unity and amalgamation of faiths as well as on the revival of Brahmanism.
The great devotee of God and indefatigable crusader in His cause, Aurangzeb too, was a product of his mighty struggle.
The Sufistic Order founded by him still endures, besides India, in countries like Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Kurdistan and Syria.
The popularity this Order acquired through the efforts of his disciple, Allama Khalid Shahrazori Kurdi (d. 1026) in Arabia, Kurdistan, Syria and Turkey has not come by the way of any other Sufi System.
Syed Ahmad Shaheed
Then there was Syed Ahmad Shaheed who so splendidly reawakened the spirit of Jihad among the Muslims.
He aroused them to make heroic sacrifices for the victory of Faith and the establishment of a truly Islamic government on the lines of Khilafat-i-Rashida.
As a result of his struggle, a wave of true religiousness and righteous-living swept over the Muslims, or, in other words, a gust of wind belonging to the early decades of Islam blew in breathing a new life of faith and endeavour into the dead body of the Indian part of the Ummah (whole Islamic community).
He had endowed his followers with rare religious devotion and enthusiasm. The religious steadfastness, scrupulous observance of the Shariat and the ardent zeal for Jihad they displayed were simply unique.
Writes Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan of Syed Ahmad Shaheed and the splendid men he had collected around himself:
“………..the gist of the matter is that a man of his stature has not been heard of in the current age in any part of the world, nor has a fraction of what his haloed band has done for the Muslims been achieved by any of the contemporary religious teachers or divines.”
Maulana Mohammad Ilyas
In the modern times, India has once again become the centre of Islamic propagation and reform.
It began under the inspired leadership or Maulana Mohammad Ilyas of Delhi (d. 1943) and we must confess that throughout our travels in Muslim countries we have not had the experience of coming across a more staunch and fervent preacher of Islam than him.
His special distinction lay in his absolute reliance upon God and total dedication to the cause of Islamic revival and resurgence.
The missionary movement founded by the Maulana is now actively at work in all parts of the Muslim World and parties of preachers are sent out regularly even to far-off lands like the United States, the European countries and Japan.
This movement has succeeded, in howsoever small a measure, in warming up the frozen furnaces of the hearts of Muslims by rekindling in them the sublime flame of Faith.
These are but a handful of instances of men of endeavour, faith and learning that arose from among the Indian Muslims to leave an indelible mark on the ‘Sands of Time’.
Future of Muslims of India
The Indian Muslims have produced World-class leaders, legislators, debators and orators. The fame of their thinkers and poets has travelled to Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey and their works have been translated into a number of foreign languages, particularly of Muslim countries.
Throughout, they have also held dear the Arab culture and civilization and made their own contribution to it.
Judging from the prevailing trends, it would seem that a new mode of thought and expression will soon get evolved in Arabic literature under the influence of Indian writers which will be richly representative of both literary and spiritual values.
The glorious past of Indian Muslims holds for them the guarantee for the future.
Though at present they are passing through the most critical phase of their history, the Muslims of India are determined to ensure for themselves an honourable place in the Indian sun. Their personality is indestructible; it is touched with eternity.