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AHC: Islamic India

Now that my university exams and assignments are over, I can reply: I don't know much but I think that is the most the Arabs could conquer. @Indicus, who is Indian Canadian and knows a lot about Indian history, once said so at alternatehistory.com
Also, I am counting Jammu and Kashmir as part of Punjab as it once was considered to be.

I'm definitely open to it, my skepticism about the ability of the Caliphate doing such basically just comes from a general understanding of Arab overstretch but I'm happy to be proven wrong. @Indicus is this something you still believe or have you changed opinions on it? Seems like it could be a good PoD, honestly.
 
I'm definitely open to it, my skepticism about the ability of the Caliphate doing such basically just comes from a general understanding of Arab overstretch but I'm happy to be proven wrong. @Indicus is this something you still believe or have you changed opinions on it? Seems like it could be a good PoD, honestly.
My understanding is that the Arab conquest of Sindh came from some special factors such as it being ruled by a king with a particular weak position. On the other hand, Persian empires were already known to conquer up to the Indus, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine the Arabs doing the same thing. As for Rajasthan, Bappa Rawal is credited for deflecting the Arabs (though his historicity is in doubt), and so perhaps here he fails? It’s not that much of a stretch to see Punjab and much of Rajasthan conquered by the Arabs, but on the other hand, this would be tenuous at best. And conquering the Kashmir Valley and Himachal would be tough with all the mountainous terrain and overstretching.

Assuming we do see Punjab and part of Rajasthan Islamized, this would be a very different Islamic “culture” emerging. It would likely be led by Rajputs, or rather some of their antecedents, and they’d have a Sanskritic culture rather than a Persianate one, perhaps with some Arab influence but less than the coastal Islamic cultures. And it would likely be a relatively weak Islamization. Once the Turkic invasions occur, I suspect they’d oppose them ardently rather than feel any kinship with “fellow Muslims” or anything like that.
 
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Caste is another deficient explanation for the growth of Islam.
Well, Christianity didn't destroy slavery or patriarchy in the Roman Empire, but it still appealed to slaves and women. I don't think Islam failing to destroy the caste means it couldn't have appealed to people oppressed by it.
 
Well, Christianity didn't destroy slavery or patriarchy in the Roman Empire, but it still appealed to slaves and women. I don't think Islam failing to destroy the caste means it couldn't have appealed to people oppressed by it.
There likely were a non-zero number of people who found Islam appealing due to caste-based discrimination, but the idea it was the chief explanation for the rise of Islam in India, as was claimed, does not make much sense since there definitely were many landholding and other elite castes who converted to Islam; it was not disproportionately low-caste people who converted to Islam. Upper-caste people had no reason to escape caste and they converted anyways, and they retained their caste identities through conversion. I’m not sure if people at the time would have generally perceived conversion as being in any way a rejection of caste.

In essence, conversion to Islam in India resulted in less social change than conversion to Christianity in the Roman Empire, and caste operated normally rather than surviving despite conversion.
 
There likely were a non-zero number of people who found Islam appealing due to caste-based discrimination, but the idea it was the chief explanation for the rise of Islam in India, as was claimed, does not make much sense since there definitely were many landholding and other elite castes who converted to Islam; it was not disproportionately low-caste people who converted to Islam. Upper-caste people had no reason to escape caste and they converted anyways, and they retained their caste identities through conversion. I’m not sure if people at the time would have generally perceived conversion as being in any way a rejection of caste.

In essence, conversion to Islam in India resulted in less social change than conversion to Christianity in the Roman Empire, and caste operated normally rather than surviving despite conversion.


It seems to me like Hinduism was the preferred religion of those in the middle, whereas the low-caste and many very elite individuals adopted Islam. The poor used it to escape their status, and the wealthy used it to bolster their prestige via association with foreign culture and wealth?

And of course, there are those who truly were just persuaded by a different theology on purely religious grounds.

Is this an incorrect observation?
 
It seems to me like Hinduism was the preferred religion of those in the middle, whereas the low-caste and many very elite individuals adopted Islam. The poor used it to escape their status, and the wealthy used it to bolster their prestige via association with foreign culture and wealth?

And of course, there are those who truly were just persuaded by a different theology on purely religious grounds.

Is this an incorrect observation?
I don't think you can create this sort of caste profile - Muslims belong to all of these social groups, and often hold the same caste as their Hindu neighbours. And while today academia regards Hinduism as casteist, Brahminical, etc. on the basis of various ancient texts, I'm not so sure people at the time would have had the same view. To clear this topic up at risk of diverting this thread, I shall get into caste among Muslims

At the top of the Muslim caste system are "Ashraf" castes. These castes, estimated to be 15% of Indian Muslims (with the caste census in Bihar this data will get better), who claim foreign descent from Arab, Iranian, and Turkic people. This descent may be partially true or it may have been invented, but clearly they look the same as other Indians today. At the very top, castes claim descent from Muhammad, with the absolute peak being Sayyids.

Just below this are upper-caste Muslims who do not claim foreign descent but instead belong to "Indic" castes which many Hindus and Sikhs are also part of - Jats, Arains, Rajputs, and many others. Then there are some middle castes, and many of them have OBC status in India as a result of this. Then finally, there are the lowest castes of Muslims like Halalkhors, with many sharing categorization, who should be categorized as Scheduled Castes but unfortunately have yet to be included as such.

So as you can see, it's not so simple to construct any such caste profile.
 
I don't think you can create this sort of caste profile - Muslims belong to all of these social groups, and often hold the same caste as their Hindu neighbours. And while today academia regards Hinduism as casteist, Brahminical, etc. on the basis of various ancient texts, I'm not so sure people at the time would have had the same view. To clear this topic up at risk of diverting this thread, I shall get into caste among Muslims

At the top of the Muslim caste system are "Ashraf" castes. These castes, estimated to be 15% of Indian Muslims (with the caste census in Bihar this data will get better), who claim foreign descent from Arab, Iranian, and Turkic people. This descent may be partially true or it may have been invented, but clearly they look the same as other Indians today. At the very top, castes claim descent from Muhammad, with the absolute peak being Sayyids.

Just below this are upper-caste Muslims who do not claim foreign descent but instead belong to "Indic" castes which many Hindus and Sikhs are also part of - Jats, Arains, Rajputs, and many others. Then there are some middle castes, and many of them have OBC status in India as a result of this. Then finally, there are the lowest castes of Muslims like Halalkhors, with many sharing categorization, who should be categorized as Scheduled Castes but unfortunately have yet to be included as such.

So as you can see, it's not so simple to construct any such caste profile.

So to summarize: caste is a relatively weak explanation for Muslim spread in India and substantially less important than other potential factors in the spread of Islam in India? What role do we assign to sufi orders?
 
So to summarize: caste is a relatively weak explanation for Muslim spread in India and substantially less important than other potential factors in the spread of Islam in India? What role do we assign to sufi orders?
A pretty large one, though I'm not quite sure how large it was. Sufi orders spread even prior to Central Asian conquests in places like Kashmir, and they often enabled a relatively easy transfer from worshipping Hindu gods to Sufi saints, and obviously there is a tradition of joint Hindu-Muslim worship of Sufi saints.

But it's hard to determine quite how large of a role they played.
 
I don't think you can create this sort of caste profile - Muslims belong to all of these social groups, and often hold the same caste as their Hindu neighbours. And while today academia regards Hinduism as casteist, Brahminical, etc. on the basis of various ancient texts, I'm not so sure people at the time would have had the same view. To clear this topic up at risk of diverting this thread, I shall get into caste among Muslims

At the top of the Muslim caste system are "Ashraf" castes. These castes, estimated to be 15% of Indian Muslims (with the caste census in Bihar this data will get better), who claim foreign descent from Arab, Iranian, and Turkic people. This descent may be partially true or it may have been invented, but clearly they look the same as other Indians today. At the very top, castes claim descent from Muhammad, with the absolute peak being Sayyids.

Just below this are upper-caste Muslims who do not claim foreign descent but instead belong to "Indic" castes which many Hindus and Sikhs are also part of - Jats, Arains, Rajputs, and many others. Then there are some middle castes, and many of them have OBC status in India as a result of this. Then finally, there are the lowest castes of Muslims like Halalkhors, with many sharing categorization, who should be categorized as Scheduled Castes but unfortunately have yet to be included as such.

So as you can see, it's not so simple to construct any such caste profile.

Thank you for explaining this. It's such an interesting circumstance with so much complexity.
 
My understanding is that the Arab conquest of Sindh came from some special factors such as it being ruled by a king with a particular weak position. On the other hand, Persian empires were already known to conquer up to the Indus, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine the Arabs doing the same thing. As for Rajasthan, Bappa Rawal is credited for deflecting the Arabs (though his historicity is in doubt), and so perhaps here he fails? It’s not that much of a stretch to see Punjab and much of Rajasthan conquered by the Arabs, but on the other hand, this would be tenuous at best. And conquering the Kashmir Valley and Himachal would be tough with all the mountainous terrain and overstretching.

Assuming we do see Punjab and part of Rajasthan Islamized, this would be a very different Islamic “culture” emerging. It would likely be led by Rajputs, or rather some of their antecedents, and they’d have a Sanskritic culture rather than a Persianate one, perhaps with some Arab influence but less than the coastal Islamic cultures. And it would likely be a relatively weak Islamization. Once the Turkic invasions occur, I suspect they’d oppose them ardently rather than feel any kinship with “fellow Muslims” or anything like that.

Seems like the best bet, honestly; it'd present a pull factor, given the wealth of India as compared to the Middle East, to ensure later Turkish invasions. It'd also ensure some level of control and ongoing Islamization since the 7th Century, with enough time to ensure larger numbers of converts. Also, that second paragraph kind of dives into what happened in Persia and the later rise of Shia Islam, so I wonder what Indian Islam will come to look like. I understand modern day Muslims there even IOTL have such things as a Messianic school of thought?

Also, @raharris1973, Indicus here is putting it more elegantly than I could in terms of explaining how India could change Islam as we know it.
 
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Seems like the best bet, honestly; it'd present a pull factor, given the wealth of India as compared to the Middle East, to ensure later Turkish invasions. It'd also ensure some level of control and ongoing Islamization since the 7th Century, with enough time to ensure larger numbers of converts. Also, that second paragraph kind of dives into what happened in Persia and the later rise of Shia Islam, so I wonder what Indian Islam will come to look like. I understand modern day Muslims there even IOTL have such things as a Messianic school of thought?
I assume you're talking about Ahmadi Islam. It emerged in the late nineteenth century, and it was fundamentally a product of the Muslim modernism of the era, and as a result it has a lot of very divergent practices; its founder claiming to be the Mahdi is probably the largest of them, but it also claims jihad should only be peaceful, and it claims that Krishna and Rama were Islamic prophets. These very divergent claims have resulted in many Sunni Muslims hating them, to the extent that in modern Pakistan they are effectively barred from voting and it is a criminal offence for them to say "Allahu Akbar". I don't think it is very representative of what this Indian Islam would look like.

You might see an analogue of the Shu'ubbiyah movement, an Iranian movement in the ninth and tenth centuries which protested Arab dominance over Islam, but on the other hand it might be less necessary in an Indian context at this point with both far fewer Arabs and similar but non-Muslim cultures nearby. And at the same time, there would be contact with Arab traders in Gujarat (and the Islamization from that might be greater). Once Turkic invaders come, they'd probably try to differentiate themselves from them, and maybe like Indonesian Muslims they'd hold up the Ramayana and Mahabharata as cultural texts - like the Shahnameh - and treat Rama and Krishna as ancient kings rather than gods.
 
My understanding is that the Arab conquest of Sindh came from some special factors such as it being ruled by a king with a particular weak position. On the other hand, Persian empires were already known to conquer up to the Indus, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine the Arabs doing the same thing. As for Rajasthan, Bappa Rawal is credited for deflecting the Arabs (though his historicity is in doubt), and so perhaps here he fails? It’s not that much of a stretch to see Punjab and much of Rajasthan conquered by the Arabs, but on the other hand, this would be tenuous at best. And conquering the Kashmir Valley and Himachal would be tough with all the mountainous terrain and overstretching.

Assuming we do see Punjab and part of Rajasthan Islamized, this would be a very different Islamic “culture” emerging. It would likely be led by Rajputs, or rather some of their antecedents, and they’d have a Sanskritic culture rather than a Persianate one, perhaps with some Arab influence but less than the coastal Islamic cultures. And it would likely be a relatively weak Islamization. Once the Turkic invasions occur, I suspect they’d oppose them ardently rather than feel any kinship with “fellow Muslims” or anything like that.
Thanks for the reply.
What about Gujarat?
 
Taking it as a given that you could, gradually with time, Islamify India, what would be some of the outer ramifications? Seems likely more of Southeast Asia could trend towards Islam; Burma, Cham, and Indonesia. One idea I've had is Indian Muslim traders and explorers spread Islam into Madagascar, East Africa in general and Australia. Seem realistic or no?
 
Taking it as a given that you could, gradually with time, Islamify India, what would be some of the outer ramifications? Seems likely more of Southeast Asia could trend towards Islam; Burma, Cham, and Indonesia. One idea I've had is Indian Muslim traders and explorers spread Islam into Madagascar, East Africa in general and Australia. Seem realistic or no?
I think you are confused. Most of Indonesia did become Muslim. Most Cham also did but Champa was in decline by then and was gradually conquered by the Viets of Davi Viet. As for Burma, argues Theravadda Buddhism was too entrenched in Burma for it to convert to Islam, except for Arakan, which did get a significant Muslim population, the Rohingyas.
 
I think you are confused. Most of Indonesia did become Muslim. Most Cham also did but Champa was in decline by then and was gradually conquered by the Viets of Davi Viet. As for Burma, argues Theravadda Buddhism was too entrenched in Burma for it to convert to Islam, except for Arakan, which did get a significant Muslim population, the Rohingyas.


I phrased it weird, my bad; I meant it would enter those places (Indonesia, Cham, etc) earlier and more thoroughly, like Indonesia being closer to 100% than the current 87%. As for the issue of Theravadda, my understanding of that argument ("Transcendentalist Intransigence") is that it extends also to Christianity, Islam and Hinduism too because of intrinsic characteristics of the four; I personally don't find it very compelling because of the widespread conversions that have historically occurred, even Post-1500. I think the earlier portions of that post put it best:

Who spread Islam to the people? For one, there's the government. In some places, the mosque, the clerics in the mosque, the books in the mosque, and 40 of the people praying in the mosque would all be appointed by the state. But Sufis (Muslim mystics) might have been more important. Many Sufis had the organization to carry out elaborate plans for converting people to Islam. Sufis were also successful because they accepted pre-Islamic culture and religion, explained the complex beliefs of Islam in simple ways (like comparing Islam to a cocunut), and were seen as sorcerers with powerful magic. When Sufis died their tombs became pilgrimage sites, helping spread Islam even from the grave.​
Peter Heather has argued in this way, specifically focusing in on the Christianity aspect:

 
I phrased it weird, my bad; I meant it would enter those places (Indonesia, Cham, etc) earlier and more thoroughly, like Indonesia being closer to 100% than the current 87%. As for the issue of Theravadda, my understanding of that argument ("Transcendentalist Intransigence") is that it extends also to Christianity, Islam and Hinduism too because of intrinsic characteristics of the four; I personally don't find it very compelling because of the widespread conversions that have historically occurred, even Post-1500. I think the earlier portions of that post put it best:

Who spread Islam to the people? For one, there's the government. In some places, the mosque, the clerics in the mosque, the books in the mosque, and 40 of the people praying in the mosque would all be appointed by the state. But Sufis (Muslim mystics) might have been more important. Many Sufis had the organization to carry out elaborate plans for converting people to Islam. Sufis were also successful because they accepted pre-Islamic culture and religion, explained the complex beliefs of Islam in simple ways (like comparing Islam to a cocunut), and were seen as sorcerers with powerful magic. When Sufis died their tombs became pilgrimage sites, helping spread Islam even from the grave.​
Peter Heather has argued in this way, specifically focusing in on the Christianity aspect:


Actually, AFAIK, the only place where a mass conversion from one of those four world religions to another occurred after 1500 is the Ottoman Balkans and even that is a partial exception, as the Balkans were never Muslim majority.
 
I don’t think you could see a whole lot more Islamic conversion in Indonesia. You could see a conversion of Bali and maybe parts of West Papua, but Islam more-or-less expanded to the limits of the Indonesian trading networks which were responsible for the spread of Islam; the east was never Islamized because it lay outside those networks.
 
I don’t think you could see a whole lot more Islamic conversion in Indonesia. You could see a conversion of Bali and maybe parts of West Papua, but Islam more-or-less expanded to the limits of the Indonesian trading networks which were responsible for the spread of Islam; the east was never Islamized because it lay outside those networks.
Some of the Maluku Islands, which are in Eastern Indonesia, are Muslim majority but they were vital to the spice trade.
On the other hand, note South Java, which has literally only one port, became Muslim. Trade doesn't explain everything.
 
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