Vrinda Gopinath 
In the pitched and triumphalist atmosphere of the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, built on the ruins of the demolished 16th-century Babri Masjid, any historical exploration or evidence of the syncretic nature of Islam during the reign of some emperors from the Sultanate in 13th century to Mughals till the end of the 18th century is denied or buried by Hindutva crusaders.
Can anyone talk of the land donated by Mughal emperors for temples, of them celebrating Holi and performing in Ram Leela, or the translations of Sanskrit classics into Persian, and the succession of marriages with Hindu wives? Emperor Akbar even issued an edict that forbade the conversion of Hindu prisoners to Islam, and Bahadur Shah Zafar insisted the Ram Leela procession pass the palace at his request.
To unravel the fascinating syncretic history of Muslim rule and Islam in India at the time, noted historian and chronicler William Darlymple talks to Vrinda Gopinath. Excerpts from the interview:
Would you say Mughal history represents a syncretic Islamic heritage?
There is a thread of syncretism that runs all the way through Indian history. The very first Bengali-language biography on the life of the Prophet Muhammad set the tone by describing Muhammad as an avatar of Niranjana, the immaculate one who had previously come down to Earth as the Hindu deity Rama. By the time of Akbar you have a widespread belief among the Muslims of Braj that Krishna is a prophet of Islam, and by the time of Shah Jahan you have Dara Shikoh writing of the Vedic origins of Quran.
But this syncretic thought always coexisted with a more hardline sense of difference.
Mughal India was not a time of communal bliss, and there are numerous communal riots throughout the period. Emperors like Aurangzeb very actively alienated the Rajput alliance that Akbar spent so long building up. And whilst temple construction reach unprecedented levels under Akbar and Jahangir, including the imperial sponsorship of 37 temples in Vrindavan and Mathura alone, new temple construction virtually comes to a halt under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
The later Mughals, who far too few people in modern India know about, were by far the most syncretic in their practices, celebrating Holi and performing in Ram Leelas.
Historians in the aftermath of the violence of Partition, and in the interest of what they saw as nation building, tended to underplay the violence and the iconoclasm that took place particularly in the Sultanate period. Today, of course, we’re dealing with the other extreme where almost all that anyone knows about Indian Islamic history is iconoclasm.
The truth is more nuanced, and it varies from place to place and time to time. In the Mughal period for example, it varies from emperor to emperor – what is true of Akbar is not true of Aurangzeb, and vice versa; or, in the Sultanate, what is true of Allauddin Kilji is not true of Balban. One can’t just take a broad brush and approach saying Islamic rule is one thing for a thousand years. You have to look in detail at specific events and specific rulers. It’s a complex and hugely varied picture over a long period of history.
Was there an Islamic orthodoxy at the time that challenged the openness of Islam both during the Sultanate and Mughal reign?
You have complaints as early as the reign of Balban from conservative Islamic clerics that Hindus are prospering in Sultanate Delhi, that temples are being built, festivals being celebrated and Hindu religious processions are filling the streets. That many of the Hindus are far richer than the Muslims and that Muslims are their servants. The Delhi Sultanate ruled 300 years, from 1206 to 1500s till the Mughals came, and this complaint came as early as the reign of Balban in 1266.
The Sultanate is a long period and unquestionably there’s a lot of violence and iconoclasm, especially at the beginning; but equally you find that Hindus are doing very well too in certain reigns and at certain times.
Did religion define Muslim rule in India at all?
Religion is certainly important, and there is evidence that some sultans saw themselves as champions of Islam. But again, it’s complicated. Muhammad of Ghor, who we remember is a great iconoclast, actually has Lakshmi on the back of his coins and is from a heretical fringe sect that many Sunnis regard as extremely dodgy. And the Mughals in particular seem to be misunderstood because the entire Mughal war machine is built on collaboration with the Rajputs of Rajasthan. And apart from the inter-marriages that took place generation after generation from Akbar onwards, some of the greatest Mughal battles are led by Hindu generals and armies from Rajasthan. Some of the most hard won campaigns of the Mughals were in the Deccan against Deccani Muslim Sultanates and led by Rajasthani Hindus generals.
Can one still say that there was a period of Islamic heritage that was open, embracing of other cultures, syncretic?
Before the onset of the colonial period, at the very end of Mughal rule, when you have a Shah Alam II and Bahadur Shah II Zafar on the throne there is a world that is really very closely integrated. There was the Ram Leela procession that was diverted from its path so that it could pass by the palace at the request of Zafar. There’s a moment I found in the palace diary where Bahadur Shah Zafar refuses to give permission to a Hindu who wishes to convert to Islam. Hindu khatris attend madrassas. Sufi shrines welcome all religions. And at the centre of Mughal Delhi are the Jain bankers who are providing the cash and are the engine which keeps the whole machine running. It is a thoroughly mixed world in the city, everyone is living cheek by jowl in a way that it is impossible to imagine in the post-Partition mind.
So, it was the belief of the ruler that made Islam dogmatic or syncretic?
Every generation is different; like today, in the last 20 years we’ve seen different rulers, each with different views. The same is true of in the 16th century, there are rulers who are very syncretic and you find shared festivals and shared shrines, but you will also find conservatives on both sides who won’t mix. Even during Akbar’s reign you will find many conservative mullahs who will write badly of Hinduism and vice versa.
It belies the complexity that you have at the same moment in the same family, Dara Shikoh who is busy writing the Mingling of Two Oceans, and seeing a Vedic origin for the Quran – however factually untrue it is – and is a measure of the Sufi thought of the time. Meanwhile his brother Aurangzeb is a puritanical bigot who strongly disagrees with all of this. But is true that at the time of Dara Shikoh and in Akbar’s time there existed syncretic tendencies, shared shrines and shared experiences the extent of which which is almost unimaginable in the religious polarisation of today.
Temple destruction was also rampant among victorious Hindu kings even before the Muslims came?
Correct, but again it’s slightly different, in that the local deity was kidnapped by the victorious Hindu king. When you go to the Tanjore Museum today, you can find four or five deities which were taken from Orissa and Bengal by the victorious Cholas. Now that’s a hostile act, taking away the source of your enemies power; but it’s not quite the same as what Mohammed bin Tughlaq was doing, which is burying the idol beneath the step of the mosque.
How do we look at the present day hardening and fundamentalist strain of Islam?
It is true that in the past too you will find strains of Islam that is every bit as hard line as the Taliban today. …Today you can go to one area of Delhi and find a Sufi in Nizamuddin who would welcome Hindus and Sikhs, and also find somewhere else a more hardline Mullah who would not. The same was true in the past.
So, Islam too has a varied spectrum of belief as Hinduism does?
There is a widespread belief today in India that Islam is a religion that encourages the breaking of idols, promotes violence against other religions, whereas Hinduism is a religion of peace which never made war outside India and which didn’t break the temples of its rivals. Neither of these broad stereotypes is all true – there are very clear examples of on one hand, an Islamic ruler like Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur writing hymns to Saraswati and other Hindu Gods and Goddesses; or of the Cholas looting jewels and destroying temples in Anuradapura in Sri Lanka, for example, and the Sri Lankan chronicles have written about the violence. You have other Hindu rulers, from the Chalukya to the Cholas who levelled whole cities and temples, and carried off the idols of their rivals to their capital.
The Sri Lankan chronicles accuse Rajaraja Chola of burning down temples.
There are examples of violent men breaking temples on both sides, and there are examples of syncretic, peaceable rulers on both sides too. The trouble is when people are selective in their reading of history, choosing items from history to illustrate their politics, as if it’s an a la carte menu in a restaurant and ignoring the evidence to the contrary. History written like that is necessarily full of half truths.
Would you say Sufism brought an element of openness to Islam?
Well, there are many Sufis who acted to bring Hindus and Muslims together but you also have warrior Sufis – my message is that you have to study history in depth and in detail and look at particularities.
But what is true is that there are moments of cohabitation, coexistence, and a coalescing of interest. The Mughal Empire was built with Rajput help and Rajput armies and it was a coalition of self-interest that brought them together.
The greatest collection of Deccani manuscripts today is to be found in Bikaner, because the Bikaner armies led the Mughal army’s attacks on the Deccan and brought the manuscripts back as loot to Bikaner. And why did they join with the Mughals? Because it was in their self-interest.
Akbar’s achievement was to build a coalition of self-interest so that both people profited – when you see the very modest scale of the small haveli of the early Kachawa kings of Amer and compare it to the massive scale of the later Amer Fort built from the time of Akbar, you can see how much more money and wealth is being channeled into those Rajasthani Hindu kingdoms. And they are gaining by a coalition of self-interest with the Mughals. Like politicians today, rulers make calculation based on what will benefit them.
So prosperity comes with political alliances, not necessarily syncretism?
For example, Raja Mansingh is sent by Akbar as governor of Bihar and you find two very different inscriptions above his palace there – one is in Persian where he says he is the humble servant of Emperor Akbar, the other is in Sanskrit where he says he is the greatest ruler who bows to no man.
And in here you see the complexity – here’s a man who is making a deal with himself or in the interest of his people, and Jaipur gains through this alliance – its a bit like Nitish Kumar today. Likewise, the Jain bankers who lend to the Mughals do so because it’s good business.
The key message is that the past is as complex as the present. And it’s the historian’s job to bring out that complexity and nuance and to push back against broad brush stereotypes on both sides.