Indo-Muslitn Society
With the expansion of Muslim political power, the sub-continent experienced the inevitable growth of religious, educational and cultural institutions innate to Islamic lifestyles.
Mosques for congregational prayers, madrasahs for religious instructions, and Sufi hospices—khanqahs—for spiritual culture sprang up either as direct or indirect consequence of political expansion. These institutions, manned by individuals who in a sense were the exemplars—the ‘ideal types’—of an Islamic personality, often aloof and detached from the lust and greed of power, became far more potent vehicles for transmitting the faith than all the fear or temptation that successful military commanders could generate.In pre-Muslim India, religion, custom and tradition all advocated a strict division of society on caste lines. Alberuni informs us that non-caste people were not even permitted to live within the city walls. With the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate fundamental changes took place in the organisation of cities: from being caste cities, they became cosmopolitan in character. The political support for the notion of hereditary caste disappeared; the economic, social and cultural demands of Muslim towns created opportunities for people from all strata of society; and, at least at the theoretical level, the notion of Islamic egalitarianism challenged the ideological underpinning of the caste system. Considerations of family status in matters of matrimony which have been prevalent amongst Muslims, or the racism of the early sultans, could never have the same social implications as the hereditary nature of the Indian caste system. Islamic egalitarianism, as epitomised by an ordinary Muslim itinerant, scholar, trader or teacher, attracted many non-caste Hindus. A large number of conversions to Islam took place among lower castes and professional groups.
This process was facilitated by the message of love and kindness which the Sufis (mystics) propagated. They approached the oppressed masses not with the fiery zeal of a proselytiser but with the understanding and sympathy of a fellow human being. Chishti saints like Shaykh Muinuddin at Ajmer and Shaykh Faridud- din (d. 1265) at Pakpattan attracted hundreds of Hindus to their hospices. Recent researches have shown that Sufis played a major role in the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. Increase in the Muslim population on the subcontinent was also caused by a continuing influx of refugees into India in the wake of Ghuzz and Mongol invasions of Islamic lands. Then there were those scholars, artisans and soldiers from Central Asia, Iraq and Persia who came looking for the medieval Indian El Dorado. This population influx into the sub-continent performed a twin function: on the one hand, it reinforced the Muslim presence in numerical terms which inevitably extended and intensified the process of Islamisation; and, on the other, this fresh inflow of population from regions where Islam was firmly entrenched as a religious and cultural system assisted the development of a high Islamic tradition and provided a check against uncontrolled assimilation and syncretism in the Indian environment.With the reorganisation of administration in conquered lands, new opportunities were created for people well-versed in Islamic law and Persian language. Initially immigrants filled these positions but gradually educational institutions (madrasahs) which provided such instruction grew in number. Intellectual contact between Islam and the sub-continent might have been independent of the political encounter but the latter certainly enhanced it. The efflorescence of an urban aristocratic culture also owed much to official patronage.
Sufis charted out the sub-continent into spiritual dominions (wilayat) and the areas where they settled became centres of religious learning and spiritual devotion.
They facilitated the transmission of Islam to those parts of the sub-continent where political power had not reached or where the officers of the state had no reason to be present. The main Sufi orders were the Chishtiya, the Suhrawardiya, the Firdausiya, the Shattariya, the Qadiriya and the Naqshbandiya. The Chishti order spread out all over India; the activities of the Suhrawardis were mainly confined to the Punjab and Sind, and the Firdausis concentrated on Bihar. The important hospices of the Shattaris were located in Gujarat and Bengal while those of the Qadiris were in the Punjab. The Naqshbandi order reached India during the sixteenth century and soon established centres all over the sub-continent. Ideologically the Chishtis and the Shattaris were closer: they believed in the unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud). The Naqshbandis and, to a certain extent, the Suhrawardis represented, in varying degrees, a second approach characterised by opposition to pantheistic ideas and emphasis on adherence to the religious law. The Firdausis, in some ways, attempted to adopt a middle course by reconciling wujudi (unity of Being) and shuhudi (unity of Vision) ideas.The Chishtis and Shattaris worked with great success among the non-Muslims and the Suhrawardis among the Muslims. The energies of the Naqshbandis were also directed mainly towards their coreligionists; they tried to imbue them with a spirit of revitalisation of the faith and to attract them to the path of the Shari'a (religious law) and Sunna (path of the Prophet Muhammad).
The Sufi attitude towards preaching is well summed up in this remark of the famous Chishti saint, Shaykh Nizamuddin Auliya (d. 1325): ‘Example is better than precept.’ The Sufis tried to draw people towards Islam by setting a personal example and by bringing solace to the hearts of those who came to their hospices. They emphasised cultivation of human emotions as a means of attaining direct communion with the Ultimate Reality. Often they identified themselves with local practices and customs.
Sufis were not opposed to the Shari'a (religious law) but emphasised that the spirit underlying it was equally important. However, in certain areas and groups many practices were adopted which came to be strongly criticised for being un-Islamic.The ulema (religious scholars) generally performed the role of guardians and upholders of Islamic law and in that sense protected the social and cultural identity of the Muslim community. Some of them latched on to state power and often compromised their position. Others remained unaffected or aloof from it and ensured that neither the political expediencies of the rulers nor the liberalism and accommodation of the Sufis compromised the essence of Islamic belief and lifestyle. They accepted offices and performed various administrative functions in the judicial and revenue departments. Very often they came into conflict with the Sufis over some of the practices adopted by the latter and strongly criticised all accretions and innovations. Sufis criticised them for taking a rigid legalistic approach towards religion and missing out its spirit. By the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries there was a drawing together of some strands within these two traditions and often an individual combined in himself the roles of a Sufi (mystic) and an alim (scholar).