Entry of Islam into the Subcontinent: The embryo of Pakistan, for Mohammed Ali Jinnah, its founder, was conceived the moment the first Muslim set his foot on the subcontinent.1 That was in AD 712 when Arabs invaded Sindh for the first time. Islam got no foothold in the subcontinent with this invasion.

The next encounter with Islam took place 300 years later when Mahmud of Ghazni made several forays into northern India from Afghanistan. Mahmud's principal objective was to loot. He also destroyed several Hindu temples including the one at Somnath. The destruction of Somnath temple traumatised the Hindu mind and created long abiding resentments.

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Muslim power got established in northern India with the conquests of Muhammad Ghauri towards the end of the 12th century. A sultanate was set up by his successors at Delhi. The Lodhis and Mughals followed, extending Muslim power right up to Bengal.

The non-Muslim communities no longer identified themselves with the Emperor but the Muslims felt and behaved like the members of a ruling class. It is no wonder that in Pakistan, Aurangzeb is rated as the best Muslim ruler of the subcontinent.

Islam spread as Muslim power expanded. The new adherents to Islam from the local population came mostly from the followers of Buddhism, which was already under decline, and from the lower strata of Hindus, particularly the untouchable classes. Conversions were encouraged by the Muslim establishment to expand their constituency and increase their security.

Assimilation and Coexistence

The expanding Muslim population did not, however create watertight compartments for the Muslims and Hindus. The early Muslim leaders were alive to the need for securing the goodwill of their Hindu subjects and were keen to see Hindus and Muslims live in peace side by side. This promoted a synthesis despite the obvious differences between Hinduism and Islam: According to the historian Romila Thapar2 the communities exhibited a fair degree of assimilation in their pattern of living by the 16th century. Urdu is an excellent example of this assimilative process at the popular level, which enabled the ruler and the ruled to talk to each other in the same common language. North Indian classical music and the monuments built by the Muslim rulers in the north are other brilliant examples of the spirit of fusion, which also indicated that the Muslim rulers, whose ancestry lay in Central Asia, wished to be identified as the indigenous sons of the subcontinent and not as foreigners.

The sobriquet is given to him because he kept the ideology of Islam uppermost in his mind as he ruled India, much like Pakistan has tried to do after its formation.

No doubt, there were excesses also against the Hindu religion by orthodox Islamic preachers and some members of the Muslim establishments but genocidal tendencies were by and large, absent. Sikhism was another product of the effort at synthesis, with ideas borrowed from both religions, to reduce the gulf between them. The monotheism of Sikhism was akin to monotheism of Islam. The emphasis of Sikhism on the establishment of a non-casteist society was intended to be an improvement on Hinduism, which permitted castes. The emergence of Sikhism as a new religion in the 15th-16th century was influenced in no small way by the interaction between Hinduism and Islam.

Islam spread to the southern parts of India also through Arab settlements on the Malabar Coast and the rise of Muslim kingdoms in the south. Here also, this phenomenon did not lead to serious cultural clashes and by and large the adherents of the two religions lived peacefully side-by-side.

The process of synthesis reached its zenith during the rule of Akbar (1550-1605). While he expanded his empire up to the banks of the Godavari to the south and to the whole of north India including Afghanistan, he was mindful about showing due respect to 'Hinduism. His desire to take the Hindus with him is displayed by his inclusion in key positions of several Hindu luminaries like Birbal and Todarmal. He married a Hindu princess and abolished the hated tax Jazia, levied on non-Muslims. He tried to propagate a new religion Deen-e-llahi, which represented an effort to smoothen the edges of antagonism between Hinduism and Islam.

...believing that the Congress would look after only Hindu interests. Adoption of this communal approach has been interpreted by some as amounting to a first overt step towards Pakistan.

The foundations of mutual tolerance and respect were rudely shattered during Aurangzeb's rule (1658-1707). Aurangzeb ruled as a puritanical orthodox Muslim, discriminating against Hindus and their religious institutions, reimposing Jazia and closing the doors of state offices to them. Sikhs were likewise persecuted. Suddenly, the chasms between the communities began to widen. The non-Muslim communities no longer identified themselves with the Emperor but the Muslims felt and behaved like the members of a ruling class. It is no wonder that in Pakistan, Aurangzeb is rated as the best Muslim ruler of the subcontinent. The sobriquet is given to him because he kept the ideology of Islam uppermost in his mind as he ruled India, much like Pakistan has tried to do after its formation. Religious and political intolerance was the hallmark of his rule, much as it was to appear in Pakistani politics later. But if one were to search for evidence that Muslims and Hindus had started to look upon each other as people who could not coexist in this reign, one would be looking in vain. Despite the excessive religious zeal, which Aurangzeb displayed during his rule, India, under him and other Mughals, could not be called an Islamic state.

The Balance Changes

The decline of the Mughal power after Aurangzeb and its final disintegration with the arrival of the British colonial rule resulted in radical changes in the balance between the religious commupities of India. The Muslim upper classes were the principal losers in status and influence. To begin with, the British depended upon the serving members of the Muslim nobility and administrative cadres but trust did not develop as the British were regarded as usurpers. Hindus; played no role in intensifying the mutual distrust. Instead they also had negative sentiments towards the British who were viewed as foreigners. The War of Independence of 1857 was a combined effort of the Hindus and Muslims. In British eyes, Muslims were the larger culprits for the Mutiny as they termed it and consequently, their attitude towards the Muslims became relatively harsher.

This chain of events had the effect of sending the Muslim community into a shell. It became reluctant to accept westernised ideas and the modifications introduced in the fields of education, industry and trade. The community's unwillingness to learn English, which was now to be the new medium of advancement in public life, shifted it by and large to the backwaters of national life. On the other hand, the Hindus and Sikhs did not display similar inhibitions and were able to progress much faster in all fields. Reform movements like the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj promoted by Raja Ram Mohan Roy helped the growth of liberalism among the Hindus in social and religious arenas, enabling them to take longer strides in their overall development. The Indian National Congress also started in the mode of a reform movement in 1885, and was seen to grow into a full-fledged national movement seeking self-determination and finally independence. The Congress was not structured on religious lines and included leaders from all communities and faiths, including the Muslims.

Focus on Muslim Community

At this point, however, the general backwardness of the Muslim community and the aloofness from the national mainstream had already become a cause for concern to the leaders of the community. The most important contribution towards the uplift of the community came from Syed Ahmed Khan (1817­98) who set up an institution at Aligarh in 1875, which was to become a university eventually. Syed Ahmed Khan was both a progressive as well as a devout Muslim. He wanted his community to embrace westernised ideas as well as English education so that it could march in step with other communities of the country but without losing its identity as a distinct presence in the country. To promote these objectives he favoured close links and cooperation with the British. His vision helped Aligarh grow into a major ideological and political centre of Muslim intelligentsia and its consciousness in later years.

Afghani operated on a wider canvas, with Muslims the world over in mind, particularly those in West Asia. Syed Ahmed Kahn really saw the Muslims as one Umma, which should jointly struggle against Western influences and ideologies.

Syed Ahmed Khan's role in encouraging Muslim revivalism is of considerable significance. His real thrust lay in attempts to modernise Islamic practices and customs to conform to the currents and trends of contemporaneous times. There was no political dimension to it. In the words of one political commentator: "On the intellectual front Syed Ahmed's mission was to emphasise the rational, secular and scientific dimensions in Islam and educate Muslims along modern lines, in order to enable them to comprehend the objective and secular correlates of the religious and spiritual dimensions and to incorporate these principles in their society and Iife."3

Syed Ahmed Khan's involvement with the interests of the Indian Muslim community was, thus, apolitical. He did not believe in an Islamic political movement or approve of the orthodox role of Ullemas. He supported Hindu Muslim unity but after the formation of Indian National Congress in 1885, moved away from the posture, believing that the Congress would look after only Hindu interests. Adoption of this communal approach has been interpreted by some as amounting to a first overt step towards Pakistan.4 Jawahar Lal Nehru, however, felt that Syed Ahmed Khan's opposition to Congress grew out of his desire for British help and cooperation.5 Nehru quotes Syed Ahmed Khan "for having said that all persons in India, whatever their religion, belonged to one and the same nation."

Syed Ahmed Khan was not the first Muslim reformer. This role rightly belongs to Syed Jamaluddin Afghani (1839-­97) who also excelled as political activist. Afghani operated on a wider canvas, with Muslims the world over in mind, particularly those in West Asia. He really saw the Muslims as one Umma, which should jointly struggle against Western influences and ideologies. Although Syed Ahmed Khan was influenced by the thoughts of Afghani, the major difference between the two lay in the framework of their respective approaches. Whereas, Afghani targeted the West far his rhetorical attacks, Syed did not wish to alienate the British and wanted to confine himself to raising the consciousness of Indian Muslims. Far this reason Afghani was quite critical of the doings of Syed Ahmed Khan.