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PAKISTAN : BREAK-UP OF UNITY
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the feeling of Islamic brotherhood. They were deadly rivals of one another and their wars were often wars of mutual extermination. What is, however, important to bear in mind is that with all their internecine conflicts they were all united by one common objective and that was to destroy the Hindu faith.
The methods adopted by the Muslim invaders of India are not less significant for the subsequent history of India than the object of their invasions.
Mahommad bin Qasim’s first act of religious zeal was forcibly to circumcise the Brahmins of the captured city of Debul; but on discovering that they objected to this sort of conversion, he proceeded to put all above the age of 17 to death, and to order all others, with women and children, to be led into slavery. The temple of the Hindus was looted, and the rich booty was divided equally among the soldiers, after onefifth, the legal portion for the government, had been set aside.
Muhammad of Ghazni from the first adopted those plans that would strike terror into the hearts of the Hindus. After the defeat of Raja Jaipal in A.D. 1001, Muhammad ordered that Jaipal “be paraded about in the streets so that his sons and chieftains might see him in that condition of shame, bonds and disgrace ; and that fear of Islam might fly abroad through the country of the infidels.”
“The slaughtering of ‘infidels’ seemed to be one thing that gave Muhammad particular pleasure. In one attack on Chand Rai, in A. D. 1019, many infidels were slain or taken prisoners, and the Muslims paid no regard to booty until they had satiated themselves with the slaughter of the infidels and worshippers of the sun and fire. The historian naively adds that the elephants of the Hindu armies came to Muhammad of their own accord, leaving idols, preferring the service of the religion of Islam.” *
Not infrequently, the slaughter of the Hindus gave a great setback to the indigenous culture of the Hindus, as in the conquest of Bihar by Muhammad Bakhtyar Khilji. When he took Nuddea (Bihar) the Tabaquat-i-Nasiri informs us that :
“great plunder fell into the hands of the victors. Most of the inhabitants were Brahmins with shaven heads. They were put to death. Large
- Dr. Titus: Indian Islam, p. 22.