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PAKISTAN : BREAK-UP OF UNITY
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with the ruling ideas of the leaders of Islam in the broadest aspects. These ideas were well expressed by the Kazi in reply to a question put by Sultan Ala-ud-Din wanting to know the legal position of the Hindus under Muslim law. The Kazi said :—
“They are called payers of tribute, and when the revenue officer demands silver from them they should without question, and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt in their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths wide to receive it…..The due subordination of the Dhimmi is exhibited in this humble payment, and by this throwing of dirt into their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a duty, and contempt for religion is vain. God holds them in contempt, for he says, ‘Keep them in subjection’. To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet, and because the Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive, saying, ‘ Convert them to Islam or kill them, and make them slaves, and spoil their wealth and property’. No doctor but the great doctor (Hanifah), to whose school we belong, has assented to the imposition of jizya on Hindus; doctors of other schools allow no other alternative but ‘Death or Islam’.” *
Such is the story of this period of 762 years which elapsed between the advent of Muhammad of Ghazni and the return of Ahmadshah Abdalli.
How far is it open to the Hindus to say that Northern India is part of Aryavarta ? How far is it open to the Hindus to say because once it belonged to them, therefore, it must remain forever an integral part of India ? Those who oppose separation and hold to the ‘historic sentiment’ arising out of an ancient fact that Northern India including Afghanistan was once part of India and that the people of that area were either Buddhist or Hindus, must be asked whether the events of these 762 years of incessant Muslim invasions, the object with which they were launched and the methods adopted by these invaders to give effect to their object are to be treated as though they were matters of no account ?
Apart from other consequences which have flowed from them these invasions have, in my opinion, so profoundly altered the culture and character of the northern areas, which it is now proposed to be included in a Pakistan, that there is not only no unity
- Quoted by Dr. Titus— Indian Islam, p. 29.