| Awaken Bharata |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| SUFIS AND MILITANCE | |
| After
Islamic armies came in and conquered a region, the Sufis would
follow to promote Islam through mysticism and learning. In this way
Islamic armies and Sufis worked like two sides of the coin, or like
the stick and the carrot, the negative and positive images of
conversion.
Sufis were closely aligned with Arabic, Afghan and Mogul invaders and rulers in India, whether Mahmud of Ghazna, Mohammed Ghori, Alaudin Khalji, Tamerlane, Mohammed ben Tughlak, Jehangir, Aurangzeb, or Ahmed Shah Abdali of Afghanistan, to mention but a few, whose armies killed thousands of Hindus and Sikhs and destroyed numerous temples. While Sufis did not always participate in these acts of destruction, they sometimes did fight in these armies and certainly never raised much criticism against Islamic militance. Sufis of all major orders, including the Chishtis, were prominent in Mughal courts. In this regard Saiyid Rizvi notes, "Members of the Chishti order traditionally considered themselves to be the patron saints of the Muslim rulers of India."The brutal invader Muhammad bin Tughlak erected a tomb over the remains of Shaikh Hamiduddin, a prominent Chishti Sufi of the thirteenth century. Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, was allied with the Naqshbandis, while his son Humayan was with the Shattaris. The Chishtis gained prominence again after Akbar. After Aurangzeb the Naqshbandis, a more conservative order, became prominent again. |
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