Last week, a civil court, in response to far-Right petitioners, ordered that the Dargah of Ajmer Sharif—visited by lakhs of pilgrims across religions—be investigated for a Hindu temple allegedly underneath it.
As Ajmer’s Muslims prepare for the inevitable appearance of Right-wing vigilantes, armed police, and the media circus, the rest of us are left to pick up this debate again. Why did medieval Muslim rulers destroy temples, what did their contemporaries think, and where does that leave us today?
The answer, as we’ll see, shows that this new campaign against Ajmer Sharif is not just a denial of India’s Muslim history: it is an assault on the history of India itself.
Volatility and propaganda
One of the main justifications for digging up mosques in India is that they were supposedly built to express the subjugation of Hinduism by Islam. As such, from as early as the 20th century, Hindu elites—seeking to gather majoritarian sentiment—have piled fire and fury on “conquest mosques” constructed by various Sultanates.
However, a sober appraisal of the evidence suggests it’s a stretch to claim that a horde of a few thousand Turk Muslims in the 12th century—no matter how religiously inspired—was capable of enacting a consistent policy across the expanse of northern India. After all, northern India was one of the most urban, populous, and economically productive regions in all of Eurasia.
Early Sultanate sources, however, produced blood-curdling numbers of temples destroyed, infidels converted and enslaved, and so on. This provided ammunition to the later British Raj as well as Hindutva proponents. But who were the Sultanate sources actually written for?
In Muslim Rule in Medieval India: Power and Religion in the Delhi Sultanate, Pakistani historian Fouzia Farooq Ahmad presents a radical revision. The neat succession of the early Delhi Sultanate, familiar to us in textbooks, obscures its extreme volatility. Its texts were intended to impress and intimidate contemporary Muslim rivals, not Hindu audiences of the past or present.
In fact, as Ahmad writes, local legends indicate the Delhi Sultanate had mixed results in its expansion attempts. And archaeology demonstrates that Sultans routinely exaggerated claims of “uprooting” idols from various regions. Historian Peter Jackson, author of The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History, also shows that local powers both within and beyond the pale of Hinduism—such as the Meo people—harassed Delhi’s military convoys.
Also read: It’s too much to hope for BJP to give up Mandir-Masjid or for Indians to say enough is enough
Destruction at Ajmer
To understand the bigoted stances taken by medieval Muslim sources, let’s take the Sultan who built a ‘conquest mosque’ at Ajmer: Qutb-ud-din Aybeg/Aibak (1150–1210 CE). Rather famous today for the Qutub Minar (which he only laid the base for), Aybeg had an extremely short rule: just four years. As Ahmad puts it, Aybeg would have been forgotten but for the fact that his slave, Iltutmish, consolidated the Delhi Sultanate and enshrined him in court chronicles.
In his few years on the throne, Aybeg was mostly in the saddle, squabbling with other Muslim chiefs. All these Turk parvenus found they could quickly legitimise themselves by making absurd claims of military success against ‘infidels’. When we compare the propaganda to the archaeology, we find that the early Sultans’ claims were more fiction than fact, aiming to portray them as devout Muslim rulers for a new era, independent of the declining Caliphate in Iraq.
Unfortunately, to fuel their competition with each other, Turk warlords were more than willing to extort their Indian subjects. As architectural historian Alka Patel writes in Architectural Cultures and Empire: The Ghurids in Northern India, in the 1190s, Aybeg’s rival Baha al-din Tughril built mosques in Bayana in eastern Rajasthan. Not to be outdone, in 1199, Aybeg demolished a Jain temple in Ajmer, formerly the capital of the Chahamana dynasty, and converted it into a congregational mosque.
Also read: Hindus didn’t drive missionaries away in Jharkhand. Adivasis held their own, whoever the coloniser
The dargah
The Turks soon found, however, that warlordism was no way to run a state. Medieval states, like modern states, required some sort of assent from their subjects. And so the early Sultans turned to Sufis—mystics believed to have a direct connection to god. If the Sufi was god’s representative, then by serving the Sufi, the Sultan could claim to be divinely ordained. And there is no doubt that many medieval Hindus did consider the Sultans to be just that.
This brings us back to Aybeg’s mosque at Ajmer. In the early 13th century, Khwaja Muin-ud-din, a Shaikh of the Chishti order of mystics, settled in Ajmer; his successors later settled in Delhi, founding the important centres of Qutb Sahib in Mehrauli.
As Qamar-ul Huda, a scholar of religions, puts it in his study, Khwâja Muîn ud-Dîn Chishtî’s Death Festival, the Chishtis tended toward simplicity and austerity. This frequently put them at odds with Delhi Sultans. They also—like many Sufis of the time—adapted ideas from Hindu and Jain theology, such as the use of devotional music, shaving the head, and an emphasis on nonviolence. This brought a large and diverse following of initiates, mystics, theologians, and intellectuals. The popularity of the Ajmer Sharif soon rivalled that of the Sultanate itself.
In the 16th century, when the Mughal ruler Akbar finally managed to integrate Rajasthan into his Gangetic empire, Ajmer Sharif received its most substantial expansions, including colossal cooking vessels capable of preparing tonnes of food for pilgrims. Gateways were added, and a Mughal palace attached to the Dargah complex. But patronage was by no means limited to the Mughal royal family, or, for that matter, to Muslims.
Historian Rana Safvi writes in In Search of the Divine: Living Histories of Sufism in India that the Maratha chief Kumar Rao Scindia added residences at Ajmer, as he believed the Khwaja had blessed him with a son. Structures were also built by Maharani Baiza Bai Scindia in the 18th century, Ajit Singh of Jodhpur in 1709, and the Maharaja of Baroda in 1800. Indeed, the Khwaja’s title of ‘Gharib Nawaz’ managed to reach Manipur in the 18th century and was used as the regnal name of the conquering Hindu king Pamheiba.
So, in Ajmer Sharif’s long history, India’s far Right seems to think that 800 years of pilgrimage, patronage, and devotion by lakhs of Indians across the spectrum of caste, class, religion, and gender don’t matter. Serious theological engagement between Muslim and Hindu mystics doesn’t matter, attempts by immigrants to adapt themselves to their new culture don’t matter.
There is nothing that a premodern Muslim ruler, teacher, or devotee could ever do to be accepted as Indian by the far Right—even if premodern Hindus accepted or even worshipped them—simply because some warlords destroyed temples. Essentially, in 2024, the far Right seeks to settle a score on behalf of a medieval shrine belonging to the Chahamana dynasty, which most likely was demolished for a tussle among rulers who have long since disappeared.
It is difficult to express the absurdity of this position, whether on logical or historical grounds. This is not a righting of historic wrongs, so let us not be taken in by the grandiose claims: This is a direct assault on India’s history to score points, no matter what the cost to our social fabric. There is no justification for trampling the rights and beliefs of millions of Indian citizens in the name of politically-engineered “sentiments”.
Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of ‘Lords of the Deccan’, a new history of medieval South India, and hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
Well this isn’t even the whole story. If as it is mentioned 150 years from the historical records then what about the Samudra Manthan where the Kurma(tortoise) avatar came in this story.
And in this Indian culture the masses were transferred the the knowledge in the form of stories that eventually passed to generations after generations. Well I listen and read to stuffs and I can say people that it is half baked. Don’t trust me well you shouldn’t so search it, read history as it is.
The sooner we get rid of this myth that Sufis were these peaceful lot promoting some kind of syncretism and an accommodative Islam, incorporating local beliefs, practices etc the better.
This article, on whether the dargah was built by destroying a temple, talks about everything but what the article is supposedly about – whether the dargah was built by destroying a temple.
It also gives the impression that Sufis were peaceful completely evading Moin ud din Chisti’s role in facilitating Mohammed Ghori’s invasion. Also, the role of Sufis in general, including Bangladesh, that still continues to play out. The roles of Sufis in the Noakhali pogrom against Hindus is just one example.
This article is at best, a work of a delusional “historian” who doesn’t have the rigor to go deep into a subject.
At worst, it is a hitjob on behalf of interests that aren’t happy with the hold the idea of India as a civilisational nation is taking.
Given his earlier articles, I suspect it is the latter.
After reading this article, it is safe to conclude the followiung things:
1. The author is definitely not a historian. If he was indeed one, he wouldn’t reject the historical proofs mentioned by the court historians of Muslim rulers.
2. There is compelling archaeological evidence, to prove the destruction and vandalism. A notable example being Gyanvapi Mosque.
3. Khawaja of the Ajmer Dargah had a deep-seated hatred toward Hindus. He was among the very first Sufi saints to arrive in India where Delhi was under the rule of Sultan Iltutmish. Having arrived in Ajmer, Chishti reportedly saw a number of temples near the Anasagar lake and promised that he will have them razed to the ground.
The logic of this writer is
1. Accounts written by rylers about themselves are not to be believed
2. The archaeological evidence that screams out about destruction is not to be believed
3. The behavior of modern day ideological descendants of the violent jehad is not to be believed
Juts go with his manohar kahaniyaan . His evidence free and logic devoid ideological rant.
The Print will do well to review of this is the kind of stuff they want on their site.
Many Hindus served in the army of Mughals and British. And they followed orders of their masters. So who should apologise to whom? The rulers and their soldiers are dead.
HaHa. This guy is no historian.
How convenient. Earlier accounts of historians about reported destruction of temples is brushed off as exaggeration , since the writings do not fit the columnist’s thoughts
To say that a handful of invaders could not have wreaked such havoc as being reported,is again a convenient way of turning the narrative.After all the British conquered India with much less man power.
Mandir wahin banayenge.
What more can one expect from a wanna-be-liberal ? Anirudh,you have truly outdone yourself in this piece.You say you stand for true history and facts yet you yourself are twisting history for political motivations “many devotees” “few temples” try to be more specific when you write lies next time.
Wishing you all the best.
Mr Anirudh, how do you know there is “nothing” the pre modern Muslims could do ? When are you going to call out the loot, plunder, forcible conversion by threats of jizyah rape and murder ? Do you have an iota of sense of proportion before trying to convince what would be acceptable to the “far right” ? Guess what, marxist historians post independence have been trying to whitewash all those pre modern Muslims rulers. It is hilarious to note that you are simply shifting the goal post now. Who is trying to convince the “far right” ? You ? As far as I understand, it is the marxist historians who conveniently waxed over tales of loot and plunder and wrongly attributed certain dark chapters of historical blunders by Muslim invaders and tried to present it in hues of them becoming Indian to fighting the British. Think again, who tried to appropriate history to convince present day Muslims ? Forget the “far right”, read the history right first. Shall we ?