Conversion

Counter-conversion considered elsewhere.

Framing

Replace ‘Conversion’ with ’ethnocide’, the erasure of indigenous diversity.

Classical Conversion causes

  • Inducement and threats
  • Egalitarianism/ “freedom from caste” theory doesn’t hold water.
    • Missionaries focus(ed) on high caste hindus.
    • Huge “dalit” population present in the heart of muslim power - Delhi, UP, Panjab.
  • Sufi effect has been relatively small. (Dead sufi more powerful than a living sufi!)
  • Migration effect is tiny as well (verifiable by genetic studies).

Muslim sources: dAwah / invitation → tabligh / preaching → isla/ become muslim in the mould of mo.

Synthesis by Sarvesh Tiwari

  • After inducment and threat - nominal converts.
  • Then sufi comes in, consoles and makes them “proper”.
  • Then qAzi comes in - makes them even more “proper”.

Vectors

  • Muhammad
  • Salaf - Sahabah / companions of muhammad, folks who knew them - Tabi‘un, folks who know Tabi‘un - Tabi‘ al-Tabi‘in.
  • Imams
  • kalif-s
  • Wali-s / mystics
  • Leaders of purification movements.
  • ghazi-s and mujAhid-s

Inducement and threat

  • Communal benefits and threats
    • A brotherhood among the ummah
    • By threats and love marriages.

Ideology

  • Philosophical simplicity
    • 1 jealous god who stands apart, 1 devil, 1 final prophet, simple afterlife and origin stories, almost no image veneration
  • Simple practice
    • 5 things to do, 5 prayers, 1 fast
    • Rigid structure for those who seek it.
  • Timely and effective justice system via sharia courts.
  • Anti hindu rhetoric
    • Attack “weak” points
      • “superstition and idol centric ritualism”
        • “Tamil Nadu Towheed Jamaat conducts anti - superstition conferences along with shirk ozhippu”
      • jAti hierarchy

Accommodation - purification cycle

  • Bengal case:
    • “Initially Muslims were having a hard time converting the populace. So, they had to “indigenize” their faith. Abrahamic tales were modified into native variants. e.g., Nile became Padma, etc. Islam was syncretized with Hindu traditions to woo potential converts. It would take up until late 16th century-early 17th century for East Bengal to reach a Muslim majority under Mughal rule. Satya Pir cult (Satyanarayan), and Bengali folk religion were syncretized with Islam. A text devoted to the cult composed by the poet Sankaracharya in 1664 identifies Satya Pir as the son of one of Sultan ‘Ala al-Din Husain Shah’s daughters, and hence a Muslim. Another version, composed by Krishnahari Das begins with invocations to Allah and stories of the Prophet. Yet the same text portrays Satya Pir as born of the goddess Chandbibi and as having come into the world to redress all human ills in the Kali Yuga, the last and lowest Hindu epoch preceding a period of restored justice and harmony. "
    • “The early 19th century would see mass “purification” movements. The Faraizi movement was founded in 1818 by Haji Shariatullah to give up un-Islamic practices and act upon their duties as Muslims. Bengalis whose identity as Muslims had not previously been expressed in exclusivist terms now began adopting Arabic surnames, a sure sign of a deepening attachment to Islamic ideals. Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya Muslim was another revivalist movement in the early nineteenth century. Its aim was to establish the code of life advocated by Prophet. Shah Sayyid Ahmad (1780-1831) of Rai Barelwi and Shah Ismail (1782-1831) were the pioneers of the movement. Both of them emphasised the interpretation of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. Under the influence of the teachings of another Muslim reformist, Karamat ‘Ali (d. 1874), boatmen of Noakhali District who had hitherto been addressing their prayers to the saint Badar and to Panch Pir (the “five pīrs”), were soon addressing their prayers to Allah alone. In essence, the same syncretism that brought in converts was now being rooted out and replaced with Wahhabi conservatism.”

Forced conversions.

  • The choice for polytheists in the mercy of muslim rulers was often: Convert or die, with an occasional option of “pay the discriminatory jizya tax”.
  • Other curtailment of religious freedom: Apostacy
    • Report.
    • Popular support for death to apostates in Egypt and Pakistan (2014) - WP.
  • A survey of attitudes of various Islamic schools: Crone.
  • After kidnap
    • yanicheri-s
    • Pagan bride kidnappings

Examples

  • Islamic State’s ultimatum to Yazidis/ christians (2014) - [Yazidi appeal, threat, slaughter].
  • Zoroastrian conversion in Iran
    • 18th/ 19th century: sharIfAbAd and turkAbAd IMG.
  • Incomplete

Consequences

Racinomiscia = Hatred of one’s cultural roots

  • Islam is a sort of Arab-pride, militant anti-pagan movement.
  • An example from a Bangladeshi author is here. “In exploring my Bengali heritage, I felt short-changed by my Muslim upbringing. If I was to trust my family, it was as if my ancestors were feral dogs who had been civilized by the wonderful Arabs who brought them the miracle of Islam.” “Why was my family trying so desperately to reach the standard of Arabian Islam when their own cultural heritage was so much more powerful, so much more relevant to modern life, and so much older?” “The answer is that Islam condemns paganism and polytheism without fully understanding what those spiritual traditions actually are. And the people conquered by the Arabs, forced to adopt their new religion, inevitably adopted their prejudices too.”
  • As the great author of mAnasataraMgiNI says (I paraphrase): “Islam brings hatred-of-ones’-roots to its non-Arab votaries; Even when they lose the madness to secularize, the hatred-of-ones’-roots continues; for example secular citizens of the terrorist state of Pakistan”.
  • Ambedkar famously pointed out:
    • As the invasions were accompanied with. destruction of temples and forced conversions, with spoliation of property, with slaughter, enslavement and abasement of men, women and children, what wonder if the memory of these invasions has ever remained green, as a source of pride to the Muslims and as a source of shame to the Hindus ?
    • The only way to make Hindustan homogeneous is to arrange for exchange of population. Until that is done, it must be admitted that even with the creation of Pakistan, the problem of majority vs. minority will remain in Hindustan as before and will continue to produce disharmony in the body politic of Hindustan.