The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal

by Asim Roy

Overview

Asim Roy argues that Islam in Bengal was not a corruption of the "real" Middle Eastern Islam, as nineteenth-century reformers claimed, but a valid historical religion developed in an area totally different from the Middle East.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691612966
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/14/2014
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #575
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.70(d)

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The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal

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By Asim Roy

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1983 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05387-5

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CHAPTER 1

Social Origins of Muslims in Bengal

The social composition, the geographical distribution, and the demographic patterns of the Muslims in Bengal were seminal factors in the development of Islam in that region. By the end of the nineteenth century the Muslim population in Bengal was recorded around 26 million, which constituted about one-third of the total population of Bengal and about 40 percent of the total Muslim population of India. Distributed regionally the number was more meaningful. In east and southeast Bengal two-thirds, and in north Bengal three-fifths, of the inhabitants were recorded as Muslims.

The Muslim preponderance in the Bengal population, as revealed in the first census of Bengal in 1872, took the British officials and observers by surprise. Ever since their first contact with the people of Bengal the British regarded the Muslims as an insignificant number in that population. William Adam in his extensive Education Reports on Bengal in the 1830s conceded: "Before visiting Rajshahi, I had been led to suppose that it was a peculiarly Hindu district. Hamilton on official authority [the estimates of 1801] states the proportion to be that of two Hindus to one Musalman; and in a work published by the Calcutta School Book Society for the use of schools (1827), the proportion is said to be that often Hindus to six Musalmans." Adam's own investigations led him to reverse this to seven to three, or the proportion of 1,000 Musalmans to 450 Hindus. The first census of Bengal (1872) found it 1,000 Muslims to 288 Hindus. For the early British observers it was "easy to understand, why Muhammadans should be found in large numbers in the Punjab and Sind, which lie on or near the route by which successive hordes of Afghan and Mughal invaders entered India; but it is not at first sight apparent why they should be even more numerous in Bengal proper."

What was more surprising for them was that the Muslim preponderance was not even found within or about the centers of Muslim power. None of the districts containing a very high proportion of Muslims in the population held any of the important centers of Muslim power in Bengal. In Dacca, which for a long time contained the seat of government for the Muslim rulers, Muslims were very slightly in excess of Hindus. In Maldaha and Murshidabad, centers of the Muslim rule for several centuries, Muslims formed a smaller proportion of the population than they did in the adjacent districts of Dinajpur, Rajshahi, and Nadia. All this clearly underlined the predominantly rural character of the Muslims in Bengal — a phenomenon that stood in significant contrast with the general pattern of Muslim distribution in India and elsewhere. The Muslims appeared in Bengal to take "less readily to a town life than the Hindus; but elsewhere the reverse is the case, and in the United and Central provinces, in Madras, and in many of the adjoining states the proportion of Muhammadans in towns is double that of Muhammadans in the population at large." The census of Bengal, 1901 mentions "the very large proportion of Musalmans who subsist by agriculture" and "the small number engaged in intellectual pursuits," and adds: "... it may be said generally, that the occupations other than those connected with agriculture, in which Muhammadans preponderate, are very few." In a contemporary document of the Government of Pakistan, the erstwhile province of East Pakistan, containing the Muslim majority areas in Bengal, has been depicted as "a huge sprawling village."

The British surprise, undoubtedly shared by many Bengalis, Hindus, and Muslims, stemmed from two serious misconceptions about the origin of the Muslims in Bengal. First, that the Muslim population consisted of the foreign invaders and immigrants, and hence they were not identified in large numbers among the people in Bengal. Secondly, that Islam won its numbers by pressure and force, and hence they were to be expected in and around the centers of power alone. The Bengal phenomenon proved both these presumptive theories of Islamization in that region wrong. Central to the subsequent British approach to the problem was the general acceptance of the fact of local conversion largely from the lower levels of the indigenous society, and the substantial rejection of the "fire and sword" theory of conversion. The Imperial Gazetteer drew its conclusion to the effect that "It is difficult to apportion the result between the peaceful persuasion of Musalman missionaries and forcible conversion by fanatical rulers, but probably the former had the greater influence. That conversion at the sword's point was by no means rare is known from history, but ... its influence alone cannot make very many converts. ..." Gait in his Census Report of 1901 arrived at a similar position. "Cases of forcible conversion" were "by no means rare," but it seemed "probable that very many of the ancestors of the Bengali Muhammadans voluntarily gave their adhesion to Islam." The author of the first Census Report spoke with somewhat greater conviction: "Persecution has rarely, if ever, succeeded of its own innate force to establish any religion. The times and circumstances of the country must demand the revolution before it can be brought about by persecution alone."

The theory of local conversion and, more so, that of lower-class origin, provoked a sharp reaction from the comfortable classes of Muslims in contemporary Bengal. Khan Bahadur Diwan Fuzli Rubbee (Fazl-i Rabbi) of Murshidabad took upon himself to write a refutation of the local conversion theory in his Urdu work entitled Haqiqa-i Musalman-i Bangalah (The Truth About the Muslims of Bengal) and its English version, The Origin of the Musalmans of Bengal. The author claimed unconvincingly that the Bengali Muslim society grew largely on a steady influx of foreign immigrants. Fuzli Rubbee has found in recent years a strong champion in M. A. Rahim, who suspects a "definite intention of lowering the prestige of the Muslims of Bengal" lurking under the British advocacy of the "low class theory." The rejoinder from the opposite camp was no less sharp: "The dislike which educated Muhammadans have for the theory that most of the local converts in eastern and northern Bengal are of Chandal and Koch origin seems to be due to the influence of Hindu ideas regarding social status, according to which these tribes occupy a very degraded position." Admittedly, these historical polemics throve in conditions of obscurity covering the history of the advent and dissemination of Islam in Bengal, as elsewhere in India. In the absence of adequate historical sources on the subject, inference and imagination substituted for factual analysis.

Sporadic references to cases of local conversion from the upper classes may be gleaned from diverse sources. Besides such scattered references, there had always been a general impression of physical resemblance between the bulk of Bengali Hindus and Muslims. In 1860 Colesworthy Grant observed that "a great number of the rural classes of Muslims" were "so mixed up" with their Hindu neighbors "in social habits and appearances" as to be "half-amalgamated." James Wise considered it "impossible even for the most practised observer" to "distinguish between a Muhammadan and a Hindu peasant" in "a crowd of Bengali villagers" with "one and only one type of features, of complexion, and of physique" prevading them all. In reference to the Indo-Mongoloids of north and east Bengal, S. K. Chatterji held that "the masses" who were "the descendants of the Bodos" were "largely Muhammadan in religion." The affinities of the Muslim masses of east and southeast Bengal were noted generally with local namasudra and pod, and those of north Bengal with rajbamsi and koch. Nasya and shaikh Muslims in the Jalpaiguri district of north Bengal, who together comprised, according to the 1901 census, 226,379 of the 228,487 Muslims in the district, "resembled the Hindu Rajbamsis." The observation of this identity was based not only on their striking physical resemblance, but also on the fact that the proportions of Hindus of other castes in these parts of the country had always been very small. Koches were generally supposed to have spread in any numbers only as far westward as the Mahananda, which runs through the Purnia district. East of that river, where the bulk of the population was koch, no less than two-thirds were Muslims, while to the west of it, where the koch element was weak, less than one-third of the population was returned under the religion. On the strength of such general impressions and observations, Beverley contended: "If further proof were wanted of the position that the Musalmans of the Bengal delta owe their origin to conversion rather than to the introduction of foreign blood, it seems to be afforded in the close resemblance between them and their fellow-countrymen. ... That both were originally of the same race seems sufficiently clear ... from their possessing identically the same physique. ..."

The pervasive notion of physical identity was found to correspond with the findings of later anthropometric and blood-group studies of the Bengal population. To Herbert Risley may be attributed the pioneering attempt, though extremely limited and dubious, at deploying anthropometric materials to Bengal studies. On the basis of very meager anthropometric data he concluded that the Muslims of Bengal were primarily local converts from the lower rungs of the Hindu caste ladder. It is undeniable as well as understandable that Risley's pioneering venture was not above serious criticism. But one would be mistaken to think, as both Fuzli Rubbie and M. A. Rahim have done, that Risley made a sweeping generalization about the entire Muslim community in Bengal. He sought to prove what actually emerged from his inadequate findings; that the lower strata of both Muslims and Hindus of Bengal sprang largely from the same ethnic stock. This explained his reliance on the anthropometric data regarding Muslims collected from some one hundred and eighty-five jailed convicts of inferior social classes. For the same reason the corresponding measurements of the Hindus were obtained along caste lines to show that the measurements of the lower class Muslims corresponded, not with the upper section of the Hindu society, but the lower one. Rahim clearly misconceived Risley's object, complaining that "Risley took the measurement of the nose of very lower [sic] class Muslims, while, on the other hand, he had the nasal examination of the persons of all classes of the Hindus." The real weakness in Risley's position concerned the extreme paucity of data and the lack of adequate scientific method and equipment necessary for such investigations. He had, however, set in motion a process of investigation which was carried on and applied to the Bengal situation by P. C. Mahalanobis, B. S. Guha, and others. The most recent and systematic study of the problem was undertaken through the collaboration of an anthropologist, D. N. Majumdar, and a statistician, C. R. Rao, under the auspices of the Indian Statistical Institute. The results of their findings were computed, analysed and incorporated into a quantitative study entitled Race Elements in Bengal. An important feature of this investigation was that they proceeded independently on the basis of common data and arrived at similar conclusions. One of their major concerns was whether Muslim and non-Muslim groups could be said to belong to two different populations and, if not, what was the relative place of Muslim groups vis-à-vis the Hindu castes and tribes. The study revealed that nine groups out of a total of fifteen chosen Muslim groups fell "within a narrow range of mean nasal height (21.80 to 22.20)" and had "almost identical mean values as the two Namasudra groups" included in the study. Five groups had "lower mean values" and stood "very close to tribal cluster," while only one group designated "Muslim of Dacca" occupied "a position close to the caste groups." The Report concludes: "If we agree as to the competence of nasal height in defining group divergences, I feel that we should look among the tribal and scheduled caste non-Muslim groups of Bengal for a possible origin of Muslim population of Bengal, and not in the high caste groups, a fact which differentiates the Muslims of U.P., who cluster with the higher castes in nasal height from those of their coreligionists in Bengal."

The serological data collected by D. N. Majumdar from practically all the districts of Bengal added up to the same conclusion. The three blood groups A, B, and O are found in nearly all known populations, though they vary in their relative frequency. The frequency variation of the A, B, O groups has a regional complexion for "each continent or major sub-division of a continent has its own general character." It has been found that the Muslims of India as a general rule differ significantly from their co-religionists outside, both with regard to anthropometric and serological type. While the Muslims in the Middle and Near East have high A value and low B and AB value, the Muslims in India have low A and high B + AB value. The serological data obtained from the Muslim population in Bengal point to the dissociation of the Bengal Muslims from those outside India and even from those of Uttar Pradesh. This indicates, to quote the Report, "the local origin of the Muslims, if blood groups evidence has any meaning at all."

The similarity of manners and customs observed among people alike in physical particulars added force to the arguments for local conversion. An early-nineteenth-century British traveller, Mrs. Belnos, who in her own words was "a curious and interested spectator of every object ... characteristic of native opinions and manners in Bengal," and "an attentive observer" of "the festivals and processions, the ceremonials of religion and the practices of ordinary life," noted: "All Musselman born and bred in the country villages in Bengal, assume the manners, language, and dress of the Bengallies. ..."

A late-seventeenth-century Muslim observer referred to the Muslims whom he met in Assam as "Assamese in their habits, and Muhammadans in their names." He also felt that they "liked the Assamese better" than the Muslims visitors like himself. A British official observed that the koch women of the Rangpur district in north Bengal, Hindus and Muslims alike, wore "the old Kamrup [Assam] dress," which offered "a marked contrast to the common Saree of Bengal," and also attended the markets "to the almost total exclusion of men." In some parts of Bengal, especially in the northeastern areas, peopled chiefly by koch, mech, bodo, and dhimal, the great mass of the Muslims in the early years of this century had no designations or surnames of Arabic or Persian origin. In these parts there were few shaikhs and khans while the great majority were called by a common but unexplained name of nasya. In addition, Hindu names and titles were very common. Names such as Kali Shaikh, Kalachand Shaikh, Braja Shaikh, or Gopal Mandal were regularly used. The prevalence of Hindu names among Muslims was also observed in Nadia. The district gazetteer records about Noakhali in 1911 that "Muhammedans with surnames of Chanda, Pal and Datta are to be found ... to this day," and adds: "Formerly, it is said, the Mohammedans kept too many of their old Hindu customs, but about the middle of last century they came under the influence of a reforming priest, Maulavi Imamuddin, and are now, almost to a man, Faraizis. They abhor all innovations ... and the worship of saints. ..."

The phenomenon of local conversion seems evident enough. But it is no less evident that a considerable number of Muslims of diverse ethnic origin found their way into Bengal at different times. It cannot, however, be reasonably assumed that all those who flocked into this region came to settle down in the land. The proverbial bad climate of Bengal could not but discourage the prospective upper-class Muslim settlers. The climatic hazards earned Bengal a sobriquet among foreign Muslims, a "hell full of boons" (dozakh pur-i niamat). Zahid Beg, when appointed by the Mughal emperor Humayun as the governor of the Bengal province, expressed his concern: "Your Majesty could not find a better place to kill me than Bengal." The Mughal conqueror of Bengal, Munim Khan (1575-1576), and his entourage were destroyed by the ravages of the monsoon and the pestilence that followed in its wake in northwestern Bengal. The newly appointed Mughal governor of Bengal, Prince Shuja, complained to his father, emperor Shah Jahan, of his own and his family's deteriorating health due to the inclement climate of Bengal. The settled Mughal administration in Bengal caused, on one hand, an undoubted inflow of Muslims of rank, but on the other "the viceroys and nobles governing Bengal amassed wealth rapidly, and returned to spend it in the luxurious palaces of Delhi and Agra...."

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. vii
• Preface, pg. ix
• Abbreviations, pg. xxiii
• Transliterations, pg. xxv
• Introduction, pg. 1
• Part I: Context, pg. 17
• Part II: Text, pg. 85
• Conclusion, pg. 249
• Bibliography, pg. 255
• Index, pg. 295