Hindu Muslim Confrontation and Consequences

Hinduism and Islam confronted each other during the medieval period, with little scope for possible reconciliation between the two, because of some irreconcilable differences that could not be just wished away, especially when one of the two factions involved in it were as uncompromising in their beliefs and practices as the Islamic rulers and nobility. Islam came to India as the religion of the conquerors, while Hinduism remained for centuries as the religion of the vanquished. Most of the Muslim rules who ruled India pursued a policy of religious intolerance, either for the sake of petty and personal politics or to receive the appreciation of other Muslim rules or to present themselves to the Muslim world as upholders of Islamic faith. They indulged in the wanton destruction of many Hindu temples, large scale massacre of Hindus and conversion of many through force and fear. Not all Muslim rulers were cruel. But some of them were excessively so. While the Islamic rulers succeeded in creating pockets of Muslim influence, they failed comprehensively in reaching out to a large section of the Indian population and converting them the new faith, either because the latter shunned them for fear or prejudice or because they remained under the protection of Hindu rulers who still managed to retain political power in areas where the Muslim rulers could not reach.

To the early Muslim rulers, the native Indians presented themselves as an arrogant and uncompromising lot, who believed themselves to be morally and ethically superior, while to the Hindus the Muslim rulers appeared as perpetrators of religious monstrosity. However such was the political and social conditions of the times and the need for prudence that the barriers to communication and the distrust between the two groups could not be maintained for long. The situation is well described by a modern historian in the following words, "The arrogance of Hindu was gone during course of thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that of the Muslim by the beginning of the fifteenth. Both were ready to meet each other, and both sat at the feet of masters like Kabir and Nanak to learn that their quarrels were futile and in the ultimate analysis the essence of all religions was but the same."

The Muslim rulers played an important role in shaping India and its cultural and social milieu for nearly a thousand years. They also saved the subcontinent from the more destructive and cruel invaders like the Mongols. It is difficult to estimate the course of Indian history had they failed. The confrontation between Hinduism and Islam resulted in two significant developments within Hinduism. The intolerant policies of Muslim rulers made the Hindu caste system very rigid and uncompromising. Secondly, some democratic aspects of Islam found their way into Hinduism in the form of social and religious reforms, which aimed to eliminate social and caste based distinctions within Hindu society and the procedural and scriptural complexity involved in worshipping God.