A case in which the English version of a major book by a renowned Muslim scholar, the fourth Rector of one of the greatest centres of Islamic learning in India, listing some of the mosques, including the Babri Masjid, which were built on the sites and foundations of temples, using their stones and structures, is found to have the tell-tale passages censored out;

The book is said to have become difficult to get;

It is traced: And is found to have been commanded just 15 years a-o by the most influential living Muslim scholar of our country today, the current Rector of that great centre of Islamic learning, and the Chairman of the Muslim Personal Law Board.

Evasion, concealment, have become a national habit. And they have terrible consequences.  But first I must give you some background.

The Nadwatul-Ulama of Lucknow is one of the principal centres of Islamic learning in India. It was founded in 1894.  It ranks today next only to the Darul-Ulum at Deoband.  The government publication, Centres of Islamic Learning in India, recalls how the founders �aimed at producing capable scholars who could project a true image of Islam before the modern world in an effective way�; it recalls how �Towards fulfilling its avowed aim in the matter of educational reform, it (the group) decided to establish an ideal educational institution which would not only provide education in religious and temporal sciences but also offer technical training�; it recalls how �It (the Nadwa) stands out today-with its college, a vast and rich library and Research and Publication Departments housed in fine buildings-as one of the most outstanding institutions for imparting instruction in the Islamic Sciences�; it recalls how �A salient feature of this institution is its emphasis on independent research�; it recalls how �The library of the Nadwa, housed in the Central Hall and the surrounding rooms of the main building, is, with more than 75,000 titles including about 3,000 handwritten books mostly in Arabic and also in Persian, Urdu, English etc., one of the finest libraries of the sub-continent.� That was written 10 years ago.  The library now has 125,000 books.

Today the institution is headed by Maulana Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi.  Ali Mian, as he is known to one and all, is almost without doubt the most influential Muslim teacher and figure today-among the laity, in government circles, and among scholars and governments abroad.

He was among the founders of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the fundamentalist organisation; but because of differences with Maulana Maudoodi, lie left it soon.

Today lie is the Chairman of the Muslim Personal Law Board.

He is a founder member of the Raabta Alam-e-Islami, the Pan-Islamic body with headquarters in Mecca, which decides among other things the amounts that different Islamic organisations the world over should receive.

He has been the Nazim, that is the Rector, of the Darul Ulum Nadwatul-Ulama since 1961, that is for well over a quarter of a century.  The Nadwa owes not a small part of its eminence to the scholarship, the exertions, tile national and international contacts of Ali Mian.

Politicians of all hues ---Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar-seek him out.

He is the author of several books, including the well known Insaani Duniya Par Musalmanon Ke Uruj-o-Zaval Ka Asar(�The impact of the Rise and Fall of Muslims on Mankind�), and is taken as the authority on Islamic law, jurisprudence, theology, and specially history.

And he has great, in fact decisive, influence on the politics of Muslims in India.

His father, Maulana Hakim Sayid Abdul Hai, was an equally well known and influential figure.  When the Nadwa was founded, the first Rector, Maulana Muhammad Monghyri, the scholar at whose initiative the original meeting in 1892 which led to the establishment of the Nadwa was called, had chosen Maulana Abdul Hai as the Madadgar Nazim, the Additional Rector.

Abdul Hai served in that capacity till July 1915 when he was appointed the Rector.

Because of his scholarship and his services to the institution and to Islam, he was reappointed as the Rector in 1920.  He continued in that post till his death in February 1923.

He too wrote several books, including a famous directory which has just been republished from Hyderabad, of thousands of Muslims who had served the cause of Islam in India, chiefly by the numbers they had converted to the faith.

During some work I came across the reference to a book of his and began to look for it.

It was a long, discursive book, I learnt, which began with descriptions of the geography, flora and fauna, languages, people and the regions of India.  These were written for the Arabic speaking peoples, the book having been written in Arabic.

In 1972, I learnt, the Nadwatul-Ulama had the book translated into Urdu and published the most important chapters of the book under the title Hindustan Islami Ahad Mein (�Hindustan under Islamic Rule�).  Ali Mian, I was told, had himself written the foreword in which he had commanded the book most highly.  The book as published had left out descriptions of geography etc., on the premise that facts about these are well known to Indian readers.

A curious fact hit me in the face.  Many of the persons who one would have normally expected to be knowledgeable about such publications were suddenly reluctant to recall this book. I was told, in fact, that copies of the book had been removed, for instance from the Aligarh Muslim University Library.  Some even suggested that a determined effort had been made three or four years ago to get back each and every copy of this book.

Fortunately the suggestion turned out to be untrue.  While some of the libraries one would normally expect, to have the book-the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi; the famous libraries in Hyderabad-those of the Dairutual Maarifal-Osmania, of the Salar Jung Museum, of the Nizam�s Trust, of the Osmania University, the Kutubkhana-i-Saidiya - did not have it, others did.  Among the latter were the Nadwa�s library itself, the justly famous Khuda Baksh Library in Patna, that of the Institute of Islamic Studies in Delhi.

The fact that the book was available in all these libraries came as a great reassurance.  I felt that if reactionaries and propagandists have become so well organised that they can secure the disappearance from every library of a book they have come not to like, we are in deep trouble.  Clearly they were not that resourceful.

The fact that, contrary to what I had been told, the book was available also taught me another reassuring thing: factional fights among Muslim fundamentalists are as sharp and intense as are the factional fights among fundamentalists of other hues.  For the suggestion of there being something sinister in the inaccessibility of the book had come to me from responsible Muslim quarters.

The book is the publication number 66 of the Majlis Tehqiqat wa Nashriat Islam, the publication house of the Nadwatul-Ulama, Lucknow.

The Arabic version was published in 1972 in Hyderabad, the Urdu version in 1973 in Lucknow.  An English version was published in 1977. I will use the Urdu version as the illustration.

Maulana Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi, that is Ali Mian himself, contributes the foreword.

It is an eloquent, almost lyrical foreword.

Islam has imbued its followers with the quest for truth, with patriotism, he writes.  Their nature, their culture has made Muslims the writers of true history, he writes.

Muslims had but to reach a country, he writes, and its fortunes lit up and it awakened from the slumber of hundreds and thousands of years.  The country thereby ascended from darkness to light, he writes, from oblivion and obscurity to the pinnacle of name and fame.  Leaving its parochial ambit, he writes, it joined the family of man, it joined the wide and vast creation of God.  And the luminescence of Islam, he writes, transformed its hidden treasures into the light of eyes.

It did not stick away the wealth of the country, he writes, and vomit it elsewhere as western powers did.  On the contrary, it brought sophistication, culture, beneficient administration, peace, tranquility to the country.  It raised the country from the age of savagery to the age of progress, he writes, from infantilism to adulthood.  It transformed its barren lands into swaying fields, he writes, its wild shrubs into fruit-laden trees of such munificence that the residents could not even have dreamt of them.

And so on.

He then recalls the vast learning and prodigious exertions of Maulana Abdul Hai, his 8-volume work on 4500 Muslims who served the cause of Islam in India, his directory of Islamic scholars.

He recalls how after completing these books the Maulana turned to subjects which had till then remained obscure, how in these labours the Maulana was like the proverbial bee collecting honey from varied flowers.  He recounts the wide range of the Maulana�s scholarship.  He recounts how the latter collected rare data, how a person like him accomplished single-handed what entire academies are unable these days to do.

He recounts the structure of the present book.  He recalls how it lay neglected for long, how, even as the work of re-transcribing a moth-eaten manuscript was going on, a complete manuscript was discovered in Azamgarh, how in 1933 the grace of Providence saved it from destruction and obscurity.

He writes that the book brings into bold relief those hallmarks of Islamic rule which have been unjustly and untruthfully dealt with by western and Indian historians, which in fact many Muslim historians and scholars in universities and academies too have treated with neglect and lack of appreciation.

Recalling how Maulana Abdul Hai had to study thousands of pages on a subject, Ali Mian writes that only he who has himself worked on the subject can appreciate the effort that has gone into the study.  You will get in a single chapter of this book, he tells the reader, the essence which you cannot obtain by reading scores of books.  This is the result, he writes, of the fact that the author laboured only for the pleasure of God, for the service of learning, and the fulfilment of his own soul.  Such authors expected no rewards, no applause, he tells us.  Work was their entire satisfaction.  That is how they were able to put in such herculean labours, to spend their entire life on one subject.

We are immensely pleased, he concludes, to present this valuable gift and historical testament to our countrymen and hope that Allah will accept this act of service and scholars will also receive it with respect and approbation.

Such being the eminence of the author, such being the greatness of the work, why is it not the cynosure of the fundamentalists�� eyes?

The answer is in the chapter �Hindustan ki Masjidein�, �The Mosques of Hindustan�.

Barely seventeen pages; the chapter is simply written.  A few facts about some of the principal mosques are described in a few lines each.

The facts are well-known, they are elementary, and setting them out in a few lines each should attract no attention.  And yet, as we shall see, there is furtiveness in regard to them.  Why? Descriptions of seven mosques provide the answer.

The devout constructed so many mosques, Maulana Abdul Hai records, they lavished such huge amounts and such labours on them that they cannot all be reckoned, that every city, town, hamlet came to be adorned by a mosque.  He says that he will therefore have to be content with setting out the facts of just a few of the well-known ones.

A few sentences from what he says about seven mosques will do:

�Qawwat al-Islam Mosque

According to my findings the first mosque of Delhi is Qubbat all-Islam or Quwwat al-Islam which, it is said, Qutbud-Din Aibak constructed in H. 587 after demolishing the temple built by Prithvi Raj and leaving certain parts of the temple (outside the mosque proper); and when he returned from Ghazni in H. 592, he started building, under orders from Shihabud-Din Ghori, a huge mosque of inimitable red stones, and certain parts of the temple were included in the mosque.  After that, when Shamsud-Din Altamish became the king, he built, on both sides of it, edifices of white stones, and on one side of it he started constructing that loftiest of all towers which has no equal in the world for its beauty and strength�

The Mosque at Jaunpur

This was built by Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi with chiselled stones.  Originally it was a Hindu temple after demolishing which he constructed the mosque.  It is known as the Atala Masjid.  The Sultan used to offer his Friday and Id prayers in it, and Qazi Shihabud-Din gave lessons in it�

The Mosque at Qanauj

This mosque stands on an elevated ground inside the Fort of Qanauj.  It is well-known that it was built on the foundations of some Hindu temple (that stood) here.  It is a beautiful mosque.  They say that it was built by Ibrahim Sharqi in H. 809 as is (recorded) in �Gharabat Nigar�.

Jami (Masjid) at Etawah

This mosque stands on the bank of the Jamuna at Etawah.  There was a Hindu temple at this place, on the site of which this mosque was constructed.  It is also patterned after the mosque at Qanauj.  Probably it is one of the monuments of the Sharqi Sultans.

Babri Masjid at Ayodhya

This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ayodhya which Hindus call the birth place of Ramchanderji.  There is a famous story about his wife Sita.  It is said that Sita had a temple here in which she lived and cooked food for her husband.  On that very site Babar constructed this mosque in H. 963�

Mosques of Alamgir (Aurangzeb)

It is said that the mosque of Benares was built by Alamgir on the site of the Bisheshwar Temple.  That temple was very tall and (held as) holy among the Hindus.  On this very site and with those very stones he constructed a lofty mosque, and its ancient stones were rearranged after being embedded in the walls of the mosque.  It is one of the renowed mosques of Hindustan.  The second mosque at Benares (is the one) which was built by Alamgir on the bank of the Ganga with chiselled stones.  This also is a renowned mosque of Hindustan.  It has 28 towers, each of which is 238 feet tall.  This is on the bank of the Ganga and its foundations extend to the depth of the waters.

Alamgir built a mosque at Mathura.  It is said that this mosque was built on the site of the Gobind Dev Temple which was very strong and beautiful as well as exquisite��

But the Maulana is not testifying to the facts.  He is merely reporting what was believed.  He repeatedly says, �It is said that��

That seems to be a figure of speech with the Maulana.  When describing the construction of the Quwwatul Islam mosque by Qutubuddin Aibak, for instance, he uses the same �It is said.�

If the facts were in doubt, would a �scholar of Ali Mian�s diligence and commitment not have commented on them in his full-bodied foreward? Indeed, he would have decided against republishing them as he decided not to republish much of the original book.

And if the scholars had felt that the passages could be that easily disposed of, why should any effort have been made to take a work to the excellence of which a scholar of Ali Mian�s stature has testified in such a fulsome manner, and do what has been done to this one? And what is that?

Each reference to each of these mosques having been constructed on the sites of temples with, as in the case of the mosque at Benaras, the stones of the very temple which was demolished for that very purpose have been censored out of the English version of the book! Each one of the passages on each one of the seven mosques! No accident that.

Indeed there is not just censorship but substitution.  In the Urdu volume we are told in regard to the mosque at Qanauj for instance that �This mosque stands on an elevated ground inside the fort of Qanauj.  It is well known that it was built on the foundation of some Hindu Temple (that stood) here.� In the English volume we are told in regard to the same mosque that �It occupied a commanding site, believed to have been the place earlier occupied by an old and decayed fort.�

If the passages could have been so easily explained away by referring to the �It is saids�, why would anyone have thought it necessary to remove these passages from the English version-that is the version which was more likely to be read by persons other than the faithful? Why would anyone bowdlerise the book of a major scholar in this way?

But that, though obvious, weighs little with me.  The fact that temples were broken and mosques constructed in their place is well known.  Nor is the fact that the materials of the temples-the stones and idols--were used in constructing the mosque, news.  It was thought that this was the way to announce hegemony.  It was thought that this was the way to strike at the heart of the conquered-for in those days the temple was not just a place of worship; it was the hub of the community�s life, of its learning, of its social life.  So the lines in the book which bear on this practice are of no earth-shaking significance in themselves.  Their real significance- and I dare say that they are but the smallest, most innocuous example that one can think of on the mosque-temple business-lies in the evasion and concealment they have spurred. I have it on good authority that the passages have been known for long, and well known to those who have been stoking the Babri Masjid issue.¹

That is the significant thing; they have known them, and their impulse has been to conceal and bury rather than to ascertain the truth.

I have little doubt that a rational solution can be found for the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi tangle, a solution which will respect the sentiments, the essentials, of the religions of all.

But no solution can be devised if the issue is going to be made the occasion for h show of strength by either side, if it is going to be converted into a symbol for establishing who shall prevail.

The fate of Maulana Abdul Hai�s passages-and I do, not know whether the Urdu version itself was not a conveniently sanitised version of the original Arabic volume-illustrates the cynical manner in which those who stoke the passions of religion to further their politics are going about the matter.

Those who proceed by such cynical calculations sow havoc for all of us, for Muslims, for Hindus, for all.

Those who remain silent in the face of such cynicism, such calculations help them sow the havoc.

Will we shed our evasions and concealments? Will we at last learn to speak and face the whole truth? To see how communalism of one side justifies and stokes that of the other?  To see that these �leaders� are not interested in facts, not in religion, not in a building or a site, but in power, in their personal power, and in that alone? That for them religion is but an instrument, an instrument which is so attractive because the costs of weilding it fall on others, on their followers, and not on them?

Will we never call a halt to them?

Footnotes:

¹ Several other modern Muslim historians and epigraphists accept the fact that many other mosques including the Babari Masjid at Ayodhya stand on the sites of Hindu temples.

Why did Islamic invaders continue to destroy Hindu temples and desecrate the idols of Hindu Gods and Goddesses throughout the period of their domination? Why did they raise mosques on sites occupied earlier by Hindu places of worship?  These questions were asked by Hindu scholars in modern times after the terror of Islam had ceased and could no more seal their lips.

In India - and in India alone - two explanations have come forth.  One is provided by the theology of Islam based on the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet.  The other has been proposed by Marxist professors and lapped up by apologists of Islam.  We shall take up the second explanation first.

The credit for pioneering the Marxist proposition about destruction of Hindu temples goes to the late Professor Mohammed Habib of the Aligarh Muslim University.  In his book, Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin, first published in 1924, he presented the thesis that Mahmud�s destruction of Hindu temples was actuated not by zeal for the faith but by �lust for plunder.� According to him, India at that time was bursting with vast hoards of gold and silver accumulated down the ages from rich mines and a prosperous export trade.  Most of the wealth, he said without providing any proof, was concentrated in temple treasuries.  �It was impossible,� wrote the professor, �that the Indian temples should not sooner or later tempt some one strong and unscrupulous enough for the impious deed. Nor was it expected that a man of Mahmud�s character would allow the tolerance which Islam inculcates to restrain him from taking possession of the gold� when the Indians themselves had simplified his work by concentrating the wealth of the country at a few places� (p. 82).

Professor Habib did not hide any of the salient facts regarding destruction of Hindu temples by Mahmud, though the descriptions Le gave were brief, sometimes only in footnotes.  He also narrated how Mahmud�s exploits were celebrated at Baghdad by the Caliph and the populace and how the hero was compared to the companions of the Prophet who had achieved similar victories in Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.  Only the conclusion he drew was radically different from that drawn by Mahmud�s contemporaries as well as latter-day historians and theologians of Islam.  �Islam,� he wrote, �sanctioned neither the vandalism nor the plundering motives of the invader; no principle of the Shariat justifies the uncalled for attack on Hindu princes who had done Mahmud and his subjects no harm; the wanton destruction of places of worship is condemned by the law of every creed.  And yet Islam, though it was not an inspiring motive could be utilised as an a posteriors justification for what was done.  So the precepts of the Quran were misinterpreted or ignored and the tolerant policy of the Second Caliph was cast aside in order that Mahmud and his myrmidons may be able to plunder Hindu temples with a clear and untroubled conscience� (Pp. 83-84, Emphasis in source).

This proposition of Mahmud�s guilt and Islam�s innocence appealed to the architect of India�s secularism, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.  In a letter dated June 1, 1932, he wrote to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, that Mahmud �was hardly a religious man�, that he was �a Mohammedan of course, but that was by the way� and that Mahmud would have done what he did �to whatever religion he might have belonged� (Glimpses of World History, 1982 Reprint, p. 155).  In fact, Pandit Nehru went much farther than Professor Habib.  The latter had written how Mahmud gave orders to burn down thousands of temples at Mathura after he had admired their architectural excellence.  Pandit Nehru narrated how Mahmud admired the temples but omitted the fact that they were destroyed by him (Ibid., Pp. 155-156).  Thus a determined destroyer of Hindu temples was transformed into an ardent admirer of Hindu architecture!  This portrayal of Mahmud remained unchanged in his Discovery of India which was published in 1946 (1982 Reprint, p. 235).

In days to come, Professor Habib�s thesis that lust for plunder and not the Islamic theology of iconoclasm occasioned the destruction of Hindu temples, became the party line for Marxist historians who, in due course, came to control all institutions concerned with researching, writing and teaching of Indian history.  This was extended to cover all acts of Muslim iconoclasm in medieval Indian history.  It became a crime against secularism and national integration even to mention Islam or its theology in this context.  Any historian who dared cite facts recorded by medieval Muslim historians was denounced as a �Hindu communalist.� Three Marxist professors wrote a book attacking Dr. R.C. Majumdar in particular, simply because the great historian was not prepared to sacrifice truth at the altar of Communist politics.  The book was printed by a Communist publishing house and prescribed for graduate and post-graduate courses in Indian universities.

What was more, the Marxist professors discovered a political motive as well.  Hindu temples were seen as centres of political conspiracies which Muslim sultans were forced to suppress.  And if the temples got destroyed in the process, no blame could be laid at the door of the sultans who were working hard in the interest of public order and peace.  In a letter published in the Times of India on October 21, 1985, twelve Marxist professors rallied in defence of Aurangzeb who had destroyed the Keshavdeva temple at Mathura and raised an Idgah in its place.  �The Dera Keshava Rai temple,� they wrote, �was built by Raja Bir Singh Bundela in the reign of Jahangir.  This large temple soon became extremely popular and acquired considerable wealth.  Aurangzeb had this temple destroyed, took its wealth as booty and built an Idgah on the site.  His action might have been politically motivated as well, for at the time when the temple was destroyed he faced problems with the Bundelas as well as Jat rebellion in the Mathura region.�

The climax was reached when the same Marxist professors started explaining away Islamic iconoclasm in terms of what they described as Hindu destruction of Buddhist and Jain places of worship.  They have never been able to cite more than half-a-dozen cases of doubtful veracity.  A few passages in Sanskrit literature coupled with speculations about some archaeological sites have sufficed for floating the story, sold ad nauseam in the popular press, that Hindus destroyed Buddhist and Jain temples on a large scale.  Half-a-dozen have become thousands and then hundreds of thousands in the frenzied imagination suffering from a deep-seated anti-Hindu animus.  Lately, they have added to the list the destruction of �animist shrines� from pre-Hindu India, whatever that means.  And these �facts� have been presented with a large dose of suppressio veri suggestio falsi.  A few instances will illustrate the point.

A very late Buddhist book from Sri Lanka accuses Pushyamitra Sunga, a second century B.C. king, of offering prizes to those who brought to him heads of Buddhist monks.  This single reference has sufficed for presenting Pushyamitra as the harbinger of a �Brahmanical reaction� which �culminated in the age of the Guptas.� The fact that the famous Buddhist stupas and monasteries at Bharhut and Sanchi were built and thrived under the very nose of Pushyamitra is never mentioned.  Nor is the fact that the Gupta kings and queens built and endowed many Buddhist monasteries at Bodh Gaya, Nalanda and Sarnath among many other places.

A Pandyan king of Madura is reported to have been a persecutor of Jains.  This is mentioned in a book of the Saiva faith to which he belonged.  But the source also says that before becoming a convert to Saivism, the king was a devout Jain and had persecuted the Saivites.  This part of the story is never mentioned by the Marxist professors while they bewail the persecution of Jains.

According to the Rajatarirgini of Kalhana, King Harsha of Kashmir plundered Hindu and Buddhist temples in his lust for the gold and silver which went into the making of idols.  This fact is played up by the Marxist professors with great fanfare.  But they never mention Kalhan�s comment that in doing what he did Harsha �acted like a Turushka (Muslim)� and was �prompted by the Turushkas in his employ.�

This placing of Hindu kings on par with Muslim invaders in the context of iconoclasm suffers from serious shortcomings.  Firstly, it lacks all sense of proportion when it tries to explain away the destruction of hundreds of thousands of Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jain temples by Islamic invaders in terms of the doubtful destruction of a few Buddhist and Jain shrines by Hindu kings.  Secondly, it has yet to produce evidence that Hindus ever had a theology of iconoclasm which made this practice a permanent part of Hinduism.  Isolated acts by a few fanatics whom no Hindu historian or pandit has ever admired, cannot explain away a full-fledged theology which inspired Islamic iconoclasm.  Lastly, it speaks rather poorly of Marxist ethics which seems to say that one wrong can be explained away in terms of another.¹

Coming to the economic and political motives for the destruction of Hindu temples, it does not need an extraordinary imagination to see that the Marxist thesis is contrived and farfetched, if not downright ridiculous.  It does not explain even a fraction of the facts relating to the destruction of Hindu temples as known from literary and archaeological sources.  Even if we grant that Hindu temples in India continued to be rich and centres of political unrest for more than a thousand years, it defies understanding why they alone were singled out for plunder and destruction.  There was no dearth of Muslim places of worship which were far richer and greater centres of conspiracy.  The desecration of Hindu idols and raising of mosques on temple sites is impossible to explain in terms of any economic or political motive whatsoever.  Small wonder that the Marxist thesis ends by inventing facts instead of explaining them.

Professor Habib cannot be accused of ignorance about the theology or history of Islam.  The most that can be said in his defence is that he was trying to salvage Islam by sacrificing Mahmud of Ghaznin who had become the greatest symbol of Islamic intolerance in the Indian context.  One wonders whether he anticipated the consequences of extending his logic to subsequent sultans of medieval India.  The result has been disastrous for Islam.  In the process, it has been reduced to a convenient cover for plunder and brigandage.  The heroes of Islam in India have been converted into bandits and vandals.

It is amazing that apologists of Islam in India have plumped for Professor Habib�s thesis as elaborated by succeeding Marxist scribes.  They would have rendered service to Islam if they had continued admitting honestly that iconoclasm has been an integral part of the theology of Islam.  Their predecessors in medieval India made no bones about such an admission.  Nor do the scholars of Islam outside India, particularly in Pakistan.

What we need most in this country is an inter-religious dialogue in which all religions are honest and frank about their drawbacks and limitations.  Such a dialogue is impossible if we hide or supress or invent facts and offer dishonest interpretations.  Mahatma Gandhi had said that Islam was born only yesterday and is still in the process of interpretation.  Hiding facts and floating fictions is hardly the way for promoting that process.

Footnotes:

¹ It is intriguing that the Marxist professors never mention the destruction of Buddhist and Jain establishments in Transoxiana, Sinkiang, Seistan and India which on the eve of the Islamic invasion included present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.  Every historian and archaeologist of that period knows that the vast Buddhist and Jain establishments at Bukhara, Samarkand, Khotan, Balkh, Bamian, Begram, Jalalabad, Peshawar, Takshasila, Mirpur-Khas, Nagar-Parkar, Sringar, Sialkot, Agroha, Mathura, Hastinapur, Kanauj, Sravasti, Ayodhya, Sarnath, Nalanda, Vikramsila, Vaishali, Rajgir, Odantpuri, Bharhut, Paharpur, Jagaddala, Jajnagar, Nagarjunikonda, Amaravati, Kanchi, Dwarasamudra, Bharuch Valabhi, Palitana, Girnar, Patan, Jalor, Chandrawati, Bhinmal, Didwana, Nagaur, Osian, Bairat, Gwalior and Mandu were destroyed by the swordsmen of Islam. Smaller establishments of these faiths, which met the same fate, add up to several hundred.

The article �Hideaway Communalism� (Indian Express, February 5, 1989), is unusual.  It discusses a question which has been a taboo and speaks on it with a frankness rare among Indian intellectuals.

Similarly, in his articles �The Tip of An Iceberg� and �In the Name of Religion� (February 9, May 21) Sita Ram Goel brings to the subject unequalled research and discusses it in a larger historical perspective.

In the history of Islam, iconoclasm and razing other peoples� temples are not aberrations - stray acts of zealous but misguided rulers - but are central to the faith.  They derive their justification and validity from the Quranic Revelation and the Prophet�s Sunna or practice.  It is another matter though that these could not always be implemented in their full theological rigour due to many unfavourable circumstances - an exigency for which Islamic theology makes ample provisions.

Shrines and idols of the unbelievers began to be destroyed during the Prophet�s own time and, indeed, at his own behest.Sirat-un-Nabi, the first pious biography of the Prophet, tells us how during the earliest days of Islam, young men at Medina influenced by Islamic teachings repeatedly crept into a house every night and carried its idol and threw �it on its face into a cesspit.�

However, desecration and destruction began in earnest when Mecca was conquered.  Ali was chosen to destroy the idols at Ka�ba which, we are told, he did mounting on the shoulders of the Prophet.  Umar was chosen for destroying the pictures on the walls of the shrine.  After this, as Tarikh-i-Tabari tells us, raiding parties were sent in all directions to destroy the images of deities held in special veneration by different tribes including the images of al-Manat, al-Lat and al-Uzza, intercessories of the Satanic Verses.  Sa�d was sent to destroy the shrine of al-Manat, the deity of the tribes of Aus and Khazraj.  When the shrine of al-Lat was invaded, its devotees resisted.  But finding themselves overpowered, they surrendered and became Muslims.  The women-worshippers wept to see how their deity was

�Deserted by Her servants, 
Who did not show enough manliness in defending Her.�

Similarly, Walid was sent by the prophet to destroy the idol of al-Uzza at Nakhla, venerated by the tribes of Kinan and Nadar.  Overawed, the guardians left the deity to defend herself.  They called out:

O Uzza! make an annihilating attack on Khalid, 
O Uzza! if you do not kill the man Khalid 
Then bear a swift punishment or become a Christian.

Why Christian? The word should have been Muslim.  It seems the tradition belongs to the very early period of Islam when at least, on the popular level, Christians and Muslims were mistaken for each other.  For, both shared a common outlook, both indulged in forced conversions and both destroyed shrines belonging to others.

The fact is that the Revelation of the Prophet of Islam does not stand alone.  It is rooted in the older Judaic Revelation from which Christianity also derives.  The two Revelations differ in some particulars but they have important similarities.  The God of both is exclusive and brooks no rivals, no partner.  He demands exclusive loyalty and commands that his followers would �worship no other God.� But though so demanding in their worship, he does not make himself known to them directly.  On the other hand, he communicates his will to them indirectly through a favourite messenger or prophet, or a special incarnation.

This God is so different from God in other religious traditions.  For example, in Hindu tradition, a God is not exclusive.  He lives in friendliness with other Gods.  In fact, �other� Gods are His own manifestations.  In this tradition, He also has no rigid form and is conceived in widely different ways: plurally, singly, monistically.  He also recognises no single favourite intermediary but reveals Himself to all who approach Him with devotion and in wisdom.  No Semitic protocol here.  The Hindu tradition also accords fullest freedom of worship.  Not only every one has a right to worship his God in his own way but every God is also entitled to the worship of His own devotees.  Freedom indeed, both for men as well as for Gods.  It was on this principle that early Christians enjoyed their freedom of worship.

The other side of the coin of a �Jealous God� is the concept of a �Chosen People� or a Church or Ummah.  The chosen God has a chosen people (and even his chosen enemies).  Both assist each other.  While their God helps the believers in fighting their neighbours, the believers help their God in fighting his rival-Gods.

It is common for men and women everywhere to invoke the help of their Gods in their various undertakings, big or small.  But the God of the believers also calls upon them to fight for his greater glory, to fight his enemies and to extend his dominion on the earth.  In short, they are to become his swordsmen and salesmen, his �witnesses�, his martyrs andGhazis.  They must fight not only their unbelieving neighbours but also, even more specifically, their (neighbours�) Gods.  For these Gods are not only the Gods of their enemies, but they are also the enemies of their God, which is even worse.

The believers have taken this god-given mission seriously. The Hedaya (Guidance), the Muslim Law Book par excellence, quotes the Prophet and lays down: �We are directed to make war upon men until such time as they shall confess.  There is no God but Allah.�

However, it is not all God and his glory all the time.  The undertaking has its practical side too.  The crusaders are not without their earthly rewards.  They work to extend the sovereignty of their God and, in the process, their own too.  A pious tradition proclaims that the earth belongs to Allah and his Prophet.  Therefore, the inescapable conclusion is that the infidels are merely squatters, and they should be dispossessed and the land returned to its rightful owners, the believers.

Today, the intellectual fashion is to emphasize the political and economic aims of imperialism and to neglect its theological component.  But history shows that the most durable imperialisms have been those which had the support of a continuing theological motive.  Such imperialisms dominated without a conscience - or, rather, whatever conscience they had supported their domination.  The power of faith killed all possible doubts and self-criticism.

�Hideaway Communalism� quotes extensively from the Foreword of Maulana Abul-Hasan Ali Nadwi which he contributed to the book, Hindustan under Islamic Rule.  These quotes show that in its self-estimation and self-righteousness, the white-man�s burden of civilising the world is a poor match to Islam�s responsibility of bringing the earth under Allah and his Prophet.

Semitic �My-Godism� described as Monotheism has another dimension: Iconoclasm.  In fact, the two are two sides of the same coin.  When worshippers of the Semitic God came into Contact with their neighbours, it was not clear what they abhorred more, their Gods or their idols.  In point of fact, they made no such fine distinction.  Trained as they were, they made war on both indiscriminately.

The Judaic God commands his worshippers that when they enter the land of their enemies, they will �destroy their altars, and break their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graves images with fire� (Bible, Deut. 7.5). Perhaps the Judaic Revelation was meant to apply only to the territory of the Promised Land; but when Christianity and, in due course, Islam became its proud inheritors and adopted the Biblical God, its operation became university.  Wherever the two creeds went, temple-razing followed.  Today, Christianity seems to present a different face but during the better part of its career it was stoutly iconoclastic In the Mediterranean countries, in Northern Europe, in Asia and the two Americas, it destroyed shrines of the pagans with unparalleled thoroughness and perfect self-satisfaction.  When America was discovered, the Benedictine monks who came in the train of Columbus boasted of having destroyed single-handed 170,000 images in Haiti alone.  Juan de Zummarage, the first Bishop of Mexico, writing as early as 1531, claimed that he destroyed 500 temples and 20,000 idols of the heathens.  In our own country, in Goa, Jesuit fathers destroyed many Hindu temples.

Islam did the same.  Wherever it went, it carried fire and sword and destroyed the temples of the conquered people.  Goel has documented some of the cases but as he himself says they represent merely the tip of an iceberg.

Like its monotheism, Semitic iconoclasm too was essentially a hegemonistic idea.  No imperialism is secure unless it destroys the pride, culture and valour of a conquered people.  People who retain their religions, their Gods and their priests make poor subjects and remain potential rebels.

Islam knew this and it developed a full-fledged theory of Religious domination.  Temples were destroyed not for their �hoarded wealth� as Marxist historians propagate - who ever heard of Hindus being specially in the habit of hoarding their wealth in their temples? - nor were they destroyed by invaders in the first flush of their victory.  On the other hand, these formed part of a larger policy of religious persecution which was followed in peace-time too when the Muslim rule was established.  The policy of persecution had a purpose-it was meant to keep down the people and to disarm them culturally and spiritually, to destroy their pride and self-respect, and to remind them that they were Zimmis, an inferior breed.

According to this policy, Zimmis were allowed to exercise their religion in low key so long as they accepted civic and political disabilities and paid Jizya �in abasement�.  There were many restrictions, particularly in cities.  The Muslim Law (Hedaya) lays down that �as the tokens of Islam (such as public prayers, festivals, and so forth) appear in the cities, Zimmis should not be permitted to celebrate the tokens of infidelity there.� Some of these restrictions placed on Hindu processions and celebrations still continue.  This is a legacy of the Muslim period.

The same law laid down that the infidels could not build new temples though they could repair old ones.  Probably this explains why there is no record of a worthwhile Hindu temple built since 1192 in Delhi.  The first such temple Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi, came up in 1938, after a lapse of more than seven hundred years.

The foregoing discussion shows that the problem is not that of the Rama Janmabhumi Temple of Ayodhya, or the Krishna Temple of Mathura or the Visveshvara Temple of Varanasi.  In its deeper aspect, the problem relates to an aggressive theology and political ideology which created an aggressive tradition of history.  Needless to say that the problem in all its huge dimensions admits of no easy solution.  In an ordinary situation, one could appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, from a man�s passion to his reason and conscience.  But in the present case when Islamic theology is on the side of its historical practice and its more aggressive aims, this option is hardly available. But even then while showing, by exercising firmness, that aggression will not pay, we must yet be patient and understanding.  We must realize that the problem is notMuslims but Islam or Islamic theology.  Therefore, this theology needs a more critical examination than has been hitherto done.  We must properly study Revelatory religions, their Gods and their prophets, their theories of special covenants and favoured ummahs, their doctrine of one God and two humanities, their categories of believers and infidels or pagans, their theory of Prophetism, their divinely ordained mission to convert and crusade.

It is a task which needs the creative labour of all seekers and articulators of truth.  Closed creeds are a threat both to deeper spirituality and to deeper humanity, and they badly need some sort of glasnost, openness and freedom.  A wider discussion will help them to open up.

In this task, Muslim intellectuals can play an important role.  In fact, it is expected of them.  It may start a new process of rethinking among the Muslims on their fundamentals - a different and truer sort of fundamentalism than they have hitherto known.

It is also a task which imposes an inescapable duty on Hindu-Buddhist thinkers with their inheritance of Yoga.  In fact, India�s Yoga has a lot to contribute to the discussion.  We are told that Revelations come from Gods.  But from another angle, Revelations and Gods themselves come from man and his psyche, as Yoga teaches us.  This psyche in turn has its various levels of purity and inwardness and every level projects its own God, Revelation and Theology.  Therefore, not all Gods and Revelations have the same purity.  In fact, some of them are not worthy enough and they support an equally questionable politics.

Such a conclusion may disappoint many Hindu wise men who fondly cling to the belief that all religions are the same and all prophets preach and say the same things.  But they must learn not to evade issues and even while seeking unities, they must yet learn to recognise differences where they exist.

At the end, we again return to �Hideaway Communalism� which tells us of �evasion and concealment� and the need to �face the truth.� However, the sorry fact is that in order to avoid facing truth we have built up an elaborate system of evasion and concealment which protects not merely �hideaway communalism�, but also shields and even fosters more sinister forces of a �hideaway Imperialism� and a �hideaway theology� which distorts relations between man and Gods and between man and man.  The need is to become aware of the problem at a deeper level and in its larger antecedents and consequences.

What is the need of the hour, someone asked me the other day.  Is it stability, is it unity, is it communal peace?  It is none of these things, I told him.  The need of the hour is COURAGE.

We Hindus have become a timid race, almost a cowardly race.  We lack the courage of our convictions.  Some of us don�t even have any convictions, and have been trying to hide our shame under high-sounding but empty phrases like secularism.  For the last so many centuries, the history of the Hindus has been created by non-Hindus, first the Moghuls, then the British.  Even today, the Hindus are being denied their right to write their own history, which, to me, is almost like genocide.  Until we write our own history, this land cannot be ours.

Upendra Baxi, director of the Indian Law Institute and a noted jurist, said the other day that �when the foundation of the proposed Ram Temple will be put up in Ayodhya, it will change decisively the history of India and no amount of condemnation of the Indian psyche or public self-flagellation will change that history.� He is right.  The whole purpose of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement is to change the history of India, nothing less, nothing more.

Those who do not see this do not know what India is.  For the first time in several centuries, the history of India is being made by Indians, call them Hindu, call them anything else, if the word Hindu sticks in your gullet, as it did in Nehru�s.  The Ayodhya movement is therefore a historic movement, far more historic than Gandhi�s Dandi March or the Quit India Movement.

Freedom does not mean flying your own flag or having your own government. Freedom means making your own history, writing it in your own blood on the pages of Time.  As I said earlier, fate precluded us from doing so for so many centuries.  Now the time has come to open up the pages of Time and begin writing what every great race in this world has been doing for so long, every great race except the Hindus.

Small-minded people like Namboodiripad or editors of Indo-Anglian papers who bring out special editions at Christmas time but never on Diwali, will not understand this, because they do not know Indian history.  Whatever little they understand has been learnt from foreign historians, and from foreign books like Das Capital.  We must pity these men. Namboodiripad thinks that the Ayodhya movement is communal, a word he has learnt from the British, for whom some of his friends spied, and he repeats it parrot-like, as children do their lessons in schools.  Communists are political parrots who have been intoning Marx for years without realising that the man is already out of date.  All over Europe, his corpse is being exhumed for public exhibition.  But Indian communists are half a century behind everybody else, including their own brethren elsewhere.  Because their own faith has come down crumbling, and that too in less than three quarters of a century, they have started cursing other faiths.

But we Hindus were not born yesterday. We were not born in the British Museum and did not emerge from dog-eared copies of ancient history books.  We are history personified, history with a capital H. And we are going to survive for another five thousand years, not just fifty years, as Namboodiripad�s gods did.

I simply cannot understand what is so communal about a community trying to build a temple, the most honourable of acts, in their own land.  Would anyone deny Catholics their right to put up a church in Rome? Would anyone say no if the Saudis wanted to build a mosque in Mecca? Why on earth should there be a mosque in Ayodhya of all places? How would they feel if someone tried to build a Rama temple in Mecca?  The Babari mosque was built by Babar who had no business to be in India.  He came here as a conqueror but the right of a conqueror ceases as soon as he ceases to be a conqueror.  This country is now ours, not Babar�s and what is all this freedom worth if we cannot undo a wrong? That is also what history is, the undoing of a patently wrong act committed by a conqueror in the full flush of power.  This is what I meant when I said that we are going to re-write history, for, I repeat again, that is precisely the meaning of freedom.

I consider the time we were under foreign conquerors, no matter where they came from and who they were-and also how they came-as the most shameful time of our history.  This is what Gandhi also said and that is why we vowed to throw the British out.  If the British were foreigners, so were the Moghuls, and so is everything they left behind.  We have taken over old British firms and Indianised them.  We have taken over their railways, their ports and harbours, their buildings, their offices, even their vice-regal house.  We would have been perfectly within our rights to demolish their leftovers including the vice-regal house.  Mahatma Gandhi actually wanted to turn that house into a hospital.

Surely, if we can do all that, we can also take over their churches and cathedrals, as also those of other conquerors that preceded them.  We have not, done that, but I do not see why not.  If the descendants of these conquerors believe that their houses of worship are too important to be treated like other buildings they left behind, surely you cannot blame the Hindus if they think that their houses of worship are also too important to be defiled by foreigners.  What is good for others, is also good for us.  You cannot have one law for others, just because they happen to be in a minority, and another for the majority because it happens to be too generous, or too timid to fight back.

Make no mistake.  We are going to change history and we have begun doing so on November 9, 1989.

All relevant British government records followed by the District Gazetteer Faizabad compiled and published by the Congress government in 1960 declare with one voice that the so-called Babari mosque at Ayodhya is standing on the debris of a Ramjanmasthan temple demolished by the order of Babar in 1528.  Syed Shahabuddin, JNU historians, and. self-styled �secular� scholars and leaders are hotly contesting that the existence and demolition of such a temple is a myth floated by the British in pursuance of their policy of �divide and rule�.  Syed Shahabuddin and many Muslim divines go a step further and assert that neither Babar nor any other Muslim for that matter would take into his head to erect a mosque by displacing a temple, for, they argue, such a mosque would not be a mosque in the eye of the Shari�ah and would be liable to demolition by the Muslims themselves.

With this idea in mind, Syed Shahabuddin is going about proclaiming that, if it is shown independently of the British sources that the Babari mosque has displaced a temple, he would pull it down with his own hands and hand it over to the Hindus.

The challenge is worth taking, and I hereby do it with good grace, on behalf of those who place truth above politics.

Well, granting for the nonce that the Babari mosque cannot be shown to have displaced a temple, there are certain other mosques which can indisputably be shown to have done so. Is Syed Shahabuddin prepared to keep his word in the case of such mosques? It is common knowledge that most of the mosques built by the Muslim invaders stand on land grabbed or extorted from the Kafirs. And what about the Ka�bah itself?

Sayyid Shahabuddin Abdur Rahman, the well known Muslim historian who died in an accident recently, modifies the stand of the Muslim divines thus: �It is also thinkable that some mosque was erected close to or at a short distance from a temple demolished for some special reason, but never was a mosque built on the site of a temple anywhere.� (See hisBabri Masjid, 3rd print, Azamgarh: Darul Musannifin Shibli Academy, 1987, p. 19.)

As regards the verdict of the Shari�ah, it is true that there are theologico-juristic rulings to the effect that no mosque can be built on land grabbed or illegally/illegitimately acquired. See for example the great Fatawa-i Alamgiri, Vol. 16, p 214. But the question is, Do they hold true for land acquired in Jihad as well? The answer has to be an emphatic �No�. The Prophet has made it clear that all land belongs to God or the Prophet (A�lamu ann�l-arza li�llah-i wa rasul-i-hi), and, obviously, through the Prophet to the Muslims (Bukhari, II, Kitab al-Jibad wa�s- Siyar, Hadith 406). Iqbal puts the following words, in a Persian verse, into the mouth of Tariq, the great conqueror of Spain : Har mulk mulk-i ma�st ki mulk-i Khuda-i ma�st.  That is, all land belongs to the Muslims, because it belongs to their God. Ibn Taymiyyah, the 14th century theologian and jurist, argues that Jihad simply restores lands to the Muslims, to whom they rightly belong.  This serves to vouchsafe to them the moral right to extort lands in Jihad from others.

Thus, the argument from the Shari�ah has no leg to stand upon.

Now, I proceed to cite certain purely Muslim sources beyond the sphere of British influence to show that the Babari mosque has displaced a Hindu temple-the Ramjanmasthan temple, to be precise-wholly or partly.

First, an indirect evidence.  In an application dated November 30, 1858, filed by one Muhammad Ashghar, Khatib and Mu�azzin, Babari Masjid, to initiate legal proceedings against �Bairagiyan-i Janmasthan�, the Babari mosque has been called �masjid-i Janmasthan� and the courtyard near the arch and the pulpit within the boundary of the mosque, �maqam Janmasthan ka�. The Bairagis had raised a platform in the courtyard which the applicant wanted to be dismantled. He has mentioned that the place of Janmasthan had been lying unkempt/in disorder (parishan) for hundreds of years and that the Hindus performed worship there (maqam Janmasthan ka sad-ha baras se parishan para rahta tha. Ahl-i Hunud puja karte they). See Sayyid Shahabuddin Abdur Rahman, op, cit., pp. 29-30.  Well, if the Babari mosque is the Janmasthan mosque, its courtyard is the Janmasthan, and the Hindus had all along been carrying out their worship, all that implies that there must have been some construction there as part of a (Janmasthan) temple, which Mir Baqi partly demolished and partly converted into the existing Babari mosque, with or without Babar�s approval. And the Hindus had no alternative but to make do with the temple-less courtyard. Otherwise, it is simply unthinkable that they might have been performing worship for such a long time and on such a sacred place without a proper temple.

My second document is the Hadiqah-i Shuhada by one Mirza Jan, an eyewitness as well as active participant in the Jihad led by Amir Ali Amethawi during Wajid Ali Shah�s regime in 1855 for recapture of Hanuman Garhi (a few hundred yards from the Babari mosque) from the Hindus. The book was ready just after the failure of the Jihad and saw the light of day in the following year, viz. in 1856, at Lucknow. Ra�is Ahmad Jafari has included it as chapter IX in his book entitled Wajid Ali Shah aur Un-ka Ahd (Lucknow: Kitab Manzil, 1957), after, however, omitting what he considered unnecessary but without adding a word from his side.

Now, let us see what information we gather from it, germane to our enquiry. Mirza Jan states that �wherever they found magnificent temples of the Hindus ever since the establishment of Sayyid Salar Mas�ud Ghazi�s rule, the Muslim rulers in India built mosques, monasteries, and inns, appointed mu�azzins, teachers, and store-stewards, spread Islam vigorously, and vanquished the Kafirs. Likewise, they cleared up Faizabad and Avadh, too, from the filth of reprobation (infidelity), because it was a great centre of worship and capital of Rama�s father. Where there stood the great temple (of Ramjanmasthan), there they built a big mosque, and, where there was a small mandap (pavilion), there they erected a camp mosque (masjid-i mukhtasar-i qanati). The Janmasthan temple is the principal place of Rama�s incarnation, adjacent to which is the Sita ki Rasoi. Hence, what a lofty mosque was built there by king Babar in 923 A. H. (1528 A.D.), under the patronage of Musa Ashiqan! The mosque is still known far and wide as the Sita ki Rasoi mosque.  And that temple is extant by its side (aur pahlu mein wah dair baqi hai)� (p. 247).

It must be borne in mind that Mirza Jan claims to write all this on the basis of older records (kutub-i sabiqah) and contemporary accounts.

My third document is a chapter of the Muraqqah-i Khusrawi, otherwise known as the Tarikh-i Avadh, by Shykh Azamat Ali Kakorawi Nami (1811-1893), who happened to be an eyewitness to much that happened during Wajid Ali Shah�s regime. The work was completed in 1869 but could Pot see the light of day for over a century. Only one manuscript of it is extant and that is in the Tagore Library of Lucknow University. A press copy of it was prepared by Dr. Zaki Kakorawi for publication with the financial assistance of the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad Memorial Committee, U.P., Lucknow. The committee vetoed the publication of its chapter dealing with the Jihad led by Amir Ali Amethawi for recapture of Hanuman Garhi from the Bairagis, from its funds, on the ground that its publication would not be opportune in view of the prevailing political situation, with the result that Dr. Kakorawi had to publish the book minus that chapter in 1986, for the first time.  Later, however, lie published the chapter separately, and independently of any financial or other assistance from the committee in 1987 from the Markaz-i Adab-i Urdu 137, Shahganj, Lucknow-3, under the title �Amir Ali Shahid aur Ma�rkah-i Hanuman Garhi�.

It is a pity that, thanks to our thoughtless �secularism� and waning sense of history, such primary sources of medieval Indian history are presently in danger of suppression or total extinction.  Dr. Kakorawi himself laments that �suppression of any part of any old composition or compilation like this can create difficulties and misunderstandings for future historians and researchers� (p. 3).

Well, what light does our author, Shykh Muhammad Azamat Ali Kakorawi Nami, have to throw on the issue of demolition versus non-existence of the Janmasthan temple?  The opening paragraph of his book is akin to the passage quoted above from Mirza Jan�s Hadiqah-i Shuhada. I give below the paragraph in the author�s own words, omitting very few details: �According to old records, it has been a rule with the Muslim rulers from the first to build mosques, monasteries, and inns, spread Islam, and put (a stop to) non-Islamic practices, wherever they found prominence (of kufr). Accordingly, even as they cleared up Mathura, Bindraban, etc., from the rubbish of non-Islamic practices, the Babari mosque was built up in 923(?) A.H. under the patronage of Sayyid Musa Ashiqan in the Janmasthan temple (butkhane Janmasthan mein) in Faizabad-Avadh, which was a great place of (worship) and capital of Rama�s father� (p. 9).  �Among the Hindus it was known as Sita ki Rasoi� (p. 10). The passage has certain gaps, thanks to the wretched condition of the manuscript, which I have tried to fill within brackets.

Dr. Kakorawi has appended to the book an excerpt from the Fasanah-i Ibrat by the great early Urdu novelist. Mirza Rajab Ali Beg Surur (1787-1867), which constitutes our fourth document.  It says that �a great mosque was built on the spot where Sita ki Rasoi is situated. During the regime of Babar, the Hindus had no guts to be a match for the Muslims.  The mosque was built in 923(?) A.H. under the patronage of Sayyid Mir Ashiqan� Aurangzeb built a mosque on the Hanuman Garhi� The Bairagis effaced the mosque and erected a temple in its place. Then idols began to be worshipped openly in the Babari mosque where the Sita ki Rasoi is situated,� (pp. 71-72). The author adds that �formerly, it is Shykh Ali Hazin�s observation which held good� and quotes the following Persian couplet of the Shykh:

Bi-bin karamat-i butkhanah-i mara aiy Shaikh! 
Ki chun kharab shawad khanah-i Khuda garded

Which means: O Shykh! just witness the miracle of my house of idols, which, when desecrated, or demolished, becomes the house of God (a mosque). So, purporting to mean that formerly temples were demolished for construction of mosques, the author, Surur, laments that �the times have so changed that now the mosque was demolished for construction of a temple (on the Hanuman Garhi)� (p. 72).

The forming four-fold documentary evidence leads us to certain incontrovertible conclusions, which can be stated as under:

1. That, in their zeal to hit Hinduism and spread Islam, the Muslim rulers had the knack of desecrating or demolishing Hindu temples and erecting mosques, etc., in their place-bigger mosques in place of bigger temples and smaller mosques in place of smaller temples.

2. That there did exist a temple called the temple of Janmasthan at Ayodhya, where Rama is believed to have incarnated and that adjacent to it was what is called Sita ki Rasoi, which might originally have been part of it.

3. That, like Muslim rulers who desecrated Mathura, Vrindavana, etc., Babar chose Ayodhya for spread of Islam and replacement of temples by mosques, thanks to its supreme importance as a holy place of the Hindus, and in 1528, under the patronage of Sayyid Mir Musa Ashiqan, got the so-called Babari mosque erected in displacement of the Rama Janmasthan temple, certain relics of which appear to have persisted at least till 1855.

4. That the Babari mosque was also called �masjid-i Janmasthan� and �masjid-i Sita ki Rasoi� from long before 1855.

5. That the Hindus had long been carrying on worship at the Rama Janmasthan even after the replacement of the Janmasthan temple by the Babari mosque.

6. That the foregoing facts are yielded by authentic Muslim records and have not been fabricated by the much-maligned British to �divide and rule�.

These conclusions are irresistible and should clinch the issue of demolition versus non-existence of the Ramjanmasthan temple.

 Vijayanagar (Karnataka)

 During the construction of the new road-some mounds which evidently marked the remains of destroyed buildings, were dug into, and in one of them were disclosed the foundations of a rectangular building with elaborately carved base. Among the debris were lumps of charcoal and calcined iron, probably the remains of the materials used by the Muhammadans in the destruction of the building. The stones bear extensive signs of having been exposed to the action of fire. That the chief buildings were destroyed by fire, historical evidence shows, and many buildings, notably the ViThalaswAmin temple, still bear signs, in their cracked and fractured stone work, of the catastrophe which overtook them�²⁶

�The most important temple at Vijayanagar from an architectural point of view, is the ViThalaswãmin temple. It stands in the eastern limits of the ruins, near the bank of the TuNgabhadra river, and shows in its later structures the extreme limit in floral magnificence to which the Dravidian style advanced� This building had evidently attracted the special attention of the Muhammadan invaders in their efforts to destroy the buildings of the city, of which this was no doubt one of the most important, for though many of the other temples show traces of the action of fire, in none of them are the effects so marked as in this.  Its massive construction, however, resisted all the efforts that were made to bring it down and the only visible results of their iconoclastic fury are the cracked beams and pillars, some of the later being so flaked as to make one marvel that they are yet able to bear the immense weight of the stone entablature and roof above��²⁷

Bijapur (Karnataka)

�No ancient Hindu or Jain buildings have survived at Bijapur and the only evidence of their former existence is supplied by two or three mosques, viz., Mosque No. 294, situated in the compound of the Collector�s bungalow, Krimud-d-din Mosque and a third and smaller mosque on the way to the Mangoli Gate, which are all adaptations or re-erections of materials obtained from temples. These mosques are the earliest Muhammadan structures and one of them, i.e., the one constructed by Karimud-d-din, must according to a Persian and Nagari inscription engraved upon its pillars, have been erected in the year 1402 Saka=A.D. 1324, soon after Malik Kafur�s conquest of the.  Deccan.�²⁸

Badami (Karnataka)

�Three stone lintels bearing bas-reliefs were discovered in, course of the clearance at the second gateway of the Hill Fort to the north of the Bhûtnãth tank at Badami� These originally belonged to a temple which is now in ruins and were re-used at a later period in the construction of the plinth of guardroom on the fort.

�The bas-reliefs represent scenes from the early life of KRISHNA and may be compared with similar ones in the BADAMI CAVES��²⁹

The Theology of Islam divides human history into two periods-the Jãhiliyya or the age of ignorance which preceded Allah�s first revelation to Prophet Muhammad, and the age of enlightenment which succeeded that event. It follows that every human creation which existed in the �age of ignorance� has to be converted to its Islamic version or destroyed. The logic applies to pre-Islamic buildings as much as to pre-Islamic ways of worship, mores and manners, dress and decor, personal and place names. This is too large a subject to be dealt with at present. What concerns us here is the fate of temples and monasteries that existed on the eve of the Islamic invasion and that came up in the course of its advance.

What happened to many �abodes of the infidels� is best described by a historian of Vijayanagar in the wake of Islamic victory in 1565 A.D. at the battle of Talikota. �The third day,� he writes, �saw the beginning of the end. The victorious Mussulmans had halted on the field of battle for rest and refreshment, but now they had reached the capital, and from that time forward for a space of five months Vijayanagar knew no rest. The enemy had come to destroy, and they carried out their object relentlessly. They slaughtered the people without mercy; broke down the temples and palaces, and wreaked such savage vengeance on the abode of the kings, that, with the exception of a few great stone-built temples and walls, nothing now remains but a heap of ruins to mark the spot where once stately buildings stood. They demolished the statues and even succeeded in breaking the limbs of the huge Narsimha monolith. Nothing seemed to escape them. They broke up the pavilions standing on the huge platform from which the kings used to watch festivals, and overthrew all the carved work. They lit huge fires in the magnificently decorated buildings forming the temple of Vitthalswamin near the river, and smashed its exquisite stone sculptures. With fire and sword, with crowbars and axes, they carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city: teeming with a wealthy and industrious population in the full plenitude of prosperity one day, and on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description�³⁰

The Muslim victors did not get time to raise their own structures from the ruins of Vijayanagar, partly because the Hindu Raja succeeded in regrouping his forces and re-occupying his capital and partly because they did not have the requisite Muslim population to settle in that large city; another invader, the Portuguese, had taken control of the Arabian Sea and blocked the flow of fresh recruits from Muslim countries in the Middle East. What would have happened otherwise is described by Alexander Cunningham in his report on Mahoba. �As Mahoba was,� he writes, �for some time the headquarters of the early Muhammadan Governors, we could hardly expect to find that any Hindu buildings had escaped their furious bigotry, or their equally destructive cupidity. When the destruction of a Hindu temple furnished the destroyer with the ready means of building a house for himself on earth, as well as in heaven, it is perhaps wonderful that so many temples should still be standing in different parts of the country. It must be admitted, however, that, in none of the cities which the early Muhammadans occupied permanently, have they left a single temple standing, save this solitary temple at Mahoba, which doubtless owed its preservation solely to its secure position amid the deep waters of the Madan-Sagar. In Delhi, and Mathura, in Banaras and Jonpur, in Narwar and Ajmer, every single temple was destroyed by their bigotry, but thanks to their cupidity, most of the beautiful Hindu pillars were preserved, and many of them, perhaps, on their original positions, to form new colonnades for the masjids and tombs of the conquerors.  In Mahoba all the other temples were utterly destroyed and the only Hindu building now standing is part of the palace of Parmal, or Paramarddi Deva, on the hill-fort, which has been converted into a masjid. In 1843, I found an inscription of Paramarddi Deva built upside down in the wall of the fort just outside this masjid. It is dated in S. 1240, or A.D. 1183, only one year before the capture of Mahoba by Prithvi-Raj Chohan of Delhi. In the Dargah of Pir Mubarak Shah, and the adjacent Musalman burial-ground, I counted 310 Hindu pillars of granite. I found a black stone bull lying beside the road, and the argha of a lingam fixed as a water-spout in the terrace of the Dargah. These last must have belonged to a temple of Siva, which was probably built in the reign of Kirtti Varmma, between 1065 and 1085 A.D., as I discovered an inscription of that prince built into the wall of one of the tombs.�³¹

Many other ancient cities and towns suffered the same tragic transformation. Bukhara, Samarkand, Balkh, Kabul, Ghazni, Srinagar, Peshawar, Lahore, Multan, Patan, Ajmer, Delhi, Agra Dhar, Mandu, Budaun, Kanauj, Biharsharif, Patna, Lakhnauti, Ellichpur, Daulatabad, Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda-to mention only a few of the more famous Hindu capitals-lost their native character and became nests of a closed creed waging incessant war on a catholic culture. Some of these places lost even their ancient names which had great and glorious associations. It is on record that the Islamic invaders coined and imposed this or that quranic concoction on every place they conquered. Unfortunately for them, most of these impositions failed to stick, going the way they came. But quite a few succeeded and have endured till our own times. Reviving the ancient names wherever they have got eclipsed is one of the debts which Hindu society owes to its illustrious ancestors.

On the other hand, a large number of cities, towns and centres of Hindu civilization disappeared from the scene and their ruins have been identified only in recent times, as in the case of Kãpi�î, Lampaka, Nagarahãra, Pushkalãvatî, UdbhãNDapura, Taksh�ilã, Ãlor, Brãhmanãbãd, Debal, Nandana, Agrohã Virãtanagara, Ahichchhatra, �rãvastî, Sãrnãth, Vai�ãlî, Vikram�îla, Nãlandã, KarNasuvarNa, PuNDravardhana, Somapura, Jãjanagar, DhãnyakaTaka, Vijayapurî, Vijayanagara, Dvãrasamudra. What has been found on top of the ruins in most cases is a mosque or a dargãh or a tomb or some other Muslim monument, testifying to Allah�s triumph over Hindu Gods. Many more mounds are still to be explored and identified. A survey of archaeological sites in the Frontier Circle alone and as far back as 1920, listed 255dheris³² or mounds which, as preliminary explorations indicated, hid ruins of ancient dwellings and/or places of worship. Some dheris, which had been excavated and were not included in this count, showed every sign of deliberate destruction.  By that time, many more mounds of a similar character had been located in other parts of the cradle of Hindu culture. A very large number has been added to the total count in subsequent years. Whichever of them is excavated tells the same story, most of the time. It is a different matter that since the dawn of independence, Indian archaeologists functioning under the spell or from fear of Secularism, record or report only the ethnographical stratifications and cultural sequences.³³

Muslim historians credit all their heroes with many expeditions each of which �laid waste� this or that province or region or city or countryside. The foremost heroes of the imperial line at Delhi and Agra such as Qutbu�d-Dîn Aibak (1192-1210 A.D.), Shamsu�d-Dîn Iltutmish (1210-36 A.D.), Ghiyãsu�d-Dîn Balban (1246-66 A D.), Alãu�d-Dîn Khaljî (1296-1316 A.D.), Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-51 A.D.), Fîruz Shãh Tughlaq (135188 A.D.) Sikandar Lodî (1489-1519 A.D.), Bãbar (1519-26 A.D.) and Aurangzeb (1658-1707 A.D.) have been specially hailed for �hunting the peasantry like wild beasts�, or for seeing to it that �no lamp is lighted for hundreds of miles�, or for �destroying the dens of idolatry and God-pluralism� wherever their writ ran. The sultans of the provincial Muslim dynasties-Malwa, Gujarat, Sindh, Deccan, Jaunpur, Bengal-were not far behind, if not ahead, of what the imperial pioneers had done or were doing; quite often their performance put the imperial pioneers to shame. No study has yet been made of how much the human population declined due to repeated genocides committed by the swordsmen of Islam. But the count of cities and towns and villages which simply disappeared during the Muslim rule leaves little doubt that the loss of life suffered by the cradle of Hindu culture was colossal.

Putting together all available evidence-literary and archaeological-from Hindu, Muslim and other sources, and following the trail of Islamic invasion, we get the pattern of how the invaders proceeded vis-a-vis Hindu places of worship after occupying a city or town and its suburbs. It should be kept in mind in this context that Muslim rule never became more than a chain of garrison cities and towns, not even in its heyday from Akbar to Aurangzeb, except in areas where wholesale or substantial conversions had taken place.  Elsewhere the invaders were rarely in full control of the countryside; they had to mount repeated expeditions for destroying places of worship, collecting booty including male and female slaves, and for terrorising the peasantry, through slaughter and rapine, so that the latter may become a submissive source of revenue.  The peasantry took no time to rise in revolt whenever and wherever Muslim power weakened or its terror had to be relaxed for reasons beyond its control.

1. Places taken by assault: If a place was taken by assault-which was mostly the case because it was seldom that the Hindus surrendered-it was thoroughly sacked, its surviving population slaughtered or enslaved and all its buildings pulled down. In the next phase, the conquerors raised their own edifices for which slave labour was employed on a large scale in order to produce quick results. Cows and, many a time, Brahmanas were killed and their blood sprinkled on the sacred sites in order to render them unclean for the Hindus for all time to come. The places of worship which the Muslims built for themselves fell into several categories. The pride of place went to the Jãmi� Masjid which was invariably built on the site and with the materials of the most prominent Hindu temple; if the materials of that temple were found insufficient for the purpose, they could be supplemented with materials of other temples which had been demolished simultaneously. Some other mosques were built in a similar manner according to need or the fancy of those who mattered. Temple sites and materials were also used for building the tombs of those eminent Muslims who had fallen in the fight; they were honoured as martyrs and their tombs became mazãrs and rauzas in course of time. As we have already pointed out, Hindus being great temple builders, temple materials could be spared for secular structures also, at least in the bigger settlements. It can thus be inferred that all masjids and mazãrs, particularly the Jãmi� Masjids which date from the first Muslim occupation of a place, stand on the site of Hindu temples; the structures we see at present may not carry evidence of temple materials used because of subsequent restorations or attempts to erase the evidence. There are very few Jãmi� Masjids in the country which do not stand on temple sites.

2. Places surrendered: Once in a while a place was surrendered by the Hindus in terms of an agreement that they would be treated as zimmis and their lives as well as places of worship spared. In such cases, it took some time to eradicate the �emblems of infidelity.� Theologians of Islam were always in disagreement whether Hindus could pass muster aszimmis; they were not People of the Book. It depended upon prevailing power equations for the final decision to go in their favour or against them. Most of the time, Hindus lost the case in which they were never allowed to have any say. What followed was what had happened in places taken by assault, at least in respect of the Hindu places of worship. The zimmistatus accorded to the Hindus seldom went beyond exaction of jizya and imposition of disabilities prescribed by Umar, the second rightly-guided Caliph (634-44 A.D.).

3. Places reoccupied by Hindus: It also happened quite frequently, particularly in the early phase of an Islamic invasion, that Hindus retook a place which had been under Muslim occupation for some time. In that case, they rebuilt their temples on new sites. Muslim historians are on record that Hindus spared the mosques and mazãrs which the invaders had raised in the interregnum. When the Muslims came back, which they did in most cases, they re-enacted the standard scene vis-a-vis Hindu places of worship.

4. Places in the countryside: The invaders started sending out expeditions into the countryside as soon as their stranglehold on major cities and towns in a region had been secured.  Hindu places of worship were always the first targets of these expeditions. It is a different matter that sometimes the local Hindus raised their temples again after an expedition had been forced to retreat. For more expeditions came and in due course Hindu places of worship tended to disappear from the countryside as well. At the same time, masjids and mazãrs sprang up everywhere, on the sites of demolished temples.

5. Missionaries of Islam: Expeditions into the countryside were accompanied or followed by the missionaries of Islam who flaunted pretentious names and functioned in many guises. It is on record that the missionaries took active part in attacking the temples. They loved to live on the sites of demolished temples and often used temple materials for building their own dwellings, which also went under various high-sounding names. There were instances when they got killed in the battle or after they settled down in a place which they had helped in pillaging. In all such cases, they were pronounced shahîds(martyrs) and suitable monuments were raised in their memory as soon as it was possible. Thus a large number of gumbads(domes) and ganjs (plains) commemorating the martyrs arose all over the cradle of Hindu culture and myths about them grew apace. In India, we have a large literature on the subject in which Sayyid Sãlãr Mas�ûd, who got killed at Bahraich while attacking the local Sun Temple, takes pride of place. His mazAr now stands on the site of the same temple which was demolished in a subsequent invasion. Those Muslim saints who survived and settled down have also left a large number of masjids and dargAhs in the countryside. Almost all of them stand on temple sites.

6. The role of sufis: The saints of Islam who became martyrs or settled down were of several types which can be noted by a survey of their ziãrats and mazãrs that we find in abundance in all lands conquered by the armies of Islam. But in the second half of the twelfth century A.D., we find a new type of Muslim saint appearing on the scene and dominating it in subsequent centuries. That was the sufi joined to a silsila. This is not the place to discuss the character of some outstanding sufis like Mansûr al-Hallãj, Bãyazîd Bistãmî, Rûmî and Attãr. Suffice it to say that some of their ancestral spiritual heritage had survived in their consciousness even though their Islamic environment had tended to poison it a good deal. The common name which is used for these early sufis as well as for the teeming breed belonging to the latter-day silsilas, has caused no end of confusion. So far as India is concerned, it is difficult to find a sufi whose consciousness harboured even a trace of any spirituality. By and large, the sufis that functioned in this country were the most fanatic and fundamentalist activists of Islamic imperialism, the same as the latter-day Christian missionaries in the context of Spanish and Portuguese imperialism.

Small wonder that we find them flocking everywhere ahead or with or in the wake of Islamic armies. Sufis of the Chishtîyya silsila in particular excelled in going ahead of these armies and acting as eyes and ears of the Islamic establishment. The Hindus in places where these sufis settled, particularly in the South, failed to understand the true character of these saints till it was too late. The invasions of South India by the armies of Alãu�d-Dîn Khaljî and Muhammad bin Tughlaq can be placed in their proper perspective only when we survey the sufi network in the South. Many sufis were sent in all directions by Nizãmu�d-Dîn Awliyã, the Chistîyya luminary of Delhi; all of them actively participated in jihãds against the local population.  Nizãmu�d-Dîn�s leading disciple, Nasîru�d-Dîn Chirãg-i-Dihlî, exhorted the sufis to serve the Islamic state.  �The essence of sufism,� he versified, �is not an external garment. Gird up your loins to serve the Sultãn and be a sufi.�³⁴ Nasîru�d-Dîn�s leading disciple, Syed Muhammad Husainî Banda Nawãz Gesûdarãz (1321-1422 A.D.), went to Gulbarga for helping the contemporary Bahmani sultan in consolidating Islamic power in the Deccan. Shykh Nizãmu�d-Dîn Awliyã�s dargãh in Delhi continued to be and remains till today the most important centre of Islamic fundamentalism in India.

An estimate of what the sufis did wherever and whenever they could, can be formed from the account of a pilgrimage which a pious Muslim Nawwãb undertook in 1823 to the holy places of Islam in the Chingleput, South Acort, Thanjavur, Tiruchirapalli and North Arcot districts of Tamil Nadu. This region had experienced renewed Islamic invasion after the breakdown of the Vijayanagar Empire in 1565 A.D. Many sufis had flocked in for destroying Hindu temples and converting the Hindu population, particularly the Qãdirîyyas who had been fanning out all over South India after establishing their stronghold at Bidar in the fifteenth century. They did not achieve any notable success in terms of conversions, but the havoc they wrought with Hindu temples can be inferred from a large number of ruins, loose sculptures scattered all over the area, inscriptions mentioning many temples which cannot be traced, and the proliferation of mosques, dargãhs, mazãrs and maqbaras.

The pilgrim visited many places and could not go to some he wanted to cover. All these places were small except Tiruchirapalli, Arcot and Vellore. His court scribe, who kept an account of the pilgrimage, mentions many masjids and mazãrs visited by his patron. Many masjids and mazãrs could not be visited because they were in deserted places covered by forest. There were several graveyards, housing many tombs; one of them was so big that �thousands, even a hundred thousand� graves could be there. Other notable places were takiyãs of faqirs, sarãis, dargãhs, and several houses of holy relics in one of which �a hair of the Holy Prophet is enshrined.� The account does not mention the Hindu population except as �harsh kafirs and marauders.� But stray references reveal that the Muslim population in all these places was sparse. For instance, Kanchipuram had only 50 Muslim houses but 9 masjids and 1 mazãr.

The court scribe pays fulsome homage to the sufis who �planted firmly the Faith of Islam� in this region. The pride of place goes to Hazrat Natthar WalI who took over by force the main temple at Tiruchirapalli and converted it into his khãnqãh. Referring to the destruction of the Sivalinga in the temple, he observes: �The monster was slain and sent to the house of perdition.  His image namely but-ling worshipped by the unbelievers was cut and the head separated from the body. A portion of the body went into the ground. Over that spot is the tomb of WalI shedding rediance till this day.�³⁵ Another sufi, Qãyim Shãh, who came to the same place at a later stage, �was the cause of the destruction of twelve temples.�³⁶ At Vellore, Hazrat Nûr Muhammad Qãdirî, �the most unique man regarded as the invaluable person of his age,� was the �cause of the ruin of temples� which �he laid waste.� He chose to be buried �in the vicinity of the temple� which he had replaced with his khãnqãh.³⁷

It is, therefore, not an accident that the masjids and khAnqAhs built by or for the sufis who reached a place in the first phase of Islamic invasion occupy the sites of Hindu temples and, quite often, contain temple materials in their structures. Lahore, Multan, Uch, Ajmer, Delhi, Badaun, Kanauj, Kalpi, Biharsharif, Maner, Lakhnauti, Patan, Patna, Burhanpur, Daulatabad, Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Arcot, Vellor and Tiruchirapalli-to count only a few leading sufi center-shave many dargãhs which display evidence of iconoclasm.  Many masjids and dargãhs in interior places testify to the same fact, namely, that the sufis were, above everything else, dedicated soldiers of Allah who tolerates no other deity and no other way of worship except that which he revealed to Prophet Muhammad.

7. Particularly pious sultans: Lastly, we have to examine very closely the monuments built during the reigns of the particularly pious sultans who undertook �to cleanse the land from the vices of infidelity and God-pluralism� that had cropped up earlier, either because Islamic terror had weakened under pressure of circumstances or because the proceeding ruler (s) had �wandered away from the path of rectitude.� Fîruz Shãh Tughlaq, Sikandar Lodî and Aurangzeb of the Delhi-Agra imperial line belonged to this category.  They had several prototypes in the provincial Muslim dynasties at Ahmadabad, Mandu, Jaunpur, Lakhnauti, Gulbarga, Bidar, Ahmadnagar, Bijapur and Golconda. There is little doubt that all masjids and mazãrs erected under the direct or indirect patronage of these sultans, particularly in places where Hindu population predominates, stand on the sites of Hindu temples.

We give below, state-wise and district-wise, the particulars of Muslim monuments which stand on the sites and/or have been built with the materials of Hindu temples, and which we wish to recall as witnesses to the role of Islam as a religion and the character of Muslim rule in medieval India. The list is the result of a preliminary survey. Many more Muslim monuments await examination. Local traditions which have so far been ignored or neglected, have to be tapped on a large scale.

We have tried our best to be exact in respect of locations, names and dates of the monuments mentioned.  Even so, some mistakes and confusions may have remained. It is not unoften that different sources provide different dates and names for the same monument. Many Muslim saints are known by several names, which creates confusion in identifying their mazãrs or dargãhs. Some districts have been renamed or newly, created and a place which was earlier under one district may have been included in another. We shall be grateful to readers who point out these mistakes so that they can be corrected in our major study. This is only a brief summary. 
  
 

I. Adilabad District.

Mahur, Masjid in the Fort on the hill. Temple site.

II. Anantpur District.

1. Gooty, Gateway to the Hill Fort. Temple materials used. 
2. Kadiri, Jãmi� Masjid.  Temple site. 
3. Konakondla, Masjid in the bazar. Temple materials used. 
4. Penukonda

(i) Fort. Temple materials used. 
(ii) Masjid in the Fort. Converted Temple. 
(iii) Sher Khãn�s Masjid (1546).³⁸ Converted Temple. 
(iv) Dargãh of Babayya. Converted Î�vara Temple. 
(v) Jãmi� Masjid (1664-65). Temple site. 
(xi) Dargãh of Shãh Fakbru�d-Dîn (1293-94). Temple site.

5. Tadpatri

(i) Jãmi� Masjid (1695-96). Temple site. 
(ii) Idgãh completed in 1725-26. Temple site.

6. Thummala, Masjid (1674-75). Temple site.

III. Cuddapah District

1. Cuddapah

(i) Bhãp Sãhib-kî-Masjid (1692). Temple site. 
(ii) Idgãh (1717-18). Temple site. 
(iii) Bahãdur Khãn-kî-Masjid (1722-23). Temple site. 
(iv) Dargãh of Shãh Amînu�d-Dîn Gesû Darãz (1736-37). Temple site.

2. Duvvuru, Masjid. Temple site. 
3. Gandikot, Jãmi� Masjid (1690-91). Temple site. 
4. Gangapuru, Masjid. Temple site. 
5. Gundlakunta, Dastgîrî Dargãh. Temple site. 
6. Gurrumkonda, Fort and several other Muslim buildings. Temple materials used. 
7. Jammalmaduguu, Jãmi� Masjid (1794-95). Temple site. 
8. Jangalapalle, Dargãh of Dastgîr Swãmî. Converted Jangam temple. 
9. Siddhavatam

(i) Qutb Shãhî Masjid (restored in 1808). Temple materials use. 
(ii) Jãmi� Masjid (1701). Temple materials used. 
(iii) Dargãh of Bismillãh Khãn Qãdirî. Temple materials used. 
(iv) Fort and Gateways. Temple materials used. 
(v) Chowk-kî-Masjid. Temple site.

10. Vutukuru

(i) Masjid at Naligoto. Temple site. 
(ii) Masjid at Puttumiyyapeta. Temple site.

IV. East Godavari District.

Bikkavolu, Masjid. Temple materials used.

V. Guntur District.

1. Nizampatnam, Dargãh of Shãh Haidrî (1609). Temple site 
2. Vinukonda, Jãmi� Masjid (1640-41). Temple site.

VI. Hyderabad District.

1. Chikalgoda, Masjid (1610). Temple site. 
2. Dargah, Dargãh of Shãh Walî (1601-02). Temple site. 
3. Golconda

(i) Jãmi� Masjid on Bãlã Hissãr. Temple site. 
(ii) Tãrãmatî Masjid. Temple site.

4. Hyderabad

(i) Dargãh of Shãh Mûsã Qãdirî. Temple site. 
(ii) Masjid on the Pirulkonda Hill (1690). Temple site. 
(iii) Tolî Masjid (1671). Temple materials used. 
(iv) Dargãh of Miãn Mishk (d. 1680). Temple site. 
(v) Dargãh of Mu�min Chup in Aliyãbãd (1322-23). Temple site. 
(vi) Hãjî Kamãl-kî-Masjid (1657). Temple site. 
(vii) Begum Masjid (1593). Temple site. 
(viii) Dargãh of Islãm Khãn Naqshbandî. Temple site. 
(ix) Dargãh of Shãh Dã�ûd (1369-70). Temple site. 
(x) Jãmi� Masjid (1597). Temple site.

4. Maisaram, Masjid built by Aurangzeb from materials of 200 temples demolished after the fall of Golconda. 
5. Secunderabad, Qadam RasUl. Temple site. 
6. Sheikhpet

(i) Shaikh-kî-Masjid (1633-34). Temple site. 
(ii) SarãiwAlî Masjid (1678-79). Temple tite.

VII. Karimnagar District.

1. Dharampuri, Masjid (1693). TrikûTa Temple site. 
2. Elangdal

(i) Mansûr Khãn-kî-Masjid (1525). Temple site. 
(ii) Alamgîrî Masjid (1696). Temple site.

3. Kalesyaram, Ãlamgîrî Masjid. Temple site. 
4. Sonipet, Ãlamgîrî Masjid. Temple site. 
5. Vemalvada, Mazãr of a Muslim saint. Temple site.

VIII. Krishna District.

1. Gudimetta, Masjid in the Fort, Temple materials used. 
2. Guduru, Jãmi� Masjid (1497). Temple materials used. 
3. Gundur, Jãmi� Masjid. Converted temple. 
4. Kondapalli

(i) Masjid built in 1482 on the site of a temple after Muhammad Shãh BahmanI had slaughtered the Brahmin priests on the advice of Mahmûd Gawãn, the great Bahmanî Prime Minister, who exhorted the sultan to become a Ghãzî by means of this pious performance. 
(ii) Mazãr of Shãh Abdul Razzãq. Temple site.

5. Kondavidu

(i) Masjid (1337). Temple materials used. 
(ii) Dargãh of Barandaula. Temple materials used. 
(iii) Qadam Sharîf of Ãdam. Converted temple.

6. Machhlipatnam

(i) Jãmi� Masjid. Temple site. 
(ii) Idgãh. Temple site.

7. Nandigram, Jãmi� Masjid. Temple site. 
8. Pedana, Iama�il-kî-Masjid. Temple site. 
9. Rajkonda, Masjid (1484). Temple site. 
10. Tengda, Masjid. Temple site. 
11. Turkpalem, Dargãh of Ghãlib Shahîd. Temple site. 
12. Vadpaili, Masjid near NarsiMhaswãmîn Temple. Temple materials used. 
13. Vijaywada, Jãmi� Masjid. Temple site.

IX. Kurnool District.

1. Adoni

(i) Jãmi� Masjid (1668-69). Materials of several temples used. 
(ii) Masjid on the Hill. Temple materials used. 
(iii) Fort (1676-77). Temple materials used.

2. Cumbum

(i) Jãmi� Masjid (1649). Temple site. 
(ii) Gachinãlã Masjid (1729-30). Temple site.

3. Havli, Jãmi� Masjid. Temple materials used. 
4. Karimuddula, Dargãh. Akkadevi Temple materials used. 
5. Kottakot, Jãmi� Masjid (1501). Temple site. 
6. Kurnool

(i) Pîr Sãhib-kã-Gumbad (1637-38). Temple site. 
(ii) Jãmi� Masjid (1667). Temple site. 
(iii) Lãl Masjid (1738-39). Temple site.

7. Pasupala, Kalãn Masjid. Temple site. 
8. Sanjanmala, Masjid. Temple sites. 
9. Siddheswaram, Ashurkhãna. Temple materials used. 
10. Yadavalli, Mazãr and Masjid. Temple sites. 
11. Zuhrapur, Dargãh of Qãdir Shãh Bukhãrî. Temple site.

X. Mahbubnagar District.

1. Alampur, Qalã-kî-Masjid. Temple materials used. 
2. Jatprole, Dargãh of Sayyid Shãh Darwish. Temple materials used. 
3. Kodangal

(i) Dargãh of Hazrat Nizãmu�d-DIn. Temple site. 
(ii) Jãmi� Masjid. Temple site.

4. Kundurg, Jãmi� Masjid (1470-71). Temple site. 
5. Pargi, Jãmi� Masjid (1460). Temple site. 
6. Somasila, Dargãh of Kamãlu�d-Dîn Baba (1642-43) Temple site.

XI. Medak District.

1. Andol, Old Masjid. Temple site. 
2. Komatur, Old Masjid. Temple site. 
3. Medak

(i) Masjid near Mubãrak Mahal (1641). VishNu Temple site. 
(ii) Fort, Temple materials used.

4. Palat, Masjid. Temple site. 
5. Patancheru

(i) Jãmi� Masjid. Temple materials used. 
(ii) Dargãh of Shykh Ibrãhîm known as Makhdûmji (1583). Temple site. 
(iii) Ashrufkhãna. Temple site. 
(iv) Fort (1698). Temple materials used.

XII. Nalgonda District.

1. Devarkonda

(i) Qutb Shãhî Masjid. Temple materials used. 
(ii) Dargãh of Sharîfu�d-Din (1579). Temple site. 
(iii) Dargãh of Qãdir Shãh Walî (1591). Temple site.

2. Ghazinagar, Masjid (1576-77). Temple site. 
3. Nalgonda

(i) Garhî Masjid. Temple site. 
(ii) Dargãh of Shãh Latîf. Temple site. 
(iii) Qutb Shãhî Masjid (Renovated in 1897). Temple site.

4. Pangal, Ãlamgîrî Masjid. Temple site.

XIII. Nellore District.

1. Kandukuru, Four Masjids. Temple sites. 
2. Nellore, Dargãh named Dargãmittã. Akkasãlî�vara Temple materials used. 
3. Podile, Dargãh. Temple site. 
4. Udayagiri

(i) Jãmi� Masjid (1642-43). Temple materials used. 
(ii) Chhotî Masjid (1650-51). Temple materials used. 
(iii) Fort. Temple materials used.

XIV. Nizambad District.

1. Balkonda

(i) Patthar-kî-Masjid. Temple site. 
(ii) Idgãh. Temple site.

2. Bodhan

(i) Deval Masjid. Converted Jain temple. 
(ii) Patthar-kî-Masjid. Temple site. 
(iii) Ãlamgîrî Masjid (1654-55). Temple site.

3. Dudki, Ashrufkhãna. Temple materials used. 
4. Fathullapur, Mu�askarî Masjid (1605-06). Temple site.

XV. Osmanabad District.

Ausa, Jãmi� Masjid (1680-81). Temple site.

XVI. Rangareddy District.

Maheshwar, Masjid (1687).  Madanna Pandit�s Temple site.

XVII. Srikakulam District

1. Icchapuram, Several Masjids. Temple sites. 
2. Kalingapatnam, DargAh of Sayyid Muhammad Madnî Awliyã (1619-20). Temple materials used. 
3. Srikakulam

(i) Jãmi� Masjid (1641- 42). Temple site. 
(ii) Dargãh of Bande Shãh Walî (1641- 42). Temple site. 
(iii) Atharwãlî Masjid (1671-72). Temple site. 
(iv) Dargãh of Burhãnu�d-Dîn Awliyã. Temple site.

XVIII. Vishakhapatnam District.

1. Jayanagaram, Dargãh. Temple site. 
2. Vishakhapatnam, Dargãh of Shãh Madnî. Temple site.

XIX. Warangal District.

Zafargarh, Jãmi� Masjid. Temple site.

XX. West Godavari District.

1. Eluru

(i) Fort. Temple materials used. 
(ii) Sawãi Masjid. Converted temple. 
(iii) Qãzi�s House. Some�vara Temple materials used.

2. Nidavolu, Masjid. Mahãdeva Temple materials used. 
3. Rajamundri, Jãmi� Masjid (1324). Converted VeNugopãlaswãmin Temple.