Rise of Islam in Bengal, role of migration

[Joe Shearer]

@Shabaz Sharif

Can we just declare that Bangladesh was populated by Turks from the Chaghatai tribe and be done with it? This is getting silly, and the thread is no longer a discussion on history but an exchange of prejudices. What do you say? They'll be happy, the Indians will be happy, and I am sure that except for the ten or twenty thousand ethnic Turks in Hazara, Pakistanis will be happy.

 

[TopCat]

Now we have the genetic differences between Hindu and Muslim Bengali.

This is what the whole thread was leading up to, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The most reliable cited work was Eaton; he would be jumping out of the window if he realised what you racists were making out of his thesis.



Of course. So clear, so transparent.

During Harsha's reign, during a period when the closest overland that Muslims had got was to Kabul, at best, when there may - or there may not - have been a handful of converts in Chittagong, converted under the influence of Arab traders, when there was impenetrable jungle in most of south Bengal, that was then Samatata or Vanga, when the Buddhist monasteries of Varendra and Bihar were in full operation, when there was an Emperor, Harsha, who favoured Buddhists and honoured monks, when there was still the Pala Empire, and its pro-Buddhist emperors, still to come, there was suddenly a mosque - a kind of building still uncommon in Arabia itself - in Rangpur, never one of the initial points of conversion until the Khalji conquest of 1203.

And a legend is born.



Go tell that to a Pasmanda Muslim.



Under the regressive Sen Dynasty, they were considered heretics, and were not in favour. That regime saw an intense Hindu revival, inspired by the orthodox south Indian Sen rulers.



Dalits, who were not Dalits, for the purposes of our poster, suddenly knowledgeable about Hindu social structures. What, O learned one, was the caste of the peasants and the fishermen that you refer to in such a knowledgeable way?



Our poster now demonstrates the art (or perhaps the science - one never knows, with these new-Age things) of verbal and intellectual yoga - how to tie oneself up into a small knot in the least possible time.

Chill.

Both namasudra and Brahmin are of the same genetic stock. So leave your racism at the madrasa and come to the party.



Don't make up stuff as you go along. This is contemptible.

It was precisely because they were outcaste that they converted from Hindu to Muslim. It was not the custom in those early days to treat Hindu outcastes converted to Islam as Muslim outcastes; that came in later, after Islam had consolidated itself in India, and once the Ashraf started throwing their weight around against the Ajlaf, secure in the knowledge of their superior military strength and the durability of their empire. When they were insecure, as in the early days, they folded the new Muslim into the fold. No questions asked.



Please don't politicise knowledge.

Seems like you did not like my reference of the Hindu society of that time and your whole post is filled with one sided sentimental vomit. As I know of current hindu society, nor the peasant class neither fishermen class consider themselves as Dalit then what made you think that these class belonged to Dalit 700 years ago? Kamar/Kumar/Sutradhar/Napit etc are considered as low caste till this day and almost immune to conversion and only recently Muslim in east bengal started taking these craftsmen job (thats probably in fear of loosing the profession or livelihood). The Peasant class was the biggest conversion group then the fishermen class. But they were not certainly Dalit.

Till the end of Sena dynasty, there were almost half of the population still someway related to Buddhism but as they were considered as Hindus in the royal court so their reference as Buddhist almost absent in the later documents.

We are talking about E. Bengal Muslim and Pasmanda Muslim does not belong here. Ask anybody who even know this term in Bangladesh.

Besides, I did not make stuffs, thats how it is...

 

[TopCat]

Of course. So clear, so transparent.

During Harsha's reign, during a period when the closest overland that Muslims had got was to Kabul, at best, when there may - or there may not - have been a handful of converts in Chittagong, converted under the influence of Arab traders, when there was impenetrable jungle in most of south Bengal, that was then Samatata or Vanga, when the Buddhist monasteries of Varendra and Bihar were in full operation, when there was an Emperor, Harsha, who favoured Buddhists and honoured monks, when there was still the Pala Empire, and its pro-Buddhist emperors, still to come, there was suddenly a mosque - a kind of building still uncommon in Arabia itself - in Rangpur, never one of the initial points of conversion until the Khalji conquest of 1203.

Well, if you did not know, the reason Gupta dynasty flourished is due to the fact Indian traders were given extra privilege in Egyptian port over the Arab traders when it was under Roman empire. Gupta declined as the Roman declined at the similar time. Broaden your periscope then you can see better. There were enough people who were visiting Arab peninsula and surrounding areas which predated Islam and Prophet. So it is quite understandable if somebody could come in contact with Muslim traders or Muslim preacher in those early days and brought Islam in Rangpur. Building a Mosque might not be a big deal for a trader of that capacity and the artifacts found in the mosque and inscription suggest that the date is around 700AD.

 

[The Snow Queen]

Nice thread @kalu_miah! Very informative!

 

[eastwatch]

Why, what happened?

Ran out of arguments?

There is an old saying: Do not debate or quarrel with a woman or with an Indian. A woman is a woman <MOD EDIT>. Whatever amount of argument people put, Indians will keep on coming back with their of non-acceptance of the reality founded on the chronology of history.

Study and learn, you half-educated India, from books like, 1) Taj-ul-Nasiri, 2) Siere Mutakkherin, 3) Riaz-us-Salatin, 4) Bahar-i-stani-Ghaebi, 6) Tuzukh, 7) Baber Nama, 8) Tabakat-i-Akbari, 9) Bangalar Itihash (Rakhaldas), 10) The last Pathan Hero of Bengal (N. K. Bhattasali) etc. etc. etc.

There are tens of other books that were written by the muslim historians in Persian that tell under what process central India lost its muslim population, and at the same time Bengal gained its.

Study well, <MOD EDIT>. You are an otherwise educated, but is always in a denial mood of our identity. Do you think, we need your certification to identify ourselves, and do you think this PDF is the only source of history lesson of immigration of human race?

<MOD EDIT>

 

[Chak Bamu]

There is an old saying: Do not debate or quarrel with a woman or with an Indian. A woman is a woman <MOD EDIT>. Whatever amount of argument people put, Indians will keep on coming back with their of non-acceptance of the reality founded on the chronology of history.

Study and learn, you half-educated India, from books like, 1) Taj-ul-Nasiri, 2) Siere Mutakkherin, 3) Riaz-us-Salatin, 4) Bahar-i-stani-Ghaebi, 6) Tuzukh, 7) Baber Nama, 8) Tabakat-i-Akbari, 9) Bangalar Itihash (Rakhaldas), 10) The last Pathan Hero of Bengal (N. K. Bhattasali) etc. etc. etc.

There are tens of other books that were written by the muslim historians in Persian that tell under what process central India lost its muslim population, and at the same time Bengal gained its.

Study well, <MOD EDIT>. You are an otherwise educated, but is always in a denial mood of our identity. Do you think, we need your certification to identify ourselves, and do you think this PDF is the only source of history lesson of immigration of human race?

<MOD EDIT>

I have not deleted this post despite bad language (that has been edited), just because you have listed some sources. @Joe Shearer is a highly respected member of this forum. If you can not discuss things with him in a civil manner then you do not belong here. You have been warned.

 

[Chak Bamu]

Thanks @kalu_miah for providing reference to Eaton's book. I read about half of it a month or so ago.

I do detect a wish to connect to Ashraf class. There are plenty of Muslims who wish to do that because indeed in the past Ashraf were considered the upper stratum of Muslim society.

I see that @Shabaz Sharif has questioned the relevance of this trend as far as Punjab is concerned. Rest assured we Punjabis are just as South Asian as the rest. Among Punjabis too there is a wish to consider ourselves connected to our immediate West rather than our East. I would present that case of Arain biradari who claim descent from Iraq. I am an Arain, but the banaspati variety. My ancestor who converted to Islam was a Gehlan Jat, but was perhaps so put off by his family that he decided to marry among Arains and preferred to associate himself with Arains instead of Jats.

In older Urdu literature one often comes across various references that state explicitly the author's connection with a race originating outside of India, or implies this indirectly. The first instance is exemplified by Mirza Ghalib and Mirza Azeem Beg Chughtai.

I find this attitude to be quite nonsense. Humanity is one big family. No matter from whence we originate, we are humans and creatures of our Lord. As such we are all equal. The only difference is by virtue of our circumstances, our nurture. The variations of skin color, features, etc... are our diversity - to be celebrated, not to be brushed out of sight if deemed inconvenient.

The attitude of Ashraf in India brings to mind the Umayyad attitude of discouraging conversion to Islam for fear of losing revenue. Something Caliph Umar bin AbdulAziz objected to and changed policy in his short reign.

The feeling of superiority once adopted wreaks havoc with the individual himself, society, and humanity at large. This process never stops. For example the Arabs divided themselves into Madri and Hamri and fought each other based on this. Among Hamris there was further tribal division with Quraish being on top. Among Quraish there were various clans and the Umayyad vs. Hashmite rivalry. Among Punjabis there are Rajputs (probably the largest group), Jats, Gujjars, Arains, and various sundry divisions. So the chain goes on and on until it reaches individual family and then onto the discriminator himself.

Why is race and discrimination so damn important?

 

[eastwatch]

@Shabaz Sharif

Can we just declare that Bangladesh was populated by Turks from the Chaghatai tribe and be done with it? This is getting silly, and the thread is no longer a discussion on history but an exchange of prejudices. What do you say? They'll be happy, the Indians will be happy, and I am sure that except for the ten or twenty thousand ethnic Turks in Hazara, Pakistanis will be happy.

Why to recognize a group of brave warrior Muslims who grabbed Hindu Brahmins by their Tikki and heinously split their throats by swords in 1200 and afterwards? So, now tell me where have gone those muslim Khaliji Turks? Have they ever returned to their homeland in the west, and is it by your order through PDF?

What right do you have to deny the existence of their descendents among us, the Muslims of Bengal? Please stop abusing Muslims of Bengal and do not distort Muslim history of Bengal. Please, please, please, because it will not change what really happened in the historical times.

Refer to another book 1) Haqiqat-i-Musalman-i-Bangal written by Khondker Fazle Rabbi who was the last Estate Manager of Murshidabad Nawabi Estate. English was translated by himself, "Musalmans of Bengal". Bengali translation has been named "Banglar Musalman". This book will really educate you about who and who together are the Muslims of Bengal.

Read another book, "Travelogue of Ibn Batuta". Read carefully about his travel account to Chittagong. Learn his description of hundreds of Omani and Yemeni Arabs migrating to the east coast of Bengal with their families through sea voyage.

If you do not have substantive knowledge about these and many other accounts of Muslim migration to a land of plenty where Muslims were dominant in politics, you should read them. But, please do not come up with your racist and one-sided view any more.

You are virtually bullying the Bangali Muslims with your lies and distortions all the time. If you are not to seek the truth, better keep quite. Let us discuss our own issues.

 

[kalu_miah]

Thanks @kalu_miah for providing reference to Eaton's book. I read about half of it a month or so ago.

I do detect a wish to connect to Ashraf class. There are plenty of Muslims who wish to do that because indeed in the past Ashraf were considered the upper stratum of Muslim society.

I see that @Shabaz Sharif has questioned the relevance of this trend as far as Punjab is concerned. Rest assured we Punjabis are just as South Asian as the rest. Among Punjabis too there is a wish to consider ourselves connected to our immediate West rather than our East. I would present that case of Arain biradari who claim descent from Iraq. I am an Arain, but the banaspati variety. My ancestor who converted to Islam was a Gehlan Jat, but was perhaps so put off by his family that he decided to marry among Arains and preferred to associate himself with Arains instead of Jats.

In older Urdu literature one often comes across various references that state explicitly the author's connection with a race originating outside of India, or implies this indirectly. The first instance is exemplified by Mirza Ghalib and Mirza Azeem Beg Chughtai.

I find this attitude to be quite nonsense. Humanity is one big family. No matter from whence we originate, we are humans and creatures of our Lord. As such we are all equal. The only difference is by virtue of our circumstances, our nurture. The variations of skin color, features, etc... are our diversity - to be celebrated, not to be brushed out of sight if deemed inconvenient.

The attitude of Ashraf in India brings to mind the Umayyad attitude of discouraging conversion to Islam for fear of losing revenue. Something Caliph Umar bin AbdulAziz objected to and changed policy in his short reign.

The feeling of superiority once adopted wreaks havoc with the individual himself, society, and humanity at large. This process never stops. For example the Arabs divided themselves into Madri and Hamri and fought each other based on this. Among Hamris there was further tribal division with Quraish being on top. Among Quraish there were various clans and the Umayyad vs. Hashmite rivalry. Among Punjabis there are Rajputs (probably the largest group), Jats, Gujjars, Arains, and various sundry divisions. So the chain goes on and on until it reaches individual family and then onto the discriminator himself.

Why is race and discrimination so damn important?

You are welcome.

Eaton's book is about Agrarian expansion theory to explain the fact that a majority Muslim population somehow popped up in Bengal, far away from older Muslim population centers towards the Western part of South Asia.

While conversion of local dalit/adivashi/fishermen as a result of agrarian expansion was the main factor behind the rise of majority Muslim population in Bengal, this however does not mean that significant migration did not take place. There are plenty of places Eaton mentions these migrant Muslims that settled down in Bengal, starting from soldiers and rulers in early towns from 1200 AD, down to sufi pirs and holymen in rural areas that helped lead the agrarian expansion efforts of clear cutting forests to create arable land, during Mughal rule around 1600-1700. Every time there was invasion by Delhi Sultanate or Mughal Army, migration took place. Even in 18th century Maratha invasions caused internal migration of South Asian Muslims from other areas to the Bengal sanctuary, @eastwatch wrote about this phenomenon really well.

As for Ashraf, racism etc., I think we are trying to understand and reconstruct a more accurate picture of history, but some other people, who are not Bengal Muslims, happen to have some ideas of their own, that they would like to promote, about our history. That is where the problem lies. Bengal Muslims had much more local ancestors than foreign ones, there is no question about that, but we should be able to impartially recognize and celebrate all of our ancestors equally. We, Bengal Muslims, should not have to dump some of our ancestors, just because it makes some other people uncomfortable for whatever reason.

A people who do not know their own history and as a result has some gap in their knowledge, can easily be fed with some concocted pseudo history and thus make them subject to manipulation, brain-washing etc. Much of this went on after fall of Muslim rule in Bengal in 1757. So back in 1800, while all of South Asia's educated people (Muslims and Hindus) were fluent in speaking, reading and writing in Persian, the same people became fanatic about Urdu and Bangla in 1952, while both of these languages were products that were shaped in Fort William college in early 1800's so they could be made ready to ease the burden on English, when Persian was replaced with English as the official court language around 1830. If Muslim Bengali's were fully aware of what they have in common with Muslims of other parts of South Asia, would it be that easy to brainwash the public and engineer a civil war like the one that took place in 1971? These are the things I wonder about.

 

[extra terrestrial]

Me using clueless sources!! Are you kidding me? I am just referring to the brilliant work piece provided to us by @kalu_miah only. Are you suggesting that the original poster can form a preposterous opinion by siting Eaton's book and the same book suddenly becomes "clueless source" when the claims get refuted by the very same book!! What kind of sorcery is this?

Sources like Imperial Gazetteer of India are indeed clueless from which you quoted earlier to determine the ancestry of Bengali Muslims.

Let me tell you that you have insufficient understanding of migration theory.Migration theory as you have grasped it,is not diffusion of faith. It is diffusion of people. Eaton says,"In this view, the bulk of India’s Muslims are descended from other Muslims who had either migrated overland from the Iranian plateau or sailed across the Arabian Sea. Although some such process no doubt contributed to the Islamization of those areas of South Asia that are geographically contiguous with the Iranian plateau or the Arabian Sea, this argument cannot, for reasons to be discussed below, be used to explain mass Islamization in Bengal."
Are we clear here?

Another misinterpretation of my post, I referred to both the diffusion of faith and peoples. By saying, "Muslim saints and Pirs married the local women in spreading Islam" I am referring to their mixing with the local population.

What you are saying is called social liberation theory. Now let's see what Kalu Miah's clueless source tells us about it.
"Finally, as with the Sword and Patronage theories, the Religion of Social Liberation theory is refuted by the facts of geography. In 1872, when the earliest reliable census was taken, the highest concentrations of Muslims were found in eastern Bengal, western Punjab, the Northwest Frontier region, and Baluchistan. What is striking about those areas is not only that they lay far from the center of Muslim political power but that their indigenous populations had not yet, at the time of their contact with Islam, been fully integrated into either the Hindu or the Buddhist social system. In Bengal, Muslim converts were drawn mainly from Rajbansi, Pod, Chandal, Kuch, and other indigenous groups that had been only lightly exposed to Brahmanic culture, and in Punjab the same was true of the various Jat clans that eventually formed the bulk of the Muslim community."

I don't see how this quote from the book contradicts my post. Also, only the ones entirely incompetent about the history of Bengal would disagree to the fact that the local population got attracted to Islam because of its call for equality and non-discrimination. In Bengal, the contact with Islam was made during the 7th century, surely there was no such caste system prevalent in the society. The caste system in Bengal was introduced by the Karnataka based Senas during the 11th century where the priests and ruling class from Karnataka were granted the upper castes while the local Hindus were granted lower castes. The Muslim rule started only in 13th century and that's also the time when mass conversions took place.

These foreign stocks formed the section called religious gentry and the land lords. They have been amalgamated with the local populace in due course of time.Is there any denial to this fact? But the way this amalgamation is being attempted to be used as a crucial factor determining the genetic pattern of Modern Bangladesh is simply intellectual dishonesty from your part.

Let me quote your own post where you denied that,

There are no solid proof both theoretical or practical, in any such references that the local chieftains, urban artisan class or the peasantry intermingled with the elite Ashrāf class

Now you are contradicting your own opinion.

Next time, if you people bring academic work pieces like Richard Eaton's book into discussion,please DO NOT attach your own interpretation to it. Tolerating the unbridgeable gap between the source and the final conclusion is beyond any academic's mental capacity. Before this thread takes an ugly turn,I think it is better to leave this thread and have a good sleep.

Let's sum it up, in my very first post in this thread, I had already said that Bengali is an ethnicity with a diverse racial background that is applicable to both the Hindus ( of all castes and classes ) and the Muslims. For the Muslims, the background includes the local converts ( forming the majority of the Muslims ) from Buddhists and Hindus of both lower and upper castes as well as the Central/West Asian and Mongoloid migrants. In my second post, I started with "Migration of the Central and West Asians didn't have that "extra ordinary" effect but did had some influence on the demography.", I only said some influence on the demography, now where did you find that it is being "used as a crucial factor determining the genetic pattern of Modern Bangladesh". Besides, I came into my observations from various books that I had read in past, not only the one from Eaton's book. You are either deliberately or inadvertently misinterpreting my posts for the sake of argument, if you want to refute what Kalu Miah has presented here, you should directly quote him, quoting my posts in an attempt to refute someone else will only show your reasoning inability.

 

[TopCat]

Thanks @kalu_miah for providing reference to Eaton's book. I read about half of it a month or so ago.

I do detect a wish to connect to Ashraf class. There are plenty of Muslims who wish to do that because indeed in the past Ashraf were considered the upper stratum of Muslim society.

I see that @Shabaz Sharif has questioned the relevance of this trend as far as Punjab is concerned. Rest assured we Punjabis are just as South Asian as the rest. Among Punjabis too there is a wish to consider ourselves connected to our immediate West rather than our East. I would present that case of Arain biradari who claim descent from Iraq. I am an Arain, but the banaspati variety. My ancestor who converted to Islam was a Gehlan Jat, but was perhaps so put off by his family that he decided to marry among Arains and preferred to associate himself with Arains instead of Jats.

In older Urdu literature one often comes across various references that state explicitly the author's connection with a race originating outside of India, or implies this indirectly. The first instance is exemplified by Mirza Ghalib and Mirza Azeem Beg Chughtai.

I find this attitude to be quite nonsense. Humanity is one big family. No matter from whence we originate, we are humans and creatures of our Lord. As such we are all equal. The only difference is by virtue of our circumstances, our nurture. The variations of skin color, features, etc... are our diversity - to be celebrated, not to be brushed out of sight if deemed inconvenient.

The attitude of Ashraf in India brings to mind the Umayyad attitude of discouraging conversion to Islam for fear of losing revenue. Something Caliph Umar bin AbdulAziz objected to and changed policy in his short reign.

The feeling of superiority once adopted wreaks havoc with the individual himself, society, and humanity at large. This process never stops. For example the Arabs divided themselves into Madri and Hamri and fought each other based on this. Among Hamris there was further tribal division with Quraish being on top. Among Quraish there were various clans and the Umayyad vs. Hashmite rivalry. Among Punjabis there are Rajputs (probably the largest group), Jats, Gujjars, Arains, and various sundry divisions. So the chain goes on and on until it reaches individual family and then onto the discriminator himself.

Why is race and discrimination so damn important?

Ashraf/Alataf terminology is absent in Bangladesh. I dont think anybody wants to promote themselves as outsider in BD society but its the other way around and everybody wants to find the ancestry to this land. There is a huge row going on with the term Adhivasi (i hope you know what it means). But history should be acknowledged and should be taught.

 

[eastwatch]

Sources like Imperial Gazetteer of India are indeed clueless from which you quoted earlier to determine the ancestry of Bengali Muslims.




Another misinterpretation of my post, I referred to both the diffusion of faith and peoples. By saying, "Muslim saints and Pirs married the local women in spreading Islam" I am referring to their mixing with the local population.




I don't see how this quote from the book contradicts my post. Also, only the ones entirely incompetent about the history of Bengal would disagree to the fact that the local population got attracted to Islam because of its call for equality and non-discrimination. In Bengal, the contact with Islam was made during the 7th century, surely there was no such caste system prevalent in the society. The caste system in Bengal was introduced by the Karnataka based Senas during the 11th century where the priests and ruling class from Karnataka were granted the upper castes while the local Hindus were granted lower castes. The Muslim rule started only in 13th century and that's also the time when mass conversions took place.

How do you deduce the Muslim conversion was completed even before the Muslim rule started in Bengal in 1200s? Please do not write your own imagination something as history. In fact, most of the conversion of Hindus to Islam was done only after the Mughals started to dominate the politics here after 1605.

Many Peers and Faqirs of north India migrated to Bengal under whose patronage many conversions took place.The Peers themselves remained and domiciled in Bengal which also expanded the Muslim population.

But, Muslims were still not in majority even during the middle part of British rule. You have to go through the accounts of Census Reports of Bengal Presidency taken in 1870 and then in 1890.The Reports include all the districts of Bengal and Bihar.

Muslims were still a minority in those two census. Throughout the historical times as well as today Muslims grew and are growing more by higher birth rates than the Hindus rather than higher conversion rates.

In 1947, the Muslim population was about 25 million (in BD only) against today's 135 million. So, what is your conclusion? Is it due to heavy conversion or due to a high birth rate?

It is certainly the birth rate that influenced growth rate of Muslim population in Bengal even during the historical times.

 

[TopCat]

You are welcome.

Eaton's book is about Agrarian expansion theory to explain the fact that a majority Muslim population somehow popped up in Bengal, far away from older Muslim population centers towards the Western part of South Asia.

While conversion of local dalit/adivashi/fishermen as a result of agrarian expansion was the main factor behind the rise of majority Muslim population in Bengal, this however does not mean that significant migration did not take place. There are plenty of places Eaton mentions these migrant Muslims that settled down in Bengal, starting from soldiers and rulers in early towns from 1200 AD, down to sufi pirs and holymen in rural areas that helped lead the agrarian expansion efforts of clear cutting forests to create arable land, during Mughal rule around 1600-1700. Every time there was invasion by Delhi Sultanate or Mughal Army, migration took place. Even in 18th century Maratha invasions caused internal migration of South Asian Muslims from other areas to the Bengal sanctuary, @eastwatch wrote about this phenomenon really well.

As for Ashraf, racism etc., I think we are trying to understand and reconstruct a more accurate picture of history, but some other people, who are not Bengal Muslims, happen to have some ideas of their own, that they would like to promote, about our history. That is where the problem lies. Bengal Muslims had much more local ancestors than foreign ones, there is no question about that, but we should be able to impartially recognize and celebrate all of our ancestors equally. We, Bengal Muslims, should not have to dump some of our ancestors, just because it makes some other people uncomfortable for whatever reason.

A people who do not know their own history and as a result has some gap in their knowledge, can easily be fed with some concocted pseudo history and thus make them subject to manipulation, brain-washing etc. Much of this went on after fall of Muslim rule in Bengal in 1757. So back in 1800, while all of South Asia's educated people (Muslims and Hindus) were fluent in speaking, reading and writing in Persian, the same people became fanatic about Urdu and Bangla in 1952, while both of these languages were products that were shaped in Fort William college in early 1800's so they could be made ready to ease the burden on English, when Persian was replaced with English as the official court language around 1830. If Muslim Bengali's were fully aware of what they have in common with Muslims of other parts of South Asia, would it be that easy to brainwash the public and engineer a civil war like the one that took place in 1971? These are the things I wonder about.

I dont understand why people refer Peasant (farmer class) as Dalit when conversion of Dalit (Methor/Muchi etc) are almost absent in East Bengal. Also by the time Islam reached Bengal the Adhivasi (Austro Asiatic people) almost indistinguishable from south indian and aryan people. Adhivasi already lost their language, culture religion etc to the Aryans.

How do you deduce the Muslim conversion was completed even before the Muslim rule started in Bengal? In fact, mass conversion of Hindus to Islam was done only after the Mughal started to dominate the politics hee. Many Peers and Faqirs migrated to Bengal under whose patronage there were many conversions.

But, Muslims were not in majority even during the latter part of British rule. You have to go through the accounts of Census Reports of Bengal Presidency taken in 1870 and then in 1890.

Muslims grew more by higher birth rate rather than higher conversion rate.

That was the only and first documented evidence of the composition of the demography in Bengal. British found it hard to believe that the eastern flank of the east Bengal was muslim majority. Before that it was widely believed that Hindus are majority all over Bengal. So you cant make conclusion when the conversion took place from that census.

 

[extra terrestrial]

How do you deduce the Muslim conversion was completed even before the Muslim rule started in Bengal? In fact, mass conversion of Hindus to Islam was done only after the Mughal started to dominate the politics hee. Many Peers and Faqirs migrated to Bengal under whose patronage there were many conversions.

I actually meant mass conversions began to take place during the 13th century through the beginning of Muslim rule in Bengal. The growth was probably higher during the Mughal rule as you said.

Muslims grew more by higher birth rate rather than higher conversion rate.

I agree.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Seems like you did not like my reference of the Hindu society of that time and your whole post is filled with one sided sentimental vomit. As I know of current hindu society, nor the peasant class neither fishermen class consider themselves as Dalit then what made you think that these class belonged to Dalit 700 years ago? Kamar/Kumar/Sutradhar/Napit etc are considered as low caste till this day and almost immune to conversion and only recently Muslim in east bengal started taking these craftsmen job (thats probably in fear of loosing the profession or livelihood). The Peasant class was the biggest conversion group then the fishermen class. But they were not certainly Dalit.

Till the end of Sena dynasty, there were almost half of the population still someway related to Buddhism but as they were considered as Hindus in the royal court so their reference as Buddhist almost absent in the later documents.

We are talking about E. Bengal Muslim and Pasmanda Muslim does not belong here. Ask anybody who even know this term in Bangladesh.

Besides, I did not make stuffs, thats how it is...

What am I to say to people who don't even know that there are multiple peasant castes, and multiple fisherfolk castes, ranging right through the spectrum of upper-class Hindu obloquy?

@iajdani

You obviously know nothing of either current Hindu society, nor about the caste structure among peasants, meaning those who work in agriculture, or among fishermen, those who catch fish or have to do with the waterways for a living.

Your premises are wrong, your conclusions are obviously wrong.

Instead of making statements in the air, based on your non-existent knowledge of sociology, leave alone Hindu social structures, why don't you find out first? Is that too much to ask? Do you really want me to place all the data in front of you?

Also, I have never heard or read anything as obtuse as stating that Buddhists were considered Hindu in the royal court, when the Hindu position from the time of Sankaracharya clearly was that Buddhists were heretics. Never, except from hindutvavadi fanatics, who insist that all things Indic are almost one and the same.

Congratulations on having found common grounds with these fanatics. Birds of a feather flock together.

If you do not know a term, that does not invalidate it. The Pasmanda movement is an Indian movement, but it carries forward the same interests, the same desire to be free from upper caste oppression, an oppression without justification on any rational grounds, so what is the point of saying that this is not known to Bangladeshi Muslims? It is a matter that affects all Muslims in south Asia.