Today, India has the second largest Muslim population in the world – more than 202 million people – behind only Indonesia. The first Muslims in the historical territory of India were Arab maritime traders who began settling the south of the country in the late VII century. Arabs and Malayalee (local people) converts to Islam founded the first Muslim community, the Mapilla, on the Malabar Coast, a historical area in what is now the Indian state of Kerala.
The first military campaigns of Muslims date back to the VII century, but the extraordinary heroism of the Hindus, shown in desperate resistance, was a serious obstacle to the conquerors. In 1011 the army of Afghan Emir Mahmud Ghazni managed to capture Punjub, and in 1206 – the year of Sultan Muhammad Guri’s death – the whole of Northern India belonged to Muslims. Thus the military conquests of the IX-XI centuries contributed to the spread of Islam to the north-west.
In 1206, the first major Muslim empire in what is now India, the Delhi Sultanate, was established. This period of history saw the final establishment of the Muslim community in the northern parts of the country. Today, these areas form the main area of settlement of adherents of Islam – the Ganges and Brahmaputra valleys, the so-called Muslim belt.
During the era of the Delhi Sultanate, Indian and Islamic civilizations interpenetrated each other as they continued to converge with the growing international system, thus increasing the growth rate of population and economy. In addition, the Delhi Sultanate repelled invasions by Mongol invaders into India in the XIII-XIV centuries. But in 1526 the empire fell to the forces of Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane.
During the Mughal Empire, from 1526 to 1858, the most disadvantaged segments of the Hindu population converted to Islam, hoping to overcome the system of strict prohibitions and castes that restricted the social development of individuals. For instance, the poor peasant population of the Ganges delta, which is now the state of Bangladesh, converted to Islam en masse.
European invasions of India limited the spread of Islam from the late XVIII century – in 1862, India’s last Muslim ruler, Bahadur Shah II, died in English captivity. But Muslim communities persisted even after the breakup of British India in 1947 into the independent states of Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Muslims, especially their elite, ware adapting to the new conditions in the independent state where they remained in a distinct minority compared to Hindus and lost their influence.
Despite the decline in the Muslim population in the XX century, today Islam is the fastest growing religion in India. The Muslim population is unevenly distributed throughout the state. More than half of India’s Muslims live in the aforementioned Muslim belt: the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam. The largest communities are concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Hindu-majority states. During the partition of India in 1946-1947, there were significant Hindu-Muslim clashes.
The real bone of contention between India and Pakistan is the question of ownership of Kashmir, an area adjoining the Muslim belt in the north. The Kashmir conflict, which began as early as 1947 and continues to this day, is at the centre of the world’s attention. Muslims now make up over 90% of the population in Kashmir, while in Jammu, the Union Territory next door, they form a minority. In the east, in West Bengal and Assam, Muslims make up over a third of the population. The number of co-religionists in the Muslim belt continues to increase due to migrants from Bangladesh.
The Christian-majority states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland (the result of years of hard work by British missionaries) also have Muslim communities. In Punjub, where the majority of the population is Sikh and the first Muslims settled during the Delhi Sultanate, the proportion of adherents of Islam is not more than 2%.
Since medieval times, the Muslim population has lived in large cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Muslims are mostly employed in the secondary sector of economy. Often their services are less in demand due to the confessional bias of the Indian population. This factor creates unemployment among urban Muslims. Poverty, agrarian overpopulation, lack of education and literacy are observed in the states of the Muslim belt.
The areas of settlement of Muslim communities in India are the areas of the most acute inter-communal conflicts. Demographic and social problems not only of the Hindu religious group but also of the Muslim population hamper the development of the state. The reason for the high birth rate in Muslim communities is the lack of information and accessible health facilities. Muslim women do not visit health centres often as they lack female staff. The proportion of women in the Muslim population in India is about a half. Only in the state of Kerala there is a predominance of women over men.
At present, the Muslim community lags behind other confessional groups in India by most indicators. Besides, there is socio-economic stratification within the community itself. This is about the so-called Muslim castes – one of the consequences of the blending of Indian and Islamic civilizations. These are the most prosperous Ashrafs – descendants of people from Arab countries or representatives of the higher Hindu castes who converted to Islam several centuries ago, Ajlafs – similar to the Hindu backward castes, some of whom own land, and Arzals – these are the lower castes that once converted to Islam.
The process of solving the problems of the Muslim minority in India under the prevailing Hindu majority has been very slow, at great cost to Muslims and hence to the society at large. The reasons are both within the Muslim community itself and outside it. Representing a huge mass of population in the country, Indian Muslims are divided into numerous people and language groups in different regions. So far, the Muslim community remains poorly integrated into Indian society and this also depends largely on the community itself, especially its elite.
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