a) THE PATTERN

The thoughts and deeds of prophet Mohammed and his caliphs became the honorable examples to be followed by all Moslems in later years. In his famous book 'Story of Civilisation' Will Durant has written that "the Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history". The magnitude of crimes credited to Moslem monarchs by the medieval Moslem historians is beyond measure. What strikes as significant is the broad pattern of those crimes. The pattern is that of a 'jihad' (holy war) against the infidels in which the 'ghazis' (religious warriors and conquerors) of Islam undertake 'ghazzuas' or raids in order to

 1 invade the lands of the infidels;
 2 massacre as many infidel men, women and children as they like after winning a victory;
 3 capture the survivors to be sold as slaves and some retained in their harems as slave-girls;
 4 plunder every place and person for war booty, a fifth of which (including the slaves) went to the caliph or some other religious head;
 5 demolish the places of worship of the infidels and build mosques in their places; and
 6 defile and desecrate the deities and other symbols of the infidels' religions by throwing them into public squares or making into steps leading to the prayer area of the believers.

What is still more significant is that this is exactly the pattern

 1 revealed by Allah in the Koran;
 2 practiced, perfected and prescribed by the prophet in his own life-time and meticulously followed by the caliphs that followed;
 3 elaborated in the Hadis (the other religious book of Islam) with great attention to detail;
 4 certified by the mullahs in all ages including our own; and
 5 followed by all Moslem kings and leaders who aspired after name and fame in this life and houris hereafter.

 b) ALEXANDRIA, VISALDEVA, NALANDA, DACCA

When the conquering Moslem invaders arrived in Alexandria and stood in front of the famous library there, the Moslem general did not know if he should destroy such a renowned store-house of knowledge. He sent his horseman to caliph Umar for his instructions. The caliph replied: "If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of Allah, they are useless and need not be preserved: if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed". There was thus only one fate for the infidels' seat of learning. The library of the Ptolemies was thus burnt down and the episode settled for all time, in the minds of the Moslems, the method of dealing with libraries, universities, schools and colleges, which had nothing to do with warfare, but belonged to the infidels.

Thus the capital of Gujarat was attacked by Qutbuddin Aibak in the year 1196 A.D. and the famous Sanskrit College of Visaldeva was destroyed and a mosque known as 'adhai din ka jhompada' was built on the same foundations. The famous Buddhist University of halanda had the same fate, in the year 1200 A.D. when Muhammad Bakhtyar Khalji attacked the township and massacred the harmless Buddhist monks and violated the nuns. When, in recent years, the Pakistani Moslem army attacked the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), the first attack was launched on Dacca University. Even the women students were not spared. They were raped and then murdered.

c) NO CODE OF HONOR IN ISLAM

India before the advent of Islamic imperialism was not exactly a zone of peace. There were plenty of wars fought by Hindu kings. But in all their wars certain time-honored conventions were observed by the warring factions. The priests and monks were never molested. The houses of worship were never touched. The chastity of women was never violated. The noncombatants were never killed or captured. A human habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort. The civil population was never plundered. War booty was an unknown item in the calculations of a conqueror. The martial classes who clashed, mostly in open spaces, had a code of honor. Sacrifice of honor for victory or material gain was deemed as worse than death.

Islamic imperialism knew no code of honor. The only rule of war they observed without fail was to fall upon the helpless civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. They sacked and burnt down villages and towns after the defenders had died fighting or had fled. The priests, monks and nuns invited their special attention in a massmurder of non-combatants. The houses of worship were their special targets in an orgy of pillage and destruction. Those whom they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves. WOMEN WERE THEIR PRIZE; THEY SEIZED THEM TO VIOLATE THEM AND CARRY THEM AWAY WITH THEM AS BONDED SLAVES INTO THEIR HAREMS. As late as in 1971, the Moslem army of Pakistan killed thousands of young women, mostly Hindus or infidels in their language. The most attractive among them were held to become sex-slaves in the military cantonments. When a few of the girls attempted to hang themselves with their saris or clothing, their garments were taken away from them and held in captivity stark naked. And these were the followers of the 'ghazis' in the service of Allah and Islam.

The Hindus found it very hard to understand the psychology of this new invader. For the first time in their history, the Hindus were witnessing, as their counterparts, the Christians did at the outset of Islamic invasion of Europe, a scene that went beyond their imagination. One historian wrote: "The conquering army burnt villages, devastated the land, plundered people's wealth, took priests and children and women of all classes captive, flogged with thongs of raw hide, carried a moving prison with it, and converted the prisoners into obsequious Turks."

d) MAHMUD OF GHAZNI

Utbi, the historian at the time of Mahmud of Ghazni wrote about one such raid by the Moslem invader: "The Sultan returned in the rear of an immense booty, and slaves were so plentiful that they became very cheap and men of respectability in their native land were degraded by becoming slaves of common shopkeepers in Moslem lands. BUT THIS IS THE GOODNESS OF ALLAH, WHO BESTOWS HONOR ON HIS OWN RELIGION AND DEGRADES INFIDELITY."

e) MOHAMMED GHORI

Mohammed Ghori attacked the Hindus several times and after each attack a general massacre followed. Rapes and pillage came afterward. The Gahadvad treasuries at Asni and Varanasi were plundered. Moslem historian Hasan Nizami rejoices that "in Benares which is the center of the country of Hind (India), they destroyed one thousand temples and raised mosques on their foundations." According to KamilutTawarikh of Ibn Asr, "the slaughter of Hindus at Varanasi was immense; none were spared except women and children, and the carnage of men went on until the earth was weary."

f) FIRUZ TUGHLAK

Firuz Tughlak attacked Orissa in 1360 A.D. and destroyed the temple of Jagannath. After the sack of the temple, he attacked an island on the sea-coast where "nearly 100,000 men of Jajnagar had taken refuge with their women, children and kinsmen". The swordsmen of Islam turned 'the island into a basin of blood by the massacre of the unbelievers'. A worse fate overtook the Hindu women. Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi records" "WOMEN WITH BABIES AND PREGNANT LADIES WERE HALTERED, MANACLED, FETTERED AND CHAINED, AND PRESSED AS SLAVES INTO SERVICE IN THE HOUSE OF EVERY SOLDIER".'

g) TIMUR

Then came Timur the Terrible. Timur, in his Tuzk-i-Taimuri starts by saying "O Prophet, make war upon the infidels and unbelievers, and treat them severely. My great object in invading Hindusthan had been to wage a religious war against the infidel Hindus. . .the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of the Hindus."

To start with he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of Kashmir. He ordered the soldiers "to kill all the men, to make prisonerS of women and children, and to plunder and lay waste all their property." NEXT HE "DIRECTED TOWERS TO BE gUILT ON THE MOUNTAIN OF THE SKULLS OF THOSE OBSTINATE UNBELIEVERS."

Soon after he laid siege to Bhatnir defended by the Rajputs. They surrendered after some fight and were pardoned. But Islam did not bind Timur to keep his word given to the "unbelievers", His Tuzk-i-Taimuri records: "In a short space of time all the people in the fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut Off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoils of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground."

At Sarsuti, the next city to be sacked, "all these infidel Hindus were slain, their wives and children were made prisoners and their property and goods became the spoils of the victors." Timur was now moving through the land of the Jats, a martial people. He directed his soldiers to "plunder and destroy and kill everyone whom they met". "And so the soldiers plundered every village, killed the men, and carried a number of Hindu prisoners, both male and female."

Loni, which he captured before he arrived at Delhi was predominantly a Hindu town. But some Moslem inhabitants were also taken prisoner. TIMUR ORDERED THAT "THE MUSULMAN PRISONERS SHOULD BE SEPARATED AND SAVED, BUT THE INFIDELS SHOULD ALL BE DESPATCHED TO HELL WITH THE PROSELYTISING SWORD".

By now Timur had captured 100,000 Hindus. As he prepared for battle against the Tughlak army after crossing the Jumna river, his advisers told him that on the great day of battle theSe lOo,ooo Hindu prisoners could not be left unattended and that it would be opposed to the rules of war to set these idolators and enemies of Islam at liberty. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNARMED HINDU PRISONERS WERE SLAUGHTERED FORTHWITH [1].

Then came the sack of Delhi. Tuzk-i-Taimuri concludes: "Many of the Hindus drew their swords and resisted. . . The flames of strife were thus lighted and spread through the whole city from Jahanpanah and Siri to Old Delhi, burning up all it reached. The Hindus set fire to their houses with their own hands, burned their women and children in them and rushed to fight and were killed. On that day, Thursday, and all night of Friday, nearly 15,000 Turks were engaged in slaying, plundering and destroying. When morning broke on Friday, all my army...went off to the city and thought of nothing but killing, plunderin~s and making prisoners...The following day, Saturday the 17th, all passed the same way, and the spoil was so great that each man secured from fifty to a hundred prisoners, men, women and children. There was no man who took less than twenty. The other booty was immense in rubies, diamonds, garnets, pearls and other gems and jewels. Gold and silver ornaments of Hindu women were obtained in such quantities as to exceed all account. EXCEPTING THE QUARTER OF THE MULLAHS AND SOME AREAS WHERE OTHER MOSLEMS LIVED, THE ENTIRE CITY OF DELHI WAS SACKED."

h) MUZAFFAR SHAH

IN 1391 A.D. THE MOSLEMS OF GUJARAT COMPLAINED TO NASIRUDDIN MUHAMMAD, THE TUGHLAK SULTAN OF DELHI, THAT THE LOCAL GOVERNOR, FARHAT-UL-MULK, WAS PRACTISING TOLERANCE TOWARD THE HINDIdS OF GUJARAT. The sultan immediately appointed Muzaffar Khan as the new governor sending Farhat-ul-Mulk away. Soon the sultan of Delhi died and Muzaffar Khan declared himself an independent king and took the name of Muzaffar Shah. In 1393 A.D. he led an expedition to destroy the famous temple of Somnath which had been rebuilt by the Hindus after the pillage by Mahmud of Ghazni. Muzaffar Shah killed many Hindus on that occasion to "chastise' them for having had the 'impudence' of rebuilding a temple that had been destroyed and desecrated by a servant of Allah. He raised a mosque on top of the foundation of the destroyed temple. The Hindus however restarted restoring the temple. In 1401 A.D. the iconoclast Sultan came back with a huge army and once again killed a great number of Hindus and rebuilt another mosque at the same place.

i) MAHMUD BEGARHA

Mahmud Begarha who became the sultan of Gujarat in 1458 A.D. was the worst fanatic of this dynasty. One of his vassals was the chieftain of Junagadh who had never withheld the regular tribute to the sultan. Yet in 1469 A.D. Mahmud invaded Junagadh. IN REPLY TO THE CHIEFTAIN'S PROTESTS, MAHMUD SAID THAT HE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN MONEY AS MUCH AS IN THE SPREAD OF ISLAM. THE CHIEFTAIN WHO WAS A HINDU WAS FORCIBLY CONVERTED TO ISLAM AND JUNAGADH WAS RENAMED MUSTAFABAD. In 1472 A.D. Mahmud attacked Dwaraka, destroyed the Krishna temple and plundered the city. Jaysingh, the ruler of Champaner and his minister were murdered by Mahmud for refusing to accept Islam after they had been defeated and their country pillaged and plundered. Champaner was renamed Mahmudabad.

j) MAHMUD KHALJI

Mahmud Khalji of Malwa (1436-69 A.D.) also destroyed Hindu temples and revelled in building mosques at the same place. He heaped many insults on the Hindus.

k) ILYAS SHAH

llyas Shah of Bengal (1339-79 A.D.) invaded Nepal and destroyed the temple of Swayambhunath at Kathmandu. He also ~nvaded Orissa and demolished many temples and plundered at many places. THE BAHMANI SULTANS OF GULBARGA AND BIDAR CONSIDERED IT THEIR SACRED DUTY TO KILL A HUNDRED THOUSAND MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN EVERy YEAR. They demolished and desecrated Hindu temples all over South India.

l) BABUR

The scene shifted once more to Delhi after Babur came out victorious against the Lodhis and the Rajputs. The founder of the great Mughal empire has received much acclaim for his fortitude in adversity, his daring against heavy odds, his swimming prowess, his love of flowers and pomegranates, and so on and so forth. But his face, presented by himself in his Tuzk-i-Baburi, suffers an irreparable damage if denuded of the rich hues of horrible cruelties in which he habitually indulged.

The lurid details he provides of his repeated massacres of the 'infidels' leave no doubt that he was very proud of his performance. He was particularly fond of raising higher and higher towers of Hindu heads cut off during and after every battle he fought with them. He loved to sit in his royal tent to watch this 'spectacle'. The prisoners were brought before him and butchered by his brave' swordsmen. ON ONE OCCASION THE GROUND FLOWED WITH SO MUCH BLOOD AND BECAME SO FULL OF QUIVERING CARCASSES THAT HIS TENT HAD TO BE REMOVED THRICE TO A HIGHER LEVEL. He lost no opportunity of capturing prisoners of war and amassing the booty. He only missed the merit of demolishing temples and breaking images because his predecessors Firuz Tughlak and others had hardly left any for him in the areas he traversed. In the dynasty founded by him, it was incumbent that every king should style himself a'ghazi', that is a warrior for Islam who took part in 'ghazzua' or raids on infidels or kaf irs.

m) SHER SHAH SURI

Sher Shah Suri's name is associated with the Grand Trunk Road of North India, extending from Peshawar to Dacca, with caravanserais and several other schemes of public welfare. It is true that he was not a habitual persecutor of the Hindus. But he did not betray Islam when the test came at Raisen in 1543 A.D. Shaikh Nurul Haq records in Zubadatul-Tawarikh as follows: "In the year 950 Hijri, Puranmal, a Hindu chieftain, held occupation of the fort of Raisen. . .He had 1000 women in his entourage and amongst them several Moslem women. Sher Khan's Moslem pride was offended and the servant of Allah resolved to attack the fort. After he had been engaged in investing the fort for some time, an accommodation was prOposed It was finally agreed that Puranmal will be allowed safe conduct along with his family and children as well as 4000 Rajputs.

SEVERAL MULLAHS GAVE HIM THE OPINION THAT ISLAM DICTATES THAT THESE INFIDELS SHOULD ALL BE KILLED NoTwlTHsTANDlNG THE AGREEMENT, FOR A MOSLEM IS NOT BOUND BY ANY AGREEMENT MADE WITH AN INFIDEL. Consequently, the whole army was brought and placed in position to attack the Rajputs when they were the most vulnerable. They were all killed to a man.

n) AKBAR THE GREAT

Humayun, the son of Babur and father of Akbar had hardly any time free from troubles to devote in the service of Islam and 'kafir-kushi' [2] (killing of infidels). But his son Akbar made quite a good start as a 'ghazi'. He struck the half-dead Hindu king Himu with his sword after the second battle of Panipat. The ritual was then followed by many more tbrave warriors" of Islam led by Bairam Khan who stuck their swords in the dead body. In 1568 A.D. Akbar ordered a general massacre at Chitor, Rajputana after the fort had fallen. Abul Fazl records in Akbar-nama as follows: "There were 8,000 fighting Rajputs collected in the fortress, but there were more than 40,000 peasants who took part in watching and serving.

From early dawn till midday the bodies of those ill-starred men were consumed by the majesty of the great warrior. Nearly 30,000 men were killed. . . when Sultan Alauddin Khalji took the fort after a siege of six months and seven days, the peasantry were not put to death as they had not engaged in fighting. But on this occasion orders were given for general massacre. Akbar thus improved upon the record of Alauddin Khalji. WATCHING AND SERVING WERE REINTERPRETED AS ACTS OF WAR.

o) JAHANGIR

Jahangir was too indolent to keep his promise, given to Nawab Murtaza Khan at the time of accession to the throne, that he would uphold the laws of Islam or Shariat. He was just too much devoted to the wine-cup and women of his harem and did not care so much for Islam in his private life. But he encouraged conversion to Islam by offering daily allowances to those who renounced their ancestral faith and accepted the Moslem creed.

In the eighth year of his reign he destroyed the temple of Bhagwat at Ajmer. He persecuted the Jains of Gujarat. He tortured to death the Sikh holy man and leader Guru Arjun Dev. Guru Arjun Dev was murdered in a terrible way. THE GURU WAS MADE TO SIT BY FORCE ON A HOT STEEL PLATE WHICH HAD A BIG FIRE UNDERNEATH. HE WAS THEN COVERED WITH HOT SAND POURED FROM OVER HIS HEAD. AND TO INSULT HIM FURTHER, HIS BODY WAS WRAPPED WITH THE SKIN OF A FRESHLY SLAUGHTERED COW. The manner of assassination resembles what the Koran advises for killing the infidels.

The fault of the Sikh Guru was that he had refused to give up his own religion for Islam and to include some verses from the Koran in the Sikh holy book, the Granth Sahib.

p) SHAH JAHAN

The pendulum started to swing toward the true spirit of Islam at the very start of Shah Jahan's reign in 1623 A.D. Its outer symbol was the reappearance of the beard on the face of the emperor. Abdul Hamid Lahori records in his badshah-nama: "It had been brought to the notice of the Emperor that during the last reign, construction of many Hindu temples had been started, but remained still unfinished in Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, the infidels. The temples were now to be completed. The emperor issued orders to destroy all temples of Benares as well as elsewhere in his domain, before they were finished. It was reported from the province of Allahabad that 76 Hindu temples had been destroyed in Benares alone." The year was 1633 A.D.

At the beginning of his reign, the people of Kashmir, both Hindus and Moslems used to live amicably. They used to intermarry, and the wife, whatever might have been her fatherts faith, accepted the faith of the husband. In October, 1634 A.D., Shah Jahan forbade the custom and ordered that every Hindu who had taken a Moslem wife must either embrace Islam and be married anew to his wife, or he must give her up to be wedded to a Moslem. The order was rigorously enforced.

In 1635 A.D. Shah Jahan's soldiers captured some ladies of the royal Bundela family after Jujhar Singh and his sons failed to kill them in the time-honored Rajput tradition to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy. In the words of Sir Jadu Nath Sarkar, the eminent historian: "A terrible fate awaited the captive ladies who survived; mothers and daughters of kings, they were robbed of their religion, and forced to lead the infamous life of the Mughal harem - to be the unloved plaything of their master's passions for a day or two and then doomed to sigh out their days like bondwomen, without knowing the dignity of a wife or the joys of a mother. SWEETER FAR FOR THEM WOULD HAVE BEEN DEATH FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR DEAR ONES THAN SUBMISSION TO A RACE THAT KNEW NO GENEROSITY TO THE FALLEN, NO CHIVALRY TO THE WEAKER SEX."

Shah Jahan himself made a triumphal entry into Orchha, the capital of the Bundelas, demolished the lofty and massive temple of Bir Singh Dev and raised a mosque in its place. Two sons and one grandson of Jujhar Singh who were of tender age, were made Moslems. Another son of Jujhar Singh, Udaybhan and a minister, Shyam Dawa, had fled to Golconda where they were captured by Kutubul-Mulk and sent to Shah Jahan. Udaybhan and Shyam Dawa were offered the alternative of Islam or death. Both chose the latter and were sent to the hell described in the Koran.

Shah Jahan was a notorious bigot. His early hatred of Christians had been noticed by Sir Thomas Roe. After his accession he grew averse to giving high posts to Rajputs who were Hindus. The demolition of Hindu temples and desecration of images mark his reign only to a less extent than his son Aurangzib'S He refused to release the Hindu Rajah of Dhamdhera (Malwa) from prison for a ransom of Rs 50,000 and insisted on his turning Moslem as the price of his liberation.

SHAH JAHAN ALSO COMMANDEERED THE FAMOUS SHIVA TEMPLE OF AGRA KNOWN AS TEJO MAHALAYA BELONGING TO THE MAHARAJA OF JAIPUR. HE COVERED THE EDIFICE WITH OUTER STONE COATING-WALLS WITH KORANIC INSCRIPTIONS AND TURNED THE TEMPLE OF LORD AGRESHWAR INTO A SO CALLED MAUSOLEUM AND NAMED IT THE TAJ MAHAL. Pandit P.N. Oak's research work on this subject is irrefutable. Several beautiful palaces belonging to the Hindus were similarly commandeered by the Moslem rulers and turned into Imambaras as can be seen in Lucknow, even today. Thus some of the Hindu edifices were saved from complete destruction (unlike the Krishna Temple of Mathura, the Vishwanath Temple in Benares or the great temples of Dwaraka and Somnath and Puri), but were instead covered up like the Imambaras and the Taj Mahal. Please see Index II for more information on the subject. The picture of Taj Mahal or Tejo-Mahalaya shown has been published on the 1983 calendar of the Amar Jyoti Ashram, Boulder, Colorado with the legend mentioned on the picture.

Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son Aurangzib in the fort of Agra before his death. The old man at first held out and did not give in to his son who cut off the supply of water from the Jurnna river. The old man was dying of thirst and eventually capitulated. At that time, he wrote to his fanatically Islamic son:

Praised be the Hindus in all cases, As they ever offer water to their dead. And thou, rny son, art a marvelous Musalman,

As thou causest me in life to lament for (lack of) water!

q) AURANGZIB

Aurangzib became the king after Shah Jahan. In the process he murdered two of his brothers held in captivity and banished the third to the Arakan Hills to die in the hands of hillmen there. Aurangzib was an infidel-baiter of exceptional hatred. HE USED TO DESTROY ALL NON-MOSLEM HOUSES OF WORSHIP IN INDIA AND SEND MONEY TO THE SHERIF OF MECCA, THE HOLY CITY OF ISLAM. Those were the days when there was no oil wealth in the desert kingdom and the faithful had to eke out a precarious living from the pilgrims' contributions. Aurangzib's heart went out to help the Moslem mullahs of that distant holy land. However, he soon stopped his direct contribution after a few payments when he became suspicious about the actual disbursements going elsewhere and not to the needy. He made some attempts to help the needy of Arabia directly himself through an agency and not through the Sherif of Mecca any more.

Aurangzib had started his life of an infidel-baiter long before he ascended the throne. In 1645 A.D. he destroyed the temple of Chintaman in Gujarat and built a mosque on top of it, with the same building material obtained from the demolished temple. On hearing that the Hindus had rebuilt some of the temples destroyed by him earlier, he sent his order as the king to the Moslem governor of Gujarat: "In Ahmedabad and other areas of Gujarat in the days before my accession, temples were destroyed by my order. They have been repaired and idol-worship resumed. Carry out the former order."

In 1666 A.D. he ordered the police chief of Mathura, a holy Hindu city, to remove a stone railing which had been presented by Dara Shikoh, his elder brother and son of Shah Jahan, to the temples of Keshav Rail HE EXPLAINED: "IN THE MOSLEM FAITH IT IS A SIN EVEN TO LOOK AT A TEMPLE AND THIS DARA HAD RESTORED A RAILING IN A TEMPLE!"

A general policy toward Hindu temples was proclaimed in April, 1669. Maasir-i-Alamgiri records: "It has reached the ears of His Majesty, the protector of the faith, that in the provinces of Thatta, Multan and Benares, especially in the latter, foolish Brahmans were in the habit of expounding frivolous books in their schools and that students, Moslems as well as Hindus, went there, even from great distances, led by a desire to become acquainted with the wicked sciences they taught. The Director of the Faith, consequently, issued orders to all governors of provinces to destroy with a willing hand the schools and temples of the kafirs and they were strictly enjoined to put an entire stop to the teachings and practices of idolatrous forms of worship. IT WAS REPORTED THAT IN gEDIENCE TO HIS ORDER, THE GOVERNMENT OFFICERS HAD DESTROYED THE FAMOUS TEMPLE OF VISHWANATH AT BENARES."

Maasir-i-Alamgiri continues: "In the month of Ramazan (January, 1670 A.D.) this justice-loving monarch, the constant enemy of tyrants, commanded the destruction of the Hindu temple of Mathura known by the name of Debra Keshav Rai, and soon the stronghold of falsehood was levelled to the ground. On the same spot was laid, with great expense, the foundation of a vast mosque ...GLORY BE TO ALLAH WHO HAS GIVEN US FAITH OF ISLAM THAT IN THIS REIGN OF THE DESTROYER OF FALSE GODS, AN UNDERTAKING SO DIFFICULT OF ATTAINMENT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO A SUCCESSFUL CULMINATION. THE RICHLY JEWELED IDOLS, TAKEN FROM THE INFIDELS' TEMPLES WERE TRANSFERRED TO AGRA AND THERE PLACED BENEATH THE STEPS LEADING TO THE NAWAB BEGUM SAHIB'S (JAHANARA'S) MOSQUE IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY BE PRESSED UNDER FOOT BY THE TRUE BELIEVERS. MATHURAlS NAME WAS CHANGED TO ISLAMABAD AND THIS WAS THE NAME THAT WAS USED IN ALL OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS."

In the same year Sitaramji temple at Soron was destroyed as also the shrine of Devi Patan at Gonda; news also came from Malwa that the local governor had sent 400 troopers to destroy all temples around Ujjain. The order was: "Every temple built during the last 10 or 12 years should be demolished without delay. Also, do not allow the despicable Hindu infidels to repair their old temples. Reports of the destruction of temples should be sent to the court under the seal of the Kazis (Moslem judges) and attested by pious Shaikhs."

In Mathura, not being able to take this kind of persecution, the JatS rebelled. The Jat leader Gokla and his family were taken prisoner. The Jat leader's limbs were hacked off one by one on the platform of the police office of Agra, his family forcibly converted to Islam, and his followers were kept in prison in charge of the provost of the imperial camp.

In 1672 A.D. several thousand Satnamis were slaughtered near Narnaul in Mewat and in 1675 A.D. Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was tortured and finally beheaded for his resistance to forcible conversion of the Hindus in Kashmir. His disciples were slaughtered in front of him to frighten the Guru. The pictures on pages 42, 44 and 46 show the manners in which the disciples were murdered. The beheading of Guru Tegh Bahadur is shown on the front cover of the book.

The special tax called the 'jiziya' was reimposed on the Hindus and other non-Moslems after a lapse of several years. The Hindus of Delhi organized a peaceful protest and presented their case to the emperor while he was on his way to the mosque. AURANGZIB ORDERED HIS ELEPHANTS TO BE DRIVEN THROUGH THE MASS OF PEOPLE TRAMPLING MANY TO DEATH.

It was specially during the reign of Aurangzib that the moral degeneration of Moslem gentry became unbearable to the kafirs. The prime minister's grandson, Mirza Tafakhkhur used to sally forth from his mansion in Delhi with his ruffians, plunder the shops in the bazaar or market, kidnap Hindu women passing through public streets in litters or going to the river for bath and prayers, and dishonor them; and yet there was no judge to punish him or his friends, no police to prevent such crimes. Everytime such an occurrence was brought to the attention of the emperor, he referred the matter to the prime minister and nothing was done. At last after a Hindu artillerymants wife had been forcibly abducted and his comrades threatened mutiny, Aurangzib merely ordered the licentious youth to be prevented from coming out of the mansion.

In Aurangzibts time in particular, the settled principle of Islam ended by making the Moslems a privileged class, nourished on State bounties taxed from the kafirs. The Moslems became indolent in peace time and unable to stand on their own legs in the arena of life. Public office came to be regarded as the birthright of the Moslems and so every inducement to display Superior ability or exertion was taken away from them. The enormous areas of land given away by Moslem kings as grants to mosques and other Islamic institutions, nourished thousands Of Moslem families in a life of slothful ease, while the natural increase of every succeeding generation turned their competence into deepening squalor. The vast sums spent by the Islamic state in maintaining Moslem poor houses and scattering alms during Ramazan and other Moslem holy days, were a direct premium on laziness. It was more lucrative to be a 'faqir' (beggar calling Allah in the street) at the capital than to earn an honest living as a cultivator, subject to the caprices of the seasons and the worst caprices of the revenue underlings and officials on tour. Thus a lazy and pampered class was created in the empire, who sapped its strength and was the first to suffer when its prosperity was arrested. Wealth bred indolence and love of ease; these soon led to vice; and vice finally brought about ruin to the followers of Allah. The kafirs of course had to bear the entire burden of these parasites all along.

Although Aurangzib hated idolatry, he used to go round the pretended foot-prints and hair of the prophet Mohammed, as if these were representations of the Deity. From his death-bed he wrote letters to his warring sons Azam and Kam Bakhsh advising them not to fight and to cultivate brotherly love which the emperor himself was unable to do in his life time. Aurangzibts another name was Alamgir (conqueror of the world) and many used to say about him: "Alamgir- zinda Fir", meaning Alamgir is a living saint, referring to his highly religious and Islamic conduct, an attribute that failed to generate brotherly love in him. Blood, hatred, fire and sword, cunning and subterfuge were his instruments for spreading the message of his religion and the edifice naturally did not last long.

The kafirs had a terrible time under the Moslem king Aurangzib. A learned Kazi called Mughis-ud-din had declared that in accordance with the teachings of the Islamic jurisprudence: "The Hindus are designated in the Moslem law as payers of tribute' (kharaj-guzar); and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance Open their mouths wide to receive it. By these acts of degradation are shown the extreme obedience of the 'zimmi', the glorification of the true faith of Islam, and the abasement Of false faiths. Allah Himself orders them to be humiliated, as He says, 'till they pay 'jiziya' with the hand and are humbled."

Aurangzib had a queer sense of humor. He used to tell his temple-destroying soldiers that there was no need to hurry. They could take their time as the temples could not go away and escape by themselves. Aurangzib got his elder brother Dara Shikoh murdered by his harem eunuchs. Murad, another brother was invited to dinner, drugged with a somniferous potion and finally arrested and murdered. Dara's beheaded body was paraded in the streets of Delhi on the back of an elephant. Dara's children were also murdered by opium poisoning in the state prison at the orders of Aurangzib. His own son, Muhammad Sultan, who once rebelled against the father, was poisoned slowly with opium in the prison at Gwalior.

Even for Allah, such actions were hard to take. Only two centuries later a grim fate overtook the sons and grandson of the last Moslem emperor of Delhi when in 1857 they were shot in cold blood by an English soldier, while the royal heirs were vainly protesting their innocence and crying for an inquiry into their past conduct. The place they were executed is not too far from Humayun's tomb.

Aurangzib, on ascending the throne of Delhi, declared himself the 'Khalifa' or caliph of the entire Moslem world. He thus did not give his recognition to the caliph of Turkey who had been Considered by many as the temporal leader of all Moslems. It Is an inscrutable twist of fate that several centuries later, a Hindu named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born and brought up among the Moslems of Gujarat, would declare his faith in the caliph of Turkey as the temporal leader of all Moslems, when most of the Islamic world had already renounced their allegiance to this potentate.

r) ABDALI

This Afghan Moslem invader attacked India and destroyed the Hindu holy city Mathura once again after all the ravages done by his predecessors. His sacking of Mathura, the Bethlehem of the Hindus, is worth recounting. After having killed thousands of Hindus on his way, he finally arrived at the holy city. The invader had issued his orders to sally and plunder (March 3, 1757 A.D.). His soldiers were assured that everyone would be allowed to keep whatever plunder he took and would be paid Rs 5 (a sizeable amount at the time) for every enemy head brought in. It was midnight when the camp-followers went out to attack. One horseman mounted a horse and took ten to twenty others, each attached to the tail of the horse preceding it, and drove them just like a string of camels. When it was three hours after sunrise they were seen to come back. Every horseman had loaded up all his horses with the plundered property, and atop of it rode the girl-captives and the slaves. The severed heads were tied up in rugs like bundles of grain and placed on the heads of the captives...Then the heads were stuck upon lances and taken to the gate of the chief minister for payment. It was an extraordinary display! Daily did this manner of slaughter and plundering proceed. And at night the shrieks of the women captives who were being raped, deafened the ears of the people...All those heads that had been cut off were built into pillars, and the captive men upon whose heads those bloody bundles had been brought in, were made to grind corn, and then their heads too were cut off. These things went on all the way to the city of Agra, nor was any part of the country spared. . .Ahmed Shah Abdali also destroyed the holiest temple of the Sikhs in Amritsar. To desecrate the holy Golden temple, he slaughtered hundreds of cows and filled the sacred tank of the temple with the cows' blood.

s) TIPU SULTAN

Tipu was another Moslem ruler who claimed to be a good believer and so quoting f rom the Koran used to carry out abhorrent practices such as whipping in public, cutting away limbs of kafirs and burying them alive, stoning to death and beheading on the slightest pretext.

Tiputs well-known boast was: "I am the chosen servant of prophet Mohammed, predestined in the eternal book of fate to root out the infidels from India and cast them into the bottomless pit of hell." He used to capture the children of the Europeans and when he felt the urge, he ordered them out of the dungeons into his private chamber. There, he defecated and urinated upon them, lashed them, hung them over slowburning fires, and having drugged thern to insensibility, murdered each by decapitation. Sometimes he would employ a pair of Abyssinian slaves who would twist the children by the heads and legs to death.

Tipu forcibly circumcised thousands of Hindus and compelled them to eat cow-meat, a monstrous act of impiety. He once seized two thousand Nair women and delivered them to his troops as prostitutes. His rule became unbearable to the nonkloslem population living in his kingdom.

t) SIRAJ-UD-DAULA

At the age of twenty years Siraj-ud-daula had already made the life of his Hindu subjects quite miserable. It was at the hands of the British that this 'lion of Islam' met with defeat and made an attempt to escape in disguise. He was captured and brought to Murshidabad, where the British, unlike the Hindus, cut him to pieces and paraded his remains through the streets on an elephant before throwing them to the dogs in the street. Thus ended the uneventful Islamic rule of fifteen months headed by this young king.

u) YAHYA AND ZULFIKHAR ALI BHUTTO

Only recently the Islamic government of Pakistan enacted similar dramas in Bangladesh, erstwhile East Pakistan. It was 1971 A.D. and while negotiations were still in progress between the two wings of Pakistan, the Moslem government of West Pakistan UNLEASHED A SURPRISE ATTACK ON THE UNARMED POPULATION OF EAST PAKISTAN.

Throughout the long night three battalions of soldiers (one infantry, one artillery and one armored) killed defenseless Dacca Bengalis with bayonets, rifles, machine guns, mortars, artillery pieces, rockets, flame throwers and tanks. The targets were: Dacca University, the police barracks, Sheikh Mujib's home, the radio station, offices of pro-Mujib newspaper and of course HINDU HOMES. Several hundred young men, the cream of the country were mowed down at the Dacca University. AT THE HINDU STUDENTS' DORMITORY, THE STUDENTS WHO SURVIVED THE ATTACK WERE FORCED TO DIG GRAVES FOR THEIR SLAUGHTERED FELLOW STUDENTS, EXACTLY LIKE THE 800 JEWS OF QURAYZA, AT THE TIME OF MOHAMMED, THE PROPHET OF ISLAM. Then they too were shot and stuffed into the graves dug with their own hands. THOUSANDS OF HINDUS DIED THAT NIGHT. MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED MOSLEM TROOPS ATTACKED THE GIRL STUDENTS OF ROCKEY HALL, DACCA UNIVERSITY. STRIPPING THEM NAKED, THE TROOPS RAPED, BAYONETED, AND MURDERED LOVELY BENGALI GIRLS. Dozens of girls jumped to their death from the roof of the building rather than suffer the fate of their sisters.

Simultaneously with the attack in Dacca, other units of the Islamic Pakistani army smashed into cities and towns across the country. They followed the same scenario now perfected over the years: kill, rape, loot and burn. THE SECOND ATTACK LAUNCHED AFTER A CALCULATED WAIT BY THE PAKISTANI ARMY IN ANOTHER COLD-BLOODED ORGY OF KILLING, RAPE, PLUNDER AND ARSON, SMASHED THE COUNTRY'S .VIAIN POPULATION CENTERS. WORKING FROM CAREFULLY PREPARED LISTS, SPECIAL COMMANDO UNITS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE HUNTED DOWN AND EXTERMINATED ALL BENGALI LEADERS, INTELLECTUALS, PROFESSORS, STUDENTS, DOCTORS, LAWYERS, JOURNALISTS AND HINDUS, THE PRIME TARGET OF ALL. THE TALES OF BUTCHERY AND BRUTALITY WERE ENDLESS.

As the killings continued on land, Pakistani jets strafed and rocketed defenseless villages. Strong mechanized units moved out to execute a different kind of raid or 'ghazzua' making them 'ghazis' too. The message of the Koran was interpreted in a devious way. One would say that Allah did not like this conduct from His followers and so eventually victory was

snatched away from the hands of Islamic Pakistan. The kafirs of India not only defeated the Pakistanis but captured 90,000 of these ruffians passing off as soldiers. And, the soft-hearted kafirs did not even try these murderers and punish those among them who were guilty of such heinous crimes against humanity, but let them go scat free, without even making a few go to jail for a day. This act of misplaced kindness stands in great contrast with the treatment meted out to helpless, unarmed Hindu prisoners, hundreds and thousands of them, who were summarily butchered by the Moslem kings, in the name of Islam. The few Hindu and Sikh prisoners that Pakistan had captured were of course liquidated right away for Pakistan failed to return them saying that they had no Hindu prisoners in their hands, worth the mention.

That Allah did not listen to the prayers of the believers after this dastardly incident is also proven by the fact that the main actor in the drama, Zulfikhar All Bhutto, was himself hanged later by his own countrymen. And the then president of Pakistan, a general named Yahya, was dismissed and died a death devoid of glory or satisfaction because the land of Islamic Pakistan became very much reduced as a result of the diabolical enterprise of imperialism, slaughter, loot, arson and murder undertaken by Pakistan.

v) SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Moslems in India and elsewhere have been led to believe by mullahs and Moslem 'historians' that the conquest of India by Islam started with the invasion of Sindh by Muhammad bin Qasim in 712 A.D.; it was resumed by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1000 A.D. and completed by Mohammed Ghori when he defeated the Chauhans of Ajmer-Delhi and Gahadvadas of Kanauj in the last decade of the 12 century.

Moslems of India have been persuaded to look back with pride on those six censures, if not more, when India was ruled by Islamic kings. In this make-belief, the British rulers are treated as temporary intruders who cheated Islam of its Indian empire for a hundred years, and the kafir Hindu, who succeeded the British in 1947 A.D., as usurpers of what rightfully belongs to Islam.

If we compare the Arab struggle on the frontiers of India with their record elsewhere we will see some difference. Within eight years of their prophet's death, they had conquered Persia, Syria and Egypt. By 650 A.D. they had advanced up to the Oxus river and the Hindu-Kush range. Between 640 and 709 A.D. they had reduced the whole of North Africa. They had conquered Spain in 711 A.D. But it took them 70 long years to secure the first foothold on the soil of India. No historian worth his name should have the cheek to say that the Hindus have always been an easy game for the invaders. THE HINDUS' HUMANITARIANISM PLAYED A GREAT PART IN GIVING UNNECESSARY ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE MOSLEMS AND THE INDO-PAKISTAN WARS, ALL THREE OF THEM PROVED THAT THE KAFIR CAN HOLD HIS OWN AGAINST ANY ISLAMIC INVADER.

SPAIN, GREECE AND ITALY HAVE ALL THROWN THEIR MOSLEM INVADING POPULATIONS OUT AND THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THE SAME WILL NOT HAPPEN ON THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT IF THE SITUATION SO DEMANDS. Times have changed but the lessons of history should not be forgotten. The past is not only history; it is also a prophecy.

Footnotes

1. Compare this with the liberation of 90,000 Pakistani soldiers that committed incredible crimes in East Pakistan.
2. The word Hindu-kush stems also from the fact that many Hindus were butchered by the Moslems on that Himalayan range at the time.