Yes, but I'm talking about the immediate Mongols here, not their distant Islamized descendants.
The Fourth Crusade reaches its original destination of Egypt instead of sacking Constantinople
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Yes, but I'm talking about the immediate Mongols here, not their distant Islamized descendants.
BTW, HL, does it strike you as a mistake on the Mughals' part that they did not try to more aggressively Islamize northern India? It seems like it would have been ideal for Pakistan post-1947 to have a land connection between its two parts, but that was not possible because the Muslim population in north-central India simply wasn't large enough for this region to be given to Pakistan:
History Learner
Well-known member
BTW, HL, does it strike you as a mistake on the Mughals' part that they did not try to more aggressively Islamize northern India? It seems like it would have been ideal for Pakistan post-1947 to have a land connection between its two parts, but that was not possible because the Muslim population in north-central India simply wasn't large enough for this region to be given to Pakistan:
I mean, I don't think the Mughals foresaw their own collapse or the future of India at large, so it's rather hindsight.
There could have still been logic in having Muslims guard the Mughal frontiers, no? Similar to how a lot of Pashtuns were resettled in northern Afghanistan so that they, rather than Afghan minorities, would guard the northern Afghan frontier:
You can take a look at Indian religious data for the late 19th and early 20th centuries here:
Where can I find religion data for British India for the time period between 1872 and 1947?
Where can I find religion data for British India for the time period between 1872 and 1947? Basically, I want to see how the Muslim-Hindu-other percentage composition changed in British India in its entirety as well as in various of its regions between 1872 and 1947.
historum.com
If 25-30% of India truly was Muslim in the Mughal era, then this percentage slightly declined to around 20% by the late 19th century before beginning to increase again. It was 25% or so by the time of India's independence and partition in 1947. Partitioned India, of course, had a Muslim percentage of slightly below 10% due to Pakistan's and Bangladesh's secession from India.
History Learner
Well-known member
You can take a look at Indian religious data for the late 19th and early 20th centuries here:
Where can I find religion data for British India for the time period between 1872 and 1947?
Where can I find religion data for British India for the time period between 1872 and 1947? Basically, I want to see how the Muslim-Hindu-other percentage composition changed in British India in its entirety as well as in various of its regions between 1872 and 1947.
If 25-30% of India truly was Muslim in the Mughal era, then this percentage slightly declined to around 20% by the late 19th century before beginning to increase again. It was 25% or so by the time of India's independence and partition in 1947. Partitioned India, of course, had a Muslim percentage of slightly below 10% due to Pakistan's and Bangladesh's secession from India.
I'd have to find the article I'm getting that figure from again; it was 25% according to it, but I've seen other sources claim up to 30%. During the late stages of the Mughals, Hindusim underwent an resurgence and was even (re)converting Muslims despite Mughal attempts to stop it. Interestingly, it was the areas without the caste system that converted the most, which lends credence to my suggestion of waves of Turkic warbands to convert the place, as they will crush the existing apparatus and thus enable greater "missionary" work.
Yes, I've read that the reason that Islam became entrenched in places such as western Punjab, eastern Bengal, and (earlier) western Sindh is because Hinduism was less entrenched there before Islam came to these regions. I know that Buddhism, for instance, was a serious competitor to Hinduism in some of these places, such as Sindh, in the pre-Islamic era. This is why, for instance, the Buddhists in Sindh largely became Muslim while the Hindus in Sindh largely remained Hindu. Of course, the Sindh example is pre-Mughal, but the Punjab and Bengal examples are not, to my knowledge. Though the process might have began in Punjab and Bengal under the Delhi Sultanate. I'm not sure exactly.
@Ricardolindo, for instance, previously taught me that the Punjab was largely settled by formerly nomadic Jats, who converted to the dominant religion in each part of the Punjab once they became a settled population: