Chapter Two

The Tip of An Iceberg

Sita Ram Goel

The mention made by Maulana Abdul Hai (Indian Express, February 5) of Hindu temples
turned into mosques, is only the tip of an iceberg, The iceberg itself lies submerged in the
writings of medieval Muslim historians, accounts of foreign travellers and the reports of the
Archaeological Survey of India. A hue and cry has been raised in the name of secularism and
national integration whenever the iceberg has chanced to surface, inspite of hectic efforts to
keep it suppressed.  Marxist politicians masquerading as historians have been the major
contributors to this conspiracy of silence.

Muslim politicians and scholars in present-day India resent any reference whatsoever to the
destruction of Hindu temples in medieval times.  They react as if it is a canard being spread
by those they stigmatise as Hindu communalists.  There was, however, a time, not so long
ago, when their predecessors viewed the same performance as an act of piety and proclaimed
it with considerable pride in inscriptions and literary compositions.  Hindus of medieval India
hardly wrote any history of what happened to their places of worship at the hands of Islamic
iconoclasts.  Whatever evidence the �Hindu communalists� cite in this context comes
entirely from Islamic sources, epigraphic and literary.

Epigraphic Evidence

There are many mosques all over India which are known to local tradition and the
Archaeological Survey of India as built on the site of and, quite frequently, from the materials
of, demolished Hindu temples.  Most of them carry inscriptions invoking Allah and the
Prophet, quoting the Quran and giving details of when, how and by whom they were
constructed.  The inscriptions have been deciphered and connected to their historical context
by learned Muslim epigraphists.  They have been published by the, Archaeological Survey of
India in its Epigraphia Indica-Arabic and Persian Supplement, an annual which appeared
first in 1907-08 as Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica.  The following few inscriptions have been
selected in order to show that (1) destruction of Hindu temples continued throughout the
period of Muslim domination; (2) it covered all parts of India-east, west, north and south; and
(3) all Muslim dynasties, imperial and provincial, participated in the �pious performance.�

1. Quwwat al-Islam Masjid, Qutb Minar, Delhi: �This fort was conquered and the Jami
Masjid built in the year 587 by the Amir� the slave of the Sultan, may Allalh strengthen his
helpers.  The materials of 27 idol temples, on each of which 2,000,000 Delhiwals had been
spent were used in the (construction of) the mosque�� (1909-10, Pp 3-4).  The Amir was
Qutbud-Din Aibak, slave of Muizzud-Din Muhammad Ghori. The year 587 H. corresponds to
1192 A.D. �Delhiwal� was a high-denomination coin current at that time in Delhi.

2. Masjid at Manvi in the Raichur District of Karnataka: �Praise be to Allah that by the

decree of the Parvardigar, a mosque has been converted out of a temple as a sign of religion
in the reign of� the Sultan who is the asylum of Faith � Firuz Shah Bahmani who is the
cause of exuberant spring in the garden of religion� (1962, Pp. 56-57).  The inscription
mentions the year 1406-07 A.D. as the time of construction.
3. Jami Masjid at Malan, Palanpur Taluka, Banaskantha District of Gujarat: �The
Jami Masjid was built� by Khan-I-Azam Ulugh Khan... who suppressed the wretched
infidels.  He eradicated the idolatrous houses and mine of infidelity, along with the idols�
with the edge of the sword, and made ready this edifice� He made its walls and doors out of
the idols; the back of every stone became the place for prostration of the believer� (1963,
Pp. 26-29).  The date of construction is mentioned as 1462 A.D. in the reign of Mahmud
Shah I (Begada) of Gujarat.

4. Hammam Darwaza Masjid at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh: �Thanks that by the

guidance of the Everlasting and the Living (Allah), this house of infidelity became the niche
of prayer.  As a reward for that, the Generous Lord constructed an abode for the builder in
paradise� (1969, p. 375).  Its chronogram yields the year 1567 A.D. in the reign of Akbar,
the Great Mughal.  A local historian, Fasihud-Din, tells us that the temple had been built
earlier by Diwan Lachhman Das, an official of the Mughal government.

5. Jami Masjid at Ghoda in the Poona District of Maharashtra: �O Allah! 0

Muhammad! O Ali!  When Mir Muhammad Zaman made up his mind, he opened the door of
prosperity on himself by his own hand.  He demolished thirty-three idol temples (and) by
divine grace laid the foundation of a building in this abode of perdition� (1933-34, p.24).
The inscription is dated 1586 A.D. when the Poona region was ruled by the Nizam Shahi
sultans of Ahmadnagar.

6. Gachinala Masjid at Cumbum in the Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh: �He is

Allah, may he be glorified� During the august rule of� Muhammad Shah, there was a well-
established idol-house in Kuhmum� Muhammad Salih who prospers in the rectitude of the
affairs of Faith� razed to the ground, the edifice of the idol-house and broke the idols in a
manly fashion.  He constructed on its site a suitable mosque, towering above the buildings of
all� (1959-60, Pp. 64-66).  The date of construction is mentioned as 1729-30 A.D. in the
reign of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah.

Though sites of demolished Hindu temples were mostly used for building mosques and
idgahs, temple materials were often used in other Muslim monuments as well. 
Archaeologists have discovered such materials, architectural as well as sculptural, in quite a
few forts, palaces, maqbaras, sufi khanqahs, madrasas, etc.  In Srinagar, Kashmir, temple
materials can be seen in long stretches of the stone embankments on both sides of the
Jhelum.  Two inscriptions on the walls of the Gopi Talav, a stepped well at Surat, tell us that
the well was constructed by Haidar Quli, the Mughal governor of Gujarat, in 1718 A.D. in the
reign of Farrukh Siyar.  One of them says, �its bricks were taken from an idol temple.� The
other informs us that �Haider Quli Khan, during whose period tyranny has become extinct,
laid waste several idol temples in order to make this strong building firm�� (1933-34, Pp.
37-44).

Literary Evidence

Literary evidence of Islamic iconoclasm vis-a-vis Hindu places of worship is far more
extensive.  It covers a longer span of time, from the fifth decade of the 7th century to the
closing years of the eighteenth.  It also embraces a larger space, from Transoxiana in the
north to Tamil Nadu in the south, and from Afghanistan in the west to Assam in the east. 
Marxist �historians� and Muslim apologists would have us believe that medieval Muslim
annalists were indulging in poetic exaggerations in order to please their pious patrons. 
Archaeological explorations in modern times have, however, provided physical proofs of
literary descriptions.  The vast cradle of Hindu culture is literally littered with ruins of
temples and monasteries belonging to all sects of Sanatana Dharma - Buddhist, Jain, Saiva,
Shakta, Vaishnava and the rest.

Almost all medieval Muslim historians credit their heroes with desecration of Hindu idols
and/or destruction of Hindu temples.  The picture that emerges has the following
components, depending upon whether the iconoclast was in a hurry on account of Hindu
resistance or did his work at leisure after a decisive victory:

1. The idols were mutilated or smashed or burnt or melted down if they were made of
precious metals.

2. Sculptures in relief on walls and pillars were disfigured or scraped away or torn down.

3. Idols of stone and inferior metals or their pieces were taken away, sometimes by cartloads,
to be thrown down before the main mosque in (a) the metropolis of the ruling Muslim sultan
and (b) the holy cities of Islam, particularly Mecca, Medina and Baghdad.

4. There were instances of idols being turned into lavatory seats or handed over to butchers to
be used as weights while selling meat.

5. Brahmin priests and other holy men in and around the temple were molested or murdered.

6. Sacred vessels and scriptures used in worship were defiled and scattered or burnt.

7. Temples were damaged or despoiled or demolished or burnt down or converted into

mosques with some structural alterations or entire mosques were raised on the same sites
mostly with temple materials.

8. Cows were slaughtered on the temple sites so that Hindus could not use them again.

The literary sources, like epigraphic, provide evidence of the elation which Muslims felt
while witnessing or narrating these �pious deeds.� A few citations from Amir Khusru will
illustrate the point. The instances cited relate to the doings of Jalalud-Din Firuz Khalji,
Alaud-Din Khalji and the letter�s military commanders. Khusru served as a court-poet of
sex successive sultans at Delhi and wrote a masnavi in praise of each.  He was the dearest
disciple of Shaikh Nizamud-Din Awliya and has come to be honoured as some sort of a sufi
himself.  In our own times, he is being hailed is the father of a composite Hindu-Muslim
culture and the pioneer of secularism.  Dr. R. C. Majumdar, whom the Marxists malign as a
�communalist historian� names him as a �liberal Muslim�.

1. Jhain: �Next morning he (Jalalud-Din) went again to the temples and ordered their
destruction� While the soldiers sought every opportunity of plundering, the Shah was
engaged in burning the temples and destroying the idols.  There were two bronze idols of
Brahma, each of which weighed more than a thousand mans.  These were broken into pieces
and the fragments were distributed among the officers, with orders to throw them down at the
gates of the Masjid on their return (to Delhi)� (Miftah-ul-Futuh).
2. Devagiri: �He (Alaud-Din) destroyed the temples of the idolaters and erected pulpits and
arches for mosques� (Ibid.).

3. Somanath: �They made the temple prostrate itself towards the Kaaba.  You may say that
the temple first offered its prayers and then had a bath (i.e. the temple was made to topple and
fall into the sea)� He (Ulugh Khan) destroyed all the idols and temples, but sent one idol,
the biggest of all idols, to the court of his Godlike Majesty and on that account in that ancient
stronghold of idolatry, the summons to prayers was proclaimed so loudly that they heard it in
Misr (Egypt) and Madain (Iraq)� (Tarikh-i-Alai).

4. Delhi: �He (Alaud-Din) ordered the circumference of the new minar to be made double
of the old one (Qutb Minar)� The stones were dug out from the hills and the temples of the
infidels were demolished to furnish a supply� (Ibid.).

5. Ranthambhor: �This strong fort was taken by the slaughter of the stinking Rai.  Jhain
was also captured, an iron fort, an ancient abode of idolatry, and a new city of the people of
the faith arose.  The temple of Bahir (Bhairava) Deo and temples of other gods, were all
razed to the ground� (Ibid.).

6. Brahmastpuri (Chidambaram): �Here he (Malik Kafur) heard that in Bramastpuri there

was a golden idol� He then determined on razing the temple to the ground� It was the holy
place of the Hindus which the Malik dug up from its foundations with the greatest care, and
the heads of brahmans and idolaters danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their
feet, and blood flowed in torrents.  The stone idols called Ling Mahadeo, which had been
established a long time at the place and on which the women of the infidels rubbed their
vaginas for (sexual) satisfaction, these, up to this time, the kick of the horse of Islam had not
attempted to break.  The Musulmans destroyed in the lings and Deo Narain fell down, and
other gods who had fixed their seats there raised feet and jumped so high that at one leap they
reached the fort of Lanka, and in that affright the lings themselves would have fled had they
had any legs to stand on� (Ibid).

7. Madura: �They found the city empty for the Rai had fled with the Ranis, but had left two
or three hundred elephants in the temple of Jagnar (Jagannatha).  The elephants were
captured and the temple burnt� (Ibid.).

8. Fatan: (Pattan): �There was another rai in these parts �a Brahmin named Pandya
Guru� his capital was Fatan, where there was a temple with an idol in it laden with jewels. 
The rai fled when the army of the Sultan arrived at Fatan� They then struck the idol with an
iron hatchet, and opened its head.  Although it was the very Qibla of the accursed infidels, it
kissed the earth and filled the holy treasury� (Ashiqa).

9. Ma�bar: (Parts of South India): �On the right hand and on the left hand the army has
conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus, in which Satanism
has prevailed since the time of the Jinns, have been demolished.  All these impurities of
infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultan�s destruction of idol-temples, beginning with his
first holy expedition to Deogir, so that the flames of the light of the Law (of Islam) illumine
all these unholy countries, and places for the criers of prayers are exalted on high, and prayers
are read in mosques.  Allah be praised!� (Tarikh-i-Alai).
The story of how Islamic invaders sought to destroy the very foundations of Hindu society
and culture is long and extremely painful.  It would certainly be better for everybody to forget
the past, but for the prescriptions of Islamic theology which remain intact and make it
obligatory for believers to destroy idols and idol temples.

Indian Express, February 19, 1989

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