The Far Reaching Consequences of the Medieval Muslim Chronicler's Psyche
The next episode of the series examining the psyche of medieval Muslim chroniclers and its implications on the future of writing history
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THE EXCLUSIVE PURPOSE and goal of Muslim histories was (and remains) to keep a meticulous and detailed record of episodes, treaties, victories, dates and facts that narrated the glories of Islam’s flag planted in non-Islamic lands.
This serves a twofold interest: to motivate the community to never remain in peace, to keep them in a psychological state of war-readiness to conquer what remains of the rest of the Darul Harb, and to reinforce the preordained divination of the inevitable victory of Islam over the whole world. One of the gold standard bigots, the 13th-14th century historian, Ziauddin Barani, spells it out explicitly: “the history of Islamic conquests across the world is an unravelling of the divine plan of Allah.”
The contemporary warrior-Rishi, Sri Sita Ram Goel recounts an interesting incident that he witnessed about a decade before the partition of India. He narrates how a Muslim preacher publicly incited a Muslim crowd by narrating the stupendous victory of Islam throughout history in a vast expanse of the world: (pre-Muhammadan) Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Algeria, Iran, etc, and how the preacher had to admit Islam’s defeat in India, for which he used the invective, “kambhakt mulk” (horrible/accursed country), which was still “crawling with kufr (infidelism) in spite of all those arduous endeavours undertaken by the heroes of Islam.” This preacher could well be a 20th century cousin of Barani, far removed in time but pristine in his feverish bigotry. This preacher also reveals an important theme underscoring Muslim histories which we shall soon examine.
Muslim Historical Traditions and Genres
Broadly speaking, Muslim histories follow two major traditions: the Arabic and the Persian. The latter eventually dominated history writing in the Muslim world, especially in India. But the root inspiration for the Persian tradition remained Arabic for a straightforward reason, again rooted in theology: the selfsame glorification of Islam’s victories.
The earliest of formal Muslim histories were adapted from the pre-Islamic Arabian poetry form, Qasida or ode or genealogy set to metre and rhyme. Eventually, newer genres or formats of history writing evolved:
Sirah: biographies
Ansab: genealogies
Tabaqat: sketches or profiles
Tarikh: chronology or annals or history
Malfuzat: memoirs
Maghazi: war narratives
Maktubat: letters, correspondence
Uniformly, all these genres begin with a benediction to the greatness and mercy of Allah, narrate the rise of Muhammad, extoll his glories followed by the upsurge of Islam and its conquests, list out the prowess and grandeur of the first four Caliphs and then the great heroes (Ghazi) of the Only True Faith, and finally arrive at the author’s own time. Every event, person, battle, treaty, victory, premonition, judgement, and law is assiduously justified by some verse(s) in the Islamic scripture.
Common Traits of Medieval Muslim Chroniclers
Every major and minor medieval Muslim chronicler shared several common traits. The first, apart from their inveterate bigotry, is their barbarous hatred for Hindus. The second is an insatiable thirst for all-encompassing destruction, rapine, plunder, slave-taking and humiliation of infidel Hindus. The third is a savage hunger for temple demolitions. The fourth is a depraved propensity and constant itch to humiliate the infidels by inventing ever-new forms of degrading them. The fifth, we shall examine a little later.
All of this was described in language that defies belief and is the surest proof of the degenerate psyche that wrote it. It is inconceivable that a human can even imagine this level of textual demonism. As we noted in the previous part, there is no vice that these chroniclers abhor and no virtue that they don’t shun. The perverse delight that they take in describing extreme, wanton brutalities on Hindus both during and in the aftermath of a military victory and in peacetime cannot be equaled even by a gold-standard sadist.
We can begin with a brilliant characterisation of this psyche.
The [Muslim invader] was a typical specimen of the ferocious Central Asian warriors of the time, merciless and fanatical. His valour and profuse liberality to his comrades endeared him to the bloodthirsty historian of his age, who praises him as having been a ‘ beneficent and victorious monarch. . . . His gifts we are told, ‘were bestowed by hundreds of thousands, and his slaughters likewise were by hundreds of thousands.’ All the leaders in the Muslim conquest of Hindostan similarly rejoiced in committing wholesale massacres of Hindu idolaters, armed or unarmed — Vincent Smith
The more feral the barbarian sultan is, the greater the hero, and the more pious Ghazi he is in the eyes of his contemporary chroniclers. It appears as though there’s a theological straight line that connects barbarism and religious piety in this scheme of things. This then is the other common trait shared by medieval Muslim chroniclers: they were shameless flatters and naked lickspittles of their sultans. One of the original historians of the previous century, Dr. K.S. Lal notes that “Islamic historiography has remained clerical in nature.” That’s putting it mildly because this sort of “history” writing has its unique genre: Panegyrics of Fanatical Bestiality.
But Vincent Smith perceptively notices the other side to this when he writes this in a rather moving fashion.
The modern reader of the panegyrics recorded by Muslim authors in praise of ‘beneficent’ monarchs who slaughtered their hundreds of thousands with delight often longs for an account of their character as it appeared to the friends and countrymen of the victims. But no voice has come from the grave, and the story of the Muhammadan conquest as seen from the Hindu point of view was never written, except to some extent…
It appears that no amount and extent of could satisfy both the bigoted Islamic conqueror and his kindred toady chronicler. R.C. Majumdar notes how all “these atrocities were the normal accompaniments of Muslim conquest.”
But even these fell short of Islamic ideals. For when Muhammad sent a detailed report of the conquest to Hajjaj he mildly rebuked Muhammad [bin Qasim] for having spared the lives of some [Hindus]. The following passage in his letter reveals that the barbarous practices, referred to above, were regarded to be in full agreement with Islamic theory. “ The ways and rules you follow are conformable to the law… God says, give no quarter to infidels, but cut their throats…
But these were the words of the notorious Muslim tyrant, al-Hajjaj, the governor of Baghdad, not a historian or writer, therefore lacking in the requisite literary flourishes to extoll his bigotry. That was supplied by the “real” chroniclers. So, let’s look at a few of the bloodiest and the most bigoted samples.
To be continued
