17 October 2017 Richard M. Eaton Essays On Islam and Indian History Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2000, 275 PP., 7 Maps, (ISBN 019566265-2)

17th October 2017
Richard M. Eaton
Essays on Islam and Indian History
Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2000, 275 pp., 7 maps, (ISBN 019566265-2)
Richard Eaton’s work on medieval South Asian history or Indo-Islamic culture and wide-
ranging ramifications for the study of medieval and early modern South Asia is familiar with
almost all those who have read on these topics. The book “Essays on Islam and Indian
History” is a collection of essays on the notable work done by Eaton that reflects the
important historiography of both South Asian history and a comparative analysis of that
history. The book is divided into four sections, comprised of several chapters.
In the first chapter of section 1, Eaton discusses the historiography, especially the evolving
Indian historiography that has placed the South Asian history in a comparative framework
within the global history framework. He first notes the changing patterns of the Western ideas
on the rise of the Islam not only as a major religion but also as one of the leading community
of the world. He then explores the various historiographies that have explored and attempted
to place Islam in the broader world history. While seeing the route of its expansion, he argues
“whether South Asia can be considered as the centre of the Muslim world or just a peripheral
region.”
In chapter two, he takes up the matter of religious conversions where instead of following the
preconceived idea of religious conversions as a way to create a bridge between the elites and
the marginalised population of a society and considering it to be the major duty of the
missionaries so as to create a monolithic religious ideology among all; he adopts processual

and strategic approaches towards the particular issue, and sees it as a way of reinterpretation
and reconstruction of the social
He gives the example of the conversion of the Nagas (locals of modern-day Nagaland) to
Christianity during the colonial period and shows the ways in which the Christian
missionaries approached differently towards different religious and social communities of
India. Though not sure, how much this example would have been relevant to the kind of
religious conversions that took place during the Sultanate or Mughal period.
In chapter three, Eaton continues on the issue of religious conversion, but from an entirely
different perspective. He compares the accounts of the various travellers (Chinese,
Portuguese, Russian and Central Asian) on the Malabar coastal city of Malabar, India, during
the 15th century. To add an interesting element to the chapter, Eaton has inserted an excerpt
from the conversation between Vasco Da Gama and Samudri Raja about trade and exchange.
He also examines the different patterns in the narratives and the illustrations of the place
which was different in each case depending upon the background of the traveller or the
chronicler.
Chapter four discusses on a crucial and controversial issue of temple desecration in the
Southern part of the subcontinent. He comes with the question of “When, where, and why
Hindu temples were destructed in the pre-modern period and how was this connected with the
rise and legitimisation of the Islamic rule in the Indian land?” It is to be noted here that, not
only the Hindu temples but the Buddhist viharas were also destroyed during the Islamic
invasions. It is often claimed by the scholars that, these sorts of the destruction of temples or
other holy shrines belonging to other religions are due to the “theology of iconoclasm”. Also,
it could be one of the ways to legitimise the power over the conquered mass. Here, Eaton
brings this issue in a modern context with the issue of the Babri Masjid case, whose
demolition propelled a nationwide communal dispute.
“The total number of temples that were destroyed across those six centuries (from 1000 to
1600) was 80, not many thousands as is sometimes conjectured by various people.”1
Along with this chapter, he presents the data of all the major temples or shrines destructions
beginning from the year 1192 continuing till 1729 in a tabular form that has the year, the
location of the site of destruction, agent and the source from the where the information was
retained.
In the last chapter of this section, another controversial topic within the historiography is
discussed where Eaton criticises the 'post-modern’ that took turn in the Indian historiography
with specific strands of the popularly trending Subaltern Studies Collective and how the
usage of such an argument has resulted in glorifying or exaggerating the influence of the
colonial rule of the South Asian nations in a way that it harmed the cultural identity of the
South Asians themselves.
The next section of the book is broadly a case study in the Deccan region of India where the
Vijayanagar Empire was thriving as a Hindu or an Indic Empire. With the Islamic power
rising in the north and gradually expanding its roots and branches up to distant lands and how
a medieval Deccani culture developed with the amalgamation of both Hindu and Islamic
cultures resulting into the emergence of Firuzabad, “the palace city” as a cosmopolitan but
Islamicate city in 1402.
Eaton then talks about the Sufi folk culture that prevailed in the seventeenth and the
eighteenth centuries with the Chistiya tariqah at Bijapur and played a major role in the
1
IndiaFacts Staff, “Hindu temple destructions a myth: Richard Eaton”, December 20, 2013, Indiafacts
http://indiafacts.org/hindu-temple-destructions-a-myth-richard-eaton/
proliferating the Islamic culture in the Deccan region. The folk songs and poetry were
performed majorly by women while doing the daily chores, this signifies the way this Sufi
folk culture penetrated the society, and since the women had less accessibility to the shrines,
to be the part of the larger framework, they found their own way of practising the religion.
The two chapters or essays in the section 3 deals with the case study of Punjab, focusing on
the shrine of Farid al-Din Ganj-I Shakar (d. 1265), popularly called 'Baba Farid,' who dwelled
in the area of the Punjab where Eaton talks about an association between the Islamisation of
Jat tribesmen and their progressive move from peaceful nomadism to settled horticulture.
Later on to examine the relations between the Islamic laws and the local judiciary he digs into
the dispute that took place in 1938 regarding the maintenance of the shrine.
The last section of the book discusses another case study of a Far East state of India, which is
Bengal. A major population in this region follows Islamism till this date. In Bengal, Islamic
influence took place in many phases, and it has been continuously reinterpreted within the
different classes of the society where it changed its form of influence in varied ways. It began
with the Turkish conquerors, then the Sufi saints which functioned in a way it did in the other
parts of the subcontinent and sustained for several centuries before the Mughals rose in
power. The Mughal gave rise to a new social class of Muslim elites that came to be known as
the “Ashraafs”. Since they were mostly involved with administration, military or scholarly
world, they considered themselves as the Muslim pioneers hence, refused to engage in
agricultural activities. But later on till the seventeenth and eighteenth century, with the
changes in the economic policies, few of these ashraafs involved themselves with the agrarian
activities to expand the agricultural production in order to incorporate Islam in that particular
section of the society.

Through these essays, especially the ones on the historiography provide insights on the
comparative methods and investigation of the political past of the South Asia in the context
of the Islamic history and how the events can be comprised into to the larger framework of
the Islamic world history. The main question that he explores through these essays and has
mentioned in the introduction part of the book is the interactions between the Islamic and the
Indic worlds and the process by which it distributed itself, though in a very uneven manner
and also succeeded in setting up important cultural centres around the world.
Shatarupa Dutta
School of Historical Studies (2016-18)
Nalanda University

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17th October 2017

Essays on Islam and Indian History

missionaries so as to create a monolithic religious ideology among all; he adopts processual

and reconstruction of the social

missionaries approached differently towards different religious and social communities of

different perspective. He compares the accounts of the various travellers (Chinese,

demolition propelled a nationwide communal dispute.

South Asians themselves.

Islamicate city in 1402.

section of the society.

School of Historical Studies (2016-18)

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