According to Ibni Haukal (a.d. 170) from Kambáya to Saimúr the villages lay close to one another and much land was under cultivation.[235] At the end[236] of the eleventh century trade was brisk merchandise from every country finding its way to the ports of Gujarát whose local products were in turn exported all over the east.[237] The Ráshṭrakúṭa dominion was vast, well-peopled, commercial, and fertile.[238] The people lived mostly on a vegetable diet, rice peas beans haricots and lentils being their daily food.[239] Al Idrísi speaks of certain Hindus eating animals whose deaths had been caused by falls or by being gored,[240] but Al Masúdi states that the higher classes who wore the “baldric like yellow thread” (the Janoi) abstained from flesh. According to Ibni Haukal (a.d. 968–970) the ordinary dress of the kings of Hind was trousers and a tunic.[241] He also notices that between Kambáyah and Saimúr the Muslims and infidels wear the same cool fine muslin dress and let their beards grow in the same fashion.[242] During the tenth century on high days the Balhára wore a crown of gold and a dress of rich stuff. The attendant women were richly clad, wearing rings of gold and silver upon their feet and hands and having their hair in curls.[243] At the close of the Hindu period (a.d. 1300) Rashíd-ud-dín describes Gujarát as a flourishing country with no less than 80,000 villages and hamlets the people happy the soil rich growing in the four seasons seventy varieties of flowers. Two harvests repaid the husbandman, the earlier crop refreshed by the dew of the cold season the late crop enriched by a certain rainfall.[244]
Review.In their intercourse with Western India nothing struck the Arabs more than the toleration shown to their religion both by chief and peoples.
Appendix V.
Arab References, a.d. 851–1350.
Review. This was specially marked in the Ráshṭrakúṭa towns where besides free use of mosques and Jámá mosques Musalmán magistrates or kázis were appointed to settle disputes among Musalmáns according to their own laws.[245] Toleration was not peculiar to the Balháras. Al Bírúni records[246] that in the ninth century (a.d. 581), when the Hindus recovered Sindán (Sanján in Kachh) they spared the assembly mosque where long after the Faithful congregated on Fridays praying for their Khalífah without hindrance. In the Balhára country so strongly did the people believe in the power of Islám or which is perhaps more likely so courteous were they that they said that our king enjoys a long life and long reign is solely due to the favour shown by him to the Musalmáns. So far as the merchant Sulaimán saw in the ninth century the chief religion in Gujarát was Buddhism. He notices that the principles of the religion of China were brought from India and that the Chinese ascribe to the Indians the introduction of Buddhas into their country. Of religious beliefs metempsychoses or re-birth and of religious practices widow-burning or satti and self-torture seem to have struck him most.[247] As a rule the dead were burned.[248] Sulaimán represents the people of Gujarát as steady abstemious and sober abstaining from wine as well as from vinegar, ‘not’ he adds ‘from religious motives but from their disdain of it.’ Among their sovereigns the desire of conquest was seldom the cause of war.[249] Abu Zaid (a.d. 916) describes the Bráhmans as Hindus devoted to religion and science. Among Bráhmans were poets who lived at kings’ courts, astronomers, philosophers, diviners, and drawers of omens from the flight of crows.[250] He adds: So sure are the people that after death they shall return to life upon the earth, that when a person grows old “he begs some one of his family to throw him into the fire or to drown him.”[251] In Abu Zaid’s time (a.d. 916) the Hindus did not seclude their women. Even the wives of the kings used to mix freely with men and attend courts and places of public resort unveiled.[252] According to Ibni Khurdádbah (a.d. 912) India has forty-two religious sects “part of whom believe in God and his Prophet (on whom be peace) and part who deny his mission.”[253] Ibni Khurdádbah (a.d. 912) describes the Hindus as divided into seven classes. Of these the first are Thákarias[254] or Thákurs men of high caste from whom kings are chosen and to whom men of the other classes render homage, the second are the Baráhmas[255] who abstain from wine and fermented liquors; the third are the Katariya or Kshatrias who drink not more than three cups of wine; the fourth are the Sudaria or Shudras husbandmen by profession; the fifth are the Baisura or Vaish artificers and domestics; the sixth Sandalias or Chandala menials; and the seventh the ‘Lahúd,’ whose women adorn themselves and whose men are fond of amusements and games of skill. Both among the people and the kings of Gujarát[256] wine
Appendix V.
Arab References, a.d. 851–1350.
Review. was “unlawful and lawful” that is it was not used though no religious rule forbade its use. According to Al Masúdi (a.d. 943) a general opinion prevailed that India was the earliest home of order and wisdom. The Indians chose as their king the great Bráhma who ruled them for 366 years. His descendants retain the name of Bráhman and are honoured as the most illustrious caste. They abstain from the flesh of animals.[257] Hindu kings cannot succeed before the age of forty nor do they appear in public except on certain occasions for the conduct of state affairs. Royalty and all the high offices of state[258] are limited to the descendants of one family. The Hindus strongly disapprove of the use of wine both in themselves and in others not from any religious objection but on account of its intoxicating and reason-clouding qualities.[259] Al Bírúni (a.d. 970–1031) quoted by Rashíd-ud-dín (a.d. 1310) states that the people of Gujarát are idolators and notices the great penance-pilgrimages to Somnáth details of which have already been given.[260] Al Idrísi (end of the eleventh century) closely follows Ibni Khurdádbah’s (a.d. 912) division of the people of India. The chief exception is that he represents[261] the second class, the Bráhmans, as wearing the skins of tigers and going about staff in hand collecting crowds and from morn till eve proclaiming to their hearers the glory and power of God. He makes out that the Kastariás or Kshatriyas are able to drink three ratl (a ratl being one pound troy) of wine and are allowed to marry Bráhman women. The Sabdaliya or Chandal women, he says, are noted for beauty. Of the forty-two sects he enumerates worshippers of trees and adorers of serpents, which they keep in stables and feed as well as they can, deeming it to be a meritorious work. He says that the inhabitants of Kambáya are Buddhists (idolators)[262] and that the Balhára also worships the idol Buddha.[263] The Indians, says Al Idrísi[264] (end of the eleventh century) are naturally inclined to justice and in their actions never depart from it. Their reputation for good faith, honesty, and fidelity to their engagements brings strangers flocking to their country and aids its prosperity. In illustration of the peaceable disposition of the Hindus, he quotes the ancient practice of duhái or conjuring in the name of the king, a rite which is still in vogue in some native states. When a man has a rightful claim he draws a circle on the ground and asks his debtor to step into the circle in the name of the king. The debtor never fails to step in nor does he ever leave the circle without paying his debts. Al Idrísi describes the people of Nahrwára as having so high a respect for oxen that when an ox dies they bury it. “When enfeebled by age or if unable to work they provide their oxen with food without exacting any return.”[265]
[1] Contributed by Khán Sáheb Fazlulláh Lutfulláh Farídi of Surat. [↑]
[2] This account which is in two parts is named Silsilát-ut-Tawáríkh, that is the Chain of History. The first part was written in a.d. 851–52 by Sulaimán and has the advantage of being the work of a traveller who himself knew the countries he describes. The second part was written by Abu Zeid-al-Hasan of Siráf on the Persian Gulf about sixty years after Sulaimán’s account. Though Abu Zeid never visited India, he made it his business to read and question travellers who had been in India. Abul Hasan-el-Masúdi (a.d. 915–943) who met him at Basrah is said to have imparted to and derived much information from Abu Zeid. Sir Henry Elliot’s History of India, I. 2. [↑]
[3] Ahmed bin Yahyâ, surnamed Abu Jaâfar and called Biláduri or Bilázuri from his addiction to the electuary of the Malacca bean (bilázur بلازر) or anacardium, lived about the middle of the ninth century of the Christian era at the court of Al-Mutawakkil the Abbási, as an instructor to one of the royal princes. He died a.h. 279 (a.d. 892–93). His work is styled the Futúh-ul-Buldán The Conquest of Countries. He did not visit Sindh, but was in personal communication with men who had travelled far and wide. [↑]
[4] Sir Henry Elliot’s History of India, I. 115–116. [↑]
[5] The reason of Umar’s dislike for India is described by Al Masúdi (Murúj Arabic Text, Cairo Edition, III. 166–171), to have originated from the description of the country by a philosopher to whom Umar had referred on the first spread of Islám in his reign. The philosopher said: India is a distant and remote land peopled by rebellious infidels. Immediately after the battle of Kadesiah (a.d. 636) when sending out Utbah, his first governor to the newly-founded camp-town of Basrah Umar is reported to have said: I am sending thee to the land of Al-Hind (India) as governor. Remember it is a field of the fields of the enemy. The third Khalífah Usmán (a.d. 643–655) ordered his governor of Irák to depute a special officer to visit India and wait upon the Khalífah to report his opinion of that country. His report of India was not encouraging. He said: Its water is scarce, its fruits are poor, and its robbers bold. If the troops sent there are few they will be slain; if many they will starve. (Al-Biláduri in Elliot, I. 116.) [↑]
[6] Sir H. Elliot’s History of India, I. 116. [↑]
[7] Sir H. Elliot (Hist. of India) transliterates this as Básia. But neither Básea nor his other supposition (Note 4 Ditto) Budha seem to have any sense. The original is probably Bátiah, a form in which other Arab historians and geographers also allude to Baet, the residence of the notorious Bawárij who are referred to a little farther on as seafarers and pirates. Ditto, I. 123. [↑]