Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Amir Khusrav on the new fort that Ala-ud-din Khalji built in Delhi: ‘It is a condition that in a new building blood should be sprinkled; he therefore sacrificed some thousands of goat-bearded Mughals for the purpose.’

Kabir: ‘Sanskrit is like water in a [deep] well; the language of the people is like a flowing stream.’

Tirupati, one of the most sacred Hindu shrines in modern India, acquired its prominence around the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.

Odoric on Kerala: ‘All the inhabitants of that country do worship a living ox, as their god, whom they put to labour for six years, and in the seventh year they cause him to rest from al his work, placing him in a solemn and public place, and calling him a holy beast. Moreover … every morning they take two basins, either of silver or of gold, and with one they receive the urine of the ox, and with the other its dung. With the urine they wash their face, their eyes, and all their five senses. The dung they put into both their eyes, then they anoint the … cheeks therewith, and thirdly their breast: and then they say that they are sanctified for the whole day. And as the people do, even so do their king and queen.’

Ramananda, a thirteenth century Vaishnava sage: ‘I had an inclination to go with sandal and other perfumes to offer worship to Brahman. But the guru revealed to me that Brahman was in my own heart.’

The word sufi is derived from the word for wool: suf . Sufis wore wool instead of cotton or silk as an act of self-mortification. Sufis gained prominence in Persia around the tenth century.

The regions of India where Islam was most successful in winning converts were the regions where Buddhism still had a prominent presence in early medieval times. In time these regions came to have Muslim majorities, and they eventually, in the twentieth century, became independent Muslim states: Pakistan and Bangladesh. Muslims remained a minority in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the heartland of Muslim power in India. In all, Muslims in the subcontinent at the time of India’s independence constituted a quarter of its population.

The Portuguese brought the Inquisition to India. Those condemned by the inquisitor were burned.

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