The Muslim dominance that declined after Alauddin’s death in 1316, was resurrected by the Tughlaqs. Alauddin suffered greatly in his final three years due to poor health and disappointing family matters. However, only Rajasthan and Orissa had remained independent of Islamic rule at the time, while the rest of the Islamic territory had seen most temples destroyed and a significant reduction in the Hindu population. So it was time to pick up the sword once more and begin plundering and destroying whatever Vedic culture remained. Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-1351) and Firuoz Shah Tughlaq (1351-1388) were the most powerful Tughlaqs.

Muhammad worked to re-establish Delhi’s control over the states of Orissa and Warangal. After ascending to the position of Sultan, he led several expeditions into the Deccan. The first was to put down a rebellion led by his own sister’s son, Bahauddin Gurshasp, and the Hindu rulers of Dvarasamudra of the Hoysala dynasty and Kampili, or modern Bellary, Raichur, and Dharwar, who provided Gurshasp with shelter.

When the Sultan apprehended his rebellious nephew, he ordered that Gurshasp’s flesh be cooked with rice and fed to the elephants. But his skin was to be stuff ed and then displayed in all of the sultanate’s major cities.

When the governor of Multan refused to display the skin, he was also executed quickly.

After the empire annexed the area of Kampili, many of the elite were taken to Delhi and converted to Islam. Among them, however, were two young brothers, Harihara and Bukka, who were later appointed governors of the south. However, they returned to their Vedic roots, and Hindus became the founders of the great Vijayanagar empire in 1336.

This also demonstrates how superficial most of these forced conversions to Islam were, and how many people at the time would have easily converted back to Sanatana-dharma if given half a chance.

From 1336 until its defeat in 1565, the Vijayanagar Empire was strong and solid, stretching from the Malabar coast to the Coromandel shores. An alliance of four Bahmani kingdoms attacked and destroyed it. It acted as a strong deterrent to the Islamization of the south, erecting numerous temples and preserving the Vedic heritage.

Firoz Shah strictly adhered to Islamic beliefs and was particularly cruel to Hindus, Shia Muslims, and even liberal Sunnis. Firoz Shah Tughlaq led an expedition into Orissa in 1360, where he targeted and plundered the Jagannatha Puri temple and destroyed many other Vedic temples and shrines. In his Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi, he wrote that he destroyed the ancient shrine on the sea coast and had the image of Jagannatha perforated and disgraced by casting it down to the ground. They dug up other images that had been worshipped and did the same to them so that they could be placed in front of mosques along the Sunni route so that the images would be trampled as the Sunnis passed by mosques.

Following the attack on Jagannatha Puri, Firuz Shah Tughlaq purposefully attacked an island off the coast in order to kill the 100,000 men who had taken refuge there to escape Firuz’s tyrannical actions. “Nearly 100,000 men of Jajnagar had taken refuge with their women, children, kinsmen, and relations,” writes the Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi of his expedition. By slaughtering unbelievers, Islam’s swordsmen turned the island into a pool of blood. Women with babies and pregnant ladies were halted, manacled, fettered, and enchained, and forced to work as slaves in every soldier’s house.”

“A report was brought to the Sultan that there was in Delhi an old Brahmana who persisted in publicly performing the worship of idols in his house and that people of the city, both Muslims and Hindus, used to resort to his house to worship the idol,” according to the Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi (from Insha-i-Mahry by Amud Din Abdullah bin Mahru). The Brahmana had built a wooden tablet that was covered inside and out with paintings of demons and other objects. The Brahmana was given an order and brought before the Sultan as a result. The true faith [Islam] was declared to the Brahmana, and the correct path was indicated, but He refused to accept it.

The kaffir, his hands and legs tied, was thrown into the wooden table on top of the pile. His head and feet were both lit up in the pile. The fire first reached his feet, causing him to cry, and then completely engulfed him. Behold Sultan for his steadfast adherence to the rule of law and rectitude.” Firoz Tughlaq thus burned alive the Old Hindu Brahmana.

 

 

Source: Crimes against India by Stephen Knapp

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