Qutub Minar

Delhi has been center of many dynasties and been capital of Independent India. Qutub minar is a famous monument and I guess every Indian would know about it. This time I got a chance to see it and one thing stood out was that many of the pillars used in the structure around Qutub Minar were part of Hindu/Jain temples and this is very much evident from whatever has remained there. So this made me dwell a little more on the history of this Qutub Minar. Now it is not very difficult to find temples maybe hundreds of year old in South of India but not so in Delhi probably because it was always under attack from the west.

Now one of the things that we don’t talk about openly without the discussion getting polarized is a fact that during the medieval periods it was not very uncommon to destroy structures including temples of enemy states. Violence that is considered today nasty was probably a common thing. Even these days places that are undergoing situations of war won’t be very different.

The Qutub Story

Islam made appearance in India in 8th Century but there were not too much Islamic influences on the land of India. It was mostly about invading and collecting the loot and going back to the Arab world. India was known as land of riches and that attracted many different kind of folks from the north, land beyond the Hindu Kush. It was a ferocious horde from Ghur (in modern Afghanistan) which invaded in the end of 12th Century under the leadership of one Muizuddin ibn Sam or more famously known as Mohammed of Ghur. It was the coming of Ghurs that left a permanent imprint on Islam in India. This encounter was one of  non-alikes, Islam was a religion that was much younger than that of the very old Hinduism and they were diametrically opposite not just in philosophy but architecture as well.

Islam was born in Arabia and matured in Persia and Asia Minor, was accustomed to build with brick and mortar whereas Hindu artisans were building with stones for more than a  millennium before Muslims arrived. The first point of contact between the two forces was  one of friction and the soldiers of Islam set up destroying the  symbols and structures of others largely of Hindus and Jains.

When the invaders from Ghur started to settle in the new land they started to use the material of palaces and temples to build their own structures. In Qutub Minar, there is a mosque, probably one of the earliest surviving mosque built by invaders, (there were mosque built before this by trading communities) Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque and its construction is  composed entirely of material taken from 27 Hindu and Jain temples. Now this is found in the inscription in the Qutub complex and these number can be less or more because inscriptions sometimes exaggerate. Islamic architecture allows the use of  scriptural inscriptions   and geometric patterns and here you can see very ornate beams that are easily seen in the temples.

 

 

Mohammed of Ghur defeated Prithviraj Chauhan in 1192  who had citadel called Qila Rai Pithora. Mohammed of Ghur returned back to his country leaving Qutbuddin Aibak as his Viceroy. In 1206 with the death of his boss, Qutbuddin declared himself the Sultan starting the Mamluk or Slave dynasty, first of the several Muslim dynasties that rules northern Indian for next six and half centuries. He laid the foundation of the magnificent stone tower in 1199. 

Since this was maybe the first time Islamic ruler was putting up a structure and that is why it had to be magnificent signaling the prowess  of the new rulers and their religion. The inspiration of Qutub Minar is sometimes credited to Minaret of Jam which was constructed in 1194 in dramatic setting, a deep river valley between towering mountains in the heart of the Ghur province in present day Afghanistan.

 

 

The area where we have Qutub Minar was built near Qila Rai Pithora where the Rajput Chauhan Kingdom had its base. With so much of stuff completely obliterated or used as raw material, to this day there is Iron pillar from the Gupta times which historian believe was moved  by a Tomar King to the current place. At least no other remains of that era is found anywhere in the complex today but the Islamic rulers left it untouched.

The desecration of Hindu or Jain temples are not discussed openly and even in our school or college textbooks this is not really talked about. After partition of Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, there was a huge bloodshed and movement of population Hindus to India and Muslims to Pakistan. There was great mistrust between both these faiths and these kind of desecrations were  underplayed by the historians and intellectuals thinking that it will further create friction in the people. This is one of the reasons that when people start to realize this and the information coming to mainstream through other sources created mistrust in history and maligned many of the historians who tried to put these under the carpet as they thought common people may not be able to take this reality. Now is the time that we talk about it and learn.

What do you want to say?

We can keep falling in the trap of fixing all this which is taking this country back in time. There is an anecdote of Swami Vivekananda who visited Kashmir and here in excerpt from an Article that I cannot vouch for authenticity as I have not read a lot of Swami Vivekananda’s work but this makes sense to me. Anyone can fact check this for me it will be of great help.

One day at Kheer Bhawani while worshipping, the thought of the ruination and desecration of the temple by the Muslim invaders left him distressed at heart. He thought that Mother has been manifesting Her presence here for untold years, “How could the people have permitted such sacrilege without offering resistance?

If I had been here then, I would never have allowed such a thing. I would have laid down my life to protect the Mother.” Thereupon he heard the voice of the Mother Goddess saying, “What if unbelievers should enter My temple and defile My image? What is that to you? Do you protect Me, or do I protect you?” 

I think with this thought, I will leave this article here and readers (those who had the patience to reach here, thank you)  you can differ and disagree and still be a dear friend 🙂