A is for April... n... A-Z... n... Assume

 

Assume, just for a mind bending minute, that Islam didn’t get as far as India, that they did an about turn, both the marauders and mystics alike, from the Hindukush. What would India be like then? The short answer to that question is - abysmal. 

What would we have missed out on? The first thing that comes to mind is no Amir Khusrow, so no ghazals, no sitar. Indian music, both classical and light, particularly the North Indian stuff would sound completely different, a much paler version of itself. But hang on, not just Indian music. Fast forward seven centuries and take a shufti at the 1960s and that would sound quite dismal too. No sitar would mean no Ravi Shankar, no collaborations between George Harrison and the Indian maestro, no songs such as Norwegian Wood, which is on the list of 500 greatest songs of all time. Yup, one less on that list. Let that sink in while you take a listen.

There are a whole heap of other things too, of course. The luscious architecture of the Taj Mahal, for instance. Distinctive art of the Mughal paintings too, these guys were seriously into the pursuits of refinement and sophistication. Firearms and gunpowder, brought into India by the first Mughal king, Babur, from Turkey. Then there's the cuisine - all time favourites, droolworthy dishes like the Biryani, the  Kaliyas and Kormas, kababs of all kinds. The list could go on - the jewellery styles, such as the nose ring, and body art such as the henna tattoos; drier things like seamless celestial globes, maps and astrolabes; paper mills, spinning wheels and iron stirrups; more abstract things like the expansion of trade and economy. Without these, India would be unrecognisable. 

But what is perhaps the most far reaching impact was that education was liberalised under the Mughal emperors. Hinduism, mired in its caste system by medieval times, restricted education based on birth. The Muslim rulers upended that - they promoted the exchange of ideas, set up educational institutions where anyone could go learn, voraciously translated Sanskrit texts into Arabic and Persian and vice versa.  Islam brought in the idea of universal brotherhood and equality which was instrumental in the later reform movements such as the Bhakti movement and the rise of other belief systems like Sikhism. 

So...had the Muslims turned back from the Hindukush, India would have been a vastly different, much poorer place altogether. Far less attractive really, if you ask my free and frank.

A-Z Challenge 2021