Islam was brought to India by Muslim invaders
Most historians now agree that India’s introduction to Islam was through Arab traders and not Muslim invaders, as is generally believed. The Arabs had been coming to the Malabar coast in southern India as traders for a long time, well before Islam had been introduced in Arabia.
Writes H G Rawlinson, in his book, ‘Ancient and Medieval History of India’, “The first Arab Muslims began settling in the towns on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century.” They married Indian women and were treated with respect and allowed to propagate their faith. According to B P Sahu, head of the department of history of Delhi University, Arab Muslims began occupying positions of prominence in the areas where they had settled by the 8th and 9th centuries.
In fact, the first mosque in the county was built by an Arab trader at Kodungallur, in what is now Kerala, in 629 AD. Interestingly, Prophet Mohammed was alive at that time and this mosque in India would probably have been one of the first few mosques in the world, thus highlighting the presence of Islam in India long before the Muslim invaders arrived.
Asoka killed his 100 brothers to claim the throne
In his book, The Oxford History of India, Vincent Smith writes that the story told by the Buddhist monks of Ceylon that Asoka slaughtered 98 or 99 of his brothers in order to clear his way to the throne is absurd and obviously concocted to highlight Asoka’s alleged abnormal wickedness prior to his conversion to Buddhism.
In fact, Asoka, says Smith, took good care of his brothers long after his succession, evidence of which is found in his rock edicts. However, according to Nayanjot Lahiri, professor in the department of history at Delhi University, this is a legend which can’t be summarily dismissed and it probably has a grain of truth.
Categories: Accepting Islam, Asia