The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760

by Eaton, Richard Maxwell

• ISBN13: 9780520205079
• ISBN10: 0520205073
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr on Demand

Summary

In all of the South Asian subcontinent, Bengal was the region most receptive to the Islamic faith. This area today is home to the world's second-largest Muslim ethnic population. How and why did such a large Muslim population emerge there? And how does such a religious conversion take place? Richard Eaton uses archaeological evidence, monuments, narrative histories, poetry, and Mughal administrative documents to trace the long historical encounter between Islamic and Indic civilizations. Moving from the year 1204, when Persianized Turks from North India annexed the former Hindu states of the lower Ganges delta, to 1760, when the British East India Company rose to political dominance there, Eaton explores these moving frontiers, focusing especially on agrarian growth and religious change.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Note on Translation and Transliteration
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Before the Turkish Conquest	p. 3
Bengal in Prehistory	p. 3
Easy Indo-Aryan Influence in Bengal	p. 6
The Rise of Early Medieval Hindi Culture	p. 13
The Diffusion of Bengali Hindu Civilization	p. 17
The Articulation of Political Authority	p. 22
Perso-Islamic Conceptions of Political Authority, Eleventh-Thirteenth Centuries	p. 23
A Province of the Delhi Sultanate, 1204-1342	p. 32
The Early Bengal Sultanate, 1342-ca. 1400	p. 40
The Rise of Raja Ganesh (ca. 1400-1421)	p. 50
Sultan Jalal al-Din Muhammad (1415-32) and His Political Ideology	p. 56
The Indigenization of Royal Authority, 1433-1538	p. 63
Summary	p. 69
Early Sufis of the Delta	p. 71
The Question of Sufis and Frontier Warfare	p. 71
Bengali Sufis and Hindu Thought	p. 77
Sufis of the Capital	p. 82
Economy, Society, and Culture	p. 93
The Political Economy of the Sultanate	p. 95
Ashraf and Non-Ashraf Society	p. 97
Hindu Society - Responses to the Conquest	p. 102
Hindu Religion - the Siva-Sakta	p. 103
Hindu Religion - the Vaishnava Complex	p. 109
Mass Conversion to Islam: Theories and Protagonists	p. 113
Four Conventional Theories of Islamization in India	p. 113
Theories of Islamization in Bengal	p. 119
The Appearance of a Bengali Muslim Peasantry	p. 129
The Rise of Mughal Power	p. 137
The Afghan Age, 1537-1612	p. 137
The Early Mughal Experience in Bengal, 1574-1610	p. 142
The Consolidation of Mughal Authority, 1610-1704	p. 150
Mughal Culture and Its Diffusion	p. 159
The Political Basis of Mughal Culture in Bengal	p. 159
The Place of Bengal in Mughal Culture	p. 167
The Place of Islam in Mughal Culture	p. 174
The Administration of Mughal Law - the Villagers' View	p. 179
West Bengal: The Integration of Imperial Authority	p. 183
The Northern Frontier: Resistance to Imperial Authority	p. 186
East Bengal: Conquest and Culture Change	p. 191
Islam and the Agrarian Order in the East	p. 194
Riverine Changes and Economic Growth	p. 194
Charismatic Pioneers on the Agrarian Frontier	p. 207
The Religious Gentry in Bakarganj and Dhaka, 1650-1760	p. 219
Mosque and Shrine in the Rural Landscape	p. 228
The Mughal State and the Agrarian Order	p. 228
The Rural Mosque in Bengali History	p. 229
The Growth of Mosques and Shrines in Rural Chittagong, 1666-1760	p. 234
The Rise of Chittagong's Religious Gentry	p. 248
The Religious Gentry of Sylhet	p. 258
The Rooting of Islam in Bengal	p. 268
Inclusion	p. 270
Identification	p. 275
Displacement	p. 281
Literacy and Islamization	p. 291
Gender and Islamization	p. 297
Conclusion	p. 305
Appendix 1: Mint Towns and Inscription Sites under Muslim Rulers, 1204-1760	p. 317
Appendix: 2: Principal Muslim Rulers of Bengal	p. 323
Select Bibliography	p. 327
Index	p. 343
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