Accommodation and appropriation
Perhaps the most visible result of the Islamic presence in India was the
way in which mutual borrowings and appropriations occurred leading to
new creativity in the arts, architecture, languages, lifestyle, and, of course,
religion. The patterns of these borrowings would vary from region to
region, community to community, even family to family. As persons of vary-
ing cultural-religious backgrounds interacted there would be borrowings
at the person to person or family to family levels. On the other end of the
spectrum, in the courts, especially those of the Mughals and the Ra ̄jputs,
there was the patronizing of an increasingly eclectic culture. Here it should
be enough to summarize and/or illustrate some of these developments.
The emergence of new languages is one illustration of this phenomenon.
By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a variety of Indo-A ̄ryan or Indo-
Persian dialects was emerging. These included Braj-bha ̄sha, the vehicle of
medieval Vais.n.ava literature and of classical Hindu ̄sta ̄nı ̄ music^35 and Avadhı ̄
in which both Hindu and Muslim bhaktipoetry was written.^36 Dakhinı ̄
(or Deccanı ̄), a language used primarily by Muslims in Central India by
the fifteenth century, was part of the mix.^37 Such dialects as these evolved
into Hindı ̄ and Urdu ̄, first as spoken, then written languages. Urdu ̄ used
an Arabic script but borrowed its vocabulary from Arabic, Persian, Turkish,
and Sanskritic sources; its grammar reflects Sanskritic roots as well as
others. Hindı ̄, on the other hand, used a Devana ̄garı ̄ (Sanskritic) script and
borrowed words from Arabic, Persian, and Turkish sources and grammar
from Pra ̄kritic as well as other sources. As we have observed, poetry and
various forms of literature were rich, particularly by the sixteenth century.
Similarly, the libraries to be found in Delhi were among the best in Asia as,
under royal patronage, manuscripts were collected and vernacular materials
were brought together from the Hindu and Islamic worlds.
Science flourished under Mughal and/or Ra ̄jput patronage. There was a
combination of Sanskritic and Arabic medical traditions as medical texts
from both traditions were translated and made available. It may not be an
exaggeration to suggest that by the seventeenth century, Delhi was one of
the finest medical centers in the world. Astronomy also flourished. Some
five observatories were to be found in the Delhi area by the seventeenth
century and Sanskritic and Arabic traditions of astronomy were in contact
in ways seldom seen since the scientific heyday of ninth-century Baghdad.^38
Accommodation and mutual influence were especially apparent in the
arts. Musical forms were synthesized, for example, creating a “new” mode of
“classical” music sometimes known as Hindu ̄sta ̄nı ̄ or Indo-Islamic, in contrast
to the southern Carnatic musical tradition. Su ̄fı ̄s used the Indian musical
scale while offering sentiments reflecting Persian roots. Several new musical
150 Developments in the Late Medieval Period