220 Part III: South Asia
Islam
Soon after the Prophet Muhammad began preaching in the Arabian Penin-
sula in the seventh century C.E., his teachings made their way to India, brought
by caravans from the Middle East and seafaring Arab traders. But despite these
early arrivals, Islam had little impact on India for many more centuries, even
though it was spreading broadly toward the subcontinent among Iranians,
Turks, and Mongols of Central Asia and the Iranian Plateau. In these regions
the original teachings emanating from Arabia mixed with local and newly
sprouted ideas to form institutions of religion and kingship that would later
transform India.
When Islam finally spread into India, it came in three not fully differenti-
ated forms: Sunni, Shia, and Sufi. None of them is quite the form now taken in
South Asia, after two centuries of colonialism, during which Indian Islam was
deprived of Islamic rulers.
Islam begins, of course, far from India. In 610 in the Arabian Desert the
Prophet Muhammad began to have visions in which the angel Gabriel dictated
to him the words of Allah, which became the holy book, the Quran. As
Muhammad communicated these visions, many followers were drawn to what
became a new religion called Islam, meaning full and complete surrender to
the divine will. He also attracted enemies who attempted to destroy the new
faith. Muhammad and his followers defeated his enemies and conquered most
of the Arabian Peninsula before his death in 632. Over the next 30 years most
of the Middle East was conquered by his successors, and by a century later
North Africa and Spain were conquered.
However, when the Prophet died his followers faced a severe dilemma:
Who would succeed him? He left behind no son and no instructions for a suc-
cessor. He had a large family, with multiple wives, a father-in-law named Abu
Bakr, and a charismatic son-in-law named Ali, husband of his daughter Fatima.
The elders chose Abu Bakr to succeed Muhammad as caliph, that is, to exercise
both spiritual and political authority. However, another faction believed Ali
was the true heir, and his son Husain, who was a blood descendant of the
Prophet through Fatima, had been wrongly deprived of the succession. There
followed 53 years of civil war as Ali’s followers tried to wrest power back from
Abu Bakr and the next three successors. Thus began the great schism between
the Sunnis (who accepted Abu Bakr and succession by choice of the elders and
customs established by the Prophet) and the Shias (who believe succession
should follow the actual bloodline of the Prophet himself). In 680, while on his
way to join rebels in Iran, Husain was killed by Sunnis near Karbala (in mod-
ern Iraq) and thus became the first martyr. The martyrdom of Husain is a cen-
tral theme of Shia Islam; emotional laments for children killed at Karbala fill
Muharram, the first month of the Islamic New Year (see box 6.1).
After the Prophet’s death, stories told by his wives and followers about his
early life and the years of conquest and civil war were collected in a series of