ied Indian languages, sciences, customs, and reli-
gions. His record is the first textual evidence that
the ballyhooed antipathy of Hindus and Muslims
is overstated. Al-Biruni’s writings reveal a rich and
nuanced appreciation for a great deal about Hindu
culture. From the 10th century onward, the north
of India was dominated by kingdoms whose rul-
ing dynasties were Turks and Mongols. However,
research reveals that the greatest conversion to
Islam was in the regions of South Asia, where Hin-
duism was least firmly entrenched. This would
dispel commonly held views that conversion was
either the result of force or a desire to escape an
oppressive caste structure.
For most of the thousand years of Muslim
dominance in South Asia, relations between Hin-
dus and Muslims were largely peaceful, with
Hindu and Muslim rulers employing high-level
ministers from other religions and ethnic groups,
patronizing each other’s buildings and festivals,
and visiting each other’s holy places. This reached
an apex under the Mughal emperor akbar, who
briefly introduced a new religious system called
the Din-i Ilahi, or Religion of God, inspired by
his conversations with scholars and mystics from
Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Jain, and
Christian traditions. Also popular in this period
and to the present day are the shared devotional
practices associated with Muslim saints, most
notably of the chishti sUFi order, which is cen-
tered at aJmer, Rajasthan.
Religious differences, however, have in the
past been contentious in South Asia, as they con-
tinue to be to the present day. In spite of 1,000
years of rule, Islam never became the majority
faith in the region; at the time of the comple-
tion of the British conquest in 1857, Muslims
made up approximately 25 percent of the popu-
lation. As the Indian independence movement
grew and the British prepared to depart from
the subcontinent, Muslims sought guarantees of
representation in government and civil services.
The nationalists of the Indian National Congress
under mohandas karamchand gandhi (d. 1948)
and Jawaharlal Nehru (d. 1964) opposed the
schemes put forward by mUhammad ali Jinnah
(d. 1948) and the all-india mUslim leagUe
for a strong federated state system. As a result,
when the British rapidly departed in 1947, the
subcontinent was partitioned into India and East
and West Pakistan. In a seismic population shift,
15 million people moved between the northwest
and northeast regions, and estimates of those
who lost their lives in the violent transition
range from 200,000 to 1 million. The legacy of
Partition in terms of Hindu-Muslim relations in
India has been traumatic. Indian Muslims today
remain vulnerable, less educated, poorer, andTomb of Chishti saint Qutb al-Din Bakhtiar Kaki in
Mehrauli, New Delhi, India ( Juan E. Campo)
Hinduism and Islam 301 J