what is the difference or similarity between MONGOLS and MUGHALS?

Question

Well the confusion is that Islam began in Middle East, but Mongols came from steppes above China, so how come they have Islamic sounding names like Khan, etc?

Answer 1

The term "Mughal" comes from a mispronunciation of the word "Mongol," but the Mughals of India were mostly ethnic Turks not Mongolians. However, Barbur (1483-1530), the first Mughal emperor, could trace his blood line back to Chinggis Khan. The Muslims of Central Asia had good reason to hate the Mongols because they destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate when they sacked Baghdad in 1258. During the 300 years after the death of Chinggis, the Mongol Empire had split into four parts: the Golden Horde of Russia (1242-1359), the Ilkhanate of Iran and Iraq (1256-1353), the Chinese Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) ruled by Kublai Khan, and finally the Mughal Empire of India (1527-1707).

It was the Timur the Lame (known in the Europe as Tamerlane), whose "descent from Chinggis Khan," as Jack Weatherford says, was based "flimsy evidence,"who gave the Mongols the bad reputation that has come down to us. Virtually nothing good can be said of Timur's conquests, and this fact has obscured the contributions of the Mongol Empire. While Timur tortured unmercifully and sacked cities indiscriminately, Chinggis Khan abolished torture and formed alliances with people who did not resist him. As an orthodox Muslim, Timur thought that the Delhi Sultans had been very lax in enforcing Islamic law against Hindus and other non-Muslims. Just before his devastating attack on Delhi in 1398, he ordered that Muslim and Hindu prisoners be separated and then declared that "every man who had infidel prisoners was to put them to death."An estimated 100,000 Hindu prisoners were liquidated in one day.

In addition to proposing the first concept of secular international law, the Mongols generally allowed complete religious freedom in the first hundred years. Followers of Ong Khan, the adopted father of Chinggis Khan, were Nestorian Christians, and these Kereyid Mongols easily assimilated Jesus as healer and shaman into their traditional beliefs. Chinggis' four sons married Kereyid Christian women and there were many Christians among their descendents. Even with this preference for Christianity, Ogodei Khan, Chinggis' son, allowed Daoist and Buddhist temples, mosques, as well as churches to be built at his capital at Karakorum. Weatherford contends that Karakorum, only one stone turtle is left after Ming troops destroyed the city in 1380, "was probably the most religiously open and tolerant city in the world at that time."No court in Asia would exceed this religious tolerance except for possibly that of Akbar the Great, the truly exceptional Mughal emperor who welcomed all religions to his court and engaged their sages and theologians in friendly debate.

Chinggis Khan's own religion was shamanic with a focus on the worship of the sky, and this ritual is reflected in the choice of blue, rather than the Tibetan white, for the Mongolian Buddhist hospitality scarf. He communed with this sky god before going into battle and before negotiating treaties, but at no time did he or any Mongol leader force this belief on others. For centuries armies have gone to war with the blessings of their respective deities; indeed, opposing sides sometimes asked for victory from the same deity. The focus of this paper, however, is the violence committed for the purpose of converting the enemy to the conqueror's religion, systematically oppressing those who resist conversion, and destroying their temples and religious artifacts in the process.

Religious persecution did occur during the short reigns of Buddhist and Nestorian Mongol rulers of the early Ilkhanate in Central Asia, but the tables were turned with the conversion of the Mongol Ghazan to Islam in 1304. Ghazan destroyed Buddhist temples and tried to force conversion to Islam on his subjects. Chinggis' grandson Hulegu Khan was the founder of the Ilkhanate and his goal was to take Baghdad, the center of Islamic learning and culture and seat of the Abbasid Caliphate. Hulegu's mother and two wives were Christians and this helped him forge an alliance with Christian leaders in Georgia and Armenia against the Muslims in Iraq. As Baghdad fell in 1258, Hulegu ordered that the city be evacuated before the looting began. He sent in Christian troops to secure churches and their congregants' life and property, but many Muslim residents chose to remain.

Weatherford describes the destruction that followed the fall of Baghdad: "The Christians inside Baghdad joined their fellow believers to loot the city and slaughter the Muslims, from whom they felt their salvation had finally come. Centuries of hatred and anger spilled out as they defiled and destroyed mosques, and turned many of them into churches."It is estimated that 80,000 people lost their lives, and the fires of the looting spread to consume the entire city. As far as I can tell, Weatherford is the only scholar who emphasizes the fact that it was Christian troops seeking revenge who sacked the city. Other accounts also report that Hulegu's troops slaughtered the people who did attempt to leave the city.

Contrary to widespread belief, most Muslims in India and Indonesia were not converted by the sword. Some forced conversions did happen in India, but census data prove that most of these converts must have lapsed. The most famous examples of reconversion were the brothers Harihara and Bukka, founders of the great Hindu empire Vijayanagar (1336-1565), who were forced to convert to Islam by Muhammad Tughluq in 1327. The most striking example of mass reconversion happened in Mysore, where Tipu Sultan (1750-1799) required that all his citizens convert to Islam. Today only 5 percent of the people in the Mysore area is Muslim, while the adjoining Malabar Coast has 30 percent Muslims,primarily because they settled this area as peaceful traders in the 8th Century. With regard to voluntary conversion, one would expect a direct correlation between areas controlled by the Delhi Sultans and the Mughal emperors and highest Muslim population, but census data does not support this reasoning either. The only correlation that holds is the discovery of higher Muslim populations wherever Sufis traveled on these missions. This explains the otherwise curious fact that East Bengal, far from the centers of Islamic power, is now the Muslim country of Bangladesh. Sufi missionaries were also key to the peaceful spread of Islam in Indonesia and Mayalsia.


Religion and Politics in Pre-Mughal India
Assimilation and accommodation, rather than destruction and displacement, are the terms most appropriate to describe the way in which Aryan warriors established their rule among India's indigenous tribes. The resultant polity was a loose federation of tribes under the authority of a Hindu—sometimes Buddhist or Jain—king. This became the political model for Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms not only in India, but those transplanted in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Drawing on his research in Sri Lanka, Stanley Tambiah states: “The polities . . . had central royal domains surrounded by satellite principalities and provinces replicating the center on a smaller scale and at the margins had even more autonomous tributary principalities.”

The great advantage of such governance was the cultural and religious tolerance that it produced. It also virtually eliminated the necessary of military occupation and other oppressive measures. As Herman Kulke state: “Although the relationships between Hindu society and the tribals was never without tensions, its generally peaceful character, especially if we compare it with the annexation of northern America by European settlers, was certainly one of the greatest achievements in Indian history.”On the other hand, the principal liability was that in the face of outside attack it was difficult to rally the provinces in the defense of the realm. This lack of loyalty to central authority would prove highly detrimental when Hindu India was subjected to repeated Muslim invasions.

In the wake of military conquest, Hindu kings typically formed political and religious alliances with tribal chiefs and priests. The result was rule by religious syncretism rather than the religious exclusivism typical of Christian and Muslim governments. It was primarily tribal goddesses who were appropriated into a Vedic religion that heretofore did not feature any dominant female deities. For example, early inscriptions from the 5th and 6th centuries in Orissa indicate royal land donations to the goddess Maninageshvari—Lady of the Jeweled Serpent—whose shrine was located on a steep hill at Ranpur. A very respectful division of religious labor evolved in which the tribal priests were in charge of all rituals at the original idol, a formless round stone, but the king's priests would perform puja at a mobile Durga statue, which symbolized the Hindu appropriation of the indigenous deity's power. The statue of Durga (sometimes Camunda) was placed near the indigenous idol, but always as a complement, never as a replacement. As Kulke states: “She represent [ed] the real overlord of the state and symbolize [d] the unifying link between the raja and the tribe since both of them are subjects of the goddess.”

Over time, while indigenous cults drew kings to the countryside for worship, villagers were soon making pilgrimages to royal temples such as the one dedicated to Jagannath in Puri, which became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Eastern India. Kings such as Anangabhima III (early 13th Century) gained considerable fame and legitimation by sponsoring the annual cart festival that involved the direct participation of all the villages in the realm. As we shall see later, both Hindus and Muslims fought over control of the revenues of this sacred site.

Royal power was further enhanced by the practice of granting provincial land to brahmin families who then established Hindu temples in the countryside and also introduced caste hierarchy there. It was said that King Govinda IV of Rastrakuta gave brahmins 1400 villages along with large sums of money.[9] In many instances tribal chiefs were given khsatriya status outright in return for their allegiance. Although these Hindu kingdoms had far less central administration than later Muslim governments, the brahmins became the first Indian bureaucrats and they extended their power beyond their traditional religious duties. The brahmins were considered well suited for the job, because, drawing on scriptural authority, the Bhagavata Purana reasoned that “they possess nothing, still having no craving for wealth and kingdom”.

Both ritual and military violence continue to be associated with Hindu goddess worship. As recent as early medieval times there are recorded instances of villagers, primarily pregnant women, who offered themselves as sacrifices to the king if he promised to worship their heads. These early human sacrifices were gradually replaced by animal sacrifices that are still regularly offered to Durga and Kali, primarily in Northeast India and Nepal. Hindu kings in South Asia typically went to war only after offering goats and buffalo to Durga, who, according to Hindu mythology, was a more effective warrior than the male gods. For example, many Hindu soldiers credit Durga for their 1998 victory against Kashmiri militants in the Kargil region.

According to goddess theology, even the male gods drew their power from the shakti of the goddess. Whereas male power (tejas, vijra) is a zero-sum game—when the demons (asuras) had it, the gods (devas) did not—the Goddess shares her shakti power with all beings.Durga puja is the only time of the year when all Hindus are allowed to eat meat, because ritual killing is religiously sanctioned and sacrificial flesh is not really meat. In addition, this festival was a prime occasion for the king to offer a "communion that bridges the gulf between the folk and the elite.”

One legend from Orissa suggests instructive parallels to the Hebrew concept of Yahweh the Warrior, where the deity wins the battles rather than human armies. When King Hatakeshavra was attacked by the neighboring state Khandpara, the goddess Bhattarika assured him that she would take care of the enemy soldiers: “I shall go in the disguise of a milkmaid and sell (poisoned) curd. The soldiers (of Khandpara) will eat the curd and become unconscious. Holding the sword, I shall kill the soldiers of Khandpara.”If the Goddess is the leader of armies, then she is the female equivalent of Yahweh, Lord of Hosts (=armies). This is obviously violence sanctioned by religion, but it is not done for the purpose of converting the enemy to the conqueror's religion. This former rationale in no way excuses the violence done, but it limits violence to the military campaign, and it does not necessarily produce a general policy of religious intolerance and oppression.


First Islamic Incursions: Muslims Traders and Retaliation in Sind
Let us now return to the first appearance of Muslims in South Asia. With the discovery of a 700-foot dock at Lotha in Sind, the conjecture that ancient Indians traded with Western Asia is now empirically verified. Arab traders sailed in Indian waters long before the birth of Muhammad. They established themselves along the southwest coast, best known as the Malabar Coast, and from there they settled in Sri Lanka (now 8 percent of the population) and finally Malaysia and Indonesia, the latter now the largest Muslim nation in the world. Indian traders had already plied these eastern routes taking Hindu influence as far as North Vietnam. The Buddhist-Hindu empires in Sumatra, Java, Malaysia reached their zenith in the 13th, and the spread of Islam move eastwards as rulers in Sumatra and Java were converted. Even so the merchant class remained predominantly Hindu and the island of Bali retains its Hindu culture and religion with amazing grace and integrity.

In 708 a contingent of Arab widows and children were returning from Sri Lanka where their husbands and fathers had lost their lives to disease. They were attacked by pirates off the coast of present day Karachi, and the pirates were protected by Dahar, the Hindu king of the province of Sind. When Dahar refused to release the women and children, Hajjaj (661-714), a viceroy of the Umayyad Empire, sent three expeditions to Sind, the first two being unsuccessful. Hajjaj’s forces, under the leadership of his son-in-law Muhammad ibn Qasim, finally prevailed, mainly due to superior military equipment, including a siege machine requiring 500 men and the powerful Mongolian bow, plus superb leadership and unprecedented troop discipline. These military advantages would insure repeated Muslim victories over Hindu armies until the rise of Shivaji, the great Maratha military genius in the 18th Century. There were also religious advantages: congregational worship before going into battle, impossible in Hindu liturgy, and the concepts of military jihad were incredible morale boosters.

Qasim and his army advanced as far north as the Punjab and was preparing to invade Kashmir when the new Caliph Sulaiman recalled Qasim him to Iraq. Sulaiman hated Hajjaj, who died in 714, and Qasim was imprisoned and died there under torture. Qasim’s successes were not only due to military superiority but also due to at least three additional factors. First, the largely Buddhist population of Sind was unhappy with their Hindu rulers and their ethics of nonviolence inclined them to welcome the invaders. Second, Qasim responded positively to Buddhist and Hindu overtures of surrender and thereby avoided unnecessary bloodshed and destruction. This is all the more to Qasim’s credit because his compatriots in the first two Muslim expeditions were dealt with harshly. The third reason for Qasim’s success in Sind is that he found ready support among the lower castes, especially the Jats and the Meds, whose men bolstered the infantry of a Muslim army dominated by cavalry. For centuries caste discrimination would haunt Hindus and would motivated tens of thousands of Indians to convert to Islam and Christianity.

Qasim made another decision that would prove crucial to the relatively benign way in which Muslims ruled India for the next 800 years. When deciding among the four schools of Islamic law, Qasim chose the Hanafi school, the most liberal of the four in terms of treatment of non-believers. The Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools all believed that non-believers in lands conquered by Muslim armies should be converted or be executed. The Hanafi interpretation of shari’ah permitted Qasim to treat Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains as zhimmis, as People of the Book, the same status accorded to Jews and Christians. That meant that they could continue to live under Islamic rule as long as they paid their religious tax (jiyah). Under some Islamic rulers jiyah was not required, and even when it was, collection was not consistently enforced or Hindus simply refused to pay it, sometimes even killing revenue officials.

There were later Muslim rulers who were far more orthodox than Qasim, but they nevertheless conceded that Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists be allowed to live as People of the Book. These sultans and emperors were restrained by the fact that, with very few exceptions, Hanafi clerics were their chief religious advisors, primarily because the Hanafi school had become dominant in Central Asia by the 12th Century.But even if Muslims rulers wanted to force a stricter version of Islamic law on all his subjects, he would have faced the sheer impracticality of forcing conversion, liquidating those refused, and ruling in the face of an oppressed and resentful majority. At the very most Islamic rule in India was theocentric, but never theocratic. The fact that Hindus were allowed to rule their villages and settle all disputes according to their own law logically precludes the absolute and comprehensive rule of shari’ah that an Islamic theocracy would require.

Hindus and Buddhist were not only tolerated, but they were brought into Qasim’s government as trusted advisors and military officers, a policy what would continue under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. A Hindu prime minister made it possible for the imprisoned Arab widows and children, the main reason for Qasim’s invasion, to return to their homes. The Hindu Kaksa was the second most powerful Hindu in Qasim’s administration. It was said that “Kaksa took precedence in the army before all the nobles and commanders. He collected the revenue of the country and the treasury was placed under his seal. He assisted Muhammad ibn Qasim in all of his undertakings. . . .”

In one instance Qasim went beyond the letter of Hanafi law by allowing, with the permission of the ulama of Damascus, a Buddhist temple to be rebuilt. Of the four schools only the Hanafi clerics forbade the destruction of temples, but they usually did hold that no new places of infidel worship could be built or repaired. Elaborating on the ulama’s decision, Hajjaj, Qasim’s father, explained that the Buddhists and Hindus “have been taken under our protection, and we cannot in any way stretch out our hands upon their lives and property. Permission is given them to worship their gods. Nobody must be forbidden and prevented from following his own religion.”Yet another concession to the Hindus was that out of respect for the Brahmins, Qasim decided to give them 3 percent of his government’s revenues. These early generous acts would set a precedent for Muslim rule in India that discouraged even the most orthodox Muslim ruler from enforcing stricter religious policies.



Politics, Religion, and the Mughal Emperors

I would like to turn to the state of Orissa and focus on the fate of the Jagannath temple in Puri under Muslim rule. In 1230 King Anangabhima III consolidated his rule by declaring that he ruled "under divine order" and he was the "son and vassal of the Lord of Puri," who now was the royal deity of Orissa. Anangabhima proclaimed that an attack on Orissa constituted an attack on the king's god. He was probably under considerable external pressure because of Muslim incursions in Eastern Indian. Earlier in the century the Delhi Sultan Iltutmish had conquered Varanasi and had continued the destruction of Hindu temples and idols that had begun under the first attack in 1194. A sign of Anangabhima's determination to protect Hinduism culture is the fact that he named is new capital in Cuttack “Abhinava Varanasi.”

Hindu anxieties about further Muslim advances in Orissa proved to be well founded. In 1361 Orissa was conquered by the Delhi Sultan Firuz Shah and he destroyed the Jagannath temple and the stone idol, but the indigenous wooden image of the deity was saved. The Jagannath cult at Puri remained officially inactive, but the rituals continued at regional temples or at secret sites. Hindu kings regained control of Puri in the 16th Century only to be attacked again in 1568 by the Afghan general Kalaphar, who managed to find the wooden image and have it burned. During this period, as Kulke explains, "more than a dozen times the priests of Puri had to hide the renewed image of Jagannath in the inaccessible mountains of south Orissa or on some islands in the Chilka Lake."

In 1590 the Mughals under the Hindu general Man Singh defeated the Afghan forces, but he allowed them to retained control of Orissa except for the Jagannath temple. Akbar personally intervened to stop Man Singh from attacking Ramachandra, who had renewed the Jagannath image in his own capital Khurda and was hoping to reinstall it at Puri. Akbar's actions were not based entirely on his policy of religious tolerance, but also because of the political advantage of controlling revenues of this pilgrimage site and legitimizing it by supporting a popular Hindu king.

After the death of Akbar, Orissa again descended into chaos, but this time it was the Hindu Keso Das, appointed as governor by the Mughals, who attacked Puri, burned the temple cars and looted the temple treasury. The Jagannath priests were again able to hide the idol, but they were not able to reinstall it until Prince Shahjahan gave them permission as he passed through Orissa in1623. As emperor Shahjahan reaffirmed Akbar's position that all temples were state property and should be maintained as such. Robert E. Eaton states that by riding in the cart festival procession "Shahjahan's officials ritually demonstrated that it was the Mughal emperor, operating through his appointed officers, who was the temple's—and hence the god's ultimate lord and protector."Kulke also notes that Salbeg, a famous Muslim poet, celebrated Lord Jagannath in song. Kulke summarizes 300 years of Muslim rule in Orissa as follows: "Despite religious fanaticism there were also decades of religious tolerance and mutual cooperation for the welfare of the country."

Emperor Aurangzeb thought that Akbar had gone too far in allowing new temple construction, because Islamic law protected only existing temples. In 1659 Aurangzeb defended the right of Hindu priests, against the desire of his own officials in Varanasi, to practice their religion in their traditional sites. Interestingly enough, Aurangzeb assumed that the priests were, in addition to their regular duties, "pray[ing] for the continuance of the Empire."Eaton has made an interesting discovery about why some existing temples were in fact destroyed even though Aurangzeb allowed them to stand elsewhere. Eaton finds a number of temple destructions, some beginning before Mughal rule, that have the same pattern. In each instance the temple was destroyed as punishment because of the disloyalty of Hindu officers of the Empire; the temple was state property and "as an extension of the officer" was "liable for punishment." It would seem, however, that the general Hindu population would not understand this subtle legal point any better than I do, and they would perceive this act as an outrage against their religion.

Eaton also offers a new interpretation of Aurangzeb's decree of 1669 that "the schools and places of worship of the irreligious be subject to demolition."Most historians have interpreted this as decree that was to be carried out across the empire. Eaton argues that Aurangzeb's focus was actually quite specific: the emperor was responding to charges that Hindu priests had been teaching "false books" in Thatta, Multan, and Varanasi and that local officials should check to see if they was the case in other regions. Eaton's theory may explain the curious fact that Aurganzeb's orders were not carried out only selectively.

In 1692 Aurangzeb did send a direct order that the Jagannath temple be demolished, but local officers were bribed, and all that was accomplished was the closing of temple, which was reopened after Aurangzeb's death in 1707. In 1724 the temple as again threatened, but Ramachandra II faked a conversion to Islam and managed to, once again, to hide the idols. A new Muslim governor brought the image back, primarily so the pilgrim tax would not be disrupted. The governor calculated that nine lakhs of rupees were lost during this time. Once again, economic and political pressures prevented even the most orthodox Muslims from fulfilling the requirements of Islamic law or complying with imperial decrees.



Conclusions

Even though Tipu Sultan's attempt to convert Mysore to Islam was failure, the people there, as well as Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains across the Indian Subcontinent, have shown high regard for Muslims saints.The most dramatic historical example is a shrine on a hill in Mysore dedicated to the Hindu sage Dattatreya. The Hindus in charge of the shrine could not start bickering among themselves, so they chose a Sufi saint, Baba Qalandar Shah, to take over the rites at the site. Even though the service is a garbled mixture of Arabic and Sanskrit, pilgrims today still receive prasad, usually given by Hindu priests, from a descendant of the Baba Shah.

Religious syncretism has occurred wherever different religions have met, but the Abrahamic religions are generally loath to recognize the influences of other faiths. South and East Asian peoples are much more inclined to accept others beliefs, and they, consciously or unconsciously, happily practice these mixed religious traditions. The Muslim Meos, who live southwest of Delhi, not only celebrate Diwali and Dasehra, which are now national holidays, but they also observe the birth of Krishna and honor the monkey god Hanuman. So immersed are these Muslims in Hindu culture that many of them cannot recite the kalimah, the seven-fold affirmation of the Islamic faith. The Mina tribe, who live in the same region, are Muslims who worship Hanuman and a Tantric form of Shiva. North of Delhi there are Muslims who offer prayers to Kali and Allah at their own household shrines.

The Husaini Brahmans of Gujarat, who take their name from Mohammed's grandson Husain, consider the Vedic Atharaveda their sacred book. M. Mujeeb speculates that "it could be said that they were not really converts to Islam, but had adopted such Islamic beliefs and practices as were not deemed contrary to the Hindu faith."Next door in the Pakistani province of Sind, Muslim followers of the Agha Khan consider him the tenth incarnation of Vishnu and their rituals contain an odd mix of Hindu and Islamic ideas.

In conclusion I will offer the conjecture that a natural Indian openness to new religious ideas convinced many immigrant Muslims that a life of peaceful coexistence should be the preferred option. The fact that Indian Sunnis have tolerated the presence of their Shia minority better than anywhere else in the Islamic world, and also allowed Sufi missionaries freedom to proselytize everywhere, are clear indications that Indians may have indeed taught immigrant Muslims the advantages of religious tolerance.

hope that helps!

and if you like the answer,please chose as best answer!

Answer 2

Mughal is the Persian word for Mongol, so I would say there is no difference at all. Unless you are referring to some subset of the Mongols? Add some details if this is what you are curious about and we can answer more easily.

Answer 3

Mughals were descendants of the Mongols. A great-grandson of Gengis Khan was the first Mughal Emperor of India.

Answer 4

Crazy wall of text. Khan comes from the word Khagan which originated in Manchuria. It wasnt originally name, but a title. But these days, people have the surname Khan, similar to having the surname King or Prince. The K is silent and sounds like Han. Its usually used by Mongolian tribes to refer to their leaders. Prior to this, most Mongolian tribes used the name Shan Yu. Mongolians did end up taking Muslim names when they converted to Islam. Names like Muhammad and Jalal-ud-din

Answer 5

Hinduism is a Karmic religion... The other two are dogmatic... The similarities between Christianity and Islam are too numerous to mention... They even have the same key figures but playing different roles... (in Islam Jesus existed but was not the son of God).

Answer 6

I love peanut butter

Answer 7

Ther similarties are the M, G, and L the diffferences are the O,N,H and A,,, LOL

Answer 8

not satisfied