ASHA: Blast From The Past

The Kacchā-Pakkā Divide: Material, Space and Architecture in the Military Cantonments of British India (1765-1889)
Christopher Cowell
— Read on journals.openedition.org/abe/3224

The concept of a redeemer, or a messiah appears to be quite universal and not typical to any one religion or religious groups. It pervades not only the Semitic faiths like Judaism, Christianity a nd Islam, but also the Aryan and Indic faiths like Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Brahmanism and Vedantic religions. It is also known in the Chinese religions like Taoism.

Zoroastrians

Amongst the oldest belief was the one prevalent amongst the Zoroastrians. At a time when the earth would be totally filled with the darkness and evil, a representative of Ahura Mazda, the eternal God, would make his appearance. His name would be Saoshyant, who would come riding a white stead.

Eventually, Ahura Mazda will triumph, and his agent Saoshyant will resurrect the dead, whose bodies will be restored to eternal perfection, and whose souls will be cleansed and reunited with God. Time will then end, and truth/righteousness (asha) and immortality will thereafter be everlasting.

Brahmanism

Similarly in the Vedantic Brahmanic belief, when the end of the world nears and the evil pervades all over, Kalkin, the 10th avatar of Lord Vishnu would appear. Riding a horse and a sword in hand, he would defeat the evil and establish the rule of Brahma.

Kalki / Kalkin will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time. The origins of the name probably lie in the Sanskrit word “kalka” which refers to dirt, filth, or foulness and hence denotes the “destroyer of foulness,” “destroyer of confusion,” “destroyer of darkness,” or “annihilator of ignorance.”

Kalkin/ Kalki, the tenth and last avatar of Lord Vishnu whose coming would herald the end of Kaliyug and the establishment of the Lord’s Kingdom. He is the Messiah.

Mark the double forked sword (a la Zulfiqār, the divine sword of Ali and the other Imams) and the white horse!

Buddhism

The concept is there in the third oldest religion of world, Buddhism, too. Maitreya, a bodhisattva, in the Buddhist tradition is to appear on Earth, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure dharma. According to scriptures, Maitreya will be a successor of the historic Śākyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The prophecy of the arrival of Maitreya is found in the canonical literature of all Buddhist sects (Theravāda, Mahāyāna, Vajrayāna) and is accepted by most Buddhists as a statement about an actual event that will take place in the distant future.

According to a Buddhist stream of thought , Maitreya would appear in the imminent future in this world to provide salvation during a time of misery and decline.

Judaism

The concept of a Messiah exists in the Jewish traditions and scriptures too. In Jewish messianic tradition and eschatology, the term came to refer to a future Jewish King from the Davidic line, who will be “anointed” with holy anointing oil and rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age, an age of peace and tranquility.

Orthodox Jews strictly believe in a Messiah, life after death, and restoration of the promised land. The text is as follows:

Traditional Rabbinic teachings and current Orthodox thought has held that the Messiah will be an anointed one (messiah), descended from his father through the Davidic line of King David, who will gather the Jews back into the Land of Israel and usher in an era of peace.

Christianity

In Christianity the Messiah is the Christ, the Anointed One. He would have a Second Coming and would appear again at the end of the world. Thus one prophecy, distinctive in both the Jewish and Christian concept of the messiah, is that a Jewish king from the Davidic line, who will be “anointed” with holy anointing oil, will be king of God’s kingdom on earth, and rule the Jewish people and mankind during the Messianic Age and World to come.

Taoism

This concept prevails in the Far East as well. Around the 3rd century AD, Taoism developed eschatological ideas along these lines. A number of scriptures of this tradition predict the end of the world cycle, the deluge, epidemics, and coming of the saviour Li Hong, who would save and redeem humanity.

Islam

In Islam, al-Mahdi, the Messiah is believed to hold the task of establishing the truth and fighting against oppression and injustice as well as killing the false messiah al-Dajjal (similar to the Antichrist in Christianity), who will emerge shortly before him in human form in the end of the times, claiming that he is the messiah. After he has destroyed al-Dajjal his final task will be to become a just king and to re-establish justice, peace and monotheism in the world.

Sunni Islam

In Sunni Islam the Mahdi would be born, not appear, before the end is near. He would be a progeny of the Prophet through the line of Hasan, the elder grandson of the Prophet. Thus the history of the Islamic world has witnessed a number of people who claimed to be the Promised Mahdi. One such Mahdawwiya Movement which became quite popular was during the reign of Akbar. Shaikh Mubarak, the father of Abul Fazl was a strong proponent of this idea.

Shi’ism

In Shi’i Islam the concept of Mahdi, the Messiah is somewhat different: He is born and living but hidden from the view. According to Shi’i Islamic beliefs the world can never be without a Guide. Thus when Prophet left this world he never left a vacuum: he appointed Imams, the first of these divine Imam was Imam Ali. He was followed, according to the majority Shi’i faith by 10 more Imams (1+10=11) – all in the line of Imam Husain, the younger grandson of the Prophet. The next to succeed, the 12th Imam was a child when anointed. He was born on 15 Shābān AH 255 / 19 July 868 AD

As an Imam or leader, he led a life hidden from public view and maintained contact with his people through 4 of his agents for around 80 years. This period of 80 years when he was hidden but accessible is known as “Minor Occultation” (Ghaibat-i sughra). This was followed by a period when he is totally hidden (thus one his names, al-Ghaib, the Hidden). This period of Major Occultation would end only before the end of the world. During this period of Ghaibat-i Kubra, (started AD 941) he guides through ‘inspired” agents, the wali-i faqih. He can reveal himself to whomsoever he wants, none other can meet him on their own.

When the end nears, and when the world would be full of evil and misery and when goodness would stand defeated everywhere and when religious would be the most irreligious, the 12th Imam would Reveal himself. He would come as al-Mahdi, the redeemer. He would come riding a white stallion, assemble an army of faithful, defeat the evil forces led by the Dajjal and declare the Kingdom of God on earth. And then Jesus would make his appearance and pray behind al-Mahdi. It will be then that the Bugle would be blown to usher the end of the world and start of the Day of Reckoning

In popular perception Fathpur Sikri was a wild jungle before Akbar. Reality check however tells us that the area was inhabited ever since pre-historic times. Painted Grey Ware (PGW) sherds and beads have been found besides the lake.

For Medieval period the first textual reference comes from Tārīkh-i Mubārakshāhi dating from the reign of Sultan Mubarak Shah (1421-34)

According to Sultanate sources by the end 12th Century the area was taken over from Sikarwar Rajputs. In 1196 AD it passed into the hands of Malik Bahauddin, governor of Muizzuddin bin Sām. The survival of structural remains prove the written sources.

At least seven structures – 6 mosques and a tomb – were erected at Sikri between the conquest of this region by Muizuddin bin Sām (c. 1200) and the Tughluq period. A gravestone near the Tomb of Salim Chishti is also dated 15 Ziqåda AH 719 / AD 1319….

The earliest Medieval structure at Fathpur Sikri is a mosque which was probably constructed in or around AH 512 / AD 1118.

Like the Qubbatul Islam and Arhai Din Ka Jhoñpra the prayer chamber of this mosque is raised with shafts of temple pillars. Requisite height is attained by placing two or three shafts one on top of the other. But unlike them, it lacks in an arched screen. The trabeate roof is of simple stone slabs while the mihrab is of white marble with Quranic verses inscribed in Kufic script. It was constructed probably soon after the first few years of continuous Muslim occupation of Sikri.

Carvings of fish and other animals can still be seen on these pillar shafts.

One of the Khalji period mosque, today known as Masjid-i Anbiya (Prophets Mosque) survives almost intact. Two or three other Khalji period mosques survive too. All these mosques testify to a sizeable town that Sikri was during the period.

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

According to David Pingree, epigraphic evidence attests to the presence of Persian (either Zoroastrian or Muslim) merchants on the Konkan coast of western India as early as the late 7th century.*

[* David Pingree, ‘Sanskrit evidence for the Presence of Arabs, Jews, and Persians in Western India: ca. 700-1300’, Journal of the Oriental Institute M S University of Baroda, 1981, p. 177]

The geographer al-Masūdi visited Saymur (modern Chaul, south of Mumbai) in AH 304 / AD 916 and saw there a large community of Muslims comprising merchants from Basra, Baghdad, Oman, Siraf, and Yemen.*

[* Abul Hasan Ali al-Masūdi, Murūj al-Dhahab WA Mada’adin al-jawhar, (9vols ed & tr C Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, Paris, 1861/77, vol I, p. 187; Buzurg ibn Shahryat Ramhurmuzi, Kitāb ‘ajā’ib al-Hind, ed. P A van der Lith and L. Marcel Devic, Leiden, Brill, 1883-86, pp. 142-44]

During this period the denizens of Sirāf were active in the maritime trade as far east as China, and the best documented of the Sirāf merchants, Ramisht (d. AH 537 / AD 1142), is said to have made a future in the Indian trade, with some of which he endowed and embellished the sanctuary at Mecca.*

[* Hugh R. Clark, ‘Muslims and Hindus in the Culture and Morphology of Quanzhou from the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries, Journal of World History, vol. 6, no. 1, 1995, (pp. 49-74), po. 59-60; SM Stern, ‘Rāmisht of Sirāf, a Merchant Millionaire of the Twelfth Century’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1967, pp. 10-14]

---

Selections from Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation, Princeton, 2009

A ship manned by Indian sailors, Maqāmāt of al-Hariri, Baghdad (?), 1237, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. Arabe 5847, fol. 199 v

Here is an excerpt from Finbarr Flood, Objects of Translation Material Culture and Medieval Hindu-Muslim Encounter Material Culture and Medieval Hindu-Muslim Encounter, Princeton, 2009

---

According to the contemporary sources, both literary and epigraphic, during 8th to 10th century, the Muslim merchant communities coming towards and settling in India, especially in the western parts, were provided with both neighbourhood mosques (masājid) and congressional mosques (jawāmi‘ or masājid-i ādhīna) standing in close proximity to idol temples (but-khāna) endowed with minarets from which the call to prayer (adhān / azān), the takbīr (the cry ‘God is great’ – Allaho Akbar) and the tahlīl (the statement that there is no god but God- ‘Ash-hado an lā ilāha illallāh‘) were given.*

From the contemporary epigraphs we also come to know that the name ‘Muhammad’ was usually transliterated as Madhumati, Madhumata or Madumod. The name ‘Ali was on the other hand transliterated as Alliya, or Aliyama.

The existence of these diasporic communities is confirmed by inscriptions of the Rashtrakutas and Kadambas found on the west coast of India.

For example, the Chinchani copper-plate inscription of Śaka Samvat 848 (AD 926) mentions that a Tajīka (Turk/Muslim), named ‘Madhumati Sugatipa’ (Muhammad Lord of the Virtuous) son of ‘Sahiyarahara’ (Shahriyar), evidently a Persian Muslim, governed the region of Sanjan (Samyana) which was situated on the Karnataka coast of western India for the Radhtrakutas during the reigns of Krishna II (AD 878 – 915) and Indra III (AD 915 – 928), who elsewhere describes his dominion as including the Tājikas and Purasikas (Muslims & Persians/Parsis).

This inscription indicates that ‘Madhumati’ (Muhammad) established ‘free ferries and a feeding house’ and endorsed the establishment of a Hindu monastery and an endowment to ensure its support by a Brahman who was an associate of his minister. The foundation is mentioned in a later inscription too which is dated Śaka Samvat 956 (AD 1034). This later inscription also refers to the merchants Alliya (‘Ali), Mahara (Mihr), and Madhumata (Muhammad).**

Contrarily we also find reference that when a mosque was damaged in a sectarian riot in Cambay, the Chalukyan king Jayasimha Siddharaja (1094-1144) paid for its reconstruction. We also get a report that a Jain merchant funded construction of a mosque in the coastal Gujarati town of Bhadreśvar.***

Further south along the Konkan coast, two inscriptions in the name of Kadamba ruler Jayakeśin I (c. 1050-80) found at Panjim in Goa, attest the presence of Muslim communities in that region.

The first of these inscriptions, dated AD 1053, grants permission to an official named Chadama, son of a Tajīka merchant Madumod (Muhammad), to collect taxes from ships entering the port in order to fund construction of a “mijigiti” (masjid/mosque).

The second is a royal inscription of AD 1059 and it reports the grant of a village to the said Chadama, who is mentioned as the son of Madhumada (Muhammad), son of Aliyama (‘Ali), a Tayika (Tajīka) merchant who hailed from the port of Cemulya (Saymur).^

Apart from the coastal towns of Karnataka, Konkan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, Muslim merchant communities also are attested to in the cities of the Gangetic plain.

Al-Muqaddasi, for example, reports the existence of a jāmi’ (congressional mosque) in the suburbs (al-rabāz) of Kannauj, the capital city of Gurjara-Pratiharas, a kingdom considered by the contemporary Muslim geographers as inherently hostile to Islam.^^

A mihrab datable to 9th-10th century survives at Gwalior near Kannauj, confirming that Muslims and mosques existed even within the urban centres of Gurjara-Pratiharas.^^^

This mihrab adapts a contemporary Indic architectural vocabulary and anticipates the idiomatic transformations associated with later Indo-Islamic architecture.

_________________________________

References:

* al-Masūdi, Murūj al-dhahab (9 vols, ed. & tr. C Bardier de Meynard & Pavet de Courteille, Paris, 1861-77), I, p. 382; idem, Le Prairies d’or, tr. C B Meynard & Pavet de Courteille, Paris, 1962, I, p. 154; Abu Ishaq al-Farisi al-Istakhri, Kitāb Masālik wa’l Mamālik, ed., J de Goeje, Brill, Leiden, 1967, pp. 173, 176; Anon., Hudūd al-‘Ālam, ed., Manuchehr Sutudeh, Teheran, 1962, p. 66; JH Kramers & G Wiet, Configuration de la terre (Kitāb surat al-ard, ed., JH Kramers, Brill, Leiden, 1967, p. 320; V Minorsky, Hudūd al-‘Ālam, “The Regions of the World”: A Persian Geography, 372 AH – 982 AD, Karachi, 1980, p. 88

** Epigraphia Indica, no.32, 1957-58, esp. 47, 50; D C Sircar, Studies in the Society and Administration of Ancient and Medieval India, vol I: Society, Calcutta, 1967, pp.77-85; David Pingree, ‘Sanskrit Evidence for the Presence of Arabs, Jews and Persians in Western India: ca. 700-1300,’ Journal of the Oriental Institute MS University of Baroda, 1981, vol 31, no.1, (pp. 172-82), pp.176-77; Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘Monarchs, Merchants and a Matha in Northern Konkan (c. AD 900-1053),’ in idem, (ed.), Trade in Early India, New Delhi, pp. 257-81 (pp.65-69)

*** G. Bühler, ‘The Jagducharita of Sarvananda, a Historical Romance from Gujarat,’ Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol 126, pp.1-74 (p.18); Elliot & Dawson, The History of India as Told by its own Historians, 4vols, Delhi, 1990, vol 2, p. 162

^ D C Sircar, Studies in the Society and Administration of Ancient and Medieval India, vol I: Society, Calcutta, 1967, p.77; David Pingree, ‘Sanskrit Evidence for the Presence of Arabs, Jews and Persians in Western India: ca. 700-1300,’ Journal of the Oriental Institute MS University of Baroda, 1981, vol 31, no.1, (pp. 172-82), p.178

^^ Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Muqaddasi, Kitāb Ahsan al-Taqāsīm fi Ma’rifat al-Aqālīm, ed., MJ de Goeje, Brill, Leiden, vol III, p. 480

^^^ Michael D. Willis, An Eighth Century Mihrab in Gwalior,’ Artibus Asiae, vol 46, no 3, pp. 227-46

Photo: A 9th or 10th Century Stone Mihrab now preserved on the exterior wall of Gwalior Fort, Gwalior