page_title: Islam in South Asia
section_title: Delhi Sultanates
hierarchical_section_title: Islam in South Asia / History / Delhi Sultanates
caption_attribution_description: The building in front (white dome) is Imam Zamin's Tomb it is the tomb of the saint Imam Zamin, who carried out his duties in the Quwwat ul Islam Mosque. New Delhi, India Alai Darwaza is described as one of the gems of Islamic architecture, this gate built by Alauddin Khalji in 1311AD. The gateway to the Quwwat ul Islam mosque. The darwaza is a square, domed building with intricate carvings in red sandstone and marble. Qutab Minar, a height of 72.5m (239ft), is the highest stone tower in India and has a diameter of 14.32 metres at the base and about 2.75 metres at the top. This magnificent tower of victory stands in the Qutab Complex. King Qutubuddin Aibak of Slave dynasty laid the foundation of the Qutab Minar in 1199, adjoining the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, to proclaim the victory of Islam, after the defeat of the last Hindu kingdom in Delhi..Hindi: क़ुत्ब मीनार
context_page_description: Islam is the second largest religion in South Asia with about 600 million Muslims, forming about one third of South Asia's population. South Asia has the largest population of Muslims in the world in the world, with about one-third of all Muslims being from South Asia. Islam is the dominant religion in half of the South Asian countries. In India, Islam is the second-largest religion while in Sri Lanka and Nepal it is the third-largest religion.
  Islam existed in South Asian communities along the Arab coastal trade routes in Sindh, Gujarat, Kerala, Ceylon, and Bengal as soon as the religion originated and had gained early acceptance in the Arabian Peninsula, though the first incursion through sea by the new Muslim successor states of the Arab World occurred around 636 CE or 643 AD, during the Rashidun Caliphate, long before any Arab army reached the frontier of India by land. The Barwada mosque in Ghogha, Gujarat built before 623 CE and Cheraman Juma Mosque in Methala, Kerala are two of the first mosques in South Asia which were built by seafaring Arab merchants. The connection between the Sind and Islam was established by the initial Muslim missions during the Rashidun Caliphate.
context_section_description: Under Muhammad of Ghor's leadership a fresh current of Persianized Turks initiated conquests of Ghaznavid principalities in Punjab. They took Delhi by 1192, and Ajmer and Kanauj afterwards. Quality horses and horsemanship characterized their war arsenal. Qutubuddin Aibek assumed control over Delhi upon Ghori's demise. His dynasty came to be referred to as the Slave dynasty. In Bengal, during the establishment of Qutb al-Din Aibak's general Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, the Islamic missionaries of India achieved their greatest success in terms of dawah and number of converts to Islam. The Khiljis dynasty extended Delhi's authority into the Deccan and were succeeded by the Tughluq dynasty which fell victim to Timur's raids who moved into Delhi in 1398. Most of the sultanates' populace continued to live as they did before but important developments took place under the reign of the sultans. These included the development of networks all over South Asia and with Central Asia and the cultivation of Arab and Persian traditions.
  Their military prowess accorded protection to South Asia from upheavals caused by Mongols in the thirteenth-century. Scholars and others fleeing Mongol despoliation found sanctuary in South Asia. In this period conversions began of Punjab and Bengal's newly settled agriculturists. The sultans posited that their rule provided stability which allowed Islamic life to prosper. Their Islamic rhetoric meant the political supremacy of the Afghan and Sunni Turkic elite. Despite such rhetoric, growing South Asian Muslim communities outside the sultanate were recruited into the armies of Hindu kings who were warring against the Turkic sultans. Similarly, the sultanate also included Hindu soldiers in their militaries.
  The Delhi Sultanate favoured the Shafi'i law, although most subcontinental Muslims followed Hanafi jurisprudence. The administration's official structure included authoritative Islamic scholars who guided qadis, or Islamic judges. While the Delhi Sultanate was formally Islamic and appointed Islamic scholars to high offices, their state policy was not based on Islamic law. Their government was based on the pragmatisms surrounding the maintenance of minority rule over a vast populace. The fourteenth century figure Ziya al-Din Barani criticised both Ala al-Din Khalji and Muhammad Tughlug for their lack of concern with Islamic law. To one Islamic scholar, Ala al-Din asserted that his policies were based on state interest, rather than Islamic injunctions.
  Iltumish delineated the role of sharia in shaping the politics of the predominantly non-Muslim territory. Some scholars had requested that he apply Islamic law to compel Hindus to convert or else be killed. But the vizier called it unrealistic because of the low Muslim population. Iltumish ignored Islamic law by selecting his daughter as his heir. He declared, through his refusal to shelter Khwarem Shah from Genghis Khan, that Delhi's Turkish authority would not participate in the political struggles in eastern Islamic countries. He also legitimised his goals by acquiring a letter of appointment from the caliph in Baghdad. His declaration that Indian law would not be built fully upon Islamic law was apparently supported by the nobility. Eventually, Turkish authority came to be characterised by the careful balance of the sharia with contemporary needs. Muslim scholars outside India had already effectively accepted the limitation of religious law to family and proprietary matters as long as the rulers did not formally reject the authority of sharia over all aspects of life.
caption: Alai Gate and Qutub Minar were built during the Mamluk and Khalji dynasties of the Delhi Sultanate.[53]
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