Author: Richard M Eaton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 359
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195641736
Description
This book examines the unique processes that shaped Bengal’s cultural landscape, focusing on the dynamics of moving frontiers and the long historical encounter between Islamic and Indic civilizations.
This book examines the unique processes that shaped Bengal’s cultural landscape, focusing on the dynamics of moving frontiers and the long historical encounter between Islamic and Indic civilizations. Among the regions of South Asia, Bengal proved extraordinarily receptive to the Islamic faith. This area, and especially the Eastern Delta comprising today’s Bangladesh, contains the world’s second largest Muslim ethnic population. How and why did such a large Muslim population emerge there? More broadly, how did the religious conversion of an entire population take placed?
Eaton traces the establishment and evolution of the Indo-Islamic community from the year 1204, when Persianized Turks from North India swept into and annexed the former Hindu states of the lower Gangetic delta, to 1760, when the British East India Company rose to political dominance in the region.
The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier is mush an essay in geography as in history, for the Bengal delta was the frontier of many facets. This book has been put together with great care and is well sustained by an impressive body of evidence.
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Note on Translation and Transliteration
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE : BENGAL UNDER THE SULTANS
CHAPTER I : BEFORE THE TURKISH CONQUEST
Bengal in Prehistory
Early Indo-Aryan Influence in Bengal
The Rise of Early Medieval Hindu Culture
The Diffusion of Bengali Hindu Civilization
CHAPTER II : THE ARTICULATION OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY
Perso-Islamic Conceptions of Political Authority Eleventh-Thirteenth Centuries
A Province of the Delhi Sultanate
The Early Bengal Sultanate 1342-ca. 1400
The Rise of Raja Ganesh (ca 1400-1421)
Sultan Jalal al-Din Muhammad (1415-32) and His Political Ideology
The Indigenization of Royal Authority, 1433-1538
Summary
CHAPTER III : EARLY SUFIS OF THE DELTA
The Question of Sufis and Frontier Warfare
Bengali Sufis and Hindu Thought
Sufis of the Capital
CHAPTER IV : ECONOMY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
The Political Economy of the sultanate
Ashraf and Non-Ashraf Society
Hindu SocietyùResponses to the Conquest
Hindu Religionùthe Siva-Sakta Complex
Hindu ReligionùThe Vaishnava Complex
CHAPTER V
MASS CONVERSION TO ISLAM : THEORIES AND PROTAGONISTS
Four Conventional Theories of Islamization in India
Theories of Islamization in Bengal
The Appearance of a Bengali Muslim Peasantry
Summary
PART TWO : BENGAL UNDER THE MUGHALS
CHAPTER VI : THE RISE OF MUGHAL POWER
The Afghan Age
The Early Mughal Experience in Bengal
The Consolidation of Mughal Authority
Summary
CHAPTER VII : MUGHAL CULTURE AND ITS DIFFUSION
The Political Basis of Mughal Culture in Bengal
The Place of Bengal in Mughal Culture
The Place of Islam in Mughal Culture
The Administration of Mughal Law in Villagers' View
West Bengal : The Integration of Imperial Authority
The Northern Frontier : Resistance of Imperial Authority
East Bengal : Conquest and Culture Change
CHAPTER VIII : ISLAM AND THE AGRARIAN ORDER IN THE EAST
Riverine Changes and Economic Growth
Charismatic Pioneers on the Agrarian Frontier
The Religious Gentry in Bakarganj and Dhaka 1650-1760
Summary
CHAPTER IX : MOSQUE AND SHRINE IN THE RURAL LANDSCAPE
The Mughal State and the Agrarian Order
The Rural Mosque in Bengal History
The Growth of Mosques and Shrines in Rural Chittagong, 1666-1760
The Rise of Chittagong's Religious Gentry
The Religious Gentry of Sylhet
Summary
CHAPTER X : THE ROOTING OF ISLAM IN BENGAL
Inclusion
Identification
Displacement
Literacy and Islamization
Gender and Islamization
Summary
Conclusion
Appendix 1:Mint Town and Inscription Sites under Muslim Rulers,1204-1760
Appendix 2:Principal Rulers of Bengal, 1204-1757
Select Bibliography
Index