Downfall Of Muslim Rule
By the opening of the eighteenth century when Europe was ruled by strong monarchies and the European merchant communities were well on the road to prosperity, the Muslim powers everywhere in the world showed a rapid decline. The Mughul empire of India began to weaken rapidly after the death of Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir in 1707. The causes of the decline and disintegration of the empire is generally regarded as the weakness of the successors of Aurangzeb Alamgir, but really the loss of a feeling of solidarity among the Muslims was one of the principal causes of Mughul decadence.
Causes of the Downfall of Muslim Society
Ignorance of Religious Beliefs: The unity of faith gave a unity of feeling to the Muslims. It was this sense of belonging to the same faith that enabled this numerically small minority to rule the millions of the non-Muslim population. The influx of heterodox ideas and consequent ignorance of religious beliefs shattered Muslim solidarity. Akbar raised the Hindus to positions of influence at the court. This policy changed the nature of the Muslim empire. This made the orthodox Muslims ineffective in protecting the interest of the empire. It was futile to hope that the Hindus would continue to support a Muslim empire. The Muslims were still the be a Muslim empire. Akbar gave away so much, yet he was not able to reconcile the Hindu sentiment completely. Iqbal highlighted these ignorance of Muslims from religion in Jawab-e-Shikwah and says:
Translation:
"Being Muslim they were respectable in the world
and you are wretched for abandoning Quran"
Lack of Solidarity:
It is a fact of history that in spite of all concessions and privileges, the Hindus remained hostile to the Muslims. The Muslim empire depended on the strength of the Muslims and their solidarity was their strength. Since the disappearanee of this solidarity made the Muslim empire dependent upon
Hindu support, its foundation was undermined. Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir sought and struggled to recreate this Islamic feeling and succeeded in a large measure. If his
successor would have been a man of his ideals and determination, the task of
roviving Muslim solidarity would have made substantial progress.
Centralization of Mughul Administration:
The Mughuls had a highly centralized
administration. The functionaries of the government were only to carry out by the orders of the emperor. The provincial administration was not autonomous. It was subject to the severe central cortrol. This system had an inherent weakness. The moment the centre would become weak, conspiracies would find their way
consequently. The crowns were placed and toppled down and thus the conspiracies encircled the rulers during the period of the later Mughuls.
No Law of Succession:
The Mughuls failed to establish any law of succession to the throne. The result was that every son of a deceased king felt that he had an equal claim to the crown, and succession to the throne was invariably accompanied by bloody warfare. In Mughuls the transfer of power was not a peaceful process except the few. Akbar was the only ruler in Mughul line who ascended to the throne unopposed, after the death of Humayun. At the end ot every reign, there was war of succession. During the last years of Shah Jahan, a war of succession broke out among
his sons. Likewise, within a little more than a decade after Aurangzeb's death, seven fierce battles for imperial succession occurred, in which large numbers of prinees and trained soldiers were killed. Apart from this loss of valuable personnel in repeated wars of succession, there was a continuous disloeation of administration. A disastrous development started when the princes, otten governing vast territories, and their supporters, started making deals with the -outsiders, to ensure their support at the time of the fateful struggle.
Weakness of Character:
The foremost cause of the loss of political power was a crisis in the Muslim character itself. incompetence, short-sighted selfishness, corruption and other corroding evils had entered the soul of the Muslim. Aurangzeb Alamgir is found to complain repeatedly that men of honesty and sincerity had become rare in his time and that competent men were not available for responsible oflices in the government. Commanders and ministers sacrificed the larger interest of the Muslim empire and were dictated to the narrow motives of selfishness and greed.
The long period of prosperity and power which made the Muslim society extremely rich, gradually led them to a life of ease and comfort. The spirit of Jihad which was the foundation of the MusIim kingdoms, faded gradually. This gave birth to corruption and loss of moral grace, particularly among the highly-placed Muslims. This brought a bad effect on the other sections of the society. Thanks to a handful of intellectuals who spearheaded to the revivalist movement to save the Muslims from the total destruction.
Educational Decline:
One great cause ot the decline and fall of the Muslim society was that the Muslims had lost their dynamic character and they had reached a dead end. There was no creative activity in the field ot science or in the realm of thought and ideas. The Muslims could not see the dynamic force of the new knowledge in Europe. Any society that ceases to be creative and falls into rigid traditionalism loses its vitality and progressivism. The world in which the Muslims had built an empire and sustained it had changed. The Engish and other Europcan nations were making much development in the knowledge of science and techniques of organization. They had developed a strength that defied resistance. They (the Europeans) had developed techniques of efficient government and effective warfare, to which the East possessed no answer. The supremacy of the Muslims was being pushed back; even nations that were predominantly Muslims were threatened in their own homelands.
Military Weaknesses:
The stagnation visible in the intellectual field was paralleled in the military sphere as well. Babar had introduced gun-powder in India, but after him there was no real improvement in military equipment of the Mughuls. No real progress or large scale training of local personnel in the use of artillery was made or undertaken in Mughul India and the best which they could do was to hire foreigners for their artillery. With this condition of the Mughul army, the downfall of the Muslim rulers was only a question of time. The ambitious mansabdars who were allowed to maintain an army for the emperor used it for the consolidation of their own power and thereby reducing the authority of the emperor. The invasion of Nadir Shah destroyed the prestige of the Mughul army and never afterwards it could regain its strength.
No Naval Force:
It was a suicidal blunder that the Muslim rulers neglected to build a naval force. They remained uninterested to the potentialities cf sea-power. They paid their attention to the defence of the passes of the north-west, as these were the historic routes followed by every invader including themselves to enter subcontinent. The Muslim rulers could not think that their empire would fall to the naval strength of the European merchant communities. The activities of the Portuguese in the latter part of the sixteenth century failed to act as an eye-opener for the Muslim rulers. Even in the time of a powerful emperor like Akbar, the Portuguese looted Muslim merchants and even the pilgrim ships. They raided coastal territories in Bengal in the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan. In the reign of Aurangzeb Alamgir, again, the English traders in Bengal and Surat were bold enough to challenge Mughul authority. These incidents clearly showed the approaching danger. Even then, the Muslim rulers learnt no lesson and ignored the importance of the need of navy. Nawab Ali Vardi Khan realized the gravity of the problem but it was too late to mend matters. And the old Nawad was himself so busy with the constant incursion of the Marhattas and the rebellions of his Afghan generals that he could not think of building a naval force. Nawab Sirajuddaulah failed to expel the English from his dominions for want of a navy. The Muslim rulers were destined to receive the disrespectful shock of their history from a trading company backed by the naval might of the country of its origin.
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