A MUST READ ARTICLE

Sher Agrawal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[prohindu] On the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition -- Rizwan Salim

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
viji Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:32 PM
Reply-To: prohindu-owner@yahoogroups.com
To: viji123@yahoo.com
This article was published in Hindustan Times on December 28, 1997

What the Islamic Invaders Did to India
by Rizwan Salim
http://www.islam-watch.org/Rizwan_Salim/What-Islamic-Invaders-Did-to-India.htm
12 Nov, 2007

On the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition (December 6, 1992),
it is important for Hindus (and Muslims) to understand the importance
of the event in the context of Hindustan's history, past and recent,
present and the future.

Savages at a very low level of civilisation and no culture worth the
name, from Arabia and west Asia, began entering India from the early
century onwards. Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples,
shattered uncountable sculpture and idols, plundered innumerable
palaces and forts of Hindu kings, killed vast numbers of Hindu men and
carried off Hindu women. This story, the educated-and a lot of even
the illiterate Indians-know very well. History books tell it in
remarkable detail. But many Indians do not seem to recognise that the
alien Muslim marauders destroyed the historical evolution of the
earth's most mentally advanced civilisation, the most richly
imaginative culture, and the most vigorously creative society.

It is clear that India at the time when Muslim invaders turned towards
it (8 to 11th century) was the earth's richest region for its wealth
in precious and semi-precious stones, gold and silver, religion and
culture, and its fine arts and letters. Tenth century Hindustan was
also too far advanced than its contemporaries in the East and the West
for its achievements in the realms of speculative philosophy and
scientific theorising, mathematics and knowledge of nature's workings.
Hindus of the early medieval period were unquestionably superior in
more things than the Chinese, the Persians (including the Sassanians),
the Romans and the Byzantines of the immediate proceeding centuries.
The followers of Siva and Vishnu on this subcontinent had created for
themselves a society more mentally evolved-joyous and prosperous
too-than had been realised by the Jews, Christians, and Muslim
monotheists of the time. Medieval India, until the Islamic invaders
destroyed it, was history's most richly imaginative culture and one of
the five most advanced civilisations of all times.

Look at the Hindu art that Muslim iconoclasts severely damaged or
destroyed. Ancient Hindu sculpture is vigorous and sensual in the
highest degree-more fascinating than human figural art created
anywhere else on earth. (Only statues created by classical Greek
artists are in the same class as Hindu temple sculpture). Ancient
Hindu temple architecture is the most awe-inspiring, ornate and
spell-binding architectural style found anywhere in the world. (The
Gothic art of cathedrals in France is the only other religious
architecture that is comparable with the intricate architecture of
Hindu temples). No artist of any historical civilisation have ever
revealed the same genius as ancient Hindustan's artists and artisans.

Their minds filled with venom against the idol-worshippers of
Hindustan, the Muslims destroyed a large number of ancient Hindu
temples. This is a historical fact, mentioned by Muslim chroniclers
and others of the time. A number of temples were merely damaged and
remained standing. But a large number-not hundreds but many
thousands-of the ancient temples were broken into shreds of cracked
stone. In the ancient cities of Varanasi and Mathura, Ujjain and
Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi and Dwarka, not one temple survives whole and
intact from the ancient times.

The wrecking of Hindu temples went on from the early years of the 8th
century to well past 1700 AD a period of almost 1000 years. Every
Muslim ruler in Delhi (or Governor of Provinces) spent most of his
time warring against Hindu kings in the north and the south, the east
and the west, and almost every Muslim Sultan and his army commanders
indulged in largescale destructions of Hindu temples and idols. They
also slaughtered a lot of Hindus. It is easy to conclude that
virtually every Hindu temple built in the ancient times is a perfect
work of art. The evidence of the ferocity with which the Muslim
invaders must have struck at the sculptures of gods and goddesses,
demons and apsaras, kings and queens, dancers and musicians is
frightful. At so many ancient temples of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,
for example, shattered portions of stone images still lie scattered in
the temple courtyards. Considering the fury used on the idols and
sculptures, the stone-breaking axe must have been applied to thousands
upon thousands of images of hypnotic beauty.

Giving proof of the resentment that men belonging to an inferior
civilisation feel upon encountering a superior civilisation of
individuals with a more refined culture, Islamic invaders from Arabia
and western Asia broke and burned everything beautiful they came
across in Hindustan. So morally degenerate were the Muslim Sultans
that, rather than attract Hindu "infidels" to Islam through force of
personal example and exhortation, they just built a number of mosques
at the sites of torn down temples-and foolishly pretended they had
triumphed over the minds and culture of the Hindus. I have seen stones
and columns of Hindu temples incorportated into the architecture of
several mosques, including the Jama Masjid and Ahmed Shah Masjid in
Ahmedabad; the mosque in the Uparkot fort of Junagadh (Gujarat) and in
Vidisha (near Bhopal); the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra right next to the
famous dargah in Ajmer-and the currently controversial Bhojshala
"mosque" in Dhar (near Indore). Hindu culture was at its imaginative
best and vigorously creative when the severely-allergic-to-images
Muslims entered Hindustan. Islamic invaders did not just destroy
countless temples and constructions but also suppressed cultural and
religious practices; damaged the pristine vigour of Hindu religion,
prevented the intensification of Hindu culture, debilitating it
permanently, stopped the development of Hindu arts ended the creative
impulse in all realms of thought and action, damaged the people's
cultural pride, disrupted the transmission of values and wisdom,
cultural practices and tradition from one generation to the next;
destroyed the proper historical evolution of Hindu kingdoms and
society, affected severely the acquisition of knowledge, research and
reflection and violated the moral basis of Hindu society. The Hindus
suffered immense psychic damage. The Muslims also plundered the wealth
of the Hindu kingdoms, impoverished the Hindu populace, and destroyed
the prosperity of Hindustan.

Gaze in wonder at the Kailas Mandir in the Ellora caves and remember
that it is carved out of a solid stone hill, an effort that
(inscriptions say) took nearly 200 years. This is art as devotion. The
temple built by the Rashtrakuta kings (who also built the colossal
sculpture in the Elenhanta caves off Mumbai harbour) gives proof of
the ancient Hindus' religious fervor.

But the Kailas temple also indicated a will power, a creative
imagination, and an intellect eager to take on the greatest of
artistic challenges.

The descendants of those who built the magnificent temples of Bhojpur
and Thanjavur, Konark and Kailas, invented mathematics and brain
surgery, created mindbody disciplines (yoga) of astonishing power, and
built mighty empires would almost certainly have attained
technological superiority over Europe.

It is not just for "political reasons" that Hindus want to build grand
temples at the sites of the (wrecked) Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the
Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, and the Mathura idgah. The efforts of
religion-intoxicated and politically active Hindus to rebuild the Ram
Mandir, the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir, and the Krishna Mandir are just
three episodes m a one-thousand year long Hindu struggle to reclaim
their culture and religion from alien invaders.

The demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 was
just one episode in the millennial struggle of the Hindus to repossess
their religion-centered culture and nation. Meanwhile, hundreds of
ancient Hindu temples forsaken all over Hindustan await the
reawakening of Hindu cultural pride to be repaired or rebuilt and
restored to their original, ancient glory.

This article was published in Hindustan Times on December 28, 1997
----------------------------------------------------------
Rizwan Salim is a reviewer of New York Tribune, Capitol Hill reporter,
assistant editor of American Sentinel.



__._,_.___