Were Muslims Responsible for the Heinous Custom of Sati? All Evidences Point To The Contrary

By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

6 September 2023

Main Points:

1.    The Hindu right has argued that the practice of Sati started because Hindu society had to protect its women from Muslim invaders

2.    Historians have pointed out that Sati is documented in Greek sources, a time when Islam was not even born

3.    On the contrary, Muslim rulers tried to restrict this inhuman practice

4.    There is evidence to suggest that Brahmins of Bengal were behind the revival of this practice in the colonial period

5.    Blaming Muslims for the ills of Hindu society is nothing but moral bankruptcy

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A senior functionary of the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) recently said that curbs on Hindu women ‘had to be imposed’ because of Islamic invasions. Elaborating on it further, he argued that due to the ‘fact’ that Islamic invaders routinely carried captive women to be sold to the slave markets in central Asia, the Hindu society started to practice child marriage, confine women to the household and even started the practice of Sati. In other words, whatever is wrong with the Hindu society is the result of Muslims. Such non-reflexivity on the part of an ideologue of the most important organization in India only betrays a deep-rooted prejudice against Muslims.

But such a prejudiced view is not the monopoly of the Hindu right alone. In recent memory, one recalls at least two former presidents of the republic articulating pretty much the same view of history. Pratibha Patil, while she was the president, argued that veiling of Hindu women started because of Muslim invasions. Pranab Mukherjee, speaking at RSS conclave had similarly peppered his speech with reference to Islamic invaders. Both these presidents were from the Congress party, which claims the mantle of secularism in this country and ostensibly criticizes the RSS for its jaundiced view of history. But then, it appears that when it comes to a certain understanding of history, both have many things in common. It will not be off the mark to say that such a view about Muslims has become something like a national common sense.

Fusion and Exceptionalism

This is not to argue that the Turks and Afghans did not plunder this country in the past. Objectively speaking, Indian women were indeed sold into slavery by such raiders. But then, there is also the story of those Muslims who made India their home. The Delhi Sultans and Mughals lived and died here. They were not here to plunder and go back to their native lands but made India their home. They had close connections with the Hindu ruling classes; many of the Rajput Kings were the first cousins of Mughal rulers. Such familial similarity encouraged a deep desire to learn each other’s culture and religion. It was because of such interactions that Dara Shikoh would venture out to translate the Sanskrit texts in order to find common ground between Islam and Hinduism. On the popular level, Sufism and Bhakti (especially the Nirgun kind) would deeply influence each other, forming communities which went beyond the labels of Hindus and Muslims. This confluence was reflected in art and architecture; the classical Indian music is unthinkable without the contribution of Muslims. The voice of leaders carry weight; they should not caricature Indian history to suit a particular narrative.

Muslim theology hasn’t helped either. Our religious literature is infused with the idea that Muslims came to deliver this part of the earth from religious infidelity. We selected heroes like Aurangzeb, who inflicted the Hindu populace with the hated jizya. The catholicity of Akbar, who tried to bring different religious communities together, had no place in this scheme of writing. The ideologue of the Nadwa madrasa, Ali Mian would pen biographies of Aurangzeb and Shah Ismail, both divisive figures when it came to the question of Hindu Muslim amity. Moreover, much of this literature was infused with a sense of power: Muslims came to this land with a civilizing mission and Hindus should be indebted for it. Such pedantry forgot that Hindus had a much older and richer civilization as compared to Muslims.

Sati Predates Muslim Conquest

But let us come back to the question we started with. And let us take one of the most heinous practices that developed amongst the Hindus: Sati, which is burning of the widow on the funeral pyre of the husband. Did this practice come about because of the Muslims, as the Hindu right wing argues?

The historian Veena Talwar Oldenberg makes a crucial distinction between Jauhar and Sati. The first refers specifically to the Rajput custom wherein the women of the vanquished committed collective immolation as a way to escape the evil designs of the victor. Call it an act of valour or desperation but this in no way is comparable to Sati where a widow is burnt on the pyre. Those committing Jauhar were not widows as many a time the fate of the husband in the battlefield was not known. Moreover, both married and unmarried, at times along with their retinue committed Jauhar. Thus, “Jauhar was committed for the sake of defence of territory and for the purity of royal lineage, not for the chastity and wifely devotion implied in Sati”. Talwar argues that the northwest was a site of battles for many centuries and Rajputs were considered the defenders of this territory. “This history predates the coming of the Muslims by a millennium.” Clearly then, Muslims cannot be blamed for institutions like the Jauhar and Sati.

Historians have also argued that Jauhar transformed into Sati when Brahmins adopted this practice from the Rajputs and popularized it. Whereas Jauhar was a rare and localized event, Sati became more commonplace. Moreover, Sati explicitly became an act of piety and devotion to the husband rather than the chivalric suicide which underlined the act of Jauhar. Both these acts were already present in the subcontinent much before Muslims came here. The Greek historians refer to this practice way back in the 4th century BC, much before the Rajputs came on the scene. The Greeks are known to have taken Indian women as captives in their new colonies like Gandhara. It is possible that this encounter might have served as a catalyst for the custom to emerge. But then of course, we will not talk about the Greeks! The clear and present danger are Muslims and so everything bad must be ascribed to them.

On the contrary, Muslim rulers actually tried to restrict the custom but also did not wish to be seen as imposing something on the Hindu tradition. Akbar had high regard for widows who wanted to be cremated along with their dead husbands, but he gave no quarter to abuse and in 1582, issued a proclamation “to prevent any use of compulsion in Sati.” By the time of Shahjahan, it had become compulsory to ask the state’s permission to perform Sati. While it can certainly be argued that the Mughals did not ban the practice but they made its performance exceedingly difficult.

Brahmins and Revival of Sati

Ashis Nandy and Lata Mani have worked on the issue of Sati extensively. They argue that the custom of Sati witnessed a revival in colonial Bengal. It should be underlined that Muslim power had already waned by that time and British had become firmly entrenched as rulers. The historian Sumit Sarkar argues that the Bengal Bhadralok (especially Brahmins) were already in alliance with the British against the fading Muslim elite. And it was the Brahmin community which was at the centre of reviving the fading custom of Sati. The Parliamentary Papers on Hindoo Widows gives the breakdown of Sati by caste in 1823. Of these, nearly 63% were committed by upper caste Hindus with Brahmins being disproportionately represented. Let us recall that Muslims by this time had already lost political power. So how does the Hindu right explain this revival of the custom of Sati in the absence of Muslim power?

A comparative perspective further complicates the picture. The historian Jorg Fisch has documented the practice of Sati on the islands of Bali and Java between the 15th and the 17th century. He argues that both these islands had Hindu influence. Islam came to Indonesia during the 17th century after which we do not hear about this practice. This not only proves the existence of Sati before the arrival of Muslims but also tells us about the positive impact which Islam made to eradicate this practice.

It has certainly become very convenient for a section of Hindus to blame Muslims for all their ills. Such a lazy analysis ultimately harms the Hindu cause. If they do not confront the demons of their past, the chances are that they will end making the same mistakes over and over again.

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A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher on Islam and Muslims in South Asia. 

 

URL:   https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/muslims-heinous-custom-sati-contrary/d/130615

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