A handful of gAzIs and lessons from History

Excerpts from a superb post by Sarvesh Tiwari on how a handful of “gAzIs” paralysed a medieval city:

…That band of gAzI-s was not unlike this one, with only dozen and half mujAhidIn riding on Arabic horses, wearing the cloak of merchants and carrying leather sacks on horseback concealing large-scale weaponry. With Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, the trusted turuShka-Afghan lieutenant of Qutb-ud-deen Aybak at their head, gAzI-s swiftly rode eastwards deep into the delta of ga~NgA, and it was approaching dusk as they entered the market streets of nAdiyA, the sena capital of Bengal famed worldwide for its riches. The year was 1198.

Khalji had, just in the previous decade, brought the province of Bihar to under the umbrella of dar-ul-islam, and cleansed it of numerous places of infidels, destroying most notably the universities of nAlandA and vikramashilA, the despised seats of jAhiliA and kufr. The Persian chronicler Minhaj reports in tabAqat-i-nasIrI that during the sack of nAlandA, thousands of monks were burned alive and other thousands put to the sword of Islam, and after ensuring that there was no copy of Quran on the shelves, the massive library of university was put to flames. The size of library was such, that the fire continued for several months as the “smoke from the burning books of infidels hung for days like a dark pall over the hills”, says Minhaj.

…as this band of mujAhid-s entered the streets of his capital, it did not attract much attention. They were taken by citizens to be a group of horse-merchants, a frequent sight in the markets of nAdiyA. As the sun was now setting, gAzI-s enquired about and swiftly made their way towards the royal palace. It is not clear whether by deceit or by bribe, by trickery or simply by overpowering the platoons guarding the garrison opening, the band in whichever way managed to gain a quick entrance. And as soon as the entry was made, they swooped onto the harem and took it hostage, probably also some the ministers and generals. If we have to believe the account of Minhaj, the aged King was at the time being served his dinner when he heard of the turuShka attack. His personal body guards swiftly escorted him through secret alleys to outside the palace which opened far away near a riverine, and through a raft he escaped either to kali~Nga or kAmarUpa, or more likely, to his other capital in eastern Bengal near dhAkA.

Back in nAdiyA, the band of dozen and half gAzI-s was hard at work, razing the residential quarters and markets and putting some citizens to sword and taking others as hostage. As soon as they were joined by the larger turuShka army that poured into the capital, Minhaj says, they “swept the town with the broom of devastation, completely demolishing it”. Countless temples were razed throughout the state, and mosques erected from the rubble. Most notable of these being the famed AdinAtha temple of mAldA dedicated to mahAdeva, that moslems later converted into a mosque, known these days as adInA-masjid, and on walls of which a mutilated body of dancing gaNapati can be seen to this date, and the complex still suggesting how magnificent the original temple could have been.

…the reign of Islam was thus inaugurated in Bengal by just a dozen and half gAzI-s swooping into the city of Hindu-s and paralyzing the whole country.

But one can not just stop here without mentioning the retaliation from Hindu-s soon after. The Hindu-s of Orissa and Assam had still in them the flame of kShatriya spirit burning, and far from losing heart of coming under Khilji’s control, rAjA-s of both these countries marshaled their armies and independently smashed him.

First, the Armies from Orissa marched proactively and completely devastated the capital of Khilji, Lakhnauti, with such ferocity that he had to flee and take shelter in Awadh province.

Later, In 1205, Khalji received a final body blow from Hindus, when he set out on an invasion of kAmarUpa, Bhutan and Tibet, and crossed through the border region of prAgjyotiSha via dArjIling with a cavalry of 10,000 moslems. The retaliation from Himalayan kingdoms was extremely fierce and turuShka-s met heavy losses in a kind of warfare they had not seen before, forcing them to retreat. Here, Hindus must learn a lesson from an event that is recorded in a saMskR^ita inscription on the rocks of kanaibarasibowa not very far from the shrine of kAmAkhyA devI.

Anticipating the turuShka return, the King of kAmarUpa had prepared a trap for them. He destroyed the stone bridge over brahmaputra which the Moslems would have crossed, and blocking the way forward, his armies intercepted the enemy from three sides. No prisoners were taken and a general wipe out followed. While many turuShka-s perished from the poisonous darts, others who jumped into bramhaputra were devoured by it. In the end, leaving his army to perish, only Khalji escaped with 300 horsemen, his personal bodyguards, to his capital near gaur, and this is all that became of the large Moslem army of Bengal.

*** End of Excerpts ***

Read the story in full here.