Impact of Islam on Indian Culture

1. Hindu Society: Purda System and

Marriage:
The Hindu society was largely influenced by
Islam. The ‘Purda System’ became prevalent in
Hindu society by following Islamic practices.
The Hindu women who were living in seclusion
at home now moved outside their houses in the
palanquins covered with curtains. In the royal
harem of Hindu rulers, Purda system was rigidly
enforced. To cite one example, the queen of
Prataprudradev went to visit Sri Chaitanya in
the Palanuqin covered with curtains.
Further, the age of puberty did not become the
criteria for the marriage of a Hindu girl. On the
other hand, child marriage was introduced in
Hindu society in imitation with the Muslim
practice. The condition and position of Hindu
women deteriorated considerably in the Hindu
society and they became more and more
dependent on man.
2. Slavery:
An unhealthy feature of social life that crept into
Hindu society due to utter influenced of Islam
was slavery. It was very common in Muslim
society and more obviously it was a well known
practice with the Delhi Sultans and Mughal
emperors. Their nobles and emirs also
maintained slaves both male and female.
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The Hindu leaders and feudal lords adopted this
institution of slavery and it exerted great impact
on Indian society. Still now in Rajasthan among
the royal Rajput families, the custom of offering
women slaves in dowry is practiced.
3. Dress and Food:
Another result of the contact with the Muslims
was that the Hindus adopted Muhammadan
dress, food and etiquette and fashion. The
Hindus wore achakan, salwar, pyjams and
lungis. Dinners, gambling, wine-drinking etc. of
the Muslim nobles were adopted by their Hindu
counterparts. Food like Palau, Kabab, Biryani,
Kachhember etc. were adopted by the Hindus.
The Hindu rulers adopted Muslim etiquette of
sitting arrangements for various classes by
following the practice of the Delhi Court.
4. Dance and Music:
Indian dance forms and instruments were also
influenced by Islam. The Indian Veena and the
Irani Tambura merged together to emerge as
Sitar. The Hindu Mridanga underwent
alternations by Muslims and the result was the
Tabla. Different Ragas and classical vocal
music underwent subtle changes when those
came in contact with Muslim singers. Tarana,
Thumri, Ghazzal were popular Islamic
contributions to Indian classical music. As a
whole Muslim exponents too were highly
impressed with the Indian Dhrupad and Damar.
Qwali and Ghazzal were imitated Hindus and
they produced a form of duet dance.
5. Religion: Bhakti Movement:
The influence of Islam was more pungent in the
domain of religion. It gave a rude shock to
Hinduism and shattered the Brahmanical
influence from the Hindu society which it was
availing since long. Besides this, the impact of
Islam on Hinduism produced important
consequences.
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The Islamic message of universal brotherhood,
introduction of equality in society, rejection of
caste system and untouchability, opposition to
idol-worship and the idea of oneness of God
threw up a powerful challenge to the upholders
of Hinduism. With the gradual march of time,
this moulded the Hindu mind and fostered the
growth of liberal movements by some saints and
reformers.
This gave rise to the “Bhakti Cult” or Single-
minded direct devotion and love to “One”. It
also gave rise to Bhakti Movement and
produced saints like Ramanand, Kabir, Nanak,
Sri Chaitanya and many more.
This Bhaki cult provided a much coveted relief
to the oppressed mass who were debarred from
social privileges and they got liberation from the
clutches of the priests. This Bhakti cult exerted
great influence in South India Sankaracharya,
Ramanuja, Basava and many others in South
rose to reinterpret Hinduism in terms of Islamic
monotheism.
6. Growth of Popular and Liberal Religion:
A lasting impact of Muslim rule was the
division of the entire society into two distinct
division – Hindus and Muslims. In due course
of time these two sections evolved as two
separate nations and the seed of this two-nation
theory was germinated during India’s struggle
for freedom and finally grew into a bitter fruit
dividing India into Hindustan and Pakistan.
Secondly, this division made Hindus more
orthodox in their outlook and practice than what
they were in the past. To preserve their culture
from Muslim fold, they followed rigid laws,
customs and practices for their fellow groups
and lower castes.
They favoured concession to the higher classes
who were cut off from the main channels of
Hindu way of life. The Hindus borrowed some
democratic principles of Islam and advocated
equality of castes. They now declared that caste
was not a bar salvation. That promoted the
growth of popular and liberal religion.
7. Mutual Respect:
Coming to the influence of Islam on Indian
society, it can be stated that mutual cooperation
and respect grew among the Hindus and
Muslims. The healthy spirit of mutual toleration
found expression in the growing veneration of
the Hindus for Muslim saints and vice- versa. It
led to the worship of ‘Satyapir’ both by the
Hindus and Muslims.
The Hindus offered sweets and incense sticks on
the tomb of Muslims ‘pirs’ ‘Saints’ and
‘Saikhs’. To express their sentiments of
brotherhood and charity, they fed the Muslim
Fakri’s and Saikhs, and began to observe
Muslim festivals and fairs. They also become
and devotees of the Muslim saints. For example,
the tomb of Muinuddin Chisti at Ajmer and the
tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya at Delhi became
the centres of attraction for the Hindus.
Similarly, the Muslims also visited Hindu
shrines. Sultan Ziauddin visited Hindu shrine of
Amarnath and Saradadevi’s temple.
8. Linguistic Synthesis:
The living together by the Hindus and Muslims
not only developed mutual respect and
cooperation for each other, rather it also brought
a linguistic synthesis. Urdu became the outcome
of this. It was a mixture of Persian, Arabic and
Turkish words with the concepts and languages
of Sanskrit origin. This Urdu became a common
language in medieval period. A vast number of
literatures was produced in this language.
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Muslims scholars like Amir Khusru, Malik
Muhammad Jayasi. Kutaban and many others
wrote on Hindu life, culture and religion in
Hindi. The Muslim rule also facilitated the
growth of vernacular literature.
In North Hindi; in west Marathi and in east,
Bengali developed into literary languages. Thus
local language and literature grew to a
considerable extent by the influence of Islam
Dinesh Chandra Sen, thus writes.
“The evolution of Bengali to a literary status
was brought about by several influences,
of which the Muhammadan conquest was
one of the foremost.”
9. Art and Architecture:
The influence of Islam on Hindu art and
architecture was quite discernable. The common
features of Islamic architecture were its massive
structure in the forms of buildings mosques,
domes; tall minarets; courtyards, huge walls etc.
This Islamic influence of architecture was
largely felt on the construction of Hindu
temples, palaces and buildings. Also, the Islam
borrowed the design of lotus, Kalash, different
Indian flowers, the creepers; mango leaves etc.
from the Hindu architectural forms. Thus, both
the Hindus and Muslims reciprocated in a
nobler way by following each other’s
architectural designs.
10. Painting:
Indian painting underwent a great change
coming in contact with Islamic paintings. The
Islamic practice of painting the walls with the
figures of ladies blowing trumpet was followed
by the Hindus. The Ajanta style was gradually
replaced by the pyramidal structure of the
Sultanate and Mughal period.
The painting in Hindu shrines on Tanjore,
Jaipur, Rajputana, Bengal and other places were
followed by the Mughal style. Calligraphy
developed during the Mughal period and the
Hindus imitated it a lot. Pictorial art in the
Islamic model was followed by the Hindus.
Themes of Ramayana, Kaliyadalana etc. were
followed in the same style. The Hindu houses,
streets, bathing gliats and places of worship
were painted following the Muslim style.
11. Crafts:
New arts and crafts were created by the Hindus
following the Islamic style. Following the
Muslim practice crafts like papermaking
enameling, inlay works on stones, metals and
Jewells etc. emerged in India. Numerous
Karkhanas (factories) like paper, dying tanning,
shoemaking, zari work etc. grew up in the
country following the Muslim practice. A
sustainable economy was affected by the
development of crafts which took place in India
by following the Muslim practice.
12. Restoration of Contact with Outside
World:
Islam also helped the people of India in
restoring its contact with outside world. In the
past, India had its contact with outside world. It
carried on cultural and commercial contact with
the countries like South-East Asia, Rome,
Egypt, Greece, China etc. After the fall of the
Gupta empire and that of Harsavardhan, such
relation ceased.
However, Islam helped in reviving such
contacts. With the Muslim conquest of India,
many traders from Bukhara, Samarkand, Balkh,
Khurasan, Iran and many other Arab world
came to India. They come through land routes
and sea.
The ports of Ttah, Broach, Surat, Goa,
Kathiawar etc. became active for commercial
transactions. From these ports Indian ships
sailed to Java, Sumatra, Siam, Egypt, China,
Zanzibar etc. Thus again India’s contact with
outside world developed due to the influence of
Islam.
13. Literature:
Literature and history writing in India were
greatly influenced by the Turko-Afghans during
the rule of the Sultanate. Many books written in
Parsi made a great impact on the Hindus. Of
these Utbi’s ‘Kitab-ul-Yamini’, Hassan
Nizami’s ‘Taj-ul-Maa’ Sir, Qazi Minhaz- us-
Siraj’s ‘Tabakat-i-Nasiri’.
Poet Amir Khusru ‘Khazain-ul-Futuh’ and
‘Tughlug-Nama’, Ziauddin Barani’s ‘Tarikh-i-
Firoze sahi’ and Isami’s ‘Futu-us-Salatin’, were
the most outstanding. They gave a big boost to
the art of history writing in India. Poet Chand
Bardai gave a new dimension of history writing
by producing the Prithviraj Raso. Sarangadhar
too became famous for his work Umir Raso.
Thus, in several ways Hinduism was influenced
by Islam. Indian art, architecture, language,
literature and culture as a whole, came under the
spell of Islam. As a result, Indian culture as a
whole underwent a drastic change. In the long
run it became extremely difficult to categories
Islamic forms from the Hindu for both had been
so inextricably woven into one another, that
they could now only be termed as part of Indian
culture.