June 18, 2014
The Wisdom Fund

Why Did Muslim Rulers Destroy Hindu Temples? Facts and Myths

"Why Did Muslim Rulers Destroy Hindu Temples? Facts & Myths"
-- Dr. Ram Puniyani

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Isma'il Raji al Faruqi, "ISLAM AND OTHER RELIGIONS," The Wisdom Fund, late 1970s

"Sharia or Islamic Law," The Wisdom Fund

Enver Masud, "What Would Buddha Say to the Taliban?," The Wisdom Fund, March 18, 2001

[Naipaul would probably be dumbfounded to find that Aurangzeb, that most bigoted of all Mughal emperors, had once written to his underlings: "... information has reached our noble and most holy court that certain persons interfere and harass the Hindu residents of the town of Benaras and its neighbourhood and the Brahman keepers of the temples... Therefore, our royal command is that, after the arrival of this lustrous order, you should direct that, in future, no person shall in unlawful way interfere and disturb the Brahmans and other Hindu residents at these places, so that they may, as before, remain in their occupation and continue with peace of mind to offer prayers for the continuance of our god-gifted empire, so that it may last forever."--Amulya Ganguli, "V. S. Naipaul Sees the Light!," Hindustan Times, January 26, 2003]

Jacob Bender, "Lessons From the Three Wise Men," The Wisdom Fund, December 20, 2003

Dr. Ram Puniyani, "Lecture Series Facts and Myths," Anhad India, May 15, 2013

Colin Todhunter, "India and the Globalization of Servitude," counterpunch.org, April 5, 2017

[Over the centuries, many groups have found Aurangzeb a convenient villain, for reasons more to do with their agendas than with Aurangzeb's reign. The British, for example, disseminated great calumnies against him, as well as against other premodern Indian Muslim kings, because a barbaric Aurangzeb made British colonial rule look civilised by comparison.--Audrey Truschke, "A much-maligned Mughal," aeon.co, April 7, 2015]

Unknown Facts About Aurangzeb: Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in Gold in Germany, September 15, 2018

[The seventh-grade history book, for instance, observes that Mahmud of Ghazni (971--1030), the Islamic sultan of Afghanistan, sacked Indian temples - a point of emphasis for Hindu nationalists - but explains that this was a common military and political technique also employed by contemporaneous Hindu and Buddhist rulers.--Alex Traub, "India's Dangerous New Curriculum," nybooks.com, December 6, 2018]

Sumeet Chandra, "Allah and Krishna Are The Same Person," krishna.org, February 15, 2019

The Myth and Reality of Emperor Aurangzeb, The Hindu Lit for Life 2019, February 20, 2019

Sara Sohail, "Why Dara Shikoh, Aurangzeb's Brother, Translated The Upanishads Into Persian," madrascourier.com, March 22, 2019

Tipu went out of his way to woo and protect the Hindus of his own dominions. From the beginnings of his reign he had loaded the temples of his realm with presents, honours and land. . . . But it was the great temple of Sringeri that always received his most generous patronage, . . . Tipu put on record his horror at damage done to the temple by a Maratha raiding party during a Maratha invasion of Mysore--William Dalrymple, "The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire," Bloomsbury Publishing (September 10, 2019), page 319-320

[The Company makes its first territorial seizure with the support of the Jagath Seths [the country's wealthiest bankers]. It was they who asked the British to overthrow Siraj-ud-Daulah of Bengal and they offered Clive £2 million to do this. This was the moment the Company realised it could defeat the vast Mughal armies with a very small amount of its newly-trained sepoys. And particularly from the 1780s onwards, the Marwari and Jain bankers of Bengal, and later the Hindu bankers of Benares and Patna, consistently backed the Company against other Indian forces.--Mukund Padmanabhan, "William Dalrymple on 'The Anarchy' and the cunning of the East India Company," thehindu.com, October 3, 2019]

Dr Ram Puniyani, "Myths about conversion to Islam," March 4, 2020

Pavan Varma, BJP-RSS have Talibanized Hinduism, Eroded India's Pluralism, Harmony and Rule of Law, The Wire, August 18, 2021

Swapna Liddle, BJP Demand to Change Mughal-era Names in Delhi is Cretinism and Ignorance of history, The Wire, May 2, 2022

Mandir or Masjid: Why an acceptance of truth & slow reconciliation is needed and not new surveys, The Print, May 21, 2022

Manoj Joshi, Modi Shouldn't Have Called Shivaji 'Father of the Indian Navy', The Wire, September 11, 2022

Reality of Aurangzeb, Shivaji Maharaj and Modi | 1000 years of History | Dhruv Rathee, May 6, 2024