“No new temple was allowed to be built nor any old one to be repaired, so that the total disappearance of all places of Hindu worship was to be merely a question of time. But even this delay, this slow operation of Time, was intolerable to many of the more fiery spirits of Islam, who tried to hasten the abolition of ‘infidelity’ by anticipating the destructive hand of Time and forcibly pulling down temples.”

Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, Volume III, Calcutta, 1928. https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/2015.62677.The-History-Of-Aurangzib-Voliii-Second-Edition_djvu.txt

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 27, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No new temple was allowed to be built nor any old one to be repaired, so that the total disappearance of all places of …" by Jadunath Sarkar?
Jadunath Sarkar photo
Jadunath Sarkar 11
Indian historian 1870–1958

Related quotes

Jadunath Sarkar photo
Aurangzeb photo

“Every idol-house built during the last 10 or 12 years, whether with brick or clay, should be demolished without delay. Also, do not allow the crushed Hindus and despicable infidels to repair their old temples. Reports of the destruction of temples should be sent to the Court under the seal of the qazis and attested by pious Shaikhs.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Aurangzeb's order in Orissa recorded by Muraqat-i-Abul Hasan, completed in 1670. Bengal and Orissa . Muraqat-i-AbuI Hasan by Maulana Abul Hasa, quoted in Sarkar, Jadu Nath, History of Aurangzeb,Volume III, Calcutta, 1972 Impression. p. 187 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62677/page/n297,also in Last Spring: The Lives and Times of Great Mughals https://books.google.com/books?id=vyVW0STaGBcC&pg=PT495 by Abraham Eraly. also in Northern India, 1658-1681 by Jadunath Sarkar p. 187 also in The Panjab Past and Present, Volume 9 [Department of Punjab Historical Studies, Punjabi University, 1975], p. 105
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s
Context: Order issued on all faujdars of thanas, civil officers (mutasaddis), agents of jagirdars, kroris, and amlas from Katak to Medinipur on the frontier of Orissa:- The imperial paymaster Asad Khan has sent a letter written by order of the Emperor, to say, that the Emperor learning from the newsletters of the province of Orissa that at the village of Tilkuti in Medinipur a temple has been (newly) built, has issued his august mandate for its destruction, and the destruction of all temples built anywhere in this province by the worthless infidels. Therefore, you are commanded with extreme urgency that immediately on the receipt of this letter you should destroy the above-mentioned temples. Every idol-house built during the last 10 or 12 years, whether with brick or clay, should be demolished without delay. Also, do not allow the crushed Hindus and despicable infidels to repair their old temples. Reports of the destruction of temples should be sent to the Court under the seal of the qazis and attested by pious Shaikhs.

Arun Shourie photo

“If it is proven that the Babri Masjid has been built in forcible replacement of a Hindu temple, I will demolish it with my own hands.”

Syed Shahabuddin (1935–2017) Indian politician

Quoted from Elst, K. (2002). Ayodhya: The case against the temple. Also quoted in Paul Teunissen's review of 'Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid' by Koenraad Elst in India Nu, January 1993.

Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“Muslim and infidel women used to visit sepulchres and temples, which led to many evils. I stopped it. I got mosques built in place of temples.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Tughlaq Kalina Bharata, Persian texts translated into Hindi by S.A.A. Rizvi, 2 Volumes, Aligarh, 1956-57. p. 349 ff Vol II.

Aurangzeb photo
Koenraad Elst photo

“Like proselytization, desecrating and demolishing the temples of non-Muslims is also central to Islam…. India too suffered terribly as thousands of Hindu temples and sacred edifices disappeared in northern India by the time of Sikandar Lodi and Babur. Will Durant rightly laments in the Story of Civilization that "We can never know from looking at India today, what grandeur and beauty it once possessed". In Delhi, after the demolition of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples, the materials of which were utilized to construct the Quwwat-ul-Islam masjid, it was after 700 years that the Birla Mandir could be constructed in 1930s. Sita Ram Goel has brought out two excellent volumes on Hindu Temples: What happened to them. These informative volumes give a list of Hindu shrines and their history of destruction in the medieval period on the basis of Muslim evidence itself. This of course does not cover all the shrines razed. Muslims broke temples recklessly. Those held in special veneration by Hindus like the ones at Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, were special targets of Muslims, and whenever the Hindus could manage to rebuild their shrines at these places, they were again destroyed by Muslim rulers. From the time of Mahmud of Ghazni who destroyed the temples at Somnath and Mathura to Babur who struck at Ayodhya to Aurangzeb who razed the temples at Kashi Mathura and Somnath, the story is repeated again and again.”

Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

“Aurangzeb’s religious policy had created a division in the Indian society. Communal antagonisms resulted in communal riots at Banaras, Narnaul (1672) and Gujarat (1681) where Hindus, in retaliation, destroyed mosques. Temples were destroyed in Marwar after 1678 and in 1680-81, 235 temples were destroyed in Udaipur. Prince Bhim of Udaipur retaliated by attacking Ahmadnagar and demolishing many mosques, big and small, there. Similarly, there was opposition to destruction of temples in the Amber territory, which was friendly to the Mughals. Here religious fairs continued to be held and idols publicly worshipped even after the temples had been demolished.64 In the Deccan the same policy was pursued with the same reaction. In April 1694, the imperial censor had tried to prevent public idol worship in Jaisinghpura near Aurangabad. The Vairagi priests of the temple were arrested but were soon rescued by the Rajputs.65 Aurangzeb destroyed temples throughout the country. He destroyed the temples at Mayapur (Hardwar) and Ayodhya, but “all of them are thronged with worshippers, even those that are destroyed are still venerated by the Hindus and visited by the offering of alms.” Sometimes he was content with only closing down those temples that were built in the midst of entirely Hindu population, and his officers allowed the Hindus to take back their temples on payment of large sums of money. “In the South, where he spent the last twenty-seven years of his reign, Aurangzeb was usually content with leaving many Hindu temples standing… in the Deccan where the suppression of rebellion was not an easy matter… But the discontent occasioned by his orders could not be thus brought to an end.””

Hindu resistance to such vandalism year after year and decade after decade throughout the length and breadth of the country can rather be imagined than described.
Source: The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992), Chapter 6

Amir Khusrow photo

Related topics