The Legacy of Islam in India
Historically
speaking, Islam spread in the Indian subcontinent through a gradual process
lasting over centuries. While South India, Kerala in particular, witnessed the
advent of Arab traders and early Muslim merchants from Yemen as part of the
organic process of international trade in those early days of Islam in the
seventh, eight, and ninth centuries; the North of India witnessed powerful military
struggles for political dominion and the Muslim armies succeeding in
establishing themselves as rulers in this vast land. Delhi, the capital city of
India, has thus been a major centre of the Muslims over the millennia. Muslim dynasties, including the Grand Mughals, ruled over Delhi for over seven centuries before the British colonial era began in the subcontinent.
With
the establishment of Muslim empires in India and the relative peace it brought
into the region from the political turmoil in the extended neighbourhood of
India, many Sufi saints and their disciples from different parts of the Islamic
world began to travel to India and began settling down here, thereby triggering
in its own way conditions for the spread of Islam through the nooks and corners
of India.
Among the major Muslim saints and sages of the medieval era, Godly
men who settled in and around Delhi and other parts of North India, one can
count several illustrious names: Hadhrat Qutbuddin
Bakhtiar Kaki (ra), Hadhrat Mueenuddin Chishti Ajmeri (ra)(1132-1236); Hadhrat
Faridudin Shakar Gunj(ra) (1212-1269); Hadhrat Nizamuddin Aulia Dehlvi (ra)(1233-1325);
Hadhrat Shiekh Ahmad Sarhindi (ra) Mujaddid Alf Sani (1563-1624), Hadhrat
Shah Waliullah Muhaddis Dehlvi(ra)(1703-62),
etc.
