1. William Muir, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (London, 1898; reprint, Beirut: Khayats, 1963), 45.

2. Richard M. Eaton, Islamic History as Global History (Washington, D. C.: American Historical Association, 1990), 13.

3. Peter Hardy, “Modern European and Muslim Explanations of Conversion to Islam in South Asia: A Preliminary Survey of the Literature,” in Conversion to Islam, ed. Nehemia Levtzion (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979), 78.

4. See Yohanan Friedmann, “A Contribution to the Early History of Islam in India,” in Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet, ed. Myrian Rosen-Ayalon (Jerusalem: Institute of Asian and African Studies, 1977), 322.

5. Census of India, 1901, vol. 6, The Lower Provinces of Bengal and Their Feudatories (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1902), 156.

6. See S. R. Sharma and R. N. Srivastava, “Institutional Resistance to Induced Islamization in a Convert Community—an Empiric Study in Sociology of Religion,” Sociological Bulletin 16, no. 1 (March 1967): 77.

7. Ibn Battuta, Rehla, trans Mahdi Hussain, 46.

8. Hardy, “Modern European and Muslim Explanations,” 80–81.

9. Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 105.

10. Beyond India, one thinks of the janissaries of the contemporary Ottoman Empire, who had been Christian youths conscripted in the Balkans before they were Turkified and Islamized by their imperial patrons.

11. See Yohanan Friedmann, “Medieval Muslim Views of Indian Religions,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 214–21.

12. See Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 75–79, 99, 138, 155–56, 162, 164–70, 173, 182, 238; Bernard Lewis, “The Impact of the French Revolution on Turkey: Some Notes on the Transmission of Ideas,” Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (July 1953): 105–25.

13. See, e.g., Caste and Social Stratification among the Muslims, ed. Imtiaz Ahmed (Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1973).

14. James Wise, Notes on the Races, Castes and Traders of Eastern Bengal, 2 vols. (London: Harrison & Sons, 1883), 1: 40.

15. See Richard M. Eaton, “The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed. Barbara D. Metcalf (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 333–56.

16. Baudhāyana-Dharmasūtra I.1.9–14, in Georg Bühler, trans., Sacred Laws of the Aryas as Taught in the Schools of Apastamba, Gautama, Vasishtha, and Baudhayana, part 2, Vasishtha and Baudhayana, vol. 14 of Sacred Books of the East, ed. F. Max Müller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), 147–48. See also History of Bengal, ed. R. C. Majumdar, 2d ed. (Dacca: University of Dacca, 1963), 8, 290.

17. H. Beverley, Report on the Census of Bengal, 1872 (Calcutta: Secretariat Press, 1872), 12–15.

18. James Wise, “The Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 63 (1894): 28.

19. Beverley, Report, 132.

20. Abu A. Ghuznavi, “Notes on the Origin, Social and Religious Divisions and Other Matters Touching on the Mahomedans of Bengal and Having Special Reference to the District of Maimensing” (India Office Library, London, European MSS., E 295., vol. 17 [n.d.]), 3.

21. Ibid., 4–12.

22. Ibid., 14.

23. E. A. Gait, “The Muhammadans of Bengal,” in Census of India, 1901, vol. 6, The Lower Provinces of Bengal and Their Feudatories, pt. 1, “Report” (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1902), 170.

24. Wise, “Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal,” 28–63.

25. Ibid., 29. Moreover, he added, viceroys and nobles governing Bengal generally left the inhospitable province after having amassed as much wealth as they could, “while only a few officers and private soldiers, having married into native families, remained and settled in their new homes.”

26. Ibid., 28–30.

27. Ibid., 32.

28. Khondkar Fuzli Rubbee, The Origin of the Musalmans of Bengal (1895; 2d ed., Dacca: Society for Pakistan Studies, 1970), 40–41.

29. Ibid., 43.

30. Ibid., 17.

31. Ibid., 59.

32. Ibid., 87–94.

33. Gait, “Muhammadans,” in Census of India, 1901, 6: 169.

34. Ibid., 166.

35. Ibid., 169.

36. J. E. Webster, East Bengal and Assam District Gazetteers: Noakhali (Allahabad: Pioneer Press, 1911), 39.

37. D. MacPherson, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the Districts of Pabna and Bogra, 1920–29 (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 1930), 31, 32.

38. Eileen W. E. Macfarlane, “Blood-Group Distribution in India with Special Reference to Bengal,” Journal of Genetics 36, no. 2 (July 1938): 230, 232.

39. B. K. Chatterji and A. K. Mitra, “Blood Group Distributions of the Bengalis and Their Comparison with Other Indian Races and Castes,” Indian Culture 8 (1941–42): 197, 201, 202.

40. D. N. Majumdar and C. R. Rao, Race Elements in Bengal (Calcutta: Asia Publishing House, 1960), 96, 98, 114.

41. Ibid., 96.

42. An exception to this was Niharranjan Ray, who wrote in 1945: “To some of the lower grades of Hindus, Islam with its more democratic appeal in the social plane and a simpler code of tenets on the religious, along with the easy temptation of favours at the dispersal of the ruling class and their proselytising zeal, opened up an inviting vista, while to a limited number at least it proved to be a haven from religious and social persecution by the upper classes.” Ray, “Medieval Bengali Culture,” 49.

43. This thesis was articulated by one of the most influential Bengali historians of the post-independence period, Abdul Karim, who wrote: “The facts that the Muslims settled in this country, learnt the local language, lived in harmony with the local people, accepted local wives, adopted various professions suited to their genius, and that in their dietary system and dwelling houses they depended on materials locally available, bear out that they considered Bengal as their homeland. Side by side they adhered to the Islamic religious principles and built religious institutions of their own. There is, therefore, good ground to suggest that a Bengali Muslim society already passed its formative stage, took a definite shape, and breathed a new spirit of tolerance, equality and universal love in the country so much so that large masses accepted Islam and even the then Hinduism was deeply affected as traceable in some of the elements of the Chaitanya movement.” Karim, Social History, 210–11. For a recent restatement of the Immigration theory, combined with a measure of the Social Liberation thesis, see Muhammad Mohar Ali, History of the Muslims in Bengal (Riyadh: Imam Muhammad Ibn Sa‘ud Islamic University, 1985), 1B: 750–88.

44. Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Languages and Literatures of Modern India (Calcutta: Bengal Publishers, 1963), 160–61.

45. R. C. Majumdar, History of Medieval Bengal (Calcutta: G. Bharadwaj & Co., 1973), 196–97.

46. Actually, Majumdar saw himself as only correcting what he felt to be an unwarranted view of communal unity put forward by Indian nationalists caught up in the independence movement. “Since the beginning of the struggle for freedom of India,” he wrote, “the complete Hindu-Muslim unity was regarded as an indispensable factor for its success. As a result of this view, there has been a deliberate attempt to re-write the history of India by considerably toning down, if not altogether effacing from pages of history, the whole episode of the bigotry and intolerance shown by the Muslim rulers towards Hindu religion.” Ibid., vi.

47. The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, trans. and ed. H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1964), 1: 5, 13–14, 25, 90. Mas‘udi, Prairies d’or, 1: 155.

48. F. A. Khan, Mainamati (Karachi, 1963), 25–27. Cited in Tarafdar, “Trade and Society,” 277.

49. See Francis Robinson, Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1982), 29.

50. Ibn Battuta, Rehla, 239.

51. Ibid., 241.

52. Ma Huan in P. C. Bagchi, “Political Relations,” 117.

53. Ludovico di Varthema, Travels, 211.

54. Tome Pires, Suma Oriental, 89. Pires does, however, speak of tributary “heathen” kings such as the raja of Tripura. His remark that the kings of Bengal had “turned Mohammedan” in the early thirteenth century is curious, for it suggests that he understood kingship in Bengal as an unbroken succession from the Sena, or pre-Turkish, days to his own. Could it be that Pires was unaware of the foreign origin of Bengal’s Turkish, Afghan, and Arab kings? Evidently the Husain Shahi court had so thoroughly assimilated Bengali culture that the Portuguese official detected no trace of foreignness in either the court or its monarch, seeing instead an unbroken Bengali dynasty that had converted to Islam three hundred years earlier.

55. Duarte Barbosa, Book of Duarte Barbosa, 135–39, 147.

56. Ibid., 148.

57. Federici, “Extracts,” 137.

58. H. Hosten, “Jesuit Letters from Bengal, Arakan and Burma (1599–1600),” Bengal Past and Present 30 (1925): 59.

59. Manrique, Travels 1: 67. Emphasis mine.

60. Surendranath Sen, ed., Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri (New Delhi: National Archives, 1949), 96.

61. M. L. Aimé-Martin, ed., Lettres édifiantes et curieuses concernant l’Asie,l’Afrique et l’Amérique (Paris: Société du Panthéon littéraire, 1843), 2: 258. H.Hosten, “The Earliest Recorded Episcopal Visitation of Bengal, 1712–1715,”Bengal Past and Present 6 (1910): 217.

62. S. H. Askari, “The Mughal-Magh Relations Down to the Time of Islam Khan Mashhadi,” in Indian History Congress, Proceedings, 22d session, Gauhati, 1959 (Bombay: Indian History Congress, 1960), 210.

63. “Jam‘ī kathīr az ṣaghīr o kabīr-i ra‘āyā-yi ānjā ki akthar Musalmān būdand.” Munshi Amin Kazim b. Muhammad Amin, ‘ālamgīr-nāma, ed. Khadim Husain and ‘Abd al-Hai (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1868), 677.