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Indian & African Origin People : Slaves - 4| By Anonymous on Saturday, August 05, 2000 - 03:28 am: |
God bless this Dexter person. He really represents an intelligent black person with whom we desperately need to hear from.
| By yasmeen on Sunday, August 06, 2000 - 01:53 pm: |
anonymous - i agree with you in that Dexter's a breath of fresh air :)
Indian coming back to what you said before :
"Coming back to Dexter's point, every people have some stereotypes of others. Now Indians, not having a direct experience with blacks, subscribe to the prevalent stereotype. It's just lack of information"
youre absolutely right and sometimes you are just confused as to what to believe about who you deal with in some cases more so than others. Nobody deals with strangers on a personal level and nobody applies stereotypes on a friend. Well Indian if you think about it the people you call friends now would have been strangers initially but you got to know them to the extent where you could share a part of yourself with them and so it gets personal.
Dexter - i had a question for you what do you feel about the term "collective privacy" prevalent in indian families ? i was just curious as to a non desi's point of view.
| By Indian on Wednesday, August 09, 2000 - 02:22 am: |
Thanks Dexter,
For your post. Now I see why you picked on this issue of dressing well. I was totally confused reading your earlier posting.
I have interacted with Indians in US very extensively, but haven't seen this kind convolved reasoning (as you mentioned about whites). In fact, I agree with your observation than blacks tend to dress well. Here we've a grad student (black)... kinda friend of mine. He comes in a tie and pressed clothes even in summer. We tease him like --- look, girls have only one tenth of what you have on, and don't give a damn for your tie, but he wouldn't give up.
Well, when I said Indians share the stereotypes of whites about the blacks... well, that's not fully true. See, Indians don't interact with whites too much either... so it's difficult for them to inherit weird complexes. They make stereotypes from what they watch on television, see in daily life and from word of mouth from other Indians (that's not cool). I'm sure they'll not treat a black beggar well, but at the same time wouldn't think of slighting a respectable looking black man. If there is a prosperous black in the neighborhood, well that's it. In the worst case, an Indian neighbor may keep aloof (which perhaps is not likely), but it's inconceivable that he'd go into soul searching, how did it happen? It was not supposed to be!
I'll try to get Tulsa lynching taped. But spotting somebody who has cinemax is tough for me.
You see, it needs centuries of interaction to form deep-seated stereotypes. Most Indians have an experience of black people only when they come to US. They have only vague notions and misgivings about blacks... they keep away more out of doubts and fear of unknown than hatred. More interaction and open minds are all that's needed for a better relation between black/Indian communities.
| By Dexter on Saturday, August 12, 2000 - 03:20 am: |
To Yasmeen:
I wish I could have answered your question earlier this week but I had email/internet problems. To answer the question about how do I feel about "collective privacy" that's prevalent among Indian families, IMO I really don't know what to say.
I mean that families from each ethnicity has a form of privacy or kind of collective alignment that in some way or another makes sense within that ethnic community. My own ethnicity has its own as other groups do as well. I don't think that it makes these individuals, who happen to share the same racial/ethnic/cultural background all think monolithically or act the same. That's how stereotypes start. However, as a "non-desi", I guess it would assume that many Indian families would have a "collective privacy" within themselves as a community, whether residing in India or even outside of India.
Why is it called a "collective privacy"? Maybe because the fear of being 'corrupted' by the dominant culture in America or culture of the West. Maybe it's being overly cautious of keeping one's culture/religion/language intact or being cautious of those who are different than them who may or may not treat them well due to past events: Greek occupation by Alexander, Islamic-Hindu conflicts, caste conflicts, British colonialism, etc.
I'm just grasping at straws to be honest. Am I point or am I just wrong completely? I hope I was concise enough.
| By Dexter on Saturday, August 12, 2000 - 01:31 pm: |
To Yasmeen: You asked me about what do I feel about the term "collective privacy" that's prevalent among Indian families.
That's a good question. I'm sorry that I didn't answer it promptly due to internet problems from my ISP.
To be honest, I don't know what to say. I mean families in each ethnic community do have a collective stand on certain issues that only that ethnicity or that community understand and in sync with. Even my own ethnic community has its own issues that they tend to collectively agree on. But that doesn't mean that individuals or families in these ethnic communities are monolithically in agreement; they don't all think or act the same way. Doing that would be creating a stereotype.
However, being a 'non-desi', I guess it would look like from a non-desi's POV that Indian families or communities outside of the Indian subcontinent, tend to "circle in the wagons" (i.e. exclude themselves from the dominant culture) whether it's either due to cultural reasons, or being overly cautious with those who don't look like them due to past events: caste differences, religious differences between Hindus and Muslims, British colonialism, etc. or just being more comfortable with the familiarity with those who look like themselves.
I hope I explained it well enough.
| By Dexter on Saturday, August 12, 2000 - 09:06 pm: |
Yasmeen, that's a very good question you've asked me. To tell you the truth, I don't know what to say. I mean it's true that many families of certain ethnicities tend to agree on certain issues due to past experiences that they have shared culturally, racially and historically. However, it doesn't mean that the individuals or their families in these communities are monolithic. They may share certain ethnic qualities with one another, but that doesn't mean that they all think and act alike.
I guess since I'm a 'non-desi', I guess it would look like in my POV that families of Indian descent, who live out of India, may tend to "circle in the wagons" among themselves when they're living in a country that is different in history and culture. Maybe it's because of the desire to retain one's culture intact. Maybe it's fear from being victimized or mistreated by others who aren't from the same caste, religion or policies similar to [British] colonialism.
But not all Indian families and communities aren't all alike as to what Yasmeen has stated. If a person of any ethnicity doesn't know that much about an individual of another group, one will hang with their own group until he or she will come in contact with many different persons, hopefully they meet each other under positive circumstances, and therefore the stereotypes will dissolve away from that individual.
I hope I explained it well enough.
| By Dexter on Monday, August 14, 2000 - 01:46 am: |
Indian, Yasmeen, anonymous,
Thanks for reading. The Tulsa program is airing this week on Cinemax. I'm trying to find a blank tape to record it. Indian, I'm going to try to find it at Blockbuster or other video stores and see if it's available on video.
| By Dexter on Monday, August 14, 2000 - 07:20 pm: |
To the Editor:
Could you delete one or two of the recent messages that I posted? I had some internet problems for the past two weeks and I had written it more than once because I thought it didn't post the message(s) in the forums.
I apologize for the multiple responses.
Dexter
| By Yasmeen on Wednesday, August 16, 2000 - 11:48 am: |
thanks Dexter - i had another question this one is for anyone who is non indian so at the moment Dexter's the only one i can think of but its open to all. Ok so lets say hypothetically a non indian guy wants to marry an indian girl who has a conservative family with a strong indian culture/heritage. Now in this sort of situation the guy doesnt really have a choice of becoming "indianised" to the extent where the girl's family would accept him. So what other choices would he have ?
| By Indian on Thursday, August 31, 2000 - 02:07 am: |
Hello Dexter,
Watch Mississipi Masala, Bhaji on the Beach for Indian/black experiences. Might get in blockbuster. Both deal with Indian girl/Black boy situation (In Africa/US and UK)... The other way round is very uncommon even in real life.
| By Arvind Kumaran on Thursday, October 05, 2000 - 01:38 pm: |
Someone made an interesting point about Indians resisting intermarriage amongst locals in a foreign country. Indians in the US, UK, Fiji, Africa and Mauritius have resisted intermarriage with locals and are successful, culturally and financially rich and are growing in political clout. In the one place Indians have largely not resisted intermarriage with locals is the West Indies and look at the situation of Indians there. They live below the poverty line, have no financial muscle and are a weak community. Surely that says something.
I am not racist, but I am proud of my rich Indian culture, heritage and accomplishments in science, medicine, arts, astronomy and the list goes on. A true Indian will never mix his/her blood with another race for its compromising our culture and the 5000 year old civilisation we have.
The blacks are supposed to be the oldest race, can someone please tell me what their achievements are in intellectual persuits? Don't give me a few silly examples like Nelson Mandela and Luther King etc. I want solid examples of inventions, discoveries and contribution to making the world a better place.
There is nothing wrong in accepting there is a difference in the mental and physical make up of races. Its obvious and widely accepted the black race is dominant in physical stength and stamina as evidenced by their performance in sports. So why do we shy away from accepting the reality that they are intellectually and culturally at a lower plane than us? Why be sensitive and hypocritical about a fact?
Dexter, I know there are exceptions to every rule and in all probability you are an exception to what I said, but largely the intellectual achievements of your race are miniscule compared to other races like the Caucasians (which is the race an Indian is classified under) and Mongoloid races.
Sensible Indians dont discriminate on the basis of skin, they judge a race by their achievements and cultural developments. This talk about "We are all the same inside" is nonsense as well. If you talk about vital organs, yes we are the same. However, there is a different in hormonal makeup, muscular makeup and intellectual makeup in the races due to cultural, climatic, dietary and lifestyle differences and these characteristics are genetic. So please stop the "ideal world" melodrama that we are all the same inside. We are not, its a simple scientic fact. The world is suddenly coming close due to communication, so people feel its their duty to mix with other races to prove they are not racist. Racial education is a sensitive topic so people are not being educated on it unfortunately.
I have reservations about my opinions getting through the moderator because of its potentially controversial connotations, but this is the truth so I have said it. In know I'll be attacked by you guys and called racist, ignorant, narrowminded whatever! Bear in mind, I'm anything but that.
| By Anonymous on Saturday, October 07, 2000 - 02:47 am: |
Whoooaaaa!!! Arvind
What planet have you been living on for all of your life?
Since I am a very busy person, i'm not going to have time today to respond to your nonsense in the previous post. But in the meantime, when I write back a few more days from now to answer your questions a/b "...solid examples of inventions, discoveries and contributions to making the world a better place." From the Blalck race.
Please check out the lastest posting at The African Diaspora of the Indian Sub Continent.
This should answer your question a/b "...Accepting the reality that they are intellectually and culturally at a lower plane than us."
If that is true, could you please explain how was it possible for Black Africans to have the know-how to be able to rule over parts of India as Sultans, Kings, Rulers, etc.
By the way, this is only discussing Black African accomplishments in India alone. I have not even begun discuss the Black African contributions in other countries yet.
"He who acts without knowledge, causes more harm than good; and he who does not consider speech to be a part of his actions, sins repeatedly."
- Famous Islamic Scholar
| By Anonymous on Saturday, October 07, 2000 - 03:44 am: |
"...The blacks are supposed to be the oldest race, can someone please tell me what their achievements are in intellectual persuits? Don't give me a few silly examples like Nelson Mandela and Luther King etc. I want solid examples of inventions, discoveries and contribution to making the world a better place. "
- Arvind
To Arvind and to other people who would actually believes the nonsense that spews forth from his mouth:
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New African
APRIL 2000
BLACK INVENTORS AND SCIENTISTS
COVER STORY
So black people can't invent?
Has a black person ever invented anything? Well, the answer must be no - that is, if you believe conventional wisdom. But the facts tell a different story. A black man, in fact, invented the very traffic lights that the world cannot do without. And more... Baffour Ankomah reports.
http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/lf41/na/apr00/nacs0401.htm
excerpt:
A Ghanaian secondary school teacher visiting London recently would not believe that a black man invented the traffic lights. "What?," he asked in utter incredulity. "How can a black man invent the traffic lights?"
Well, you can imagine the sort of education this secondary school teacher has imparted, or is imparting, to his students, not out of malice but sheer ignorance. Which speaks volumes about the kind of education Africans receive. All said, this Ghanaian secondary school teacher genuinely believes that black people "cannot or do not" (his words) invent things, they buy other people's inventions. Well, there is something here for him.
A new textbook, Black Scientists and Inventors Book One, published in London recently by BIS Publications dismantles the notion that black people are not inventors.
Co-authored by Ava Henry and Michael Williams (both directors of the London-based BIS Enterprises Ltd), the book is designed for use by children aged 7-16. "It is our hope that parents and teachers will help the children on this journey of knowledge and discovery," say the authors.
The issue of black inventions, like slavery and reparations, is now top of the topics in the Black Diaspora. Black people are finding it increasingly difficult to understand why, even in the Internet era of openness and liberalism, black inventors and scientists are still denied their due recognition. And this is despite the fact that there are records showing that right from ancient times, a number of key inventions that the world now takes for granted were made by black people.
The old era
Writing about African inventions and discoveries, Count C. Volney, the renowned French historical researcher, wrote: "A people now forgotten, discovered, while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and science. A race of men, now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe."
To which Dr John Henrik Clarke, the African-American historical researcher adds: "First, the distortions must be admitted. The hard fact is that most of what we now call world history is only the history of the first and second rise of Europe. The Europeans are not yet willing to acknowledge that the world did not wait in darkness for them to bring the light. The history of Africa was already old when Europe was born."
Dr Clarke is supported by the German scholar and explorer, Leo Frobenius, who wrote in his principal work, Und Afrika Sprach, published in 1910: "In that portion of the globe, the stalwart Anglo-Saxon [Henry Morton] Stanley gave the name of 'dark' and 'darkest'... [But] before the foreign invasion, Africans did not dwell in small clusters but in towns with 20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants, whose highways were shaded by avenues of splendid palms, planted at regular intervals and laid out in an orderly manner..."
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"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
-Confucious
| By JB on Saturday, October 07, 2000 - 05:21 am: |
Arvind,
When you discuss where Indians have done well, you mention the US, UK, Fiji, Africa and Mauritus, but not India. Why? It obviously does not help your argument that a large percentage of the Indian population is unimaginably impoverished. Your examples say more about the benefits of leaving India than they do about being Indian. You're right that it's not an ideal world. That's true also in your homeland.
It's specious to assume the blacks have done well in sports because of dominance in physical strength and stamina. The opposite was commonly held to be true by people who thought like you in the early twentieth century. Did we evolve in that period of time? Of course not. Measurement of performance in sports is purely objective, so it was an genuine opportunity waiting to be exploited. It's the breakthroughs made by people like Jesse Owens back then to people like Colin Powell and Tiger Woods recently that make it illogical to assume that blacks won't dominate tomorrow in an area where we don't have a presence today. Once one of us makes it, it makes the possibility real for the rest of us. That's the same for any group.
Why do you feel that it's the responsiblity of African-Americans to sell our culture to you? If you want to present an opinion about blacks and you don't want to be called racist, narrow-minded, ignorant, etc., then do your homework. Search the library, internet or whatever to answer your own questions. You might start with the history of jazz.
Also, spare us the false objectivity. It's been done.
| By Anonymous on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 02:47 am: |
Arvind,
I'd suggest that you seek counseling to understand and eliminate your deep-seated prejudice and bigotry.
Your point about West Indians mixed with East Indians being "inferior" in social achievements fails to note that East Indian immigrants to West Indies were people who were mostly in blue-collar jobs to begin with. This is happening today, in Dubai and other mid-eastern countries. Whereas the Indian community in US is better educated, so their children are likely to be higher performers as well. In fact, even the Indian+Caucasian has produced "intellectual" performance simply because both parents are "intellectuals". It has nothing to do with race, but mostly on parent's dispositions. I see my daughter growing up in schools here, and am pleased to her progress well despite mixed-race roots; I'm an Indian physician married to white woman, in a suburb or Boston.
| By International Punjabi on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 06:44 am: |
JB it is hardly debatable that most of India's governments in the past and it's upper economic classes have not attempted to achieve a greater prosperity for the country as a whole but instead only for a few. Most nation's classically described as being part of the third or developing world do not support massive movie industries, indigenously grown multinational corporations (albiet few), internationally recognized Universities (IIT), the largest basin for outsourced high-tech work, and a middle class with disposable income enough to attract the marketing efforts of corporations ranging from NewCorp to Ford or Fiat. It's a lot more ardous process for a country to become prosperous then it is for a group of individuals, India no doubt has its share of significant problems however this is not neccessarily due to decades of failed efforts but instead decades of neglect to those particular aspects of the country. Nevertheless it is making sustained economic progress now and, hopefully in due course, will emerge with a significantly strengthned economic and social structure. China for example over the last decades has gone from a relatively poor state to a level where they have a significant importance on the international scene both economically and politically. Arvind's opening remarks showcase values evident among Indian culture such as hard work and academic excellence, to name two, which have allowed them to become prosperous in environments where the rewards for such efforts are dramatically higher then in India.
| By Arvind Kumaran on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 07:12 am: |
Just what I expected. Defensive people belonging to the particular community making vague statements that Africans were Sultans, kings and rulers in India. How about a few names then? What are their contributions to India in architecture, music, science, arts and literature? A few Africans migrating to India and establishing local colonies with a village chieftan cannot be classified as Sultans!!(at least not in India)
I can point out Muslim, Paris and European influences to the above fields in India, but Indian history mentions nothing about Africans. Don't start the African theory about South Indians being African, there's no evidence to support such wishful thinking.
Why should you "sell" your culture to us? Don't sell anything, but its the African community that complains that Indians don't mix with them and are racist, not the other way around. Preserving our own culture and identity that we believe is superior and worth preserving is not racist.
Indians' in India are successful too as can be evidenced by the return of many NRI's to India to pursue careers. India is slowly making a resurgence in global power and standing. After an advanced civilisation, we were constantly invaded which weakened us. Every advanced civilisation has a peak and a velley and so forth.If you can be objective, understand that the Indian culture and way of thinking is what makes us a dominant community wherever we go. By the way, when was Africa's peak? Why is the only cilivisation in the African region so close to Europe and not in the interiors? (if you're afrocentric you're going to harp on Egypt, once again a very doubtful arguement)
It's amusing how JB dismisses anything factual under the pretext of "false objectivity". It's obvious s/he has encountered those arguements before and didn't have an answer then either.
| By DesiandProud on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 02:43 pm: |
Anonymous you may have had good grades at medical school but obviously dont know your history too well. Indians transported to Fiji, Africa and Mauritius were also blue collar workers, but today are a dominant power financially and politically. Incidentially these Indians have also given a fine example of being proud of their culture and heritage and largely abstained from marrying outside the Indian community.
I congratulate you on your successful marriage to a foreign woman. So how strong are the Indian values in your daughter? Pretty strong? Strong enough for her to marry an Indian? I doubt it. How strong do you think the Indian values will be in your grandchildren? Not very strong at all, for them India will be just a land very far away with a lot of temples and "strange" customs. So you see, doctor, thats another Indian lost to the community. Your greatchildren (assuming everyone marries non Indians) will have no Indianess in them whatsoever.
Just because you've married a foreigner, you don't have to take my post personally, you may disagree or hate to agree with these facts, but Indian culture is superior and a true and proud Indian will feel the same way. Aakhir, what's wrong in being proud of your culture? We dont have to justify to anyone that we are not racist!!!
| By Anonymous on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 08:51 pm: |
"Defensive people belonging to the particular community making vague statements that Africans were Sultans, kings and rulers in India. How about a few names then? What are their contributions to India in architecture, music, science, arts and literature? A few Africans migrating to India and establishing local colonies with a village chieftan cannot be classified as Sultans!!(at least not in India)":
Arvind...this book was authored by an Indian women herself discussing the african presence in india:
The African Dispersal in the Deccan : From Medieval to Modern Times/Shanti Sadiq Ali. 1996
"One of the few studies of its kind, this book provides a historical overview of the African heritage in India from medieval to modern times. It focusses on the African dispersal in the Deccan region covering modern Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, the Coromandel Coast and western coastal India.
"Beginning with their inception into the Deccan as slaves or mercenaries in local armies, we see how the Habshis integrated and were assimilated into Indian society. Some rose to the ranks of nobility and held high office in the Bahmani Kingdom, under the Nizam Shahis (1498-1634), the Adil Shahis (1500-1650), the Qutb Shahis of Golkonda (1512-1687) and the Asif Jahis (1724-1948) the most notable being Malik Ambar. Unlike most immigrant minorities, the Africans made a significant contribution to the social, political and cultural history of the Deccan." (jacket)
[Shanti Sadiq Ali was the Founder of President, African Studies of India. Her books include India and Africa through the Ages and India and the East African Littoral, Hinterland and Indian Ocean Island States.]
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Another source:
http://students.ou.edu/M/Muhammad.A.Mehedi-1/m_ruler.html
Look at the periods between 1486 to 1493
ABYSSINIANS = ETHIOPIANS (BLACK AFRICANS)
INDEPENDENT MUSLIM RULERS OF BENGAL
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ILYAS SHAHI DYNASTY ( 1342 - 1415 )
1342 - 1357 Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah
1357 - 1389 Sikander Shah
1389 - 1410 Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah
1410 - 1411 Saif Hamza Shah
1411 - 1414 Shihabuddin Bayazid Shah
1414 Alauddin Firoz Shah
RAJA GANESH DYNASTY ( 1415 - 1433 )
1415 - 1432 Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah
1432 - 1433 Shamsuddin Ahmad Shah
ILYAS SHAHI DYNASTY RESORED ( 1433 - 1486 )
1433 - 1459 Nasiruddin Mahmud
1459 - 1474 Ruknuddin Barbak Shah
1474 - 1481 Shamsuddin Yusuf Shah
1481 Sikander
1481 - 1486 Jalaluddin Fateh Shah
ABYSSINIANS (1486 - 1493 )
1486 Barbak Shahzadz
1486 - 1490 Saifuddin Firoz Shah
1490 - 1493 Shamsuddin Muzaffar Shah
HUSSAIN SHAHI DYNASTY ( 1493 - 1538 )
1493 - 1519 Alauddin Hussain Shah
1519 - 1532 Nasiruddin Firoz Shah
1532 Alauddin Firoz Shah
1532 - 1538 Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah
SURI DYNASTY ( 1538 - 1564 )
1538 - 1545 Sher Shah suri
1545 - 1553 Islam Shah
1553 - 1555 Shamsuddin Muhammad Shah
1555 - 1560 Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah
1560 - 1563 Ghiyasuddin II
1563 - 1564 Ghiyasuddin III
KARRANI DYNASTY ( 1564 - 1575 )
1564 - 1565 Taj Khan Karrani
1565 - 1572 Sulaiman Karrani
1572 Bayazid Karrani
1572 - 1575 Daud Karrani
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And another by Dr. Richard Pankhurst:
http://www.addistribune.com/Archives/2000/03/31-03-00/Hist.htm
Ethiopians in India in Ancient and
Early Medieval Times
by Dr. Richard Pankhurst
Today, and for the next few weeks, we are going to look at the Ethiopian diaspora. We are, however, restricting ourselves, for the moment, to the historic diaspora in India.
Trade Winds
We should note at the outset that commercial contacts between Ethiopia and India were much facilitated over the centuries by the Trade Winds which blew the scope and extent of such relations are indicated in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Graeco-Egyptian commercial manual written around the first century AD. This work shows that the Aksumite port of Adulis, on the Red Sea coast of Africa, traded extensively with various parts of Western India, which supplied Ethiopia with both textiles and spices. Aksumite exports consisted mainly of ivory and rhinoceros horn, but according to the Roman writer Pliny, also included slaves. The latter were also shipped, according to the Periplus, from Opone, later known as Ras Hafun, a promontory on the Indian Ocean coast of Africa, ninety miles south of Cape Guardafui.
An On-going Affair...
Aksumite trade with the East was an on-going affair in ancient times, as evident from an early sixth century Graeco-Egyptian text, the Christian Topography of Kosmas Indikopleustes. It states that the Aksumites were at that time trading with India and Taprobane, i.e Ceylon, as well as Arabia and Persia.
Definitions: Habshis, Sidis, and Kaffirs
The coming of Ethiopian, and other East African, slaves to India a millennium or so later is abundantly documented in Indian, and in particular Gujarat, records. These refer to such slaves mainly by three more or less alternative names: Habshis, Sidis, and Kaffirs.
The term Habshi was a corruption of Habash, the Arabic name for Abyssinia. This name is believed to have derived from Habashat, the name of a Semitic people located in northern Tegray in present-day Ethiopia, and a neighboring stretch of Eritrea. They are believed by many to have migrated in ancient times from Yaman..
The word Habshi, as its derivation implies, doubtless at first applied primarily to Abyssinians (or, in modern parlance, Ethiopians), but was later used more widely for any Africans. However, most slaves taken from Africa to India would, for geographical reasons, have originated on the eastern side of continent. For much of the time covered in this paper they would probably have included a substantial, if not a predominant, proportion of Abyssinians.
The term Sidi by contrast was a corruption of the Arabic Saiyid, or "master". The word, as Edwardes notes, had "an honourable import" when first assumed, but, in common parlance, had become "rather an appellation of reproach than distinction" This is confirmed by the Frenchman François Pyrard of Laval, who, reporting on a visit to the Maldives in 1607, observed that "the greatest insult that can be passed upon a man is to call him a cisdy", i.e. Sidi.
The term Kaffir was derived from the Arabic Kafir, originally an Infidel, or Unbeliever in Islam. The word tended to be used in India for any non-Muslim, and was in many, though not all, cases applied to African immigrants and their descendants.
Converts to Islam
Ethiopian and other African slaves taken to India (or indeed Arabia, their first port of call) were for the most part converted to Islam. This change of religion sometimes occurred even on the boats transporting the captives across the sea. After conversion they almost invariably abandoned their pre-Muslim names, in favour of Islamic ones. This was unfortunate from the historical point of view, for it destroyed the possibility of identifying the slaves’ places of origin from their personal or family names.
Slaves in Islamic India, on the other hand, benefited from their conversion, in that it facilitated their integration into Indian Muslim society. Unlike Negro slaves in the New World, slaves in Muslim India were largely free from racial discrimination. They differed from slaves in America and the West Indies, moreover, in that they were not subjected to plantation labour. Many slaves in India entered the personal service of rulers and other politically important personalities, in not a few instances as palace guards. This enabled them, like such functionaries in many lands, to exercise immense power, not only as king-makers, but, after successful coups d’etat, as kings themselves.
From the Early 13th. to the Late 15th. Century
The first Ethiopian slaves arriving in the Indian sub-continent may have come early in the Christian era. This would appear probable, in view of the antiquity of the Horn of Africa’s slave exports, and the extensive trade between the Ethiopia and India indicated in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Documentation on African slaves in India is, however, scarcely available for over a millennium, until the early thirteenth century.
The North and West: Delhi, Gujarat, the Gulf of Cambay, and Malabar
The first Habshi of whom there is historical record was probably Jamal al-Din Yaqut, a royal courtier in the kingdom of Delhi, in the north of the sub-continent. A handsome and most likable individual, he won the favour of the then reigning sovereign Queen Radiyya (1236-1240). This incurred him much jealousy at court, on which account he was eventually murdered by his rivals.
Habshis, it is evident from fourteenth century reports, were soon also prominent in several other parts of India. The largest concentrations of slaves was apparently found in the north-west, facing Africa: in Gujarat, and, immediately to the east, around the Gulf of Cambay. Both areas had long been in close commercial contact, across the Arabian and Red Seas, with Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
The Evidence of Ibn Battuta
Early evidence of an Ethiopian slave presence in the sub-continent is provided by the famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta. Describing the situation between 1333 and 1342, he recalls that on embarking on a ship at Qandahar, or Gandhar on the west coast of India, he found on board "fifty Abyssinian men-at-arms", and adds, with admiration: "these latter are the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean; let there be but one of them on a ship and it will be avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters". Half a century later, in 1375-6, Gujarat was reported as paying a tribute of 400 slaves, described as "children of Hindu chiefs and Abyssinians".
A sizable number of Habshis were also found much further south, at Calicut, which also faced the African continent, and traded with Ethiopia. Ibn Battuta tells of a shipowner’s agent at the port, who, when going ashore, was "preceded by archers and Abyssinians with javelins, swords, drums, trumpets and bugles".
Habshis were likewise in evidence further south again, at Colombo, in Ceylon, where Ibn Battuta reports that Jalasti, "the wazir and ruler of the sea", had "about five hundred Abyssinians".
The North: Alapur and Jaunpur
Habshis were also reported in the interior of northern India. Ibn Battuta recalls that at Alapur, north of Delhi, the governor was "the Abyssinian Badr..., a man whose bravery passed into a proverb". He was "continually making raids on the infidels alone and single-handed, killing and taking captive, so that his fame spread far and wide and the infidels went in fear of them". Gossip had it that he had retained some non-Indian ways: according to Ibn Battuta he used to eat "a whole sheep at a meal", and, "following the custom of the Abyssinians", would, after consuming it, drink a pound and a half of ghee, or clarified butter.
Later in the century a slave called Malik Sarwar, described as a Habshi, was appointed further north as governor of Jaunpur. He was succeeded by his son Mubarak Shah, who struck coins in his own name, and was succeeded in turn by his brother Ibrahim Shah. The latter reigned for almost forty years, and is remembered as a patron of literature and the arts.
The North-East: Bengal
Numerous Habshis and other foreign slaves were likewise politically very prominent in fifteenth century Bengal, a region in north-east India which also enjoyed extensive trade with Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. The then Bengali ruler, Sultan Rukn al-Din (1450-1474), reportedly had no less than 8,000 African slaves, some of whom rose to positions of considerable importance. Such slaves were particularly influential during the ensuing reign of Jalal al-Din Fath Shah (1481-1487). This caused the modern Indian historian Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, a stern critic of the Habshis, to remark:
"The Abyssinians... presented a serious problem... they had captured most of the high positions and now swarmed in the palace and in the city. Power made them arrogant and like the Turks in the employ of the later Abbaside Caliphs, they behaved with the citizens with increasing violence. The more defiant of them, according to Firishta, were consequently punished ‘with the scourge of justice’".
The Habshis were in fact so powerful in Bengal that a group of them, including the chief eunuch, conspired to overthrow the then ruler Jalal al-Din Fath. Taking advantage of the absence on campaign of the loyal Habshi commander-in-chief, Amir al-Umara Malik Andil, the Habshi commander of the palace guards, Sultan Shahzada, assassinated Jalal al-Din. "From protectors of the dynasty", one historian wrote, "the Abyssinians became masters of the kingdom".
Shahzada duly assumed the throne, in 1486, and adopted the name of Barbak Shah. He was, however, soon afterwards killed by the Habshi Amir al-Umara who in his turn made himself king, with the name Sayf al-Din Firuz (1487-1490). A kind man, he is said to have confounded his treasury officials by the largesse of his gifts to the poor. His reign was, however, short, for he was replaced only three years later by an infant king. Real power, however, fell into the hands of another Habshi, Habash Khan, who was later killed by yet another Habshi, Sidi Badr "the madman", who had the young king put to death. Badr then seized the throne, under the name of Shams al-Din Muzaffar Shah, and instituted a reign of terror. His cruelty, however, provoked strong opposition against him, and by extension against Habshi domination. His army, which included no less than 5,000 well-armed Habshis, was besieged for three months, at the end of which he died.
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More Dr. Pankhurst:
ETHIOPIANS IN INDIA: THEIR POWER INCREASES
Part II
by Dr. Richard Pankhurst
The Habshis, who, as we saw last week had shown themselves so formidable in the bloody Indian struggles of the time, were duly banished from Bengal. Many sought refuge further north, in Delhi and Jaunpur, after which they drifted to the Deccan and Gujarat, where many of their number had earlier lived.The memory of their immense power in Bengal was nevertheless so strong that the early sixteenth century Portuguese traveller Tomé Pires observed, with truth, that for three-quarters of a century it had "always been Abyssinians - those who are very near the king" - who had reigned.
The South: The Deccan
The Deccan, in south-western India, was another area in which the Habshis gained prominence, and, as elsewhere, became involved in many conflicts of the day. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the local Bahmani ruler, Sultan Firuz (1397-1422), had many Habshi slaves as his personal attendants, as well as in his bodyguard, and harem. He incurred the enmity, however, of his brother Ahmad, who subverted the Habshi bodyguard, by one of whom Firuz was assassinated. Ahmad, though brought to power by the Habshis, feared their growing strength, and placed his trust instead in Persians, Turks and other foreigners of the Shiah faith. The Habshis and local Deccanis, both of whom were Sunni, thus both lost favour.
Ahmad, unlike the rulers of Bengal, did not, however, banish the Habshis, who therefore continued to be both prominent. and powerful. During the subsequent reign of Ala-ud-Din Ahmad (1436-1458) they stood for example on the left of the throne, though the other foreigners were assigned the more prestigious position on the right. This did not, however, prevent Habshis from continuing to play a major role in political affairs, as when Ala-ud-Din’s son and successor, Humayan "the tyrant", was stabbed to death by a Habshi maid-servant, in 1461.
Several other notable Habshis feature in the Deccan annals of the time. One, named Khudavand Khan, served as governor of Mahur, while another, a eunuch called Dastur Dinar, ruled Gulbarga. Habshis thus governed two out of the four Bahmani provinces. A third Habshi, Mahmud, was keeper of seals, while a fourth, Jauhur, is on record as executing one of the principal nobles, who had been accused, perhaps falsely, of disloyalty to the ruler.
Considerable Numbers
Ethiopian and other African slaves were at this time probably arriving in India in considerable numbers. The Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, a generally reliable compilation, states that around "the middle of the fifteenth century... the fashion arose of bringing to western India large numbers of Abyssinian and other East Africans", i.e. Habshis or Sidis. Turning to the political role of these immigrants, the Gazetteer concludes: "Though most Habshis came to India as slaves, their faithfulness, courage, and energy often raised them to positions of high trust in the Bahmani court".
The influence of Habshis in the Deccan at this time was also emphasised by a British historian of the Mogul Empire, Robert Orme. He observes that the slaves "gained ascendance" over a king of Bijapur, and were "exalted by him to highest employments in the state... they gathered all of their own country they could procure either by purchase or invitation, and even the Coffrees [kafirs, or blacks] of other parts of Africa". On the skill with which they involved themselves decisively in the political life of their country of adoption, he adds: "The natural courage of these people, not unmixed with ferocity, and always foremost in battle, awed the envy of their rivals, however indignant from the pride of their ancient descent, although the Siddees had likewise taken their religion".
The first marriages, of the Habshis, Orme continues, "were with natives of India", but later ones were largely "among their own families, which preserving their nationality, in time formed a numerous community, distinct in figure, colour, and character from all the other races of Mahomedans; which nevertheless could not have subsisted, if the body of the people amongst whom they had intruded, had not been, as themselves, Mahomedans. Later, during the reigns of Nizam (1461-1463) and Mahomed III (1463-1482) the Habshis regained influence, and in the latter reign in particular they shared in the offices of state".
Dilaver Khan
During the subsequent reign of Mahmud Shah (1482-1518), another Habshi, Dilavar Khan, became finance minister, but was later ousted by Malik Hassan, a Muslimised Hindoo, who then made himself dictator. Dilaver Khan tried to assist Mahmud against the latter, but, failing, was obliged to flee the country. The unfortunate king later appealed for help to the Habshi Dastur Dinar to free him of the usurper, but Dastur, despite strenuous efforts, proved unable to do so.
The kingdom of Deccan, torn apart by continuous strife, was by then beginning to decline. In 1490 Ahmadnagar, Bijapur and Berar declared their independence of Bihar, where a Turkish minister, Qasim Barid ul-Mamilik, usurped power. Almost immediately afterwards the Habshi Dilavar Khan returned from exile to assist Mahmud, but was defeated and killed. Qasim Barid-ul-Mamalik then consolidated his position, and in 1495 demoted Dastur Dinar, who was then governor of western Telingana, and appointed him governor of Gulbarga. The Habshi leader resisted this demotion, but was defeated. He was, however, subsequently reinstated in Gulbarga, but as a result of further strife was later driven from the city, and eventually killed, in 1504.
The conflict in Bijapur between the factions nevertheless continued. A stern decree was issued in 1510 prohibiting Deccanis, Habshis, or even their children, from holding office. This law was, however, later reversed by Ibrahim Adil Shah (1534-1558), who restored the Sunnis to power, in 1537. He then divided offices of state between the Habshis and Deccanis, and thus brought an end to Shiah paramountcy.
Several other Habshis were nevertheless prominent during the ensuing period of strife. They included Khudavand Khan's two sons, Shaza Khan and Ghalib Khan, and Dastur Dinar's son Jahangir Khan.
The importance of the Habshis of this time is further evident from the fact that a hill outside the capital city of Bidar, where once they had their stronghold - and where many of them were buried - is to this day known as Habshi Kot.
The West Coast
Habshis at this time were also prominent at several points along India’s western coast. They were particularly powerful at the island fort of Janjira, and in the nearby creek of Danda-Rajpuri, where they were almost invariably referred to as Sidis.
There are different accounts as to how the Sidis established themselves at Janjira. According to a history of Ahmadnagar, one of the kings of that state, Malik Ahmad (1490-1508), entrusted the island to his Abyssinian slave Yaqut, and established the Sidis as the latter’s captains.
Another story holds that the Habshis made their appearance when one of their number, Perira Khan, and a group of other "Abyssinians" in the service of Malik Ahmad disguised themselves in 1489, as merchants. They obtained permission from Ram Patil, the chief of the island, to land 300 large boxes supposedly containing wine and silk. Ram Patil gave them leave, after which they regaled the garrison with wine. When the men had drunk to excess, the Hahshis opened their boxes, in which armed soldiers were hidden. Taking advantage of their opponents’ surprise, they then easily captured the fort.
Other versions of the story suggest that the Habshis gained control of Janjira somewhat later, possibly in the early sixteenth century. There is, however, no denying that they remained in effective charge of the island, as we shall see, for the next two hundred years.
Further north, at Daman, on the coast of Ahmadnagar facing Africa, the governor at the time of the Portuguese occupation in 1530 was a Habshi chief called Sayf al-Mulk Miftah, who had a force of 4,000 fellow Habshis.To the south meanwhile, at Goa, Habshis were also prominent. In 1493, the Bahmani admiral Sidi Yaqut is said to have been sent with a fleet of 20 vessels against the Gujarat fort of Mahim near Bombay, and succeeded in capturing it. Habshis were likewise to the fore at Calicut, the population of which, according to the modern Indian historian K.M. Panikkar, continued to include many people from Abyssinia.
Cambay
Cambay, to the north-west of the sub-continent, at this time still also had a considerable Habshi population. Some made their way into the interior, including Mandu, whose sultan, Shah Khalji (1469-1500) reportedly had "five hundred Abyssinian slave girls dressed in male attire". Known as the Habiwash band, they were armed with swords and shields. A decade or so later, the Portuguese traveller Tomé Pires recalled that the Cambay rulers had "many" warriors, among them Abyssinians, with whose assistance they were "constantly fighting with the neighbouring kingdoms". The importance of such Habshis as fighters is likewise recognised by the Bombay Gazetteer: it claims that they were "among the most skillful and daring soldiers and sailors in Western India".
The Habshis of Cambay were, however, not only soldiers, but also included many people engaged in the agate trade. One of their traditions, cited in the Bombay Gazetteer, holds that early in the sixteenth century "an Abyssinian merchant came to Gujarat, and established an agate factory at Nandod in Rajpila". The merchant reportedly died at Nandod, and was buried near the tomb of Baba or Bawa Ghor by the river Narboda.
Another tradition asserts that the shrine was actually raised in honour of the merchant. It is said that "while wandering from place to place as a religious beggar, he did business in precious stones, and, becoming skilled in agate, set up a factory at Nimodra", where he "prospered and died rich". The British ethnographer R.E. Enthoven, who refers to him as "an Abyssinian saint and great merchant", states that he came to be venerated by the Sidis, "many" of whom were "imported to work in these mines". According to the modern Indian scholar D.K. Bhattacharya, the supposed Abyssinian trader was the only such holy man "revered generally by all the Sidi".
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| By Anonymous on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 08:57 pm: |
Continuing:
THE RISE OF IMAM AHMAD IBN IBRAHIM, OR AHMAD GRAGN, AND ITS AFTERMATH
part III
http://addistribune.ethiopiaonline.net/Archives/2000/04/14-04-00/Hist.htm
The Changing Balance of Power
The advent of fire-arms in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden region led, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, to major changes in the balance of power in the Horn of Africa.
Imam Mahfuz
One of the most important of these developments was the rise of the Muslim state of Adal, in the east of what is now Ethiopia, bordering Gulf of Aden. This was followed, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, by some twenty-four years of instability, in which Imam Mahfuz, the Muslim ruler of the Gulf of Aden port of Zaila, carried out annual slave-raiding expeditions from Adal into the Ethiopian interior. Such raiding resulted in a considerable expansion in the slave trade, and in particular to the export of numerous Ethiopian slaves to Arabia, India and elsewhere.
The importance of this slave trade, the source of most of India’s Habshis, was noted by the Portuguese traveller Francisco Alvares, who travelled widely in Ethiopia in the early 1520s. He observes that slaves from Damot, in the south-west of the Ethiopian empire, were especially "much esteemed by the Moors", i.e. Muslims. He adds that "all the country of Arabia, Persia, India, Egypt, and Greece", was "full" of such slaves, who reportedly made "very good Moors and great warriors"
Imam Ahmad
Slave-raiding was subsequently intensified by Mahfuz’s more famous son-in-law Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, better known in Ethiopia as Imam Ahmad Gragn, or the Left-handed. (He was in fact left-handed, as is explicitly stated in his chronicle!)
A charismatic leader of Adal, and a man of no small military ability, Ahmad rose to prominence immediately after Alvares’s departure. In 1527 he began a series of expeditions which took him much further into the Ethiopian interior than Mahfuz had ever gone. In the course of these military operations Ahmad captured innumerable slaves, and thereby gave an immense new fillip to the slave trade. This resulted in a vast, but incalculable, increase in the number of Ethiopian, or Habshi, slaves arriving in the Indian sub-continent, and in particular Gujarat.
The prominence acquired in India by persons of Ethiopian, or other African, origin in the aftermath of Imam Ahmad’s campaigns is confirmed by foreign travellers of the time. Towards the middle of the sixteenth century the Portuguese mariner Joam de Castro for example declared that Ethiopian slaves, serving in India as soldiers, were "strong and valiant to such a degree that there was a proverb throughout India that good soldiers or ascaris, or servants, must be Abyssinian". Such men, he adds, were "so well regarded in Bengal, Cambaia, Ballagate and other places [in India] that all those who command the armies or have a rank there are taken from among this race".
Van Linschoten
The Habshi presence in India was also discussed in the last quarter of the century by the Dutch traveller John Huyghen Van Linschoten. Referring to slaves from the country of Prester John, i.e. the Christian empire of Ethiopia, he states, in an old English translation, that there were "divers men" there who sent slaves and free-men into India who served as "Sailors in the Portugalles ships". He also observes:
"There are many Arabians and Abexiins in India... the Abexiins some are Mahometans, some Christians after their manner, for they are of Prester Johns land... There are many of them in India that are slaves and captives, both men and women which are brought (thither) out of Aethiopia, and sold like other Oriental Nations... the Abexiins that are Christians have their faces 4 burnt markes in the manner of a Crosse, one over their nose in the middle of the forehead, betweene (both their) eyes, on each of their cheekes one, betweene their eies, and their eares, and one under their neather lip, (down) to the chin".
Linschoten, who published "pictures of the Arabians and
Abexijns with their wives, as they goe in India", also reports a significant foreign slave presence in Goa. Its population at this time, he says, included, "many Persians, Arabians, and Abexijns, some (of them) Christians and some (of them) Moores".
Gujarat
The relationship between Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim’s expeditions and the influx of Habshi slaves was evident to the contemporary Gujarat scholar Abdallah Muhammad ibn Omar al-Makki, al-Asafi, Ulugh Khan, generally known as Haji ad-Dabir. He mentions the impact of the fighting in Abyssinia in his Arabic History of Gujarat, completed around 1605. His observations are significant because he was particularly well aware of things Habshi. He was in fact successively in the service of two Gujarat Habshi noblemen: first Muhammad Yaqut Ulugh Khan, from 1559 to 1573, and later Abdul Kerim Sayfud Muhammad Fulad Khan, in 1599-1600.
Haji ad-Dabir considered Imam Ahmad’s fighting so central to the experience of north-west India that he included in his History of Gujarat long excerpts from the chronicle of the Imam’s Yamani scribe Shihab ad-Din Ahmad ibn al-Qader, also known as Arab-Faqih.
In his Gujarat History Haji ad-Dabir thus quotes from the Yamani writer’s account of the Adal ruler’s many victories over the Christian Ethiopians. He reports that many of the latter, taken prisoner at the battle of Dir, or Ad Dayar, and elsewhere, were sent to Amir Salman of Zabid, in the Yaman, and were handed over to him at the Yamani off-shore island of Kamaran. Amir Salman, it is said, selected the most promising Abyssinians, who are referred to as Rumikhanis, and put the rest to death. Those spared were obliged to embrace Islam, but were otherwise treated kindly and, significantly, received a training in arms as well as letters.
Amir Salman was murdered, in 1529, after which his slaves from Abyssinia were inherited by his nephew Mustafa ibn Bahram. The latter received orders in 1531 from his father in Constantinople to proceed at once to India to help the Gujarat sultan Bahadur (1526-1537) in his conflict with the Portuguese. Mustafa immediately set out, taking with him the newly captured slaves, by then irrevocably converted to Islam.
The significance of the arrival of such large numbers of Abyssinians in Gujarat was emphasised by Haji ad- Dabir. He claims that they were as good as Arabs in everything except descent, but were often disliked by ordinary Indians, who were sometimes incited to murder them. There were later, he adds, no less than 5,000 Habshis at Ahmadabad, and 1,500 in Baroda, in 1561-2. When the Mogul Emperor Akbar (1556-1605) subsequently entered Gujarat in 1572 there were likewise 700 Habshi horseman on the scene.
The importance of this influx of slaves from war-torn Ethiopia was not lost on the British historian of India, Denison Ross. Recalling the bitter fighting on the Horn of Africa, the resultant extensive capture of slaves, and their subsequent political importance on the sub-continent, he observes: "the Habshis who rose to such prominence in Gujarat in the 16th century were for the most part the prisoners or sons of the prisoners captured during the Muhammadan invasion of Ethiopia". It was "in this manner", he adds, "that these Abyssinians came to Gujarat", and "the manner in which many of them rose to prominence and independence forms one of the most interesting features of this story".
Elaborating on the above theme, he declares that in the disorders in India which began with the accession of Mahmud III (1537-1554), the Abyssinian slaves, i.e. those captured in Imam Ahmad’s wars, "found a scope for rising to favour and prominence", though "their rivalry with the local nobility, and with the leaders of other foreign mercenaries, brought about a state of dissension which enabled Akbar to conquer Gujarat almost without a blow ".
The above-mentioned wave of Habshi immigration, though crucially important was, it should be emphasised, only one phase in an on-going, and largely involuntary, movement of population from East Africa to Western India. Discussing migration to Gujarat, Ross observes that "from the end of the 13th century to the end of the I7th... soldiers, traders, and slaves kept flocking into Gujarat by land and sea". Immigrants, he adds, included Abyssinians and Arabs, as well as persons of many other races. Emphasising the cultural significance in particular of the Habshis, he concludes: "A close study of the history of Gujarat in the 15th and 16th century has led me to the conclusion that European historians, following in the wake of Muhammedan chroniclers, who no doubt had their prejudices, have failed to attach sufficient importance to the part played by the Habshis in the history of that country".
Most of the Habshis who arrived in Gujarat in the aftermath of Imam Ahmad’s expeditions in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa lived a life of near anonymity, and scarcely feature in records of the time. A number of their leaders, however, attained prominence, and deserve mention.
Notable Habshis
Three notable Habshis were accorded the honorific title of Ulugh Khan.
The first Habshi to hold this title was Mandal Dilawar Khan, who attracted the attention of Sultan Mahmud III, and was appointed captain of the latter’s bodyguard in 1553, but died in battle in the same year.
"The First Fruit of Abyssinia"
The second Habshi Ulugh Khan was Sultan Mahmud’s vizier Yaqut Sibit Khan Habshi, also known as Yaqut Begi Sultani, who, on the death of Mandel Dilawar Khan, succeeded to his title and military commands. He commanded a Habshi force under Imad-ul-Mulk Arslan, and obtained the latter’s rank when Imad became chief minister to Sultan Ahmad II (1554-1562). On the death of Yaqut, in 1558, he was buried at Sarkhej, beside Bilal Jhujhar, another famous Habshi of the day. 1376. The latter, like other Habshis of that name, was probably been named after the Prophet’s first muezzin Bilal. The son of an Abyssinian slave woman in Arabia, Muhammad had spoken of him with appreciation as "the first fruit of Abyssinia".
GREAT HABSHIS IN ETHIOPIAN/INDIAN HISTORY
Part IV
http://addistribune.ethiopiaonline.net/Archives/2000/04/21-04-00/Hist.htm
The Third Habshi Ulugh Khan
The third Habshi bearing the title of Ulugh Khan was Yaqut's son Muhammad, also known as Shams ud-Dawlah Muhammad al-Habshi, who served as vizier to his father from 1543-4 to 1557-8. Also called Khayrat Khan, he also held the title of al-Majlis al-Ashraf al-Ali, and is remembered, as we have seen, as one of the patrons of the Gujarat historian Haji ad-Dabir. Muhammad Ulugh Khan appointed as his vizier yet another Habshi, Bilal Falah Khan, and, according to the Indian historian M.S. Commissariat, "secured the same devotion as his father had enjoyed from the Habshi troops in Gujarat and was thus able to take an active part in the confused politics of the time". He sided sometimes with Itimad Khan and sometimes with Imad-ul-Mulk Arslan, but after Akbar's conquest of Gujarat ended his days in captivity, and was buried at Sarkhej beside the graves of his father Yaqut and his son Ahmad.
The prestigious title of Jhujhar Khan, as Commissariat notes, was likewise successively held, by "two Abyssinian commanders" of Gujarat. The first was Bilal Habshi, who was appointed in 1538-9, and was governor of Burhanpur under Mubarak Shah of Khandesh (1537-1566). He was subsequently killed in battle before the great commercial town of Surat in 1558-9, and was buried at Sarkhej. His son, Aziz Khan, and grandson, Amin Khan, both acquired some prominence in Gujarat.
The second Habshi with the title of Jhujhar Khan was Bilal Habshi's son Marjan Sultani Habshi, who held the fiefs of Bahmanul and Munda. The adopted brother of Yaqut Ulugh Khan, he died in 1573, when he was executed by being trampled on by an elephant.
Other Prominent Habshis
Other prominent Habshis of this time included Said Safar Salami, who, after Bahadur's death in 1537, became governor of Surat with the title of Khudavand Khan; Bilal Falah Khani Habshi, vizier to Muhammad Ulugh Khan, who subsequently became an independent chieftain with the title of Khayrat Khan and died in 1563-3; and Fulad Khan Sandal, who ruled the town of Jamud, until his death in 1569-70.
Yet another important Habshi of Gujarat was Shaik Said al-Habshi Sultani. Originally a slave of Rumi Khan, he later entered the service of Sultan Mahmud III. On the latter's death in 1554 he joined the great Habshi captain Jhujhar Khan, and, after a long and distinguished military career, received valuable fiefdoms from the latter, who reportedly regarded him as a brother. Shaik Said managed his land efficiently, and acquired great wealth. He collected a fine library, and had over a hundred slaves, probably mainly or entirely Habshis, as well as numerous horses and camels. Until Emperor Akbar's conquest of Ahmadabad, he dined daily in the company of many nobles and divines, and maintained a public kitchen, which distributed food daily to nearly a thousand destitute persons. He died in 1576; and is perhaps best remembered as the builder of a famous mosque, known by his name, in Ahmadabad.
Emperor Akbar's Conquest
Akbar’s conquest of Gujarat had major consequences for thered abusive words against Akbar, was punished, as we have seen, by being thrown under an elephant and crushed to death. His son Walil Khan was on the other hand given a command in the Akbar’s Gujarat army. Another Habshi, Abdul Kerim Sayfud Muhammad Fulad Khan, the son of the afore-mentioned Fulad Khan, was the ruler of Songir under the kings of Khandesh. He subsequently transferred his allegiance to Akbar, who responded by reaffirming his possession of Songir. He later became, as we have seen, Haji ad-Dabir's second patron.
Bijapur
Habshis in this period after Imam Ahmad’s campaigns continued to be prominent further south of the sub-continent, in Bijapur, where their power was bitterly, and almost continuously, contested by other military factions.
Ibrahim Adil Shah’s old policy of dividing power between the Habshis and Deccanis, both of them Sunnis, was reversed by his son Ali (1558-1580). He once more dismissed the Habshis and other Sunnis, in favour of the Shiates. Later, however, during the reign of Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1580--1627), a Deccani nobleman seized the dowager queen Chand Bibi, and made himself master of the realm. Three Habshi nobles, Ikhlas Khan, Hamid Khan and Dilavar Khan - the second Habshi of that name - nevertheless soon afterwards drove him from the capital. Ikhlas, who is clearly depicted in a contemporary picture as being of African descent, or at least a man of dark colour, became regent for a short time. He was, however, shortly afterwards dismissed by Chand Bibi, but later resumed his dictatorship which was, however, soon challenged by the other foreigners.
The more northerly Kingdom of Ahmadnagar, taking advantage of these serious dissensions, attacked Bijapur in 1567. The Habshis, realising that they could not defend their city alone, thereupon tended their resignation to Chand Bibi. This, in the view of the British historian Wolseley Haig, provided "the only example of self-denying patriotism to be found in this strife of factions". The Shiah foreigners then rallied to the defence of the city, and the Ahmadnagar army was forced to withdraw, whereupon the struggle at Bijapur was, however, renewed. Ikhlas Khan attacked his fellow Habshi Dilavar Khan, but was defeated by the latter, who became the supreme ruler from 1582 to 1591. In the latter year he was defeated in a battle with the Ahmadnagar army, as a result of which his power in Bijapur collapsed. He thereupon fled to Ahmadnagar where he found service with Burhan II, who had by then seized control there. The ruler of Bijapur complained at this employment of the former Habshi dictator, but Burhan replied by declaring war. He was, however, unsuccessful, and was obliged to make peace. The Deccanis then rebelled against him, and found a ready leader in Dilavar's old rival the Habshi Ikhlas Khan who failed, however, to capture Ahmadnagar.
Burhan was succeeded by Ibrahim Nizam Shah (1595-1596), whose mother had been a Habshi. His chief minister, a Deccani, allowed Ikhlas Khan to return to Ahmadnagar. Ikhlas then persuaded the king, against his minister’s advice, to declare war on Bijapur. Ibrahim was killed, a further struggle for succession ensued. Ikhlas Khan proposed the accession of one prince, while two other Habshis, Ahang Khan and Habashi Khan, supported another.
The above struggles, in which the Habshis, as so often, thus played major role, immediately preceded the conflict between Ahmadnager and the Mogul empire which led to the latter’s decisive victory in 1597.
Sailors
Numerous Habshis were meanwhile employed as sailors in Indian waters. The Dutchman Linschoten recalls that besides Arabs there were also "Abexiins" serving as sailors around India, where they were replacing the Portuguese, who considered such work incompatible with their prestige. "These Abexiins and Arabians, such as are free", he declares, "doe serve in all India for Saylers and sea faring men, with such merchants as saile from Goa to China, Japan, Bengala, Mallaca, Ormus, and all the Oriental coast... These Abexiins and Arabians serve for small money, and being hyred are very lowlie (and subiect), so that often times they are (beaten and) smitten, not as slaves, but like dogs, which they bear very patientlie, not (once) speaking a word".
Some Habshis sailed even further east. They travelled indeed as far as Siam, where the Portuguese mariner Ferdinand Pinto told of "Turks, Abyssins and Moors" engaged in fighting in 1548.
And So It Went On...
And So It Went On... Indian trade with the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Eastern coast of Africa, as we will see next week, continued to flourish in the seventeenth centur. Such trade was accompanied by many further shipments of Ethiopian and other African slaves. The number arriving in India seems, however, to have been significantly less than at the time of Imam Ahmad, with the result that Habshis on the whole began, as we shall see. to play a diminishing role in Indian political affairs.
Habshis in the 17th & 18th
Century India
http://addistribune.ethiopiaonline.net/Archives/2000/04/28-04-00/Hist.htm
The Habshi Presence
Travellers to India in the seventeenth century,still report a significant Habshi presence. The Englishman Edward Terry noted for example early in the century that there were "many Abissines" in "Indostan". His compatriot the historian W.H. Moreland, writing of the time of the death of Emperor Akbar in 1605, agrees that "Abyssinians were in much demand", and "sometimes" rose to "very responsible positions".
The demand for Habshi slaves was likewise subsequently reported by the early seventeenth century British envoy Thomas Roe. He recalls that he was asked by the Mogul Emperor Jahanger (1605-1627) "to buy three Abassines (for fortie Rupias a man) whom they suppose all Christians", but he refused, declaring, "I could not buy men as slaves".
Later in the seventeenth century another Englishman, William Crooke, stated that Habshis, or "Syddies" as he called them, were raised to some of "the Chief Employments" in the land, with the result that "Frizled Woolly-paled Blacks" rose to "great Preferments".
The Eighteenth Century
Habshis were still in demand in the eighteenth century, at the close of which J.H. Grose, a British traveller, declared that the "Moors", i.e. Indian Muslims, were "fond of having Abyssinia slaves, known in Indian by the name of Habshee Coifrees", i.e. Kafirs, or Africans. Such slaves, he believed, came mainly from the Ethiopian region via the Red Sea and Arabian ports. The slaves’ principal place of origin, he thought, was the southern Ethiopian province of Enarya, bordering upon what was "commonly called Negroeland, in the heart of Africa". It was from Ethiopia, he claims, that such slaves were "selected, and a great traffic made of them, all over the Mogolistan and Persia". As for the character of these slaves, he observes that they were "highly valued for their courage, fidelity, and shrewdness; in which they so far excel, as often to rise to posts of great trust and honor, and are made governors of palaces; when they take the title of Siddees", i.e. Sidis.
Though there was still a considerable demand for Habshi slaves, as Grose suggests, most, by the eighteenth century, were probably descendants of immigrants imported into Ethiopia earlier rather than immigrants themselves.
Malik Ambar, and Other Prominent Habshis
The best known Habshi of the early seventeenth century was probably Malik Ambar (1549--1626), an "Abyssinian" slave purchased in Baghdad, who became chief minister in the shrunken kingdom of Ahmadnagar. He won renown in 1601 by defeating the Mogul forces in south-west Berar, and subsequently established Murtaza Nizam Shah (1603-1630) as the nominal ruler of the land. He also reorganised the tax system, and improved the training of the soldier. The Mogul court chronicler, Mutamid Khan, wrote: "This Ambar was a slave, but an able man. In warfare, in command, in sound judgment, and in administration he had no rival or equal".
On the death of Malik Ambar his son, Fath Khan, submitted to the Moguls, but soon afterwards joined Murtaza Nizam Shah in attacking them. The latter, however, subsequently appointed another Habshi, Hamid Khan, to the post of minister, and fell completely under his influence and that of the latter’s wife. She became the recognised means of communication between the monarch and his subjects, and on occasion even assumed control of the army. In 1626 she overcame the army of Bijapur, which, however, in the following year decisively defeated her husband.
"gathered together like ants and locusts", but were defeated. Hamid Khan's grandsons, realising the futility of the struggle, later made their submission to the Jahanger, who in return granted them fiefs in the Deccan.
Hamid’s defeat had fatal consequences. Malik Ambar’s son Fath Khan, uncertain of his influence over Murtaza, killed him, and replaced him by the latter’s son Husayn Nizam Shah III (1630-1633). Randola Khan, a prominent Habshi general in Bijapur, then persuaded Fath Khan to join in the struggle against the Moguls, but the two Habshis were eventually defeated. Fath Khan nevertheless received honourable treatment from the victors, and was allowed to live in Lahore with an ample pension.
Other Prominent Habshis
Several other Habshis held important positions later in the century. They included Atish Habshi (d. 1651), sometime governor of Bihar and later of the Deccan; Habsh Khan Sidi Miftah Habshi, who was honoured by Emperor Aurangzeb, and attracted the interest of the German scholar Hiob Ludolf, who reproduces his portrait in his Relatio nova de Hodierno Habessinae Statu; Habsh Khan’s son Ahmad Khan; Dilavar Khan (d. 1702-3), another sometime governor of the Deccan, who was in turn succeeded as its ruler by another Habshi;and Malik Marjan, Ibrahim Adil's governor of Bidar. Mention may also be made of an unidentified Habshi of Breampur, who, according to the Frenchman Pierre du Jarric, was "a very brave captain", and one of the principal guardians of the fortress of Asirgath.
Hyderabad
There was at least one prominent Habshi in eighteenth century Hyderabad, in the interior of central India. He was Rahut Jung, also known as Sidi Asud Ula (died 1796), an infantry commander, described by the historian J. Clunes as "a native of Abyssinia".
The Indian West Coast, and Janjira
Though the influence of the Habshis in the sub-continent was as a whole declining, they continued to hold power at the island of Janjira, on the west coast, where they were almost invariably referred to as Sidis. They were also prominent in the Nizam Shahi fleet of Ahmadnagar. In the early seventeenth century, during the reign of Malik Ambar for example, two Habshis, Habash Khan and Sidi Ambar, served as admirals of this fleet, while a third, Sidi Bulbul, was in command of Rairi.
The Sidis played a notable role in the struggle between Emperor Aurengzeb and the Maratha leader Shivaji (1674-1680). No less than "three of the principal provinces" of Bijapur, according to Orme, were then governed by Sidis. One of them was the admiral of the Bijapur fleet, and had under his jurisdiction a "considerable" stretch of coast both north and south of Janjira. Shivaji took the offensive in 1659 when he attacked Janjira, but failed to capture it. He nevertheless succeeded in seizing the nearby fort of Danda-Raipuri.
Several mutually irreconcilable accounts of this struggle are extant. One author, Muhammad Hashim Khan, claims that Fath Khan, the then ruler of Janjira, had "three Abyssinian slaves, Sidi Sambal, Sidi Yaqut, and Sidi Khariyat, each of whom had ten Abyssinian slaves, which he had trained and drilled". They were so well organised that "the management of the island and many domestic concerns" fell into their hands. Learning that Fath Khan intended to surrender the island to the Muslim leader Shivaji, they reportedly plotted together to forestall the betrayal. They succeeded in taking Fath Khan prisoner, and made Sambal ruler in his stead, after which they appealed to Aurengzeb’s imperial armies for help.
Conflict between Shivaji and the Habshis, according to this account, later "grew more violent". The Maratha leader collected forty or fifty warships to use against the Habshis, after which "there were frequent naval fights between the opposing forces, in which the Abyssinians were often victorious". Sidi Sambal was then given the title of commander of nine hundred, and, before his death, appointed Sidi Yaqut his successor, and "enjoined all the other Abyssinians to pay him a loyal and cheerful obedience". Yaqut, it is said, was distinguished for his "courage, benignity and dignity", and "strove more than ever to collect ships of war, to strengthen the fortress and to ward off naval attacks. Armed and ready night and day, he frequently captured ships of the enemy, and cut off the heads of many Marathas". He and Sidi Khariyat later launched a surprise attack, with scaling ladders, on Danda Rajpuri, in the course of which its powder magazine caught fire, and the Habshis made themselves masters of the area.
Another, rather different, version of the story, cited by Orme, and elaborated upon in the Bombay Gazetteer, claims that the Sidis on the mainland, faced with Shivaji’s growing strength, escaped to Janjira. Several Sidis were then "in high military command" there. One of them, Sidi Joreh, an admiral of the Bijapur fleet, was sent on an expedition against Shivaji, but, failing in his mission, was suspected of treachery and put to death. His successor, Sidi Sambal, and a group of other Sidis then opened negotiations with Emperor Aurengzeb's generals in Gujarat and the Deccan. The Sidis offered them their services, and the support of Janjira fort and the entire Bijapur fleet. They nevertheless reserved the right to rule at Janjira, and to recapture whatever former Sidi property in Bijapur they could.
Emperor Aurengzeb
Aurengzeb, according to this account, accepted the Sidi proposals, and Sambal was duly appointed a Mogul admiral. He was raised to the dignity of a commander of nine hundred, and given "a large stipend on the revenues" of the town of Surat, whence he afterwards received continuous support against Sevaji.
The Sidis, we are told, were at this time rich, and reportedly gained as much from their trade as from a stipend from Aurengzeb. Their administrative organisation, which was in some ways unusual, is described by Orme, who observes:
"Reverence to the higher family, and to the Mogul’s choice, had given the pre-eminence of command to Siddee Sambole; but the other captains preserved the distinct command over their own crews and dependents, and an aristocratical council determined the general welfare of this singular republic; in which the lowest orders from their skill and utility, maintained some influence, and proud of their importance, merited, by the alacrity of their service, in so much that they excelled all the navigators of India, and even rated themselves equal to Europeans; and indeed the onset of their sword was formidable in boarding, and on shore".
R.O. Cambridge
A similar picture is drawn by the eighteenth century British writer R.O. Cambridge. He asserts that the Sidis beside possessing "many vessels of force", "carried on a considerable trade".
Sidi Sambal’s appointment as admiral resulted, according to Orme in Sidi Kassim becoming commander of Janjira, and Sidi Khariyat ruler of Danda-Rajpuri. Kassim subsequently succeeded Sambal as admiral in 1677, after which he expanded his fleet, and captured many Maratha ships, while Sidi Khariyat became governor of Janjira, and held this position until his death in 1696.
Though some details of the above events are obscure, and differently reported, there can be no denying that the Sidis were in "constant war with the Marathas", between 1673 and 1707, as the Bombay Gazetteer states. "Sometimes laying waste large tracts of Maratha territory," they were "at other times stripped of their own lands", and only "with difficulty" held on to their island of Janjira".
The Habshi Story Concluded.
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| By Anonymous on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 09:26 pm: |
More sources on the African Community in India:
Visual evidence,
An Indian of African Origin
From a Deccan Miniature Painting
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/people/1097.htm
Shown in the picture above is an African merchant in India. The Janjeeras, believed to be of Ethiopian origin, came to India on business and went on to control important positions in local governments during the fifteenth century. A fort built by them, and defended against even the forces as strong as that of Shivaji's can be visited in Maharashtra today.
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Another document:
Habshis and Siddis - Africans and African descendents in India
http://www.colorq.org/MeltingPot/Asia/Habshi.htm
In old times, some East Africans came to India through the slave trade. There were also Africans who visited India as free people: as merchants and ambassadors from East African states.1 Africans are called Habshi or Habashi in India. Habashi is the Arabic word for "Ethiopian". Although there is no evidence of great numbers of African slaves in India, numerous Habshis achieved political and military success in India.2
A group of African freedmen converted to Islam and became known as the Siddis. The Siddis were sailors and established kingdoms in Western India as early as 1100 AD. They functioned as security forces for the Muslim fleets in West India and were famed for their bravery as "guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean" (in the words of Ibn Battuta) Their commanders were titled Admirals of the Mogul Empire and received an annual salary of 300,000 rupees.3 The Siddis were active up to the end of the 19th century.
In the 16th century, there were many powerful Habshis in the political scene of India. Indian states employed foreign slaves as military officers and government administrators. Chingiz Khan, the prime minister to Nizam mul-Mulk Bani, King of Ahmadnagar in 1575, was of African origin. After the king's death, the king's son Murtaza I led a successful revolt with several Habshis against his mother's claim to power. 4 In 1595, during the reign of Murtaza II, the prime minister Abhangar Khan was also a Habshi.5
During the same period, Ambar, an Ethiopian slave, commanded Arab troops for the king of Bijapur, who gave him the title "Malik", meaning "like a king"6. In 1590, Ambar broke away from Bijapur and built an independent mercenary army of over 1500 African, Arab and local Dakani men. He eventually joined the state of Ahmadnagar and later imprisoned King Murtaza II, naming himself regent minister. Ambar promoted minorities of various ethnic groups to key positions and implemented financial, educational and agricultural reforms.7 Ferista, an contemporary Arab historian, praised Ambar: "he appears to have been the most enlightened financier of whom we read in Indian history." Ambar also organized a 60,000 horse army and successfully beat back the Moguls for the next 20 years. The Moguls could not conquer Dakan until after his death.8
Many Habshi officers were prominent in the Muslim courts of Dakan and the Mogul empire in the 17th century,. Today, the Habshi communities have been diminished due to widespread intermarriage with other Muslims.
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Once again from the African Muslims in South Asia:
http://www.khyber.demon.co.uk/history/africa/india.htm
"...When Islamic rule was at the height of its splendour in India there was a considerable influx of Ethiopians, some coming as traders in the 1300s, but the majority as mercenaries and slaves. In time they emerged from the mass to become prime ministers, great military and naval commanders, hereditary admirals, and in several instances sultans. As late at 1833 three of the ruling princes of India were Africans [2].
The first of the Indian rulers to use Ethiopian soldiers was Barbek Shah who found them faithful and promoted them to high rank and important situations. His example was afterwards followed by the sovereigns of Guzerat and Deccan; and many of these people, who, if they had fallen into the hands of Europeans, would have been condemned to servile drudgery became the associates of princes and governors of provinces. Among other Africans who distinguished themselves in this region of India were Mawla, who was thrown under the feet of an elephant by Sultan Jalalu-Din because the people wanted to make him sultan; Admiral Sambal, who defeated the Portuguese in several naval battles: Admirals Masud and Ali Kasam; Generals Kafur, Abudullah, Rahim Khan, Abdul Rahman, Battla, Belal, Forts, Hillol, Ibrahim Khan, Jauhar, Johar, Kasim Sabaun, Sambal, Sat, and the eminent military commander, Yakut Khan. Ekhaz Khan was a noted prime minister.
Another African people who played a prominent role in India were the Moors. The latter practically dominated Indian trade until 1600."
When Islamic rule was at the height of its splendour in India there was a considerable influx of Ethiopians, some coming as traders, but the majority as mercenaries and slaves. In time they emerged from the mass to become prime ministers, great military and naval commanders, hereditary admirals, and in several instances sultans. As late at 1833 three of the ruling princes of India were Africans.
These Ethiopians or Shidis, as they are better known, first appeared in India about 1300, when a force of them seized the island fort of Janijira, the site of Bombay or Mombai as it is known now. Legend has it that one of their number, disguised as a merchant, obtained permission to land 300 boxes supposed to contain imported wares but in which armed soldiers were actually concealed. Once ashore, the soldiers took the garrison by surprise and captured the island.
Finding commerce, unprofitable, the Ethiopians engaged themselves as soldiers in the armies of the Brahmans. They brought tens of thousands of their women and their slaves to settle there, and in time they became the backbone of the armies. Under their own commanders, they eventually became the source of central power, as did the Mazois under the Pharaohs, the Zenghis under the caliphs, and the Bokkharas in Morocco.
Ethiopian industry, skill and statesmanship helped greatly in making India rich and prosperous country which the Portuguese, English and French later found it. The principal regions in which they settled were Bombay, Gujarat and the Deccan to the West and Bengal to the East.
(Incidentally, Bengal and India were extremely rich states prior to European colonisation. In 1787 a former British army officer wrote: In former times the Bengal countries were the granary of nations, and the repository of commerce, wealth and manufacture in the East. Jawarharlal Nehru wrote that those parts of India which had been longest under British rule were the poorest: Bengal once so rich and flourishing after 187 years of British rule is a miserable mass of poverty-stricken, starving and dying people).
A most distinguished of the African rulers of western India was Malik Ambar, who beginning as a slave under Queen Chand Bibi, the Queen Elizabeth of India, rose to the top, becoming commander-in-chief of the armies of the Bombar empire.
When Queen Chand was slain by rebels in her palace in July, 1600, Malik Ambar remained loyal to the ruling dynasty. By a brilliant coup he captured Ahmadnagar, the principal fort, from the rebels, and proceeding to the city of Aurangabad, which he himself had built, he proclaimed Mustaza, grandson of Nizan Shah, ruler with himself as regent. Seven years later, however, Malik Ambar deposed the king and seized the throne.
Malik Ambar's kingdom lay in the vast tableland of the Deccan, which lies to the east of Bombay. His nominal overlord was Jahangir, the great Mughal Emperor. Soon after he took the throne, however, there was an outburst of dissension among the Mughals, and Malik Ambar, taking advantage of it, took much of their territory and even threatened Jahangir's power.
In a long war between Malik Ambar and Jahangir, fortunes shifted. No one was victorious, than the other. Jahangir's wrath was not confined to military operations - he even took up the pen against Malik Ambar. Sometimes Malik Ambar, beaten, was forced to pay large sums in tribute; at other times Jahangir's throne hung by a thread. His Ethiopian compatriots stood behind Malik Ambar to a man. On one occasion he defeated, by sheer strategy, Jahangir's force of 40,000 against which he moved with only 10,000 men. Invading the coast, Malik Ambar seized the ships of the emperor and forced the city of Bijapur, in which he started his life as a slave, to pay him tribute. Golconda, a city whose name was once synonymous all over the world with wealth, was similarly dealt with.
When in 1628 the English came to India, their first contact was with Malik Ambar. He was then master of the island of Janjira, which the English, like the Ethiopians of three centuries before, wanted a base for commerce with the interior. With gifts, promises, flattery they tried to gain a foothold on the island, but Malik Ambar would not succumb to their blandishments.
When they tried to oust him by a conspiracy, Malik Ambar retaliated by seizing one of their caravans valued at 200,000 rupees. The English took one of his ships and demanded the return of their money. With characteristic humour, Malik Ambar sent word to the British asking if they were so absentminded as to have forgotten that they had his ship.
With rockets, cannon and armed elephants, Malik Ambar defeated Abdullah, an ally of Jahangir's, in a decisive battle in 1628, and it seemed as if Jahangir was doomed. But then Malik Ambar died at the age of 80.
Motamid Khan, an Indian historian says of Malik Ambar: `This Ambar was a slave, but an able man. In warfare, in command, in sound judgement, in administration, he had no rival or equal. He well understood that predatory warfare which in the language of the Deccan, is called bargi-giru. He kept down the turbulent tribes and maintained his exalted position to the end of his life and closed his career in honour. History records no other instance of any Abyssinian slave at such eminence.'
Relics of this great ruler are still to be found in his city of Aurungabad. Ferishta, another Muslim historian says of him: `such is the esteem in which his character is held that notwithstanding the lands dedicated to the support of the attendants of his tombs, are yet left incorporated for that purpose. He was the first general, politician and financier of his age, and his country was the best cultivated and his subjects the happiest of any in the Deccan. He founded Ghurkeh, now called Aurungabad, and ornamented it with a magnificent palace, gardens, and noble bodies of water, lined with stones, which yet remain. His charities and his justice are yet celebrated, and he was also eminent for pieties.'
Nawaz Khan, another Arab historian says similarly: `in military acts and in statesmanship and right judgement, Malik Ambar was unique.'
A poet of the times compared him to Bilal, another African who was Prophet Muhammed's (saw) companion. He said: `there was Bilal, the servant of the Apostle of God, After one thousand years, there came Malik Ambar'.
Among the many Ethiopians who attained to high power in eastern India was Malik Andeel, possibly the greatest of their number. Born a slave, he ultimately became commander-in-chief of the armies of the rich and potent kingdom of Bengal under the rule of Sultan Futteh Khan, and was later sultan himself.
He was elected sultan by the people of Bengal with the official title of Feroze Shah. He was an able ruler. His Ethiopian compatriots backed him so effectively that none of the white Turkish or Afghan chiefs dared to rebel against him..."
| By International Punjabi on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 09:27 pm: |
To Anonymous on Saturday, October 7, 2000 - 02:47 am.
These claims of African sultans ruling over India and making it a rich and prosperous nation are held with respect only by those who make them and others who believe evidence and fact are not neccessary. It is these people who are racist and ignorant of other cultures to make such unsubstantiated claims simply based upon their own incoherent logic. They seem to know nothing of the great Sikh armies of Punjab (as one example), the huge influences on India from other cultures as written above and insult Indian literature and writings of the time with their unbelievably prejudiced rantings.
| By Anonymous on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 10:01 pm: |
"These claims of African sultans ruling over India and making it a rich and prosperous nation are held with respect only by those who make them and others who believe evidence and fact are not neccessary. It is these people who are racist and ignorant of other cultures to make such unsubstantiated claims simply based upon their own incoherent logic.":
Those who believe evidence and fact are not necessary???; From a British scholar(by the way, ANOTHER authority on this subject:
http://archives.geez.org/AddisTribune/Archives/1999/05/21-05-99/Hist.htm
excerpt:
Denison Ross, a British scholar of Indian affairs, less familiar with Africa, observes that Habshi was "a term indicating Abyssinian, but no doubt includes other negroid races from Africa". Though the word was, as he says, nodoubt applied to non-Ethiopians from East Africa, it is, however, highly unlikely that negroid people, i.e. West Africans from the Niger area, were ever taken to India.
Hapshis played a major role in Indian history, for, as Ross declares, "like the Turks who founded dynasties throughout the Muhammedan world these Hapshis usually began as slaves, and seem to have shown the same wonderful capacity, as did the Turks, for rising from slavery to the highest positions".Several indeed established ruling dynasties, the history of which lies outside the scope of this, and the ensuing, article.
Hapshis are known to have arrived in India as early as the thirteenth century. The first Hapshi of whom we have record was a slave called Jamal ad-Din Yaqut, who is reported to have won the favour of Queen Radiyya (1236-1240), in the kingdom of Delhi.
Hapshis subsequently arrived in many parts of the sub-continent. The largest concentrations were, as to be expected, in the areas with which there was the most considerable trade with the Ethiopian region, i.e. in the north-west, especially Gujarat and the Gulf of Cambay. Hapshis were also established to the east of the sub-continent, in Bengal which was also engaged in extensive Red Sea trade. The local ruler, Sultan Rukn ad-Din (1459-1474), was reported to have no less than 8,000 Hapshi slaves, some of whom rose to high positions.The Deccan, on the west coast of India facing Africa, likewise had a sizable Hapshi population, who were first reported in the area at the time of Bahmani Sultan Firuz (1397-1422). He employed some of them as his personal assistants, and others in his harem.
The importance of the Ethiopian slave export trade, which constitutes the background to Hapshi history, was duly recognised by Alvares. He noted, of the 1520s, that Ethiopian slaves from Damot in particular were "much esteemed by the Moors", i.e. Muslims, and that "all the country of Arabia, Persia, India, Egypt, and Greece" was "full of slaves from this country". Such slaves, he says, "made very good Moors [i.e. Muslims] and great warriors"...
| By Anonymous on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 10:13 pm: |
"Don't start the African theory about South Indians being African, there's no evidence to support such wishful thinking.":
No evidence to support such wishful thinking???
The document below contains 32 references to back up it's argument, of which the majority of the reference's author's were written by Indian scholars themselves:
The Sudroid (Indo-African) Race
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/1335/Anthro/sud_afr.html
The Sudran, or Sudroid, race refers to the aboriginal populations of India. Formerly widepread over all of India, they were displaced from most of Hindustan (North India) and virtually all of the Deccan by invading Aryans. Sudroid includes the following peoples:
Sudroid
Dravidoids (speakers of Dravidian languages)
Untouchables or Avarans
Antyajas/Dalits/SC
Adivasis/ST
Vedic Shudrs (Aryanized and enslaved blacks)
They are a black race, closely related to the Africans and Australoids, as evident from -
Black skin , broad noses , thick lips and wavy-curly hair
Linguistically, all the languages are related.
Genetically they are closely related
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This ends the basic section. The advanced section is below.
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The Sudran (Indo-African) Race
Table of Contents
The unity of Sudroids, Africoids and Australoids
1. Physiognomic Similarities
1.1 Black Skin
1.2 Nose Width (Nasal Index)
1.3 Wavy-Curly Hair and Thick Lips
1.4 Prognathism
1.5 Skeletal Similarities
2. Ethnographic Evidence
2.1 Boomerang & Hunting Customs
2.2 Theological
2.3 Burial & Funerary Customs
2.4 Circumcision & Initiation Rites
2.5 Agricultural
2.6 Building Construction & Ship-Building
2.7 Inheritance
2.8 Calendar
3. Archaeological
3.1 Megalithic Cultures
3.2 Pottery : Red-and-Black Ware
4. Linguistic
5. Genetic
6. Zoological & Botanical
6.1 Reptiles
6.2 Mammals
6.3 Botanical
1. Physiognomy
1.1 Black Skin
The most evident similarity between Africans and Sudroids is their black skin colour. It often approaches deep black, and when shiny resemble tar. The Adi Dravidas (true Dravidians) of South India are black like the Africans with a slightly different hair texture [ Win.gen ].
1.2 Nasal Index
The nose of Sudroids closely resembles that of Negroids and Australoids, being very broad. In both pure black African and pure Sudroid it is often as wide as it is broad, ie. the nasal index (ratio of width to height) is 100. By contrast Caucasians are fine-nosed. The Indo-Aryan is thus very similar to the European, possessing a fine nose, while the Sudroid is related to the Africans -
Race Nasal Index Nasal Type
Arya (Indo-Aryan)
Brahman (Bengal) 70.3 fine-nosed sub-leptorrhine
Rajput 71.6 fine-nosed sub-leptorrhine
Vaisya (Jat) 68.8 fine-nosed leptorrhine
Vaisya (Bania) 79.6 medium-nosed mesorrhine
Sudroid
Dravidian (Kadian) 89.8 broad-nosed platyrrhine
Dalit (Chamar) 86.0 broad-nosed platyrrhine
Adivasi (Munda) 89.9 broad-nosed platyrrhine
Vedic Shudrs (Dom) 83.0 broad-nosed sub-platyrrhine
-- [ Ris App. III p.395 ff ]
By comparison, the French of Paris average 69.4 [ Ris 28-9 ], while pure Africans average between 90 and 100.
1.3 Wavy-Curly Hair & Thick Lips
The hair of Sudroids is wavy and often curly, with imported Africans ( eg. the Makranis, the Siddis of Sind and the Dakhin ) it is frizzy. It is a common misconception to asume all Africoids have frizzy hair; it is often curly and wavy in Nubia and Abyssinia.
Curly Hair -
Friedrich Mueller classified black races according to hair texture, classing them under the tufted-haired peoples ( Bushmen, Hottentots and Papuans ), fleece-haired peoples ( Bantu and Negro ) and wavy-haired peoples ( Hamitic, Semitic and Nuba-Fulla ).
-- [ EB `Languages of the World' ]
Another trait in common is the thick everted lips [ Arav.neg ] .
1.4 Prognathism
Pronounced prognathism is characteristic of all black races from Africa to southern India and Oceania - Australia. In addition, the teeth are relatively larger in case of Australoids and Kolarians, as well as Dravidians.
1.5 Skeletal Similarities
Long Forearm -
The forearm of Suroids and Africans are long.
Dolicocephaly -
Dolicocephaly ( long-headedness ) is common amongst Sudras. In fact, many are classed as hyperdolicocephalic. Dolicocephaly is common amongst East Africans in general ( Nilotes, Sudanic Blacks and Cushites - Hamites or Abyssinians )
2. Ethnographic Evidence
2.1 Boomerang & Hunting Customs
The boomerang is used by Dravidian abroginals, Australoids and is recorded from Egypt.
2.2 Theological
Both Africans and Dravidians held a common interest in teh cult of the Serpent and believed tn a Supreme God, who lived in aplace of peace and tranqulity. Murugan the Dravidian god of the mounatins parallels a common god in East Africa worshipped by 25 ethnic groups called Murungu, the god who resides in the mountains [ Win.gen ]
2.3 Burial & Death Rites
Burning of the dead body is a characteristic of Indo-Aryans, while burial of the dead was common to Indo-Africans. In both South India and the Western Sudan and Senegambia the dead were buried and interned in terra cotta jars [ Singh ] [ Win.gen ]
2.4 Circumcision & Initiation Rites
Circumcision, both male and female, was practiced by Dravidians and is still widely practiced in Africa.
2.5 Agricultural
Both groups use the hoe for tilling the ground, manuring the ground to fertilize crops, terracing irrrigation and canal building.
Wheat of the 6-row variety, which is found in predynastic graves in Egypt, has been discovered at Harappan sites dating much later, as late as 2300-1750 BC. On the Gangetic plain, barley was found at neolithic Hallum in Mysore state (1800 BC). Pearl millet has been found at Saurasthra and Ahar (1200-100 BC). Indian sorghum is clearly of African origin. Cultivated cotton which came from West Africa appear at Mohenjo-Daro and harrapa from 2300-1700 BC. [ Win.agri ]
2.6 Building Construction & Ship-Building
Both races used a single log or planks tied together
2.7 Inheritance
Among the ali tiravitar (Adi Dravidas, or real Dravidians), the system of inheritance passes from the uncle to his nephews, instead of his sons (maru makkal tayam) as in Africa [ Win.gen ]
2.8 Calendrical
The Dravidians and Africans used the same calendrical systema [ Win.agri ].
3. Archaeological
3.1 Megalithic Cultures
Megalithic cultures in India and Africa dating to the third millenium BC are very similar: both contain black-and-red ware, bones and pottery sarcophagi near water tanks [ Win:Agri ]. Cave paintings are also very similar, pointing to ancient contacts.
3.2 Pottery : Red-and-Black Ware
The black races are consistently associated with red-and-black pottery all over the world. Pottery of the Nubians is very similar to Dravidian pottery.
4. Linguistic
The most evident linguistic connections between African and Dravidian languages is in place-names:
Africa India
------ ------
Botswana, Bophutatswana (reg) Gondwana (region)
Ubangi (river) Bhangi (caste)
Gonder (town, reg.) Gond (tribe)
Galla (tribe) Goala (caste), Gaya (town)
Kongo (river, reg., tribe) Kongu Nadu (reg.), Kond or Khond (tribe)
Imbangala (tribe) Bangala or Bengal (tribe, reg.)
The `Congo' river and the `Kongo' tribes are cognate to the Kongu Nadu comprising the Salem tract in Tamil Nadu prior to its conquest by the Cholas [ EB 10 salem 350 ].
The suffix `-wana' is common to Bantu and Dravidian languages, thus Botswana and Bophuthatswana in southern Africa [ EB 2 botswana 412 ] [ EB 2 boph. 376 ] and Gondwana in central India [ EB 5:358 ].
The Mbangala or Imbangala warrior tribe of central Angola [ EB 6: imb. 266 ] are cognate to the Bangala tribe and the region named after them in eastern India, which later became Bengal.
The Ubangi river [ EB ubangi 12:98 ] is the largest right-bank tributary of the Congo river and flows past Bangui town (the capital of the Central African Republic). A black tribe (and later low caste) by the name of Bhangi exists in northern India. The Bangweulu is a large lake and swamp region in northeastern Zambia. In Bantu the term denotes `Large Water' [ EB 1 bangw. 868 ]
The Galla are the largest ethnic group in Ethipia, forming 40 % of the population [ EB 5 galla 87 ]. They are cattle-herders, as are the black-skinned low-caste known as Goala (cow-herders) in central India.
The Mbundu are the second-largest ethnic group of Angola [ EB 7 mbundu 986 ] while the Munda are in Eastern India.
The Ndongo tribe of the Mbundu [ EB 7 mbundu 986 ] are perhaps cognate to the Dombas or Doms of India.
The Godabas of Somalia may have given their name to the Godavari River in the Deccan.
Congates of `gond' and `gong' are widepread in Africa and Dravidia. Gonder or Gondar is the ancient capital of Ethiopia 1652-1855 as well as the surrounding region. The Gongola river is the primary tributary of the Benue River, while the Gongola basin is in northeastern Nigeria [ EB 5 gongola 359 ]. The Guang or Gonja in northern Ghana, who are descendant of Mandingos, speak the Gur and Goja languages and founded the Gonja kingdom [ EB 5 guang 532 ] The Gond are a large group of Draviidan tribes in Central India.
The Congolese linguist Th. Obenga proposed the term `Indo-African' languages in analogy with `Indo-European' [ Obenga ]. Prof. L. Homburger established close linguistic connections between Dravidian and Senegalese languages especially Fulani, as well as Kannada - Bantu and Telugu - Mande relationships [ Hom ]. Prof. Tuttle established connections between Nubian and Dravidian languages [ Tuttle ]. Prof. Lahoverty established conections between African and Dravidian languages [ Lah ]. Senegalese and Dravidian languages are closely related grammatically, structurally and lexically [ N'D ] [ Ups ]. The Upper Nile basin is considered by some scholars to be the original home of the Dravidians on linguistic grounds [ Win.gen 1118 ]
Dravidian legends mention an ancient landmass which disappeared into the Ocean. The Tamils say that it was highly populated and included large cities, now buried beneath the sea. Tamil historians have discussed this land mass in detail throughout history; eg. Ariyarkkunallar in the 12th century. Linguistic evidence indicates that the Dravidians are related to the C-group Nubians of the Western Sahara who built the Kerma empire. Since Egypt was often at war with Kerma, the connection across Lemuria seems more plausible. [Winters:Agri]
5. Genetic
The Sudroid and Africoid peoples are also genetically closely related. The genetic similarities between Africans and Sudrics include:
Glucose-6-Phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency
Gene for sickle-cell anemia is common
Enzymes providing malaria resistance are present
The Kolarians (Indo-Australoids) share many genetic similarities with the Australoids and Oceanic Negroids. Genetic similarities of the Kolarians with the Australoids and Oceanic Negroids include :
Glucose-6-Phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency and alcohol intolerance
A large ratio of B type blood
Rarity of Rhesus negative
Rarity of P2 gene
Rarity of A type, and especially A2
Shovel-shaped incisors are common
Low bi-zygomatic diameter
In addition, the hair is frequently reddish to blonde in childhood in the case of Australoid Blackfellows, Dravidians and Kolarians.
Genetic Studies of mtDNA of Dravidians in Andhra displayed a close similarity with African populations [ Bam ].
6. Zoological & Botanical Evidence
Zoological and Botanical similarities are numerous between animal and plant species of Africa, Australia and South India (Dravidia). This indicates that the similarity of humans extends to the plant and animal kingdoms as well. These similarities arise from either migration across the Suez and the MIddle East into India and thence to Australia, or due to submerged land bridges in the Indian Ocean.
6.1 Reptiles
Python -
The python is found from western Africa to China, Australia and the Pacific Islands. The slender reticulated python is probably the world's longest snake, often reaching 8 m ( 26 feet ) with one specimen recorded as 9.6 m in length. The Indian python is usually less than 4 m but is much thicker and sometimes reaches 8m in length. The African python often reaches 7 m while the species in West Africa ( the Ball/Royal python ) is, as expected, smaller, reaching 1.5 m. The blood python of Malaya, Sumatra and Borneo is reddish and averages 2.7 m.
-- [ EB 9 `python' 828 ]
Mangrove Snake -
The manrove snake, comprising 30 species of hte genus Boiga, is found from tropical Africa to Australia and Polynesia [ EB 7`mangr.'774 ].
6.2 Mammals
Rhinoceros -
The term denotes any of 5 species of the family Rhinocerotidae ( and sometimes includes extinct fossil genera ). These animals are found only in eastern and southern Africa and tropical Asia, lending further support to the unity of vegetation of Africa and India and indicating that recent exchange of zoo-botanicl contact existed much after the breakup of Gondwanaland. The great Indian rhino ( R. unicornis ) is the largest of all extant species, reaching 4.3 m in length and 2 m in height at the shoulder, while the Sumatran rhino is the smallest ( height 2.5 m or 8 foot and 2 m high ).
-- [ EB 10 `rhino' 23 ]
Buffalo -
Buffalos are again common to Africa and the Indies, while the related bison/wisent occurs in North America and Europe. The black Indian buffalo ( Bubalus bubalus ) reaches 1.5 m of more at the shoulder, as does the black Cape or African buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ). A red-brown subspecies of the Cape buffalo in the dense forests of equatorial western Africa is, like humans and animals of West Africa in general, much smaller. The anoa, a small dark brown buffalo of the dense Celebes rainforests and the tamaraw of the Philippines are also smaller species.
-- [ EB 2 `buffalo' 607 ]
Elephant -
The elephant once again is restricted to the Indies and Africa. 3 species exist: the Indian elephant, the large African elephant and the dwarfish Pygmy elephant of the rainforests of West Africa.
-- [ EB 4 `elephant' 441-2 ]
Felidae (Felines) -
The lion was once found in Africa, Europe and Asia. Now it is found only in sub-Saharan Africa and in India (eg. the Gir National Forest, Gujarat) [ EB 7 `lion' 382-3 ]. The leopard is found from Africa trough Anatolia, Central Asia, India, China and Manchuria. Varieties include the Barbary, South Arabian, ANantolian, Amur, SInai leopards [ EB `leo.' 281 ]
6.3 Botanical
Baobab Tree -
The baobab trees ( Adansonia digitata ), belonging to the bombax family (Bombacaceae) are native to Africa. However, a closely related and very similar tree, also known as baobab ( Adansonia gregoria ), occurs in Australia ! [ EB 1 `baobab' 877 ]
Banyan Tree -
The banyan tree ( Ficus benghalensis ) with its characteristic prop roots that resemble trunks is native to India. However, a similar variety, the wonderboom ( Ficus pretoia ) of Africa is very similar [ EB 28 `trees' 881 ] !
Capparaceae Trees -
Trees of the order Capparaceae, family moringaceae occur from Africa to India [ EB 13`angio.'638 ] and are another indication of the unity of Indian and African botanical life.
Appendix I - The Sudran Races
The Sudra, or Indo-African, Race consists of the following sub-races:
Dravidian - Dravidian-speaking Sudras:
Settled Dravidians - Tamils, Mallas/Malabaris, and Karnadas
Adivasi Dravidas in North India (Gonds, Bhils, Brahui etc.) and South India (Tulus, Kurumba etc.)
Kolarians - Austric-Speaking Blacks or Indo-Australoid Sudras.
Dalits - Hindicized Aboriginal Blacks and imported Africans (Habshis), SC in North India
Appendix II - Origin of the Term Sudra
The term Shudra first appears in Sanskrit texts around 1500 BC denoting one of the black aboriginal tribes that the Aryans conquered. It was subsequently expanded to all blacks subjugated, and the term Dasa or Dasyu , or slave, was used to denote the servitude to which most Sudras were subjected. Sanskrit texts refer to the Shudra as the black varna or colour. Thus Shudra is equivalent as a racial term to the Latin Negra . Initially it only referred to subjugated aboriginals and not the aboriginals themselves who were referred to as avarna and later Adiavasi. Thus the terms Adivasi and Sudra were exclusive. Later under Muslim rule Arabic: sudd-> black and hence Sudra 9not Shudra) became the generic term for Indian blacks.
In its modern sense Sudra denoted any black man in India and hence includes the following sub-races:
Dravidians - Speakers of Dravidian languages. This includes
South Indian Dravidians or Settled Dravidians
Tamils
Mallas/Malabaris : Malayalis, Mallas
Karanad
Adivasi or Aboriginal Dravidians (eg. Tulu, Kurumba)
Kolarians - Kolarian speakers, incl. Mundas, Oraons, Santal, Ho
Dalits - Hindicized Sudras. This includes
Habshis or Hindicized Abyssinians
Hindicized Kols, eg. Bhuiyas
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The term Shudra is first recorded from Sanskrit texts as referring to one of the black aboriginal tribes that the Aryans encountered. It is the name of a black tribe that was adopted into Sanskrit and was subsequently used to denote those blacks who had entered the caste system as the lowest `varna' or color. They were the black varna. Initially, a distinction was drawn between Sudra and Adivasi (aboriginal blacks outside the caste system). However, in Prakrits the distinction was blurred, and Shudra was used for any aboriginal. During the Islamic Califate of Hindustan, Arabic became a sacred language, and in Arabic `sudd' means black ( hence the `bilad as-Sudan' or the Sudan of Africa ), and hence Sudra was used for any black, even the blacks imported from Africa. Terms of Abuse incl. Kalu kalia Kaluta kaffir English Hindustani Negro (Latin "negri") Sudra (Sans. "Shudra", Arab. "Sudd",black Black Kala
| By International Punjabi on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 11:14 pm: |
To anonymous who just made the 3 lengthy posts above, let me ask a simple question. If I was to make the a statement such as "Blacks are an inferior race" and then use various books and articles from Internet sites to further attempt to prove this point (there are tons of white supremecist books by PhD's or even more mainstream suttle titles and Internet sites which could provide support). Would you believe that blacks are inferior? Most likely not. Simply because all the CREDIBLE (credible entailing that it is something which is not ONLY held by various Internet sites, or people on the fringes of their profession) logic deems that such a statement is obviously wrong. How credible do you think your sources are? That website you listed above(http://www.khyber.demon.co.uk/history/africa/india.htm) also states that Arabs are a inferior race to blacks, I'm assuming you believe this also? If all the supposed evidence you post is so very absolute and comes from credible and accredited resources (in this case Internet sites and various books) then it must simply be racism by the rest of the world against Africans which suppresses the "great truth"?? Let me put it another way, say I went to a labourer working in the mines in South America and told him that white people rule Japan and the Japenese are simply labourers. To prove this point I showed him various pictures of white professionals working in Japan, and pictures of a few low-income Japanese. Now you see how this little proof, carefully orchestrated brings forth the exact image I wish to present? And you see how if I wanted this proof to be accepted by the whole world as fact I would be shunned? This example is perhaps a little harsh but you get my meaning. Almost everything you posted above is refuted by accredited academia, and accepted by fringe elements of society (as is the case with my white supremicist example above).
| By International Punjabi on Sunday, October 08, 2000 - 11:40 pm: |
Also anonymous I forgot to add. Why the fanaticism in attempting to prove this rule of India by Africans? Let's say theorectically you could somehow, beyond doubt prove this to be undeniable fact to all. What do you hope this would achieve? Do you think the Indian and African communities would run and embrace each other?? You don't think India has a culture that is very distinct from others in its values, beliefs, and embodiments? Just reading through some past posts here there seems to be a contingent of people bent on proving some type of strong association in history between India and Africa, so what would this achieve?? What's the innate purpose behind it?? ..?
| By Anonymous on Monday, October 09, 2000 - 03:06 am: |
To International Punjab...
"Almost everything you posted above is refuted by accredited academia, and accepted by fringe elements of society (as is the case with my white supremicist example above).":
I don't know of any cases of the sources that I have used that have been refuted by accredited academia; some of the scholars I have used have a doctarate degree and have taught at accredited US universities...please give me specific names of people who refute my claims, books, articles, etc to support your assertion that my sources are not credible.
no fanaticism in trying to prove rule of CERTAIN parts of India by Africans, i am just simply trting to state the facts according to the sources I have. Black, Indian, and White scholars are saying the same thing-Certain parts of India were ruled by Black Africans during a period of Indian histiry.
| By Anonymous on Monday, October 09, 2000 - 03:44 am: |
"That website you listed above(http://www.khyber.demon.co.uk/history/africa/india.htm) also states that Arabs are a inferior race to blacks, I'm assuming you believe this also?":
International Punjabi,
where in the article does it say that Arabs are inferior race to Blacks???? I did not see that statement mentioned at all in the article???
| By dee on Monday, October 09, 2000 - 08:38 am: |
I am surprised to have people in this world who thinks that one race is superior then another. That notion is ridiculous. Are you a Nazi?
I basically grew up in America, since I came here at a very young age. I respect all the people I've met here, and am a product of all their influence. Most of what I have learned has been from a mix of people, not from one ethnic group. By closing our mind to other people and other ideas, we are shutting the door in our quest to understanding, knowledge, and success.
If you are a true Indian, and a true Hindu, then you will know that ALL our books say that we should not judge others. Our holy books say that we allow for the existence of other religions. Everything says that we should live in harmony with our fellow man.
Mixing with other races will only make us richer and better as people. The most successful people I know, Indian or not, are those who do not blind themselves by discrimination, by close-mindedness.
Perhaps you should rethink YOUR point of view. It is stupidity like this which holds any man back, regardless of his ethnicity.
| By International Punjabi on Monday, October 09, 2000 - 08:59 am: |
To Anonymous on Monday, October 9, 2000 - 03:06 am.
What I meant by accredited academia was essentially that of material which is taught in the history classes of the world's top Universities or is otherwise the generally accepted consensus. Now I am not doing my studies in history nor have I ever completed any formal studies in the area however thanks to a well placed contact here are some textbooks, or just books in general which do not signify as black or African many of the empires, dynasties, ruler's, etc. that you have listed in your various posts. I trust we can agree that the credibility of the Oxford University Press or that of Columbia is not at question.
Ali, M. Athar, Mughal India Oxford University Press
Basham, A. L., A Cultural History of India Oxford University Press
Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India, 4th ed Oxford University Press
Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture Columbia University Press
Sadly I was not able to aquire more material as for sure many other text's are used in history classes concerned with this particular region. You should be able to find some of these books at most major college/Uni. bookstores and all of them definitly at the sites of their respective publishers. Unfortunatly I don't know if public libraries carry the above material but as you appear to have a great interest in history with regards to India perhaps you wouldn't mind having to pay for some of them.
To By Anonymous on Monday, October 9, 2000 - 03:44 am:
I incorrectly posted the wrong link. This site http://www.khyber.demon.co.uk/history/africa/ seems to concern itself with dispelling incorrect myth's with regards to African history and if you go to it's depication of Arab/Africa interactions http://www.khyber.demon.co.uk/history/africa/arabs.htm
you will see what I was referring to.
| By DesiandProud on Monday, October 09, 2000 - 11:14 am: |
Your accounts of history are mind boggling. They seem to be in th esame league as some Hindu accounts that Taj Mahal was built by a Hindu king!!The Marathas defeated by the Africans? The last time I read Indian history, Dravids inhabitated the Indus Valley civilisation 5,000 to 7,000 years ago and then moved south to occupy southern India. Africans dont fit in the picture.
Anonymous seems to be convinced that India was built by Ethiopans/Africans just like Europeans seem convinced that they built India. Nonone seems to want to accept that a civilisation as great as India's was indegenious. Any self proclaimed scholar can open up a web site and preach any garbage and "quotes" by Indian rulers about the greatness of Africans and how India would have never achieved her civilisation without them. It's a lot more difficult to have the book printed by a credible publisher isn't it?
You seem to totally divert from the topic as well, in the post Arvind asks why Indians should mix with Africans today? If Africans were such a dynamic people how come there's no sign of any advanced civilisations in Africa. Surely someone would develop their own backyard before going to India and developing India. Oh yeah, African cities conveniently sank into the sea. Where are the African scriptures, books on philosophy, astronomy, religion, arts etc.
| By Anonymous on Monday, October 09, 2000 - 06:26 pm: |
To DesiandProud:
I am not convinced that India was built primarily by Ethiopians and Europeans. My goal was to simply highlight the CONTRIBUTIONS to India made by Ethiopians during a particular period of time in Indian History. I already know that there were many other ethnic groups, besides, Africans that inhabited India throughout it's history. I just simply wanted to acknowledge the African contributions to Indian history. I am not ethnocentric or a racist.
"It's a lot more difficult to have the book printed by a credible publisher isn't it?":
To International Punjabi and Desiand Proud:
THESE BOOKS LISTED BELOW, ARE THEY CREDIBLE ENOUGH?:
Abu-Lughod, Janet L. 1989. Before European Hegemony: The World System AD 1250-1350. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chaudhuri, K. N. 1990. Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chauhan, R. R. S. 1994. Africans in India: From Slavery to Royalty. New Delhi: Aryan.
Harris, Joseph E. 1971. The African Presence in Asia: Consequences of the East-African Slave Trade. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Irwin, Graham W. 1977. Africans Abroad. New York: Columbia University Press.
| By anon on Tuesday, October 10, 2000 - 05:29 am: |
lol, firstly dravidian refers to a linguistically related group of families and not a race! lol I am a south indian and i have brown skin, sharp nose, thin lips and straight hair, but because im south indian (TAMIL) im an african? HUH?! Sorry guys, try coming up with a real argument and not some worthless propaganda from pro-african sites. How come black people are always trying to connect south indians to blacks, when most of us look so different from them?! Absolutely asinine! Oficially according to MOST scholars, all people in india share racial similarity barring the ADIVASIS(native tribes), who resemble the aborigines of Australia.