“When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to mind. If not Hitler, then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the 20th-century totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen. However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of these, and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty. The enormity of the slaughters of the ‘religion of peace’ are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale.” – Mike Conrad, The Greatest Murder Machine in History [1]
“The Mohammedan conquest of India was probably the bloodiest story in history.” – Will Durant, American historian [2]
“…The Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate)” – Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India [3]
Timur the Lame – Late 14th Century
Excerpts from “The Magnitude of Muslim Atrocities” [4]
Timur the Lame justified his 1398 invasion of India by quoting the Quran in his Tuzk-i-Timuri: “O Prophet, make war upon the infidels and unbelievers, and treat them severely.” He continues: “My great object in invading Hindustan had been to wage a religious war against the infidel Hindus…[so that] the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of the Hindus.”
To start with, he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of Kashmir. He ordered his soldiers “to kill all the men, to make prisoners of women and children, and to plunder and lay waste all their property.” Next, he “directed towers to be built on the mountain of the skulls of those obstinate unbelievers.” Soon after, he laid siege to Bhatnir, defended by Rajputs. They surrendered after some fight and were pardoned. But Islam did not bind Timur to keep his word given to the “unbelievers.” His Tuzk-i-Timuri records:
“In a short space of time, all the people in the fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour, the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground.”
At Sarsuti, the next city to be sacked, “all these infidel Hindus were slain, their wives and children were made prisoners, and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors”. Timur was now moving through (modern-day) Haryana, the land of the Jats. He directed his soldiers to “plunder and destroy and kill every one whom they met.” And so the soldiers “plundered every village, killed the men, and carried a number of Hindu prisoners, both male, and female.”
Loni, which was captured before he arrived in Delhi, was predominantly a Hindu town. But some Muslim inhabitants were also taken prisoner. Timur ordered that “the Musulman prisoners should be separated and saved, but the infidels should all be dispatched to hell with the proselytizing sword.”
By now, Timur had captured 100,000 Hindus. As he prepared for battle against the Tughlaq army after crossing the Yamuna, his Amirs advised him “that on the great day of battle, these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolators and enemies of Islam at liberty”. Therefore, “no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword.”
Tuzk-i-Timuri continues: “I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death. One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolators, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor, and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives.”
The Tughlaq army was defeated in the battle that ensued the next day. Timur entered Delhi and learnt that a “great number of Hindus with their wives and children, and goods and valuables, had come into the city from all the country round.”
He directed his soldiers to seize these Hindus and their property. Tuzk-i-Timuri concludes:
“Many of them (Hindus) drew their swords and resisted…The flames of strife were thus lighted and spread through the whole city from Jahanpanah and Siri to Old Delhi, burning up all it reached. The Hindus set fire to their houses with their own hands, burned their wives and children in them and rushed into the fight, and were killed…On that day, Thursday, and all the night of Friday, nearly 15,000 Turks were engaged in slaying, plundering, and destroying. When morning broke on Friday, all my army …went off to the city and thought of nothing but killing, plundering, and making prisoners….The following day, Saturday the 17th, all passed in the same way, and the spoil was so great that each man secured from fifty to a hundred prisoners, men, women, and children. There was no man who took less than twenty. The other booty was immense in rubies, diamonds, garnets, pearls, and other gems and jewels; ashrafis, tankas of gold and silver of the celebrated Alai coinage: vessels of gold and silver; and brocades and silks of great value. Gold and silver ornaments of Hindu women were obtained in such quantities as to exceed all account. Excepting the quarter of the Saiyids, the Ulama, and the other Musulmans, the whole city was sacked.”
Sources
- Mike Conrad, The Greatest Murder Machine in History, available online at https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/05/the_greatest_murder_machine_in_history.html#ixzz5MlGTaPYS
- Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Ch. XVI
- Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, p.34
- The Magnitude of Muslim Atrocities: https://jesusallah.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/the-magnitude-of-muslim-atrocities-ghazanavi-to-amir-timur/
