Muslim Majority Indo-Gangetic Plain

[walmart]

Anyway you could get a Muslim Majority Indo-Gangetic Plain ? Pakistan and Bangladesh are already Muslim and the region was ruled by Muslim empires for centuries. Would an earlier Islamic conquest of the region be required or would different policies by the Delhi sultanate and Mughal empire be enough ?

I imagine the Indo-Gangetic plain would be thought of as it's own distinct cultural entity to a Hindu majority South.

 

[tex mex]

@Noscoper
Gangetic Valley was under almost 500+ years of continuous Muslim rule. The center of Indo-Islamic civilization was in Haryana, UP and Bihar.

Indus valley(Sindh, Punjab and Kashmir Valley) converted to Islam only when the Landed Elites converted to Islam. Sindh began to islamize with the rise of the Soomro dynasty, who were Muslim Rajputs, and the Rajput castes became muslim as a result.
As for Multan, Ismailis control led to repression of Hindu practices and decline of that religion, with Ghaznavid rule accelerating this process.

For Punjab, Lahore was selected as the Ghaznavid capital with Persianate culture being established here, and some Landed elites became muslim. This process accelerated during the Delhi Sultanate under Sultan Balban's rule who organized mass conversions to Islam in Western Punjab especially with groups like the Khokhars.

For Kashmir valley, the Lohara dynasty was the Hindu regime and was highly unstable. The frequent instability of the Kashmiri Hindu state given excessive conflicts with the Damara nobility along with state corruption led to the decline of Hindu religion. As such, the Tibetan adventurer Zulchu overthrew the Loharas, and instead of converting to Hinduism he converted to Islam as the Kashmiri Pandits refused to induct him into the religion. He was succeeded by Shah Mir dynasty who were also immigrants from elsewhere. During this period, Islam rose due to State policy, and Sufism , which resulted in the Damara nobility converting to Islam along with their clientele. The Kashmiri Pandits were not a part of this process and as such they are the only Native Kashmiri Hindus remaining.


For Bangladesh, it was the disproportionate growth of Muslim Peasantry versus Hindu peasantry due to clearance of Delta forests under Mughal rule. The delta was still mangrove forest and still had to be cleared, and Bangladesh east of Gangetic river was less developed and had less entrenched "Hindu culture" . There was also SE Asian groups like Koch and Mech people who were culturally and genetically quite different from the Indo-Aryan West Bengalis- in fact these were probably the first people in Bangladesh who adopted Islam on a very large scale. There's also some religious fluidity due to the fact that religious was previously more Hindu_Buddhist syncretic, FYI just check out the Bauls who were into Tantric culture which encompasses both religions.
For Pashtuns and Baloch, it was the conversion of entire tribes to Islam probably during Saffarid, Samanid, Ghaznavid and Ghurid periods and was a completely separate process from the spread of Subcontinental Islam.
In other words, basically for completely opposite reasons Indus Valley and Bangladesh became Muslim.

To make Haryana/UP/Bihar Muslim you need to make the Landed Elites muslims, and propagate Islam amongst the Peasantry.
Perhaps an Indigenous Muslim dynasty instead of Muslim rulers of foreign extraction would help. A Muslim Rajput/Yadav/Ahir dynasty? Perhaps patronage of sufism could spread it amongst peasantry.
Not sure how effective this will be.It might just lead to an extremely divided society rather an Islamized one.

 

[TheKutKu]

this region has a large enough Muslim population You can probably find a way to make it Muslim majority with a post 1947 POD with An India with more familly planning policies giving it lower population growth than The Pakistans; quickly checking, in 1961 the plains were 38% muslim...

This may seem like a long shot, but IRL also had different rates of demographic transition in the region, west Pakistan went from making up 44.5% of the two Pakistans in 1950 to making up 57% of the sum of Pakistan+Bangladesh today

 

[Sunny]

@Noscoper
Gangetic Valley was under almost 500+ years of continuous Muslim rule. The center of Indo-Islamic civilization was in Haryana, UP and Bihar.

Indus valley(Sindh, Punjab and Kashmir Valley) converted to Islam only when the Landed Elites converted to Islam. Sindh began to islamize with the rise of the Soomro dynasty, who were Muslim Rajputs, and the Rajput castes became muslim as a result.
As for Multan, Ismailis control led to repression of Hindu practices and decline of that religion, with Ghaznavid rule accelerating this process.

For Punjab, Lahore was selected as the Ghaznavid capital with Persianate culture being established here, and some Landed elites became muslim. This process accelerated during the Delhi Sultanate under Sultan Balban's rule who organized mass conversions to Islam in Western Punjab especially with groups like the Khokhars.

For Kashmir valley, the Lohara dynasty was the Hindu regime and was highly unstable. The frequent instability of the Kashmiri Hindu state given excessive conflicts with the Damara nobility along with state corruption led to the decline of Hindu religion. As such, the Tibetan adventurer Zulchu overthrew the Loharas, and instead of converting to Hinduism he converted to Islam as the Kashmiri Pandits refused to induct him into the religion. He was succeeded by Shah Mir dynasty who were also immigrants from elsewhere. During this period, Islam rose due to State policy, and Sufism , which resulted in the Damara nobility converting to Islam along with their clientele. The Kashmiri Pandits were not a part of this process and as such they are the only Native Kashmiri Hindus remaining.


For Bangladesh, it was the disproportionate growth of Muslim Peasantry versus Hindu peasantry due to clearance of Delta forests under Mughal rule. The delta was still mangrove forest and still had to be cleared, and Bangladesh east of Gangetic river was less developed and had less entrenched "Hindu culture" . There was also SE Asian groups like Koch and Mech people who were culturally and genetically quite different from the Indo-Aryan West Bengalis- in fact these were probably the first people in Bangladesh who adopted Islam on a very large scale. There's also some religious fluidity due to the fact that religious was previously more Hindu_Buddhist syncretic, FYI just check out the Bauls who were into Tantric culture which encompasses both religions.
For Pashtuns and Baloch, it was the conversion of entire tribes to Islam probably during Saffarid, Samanid, Ghaznavid and Ghurid periods and was a completely separate process from the spread of Subcontinental Islam.
In other words, basically for completely opposite reasons Indus Valley and Bangladesh became Muslim.

To make Haryana/UP/Bihar Muslim you need to make the Landed Elites muslims, and propagate Islam amongst the Peasantry.
Perhaps an Indigenous Muslim dynasty instead of Muslim rulers of foreign extraction would help. A Muslim Rajput/Yadav/Ahir dynasty? Perhaps patronage of sufism could spread it amongst peasantry.
Not sure how effective this will be.It might just lead to an extremely divided society rather an Islamized one.

Quite interesting synopsis. Like you, not sure how effective any changes would be. They might end up destabilizing the society, so that rather than leading to an Islamic North India, it ends up leading to constant civil and religious wars. For the half millennium of Islamic rule in the Indo-Gangetic plain, the system of our timeline worked. Not perfectly of course, there were upheavals (especially during the times dynasties weakened and changed), invasions and of course intolerant rulers. But for the most part, as long as Hindu princes, nobles and landowners pledged fealty to the Muslim Sultan, the Muslims were content to let them be, in exchange for taxes and sending soldiers in times of war. And often, to further cement these alliances with the Hindu nobility, there was often intermarriage between Muslim and Hindu nobility (the Mughals famously married Hindu women). Hindus also became officers in the armies, and seved in governments and the bureaucracy. And some Hindu groups/castes became favored bankers/money lenders to the various Muslim rulers and nobles.

Any aggressive conversion campaign could upset this delicate balance and destroy the whole thing. It is of course possible to have a Muslim majority North India, but I think it would be extremely difficult, and quite risky.

 

[tex mex]

Quite interesting synopsis. Like you, not sure how effective any changes would be. They might end up destabilizing the society, so that rather than leading to an Islamic North India, it ends up leading to constant civil and religious wars. For the half millennium of Islamic rule in the Indo-Gangetic plain, the system of our timeline worked. Not perfectly of course, there were upheavals (especially during the times dynasties weakened and changed), invasions and of course intolerant rulers. But for the most part, as long as Hindu princes, nobles and landowners pledged fealty to the Muslim Sultan, the Muslims were content to let them be, in exchange for taxes and sending soldiers in times of war. And often, to further cement these alliances with the Hindu nobility, there was often intermarriage between Muslim and Hindu nobility (the Mughals famously married Hindu women). Hindus also became officers in the armies, and seved in governments and the bureaucracy. And some Hindu groups/castes became favored bankers/money lenders to the various Muslim rulers and nobles.

Any aggressive conversion campaign could upset this delicate balance and destroy the whole thing. It is of course possible to have a Muslim majority North India, but I think it would be extremely difficult, and quite risky.

I think this scenario would involve a genuinely native muslim dyanasth. No Pathans turks or persians.
Only then I can see greater Islamization of landowners. Then the question will be the extent of it, it might either be larger minority or a majority.
You might see a balkanized subcontinent instead of a Mughal empire.
The amount of Hindu women who married Mughals is a literal meme . I guess the Mughals were more into curry instead of kebab 😆

 

[Cregan]

Perhaps if the Indo-Afghan Sur Dynasty stayed in power with a longer lived Sher Shah Suri, preventing the establishment of the Persianate Mughal Empire. This alternate Sur Empire could adopt a Hindustani language and then gradually convert the landed elites of North India to Islam, which would be concurrent to Sufi efforts to proselytize Islam to the peasant masses there and simultaneous to the already ongoing OTL Islamisation of the Indus Valley and Bengal outlined above.

Additionally, if the Sur Empire avoids expending effort into expanding into South India, they will maintain a more consolidated hold over the Gangetic Plain and could further this Islamisation along in their core North Indian territories. This could be more likely to occur if a powerful southern empire like the Bahmani Sultanate or Vijayanagar survives to unite all of South India and block any Sur expansion southwards, resulting in an equilibrium and permanent North-South division of the Indian Subcontinent. Then avoid the fall of the Sur Empire and eventually you will get a Muslim majority Gangetic Plain under these conditions IMO.

However, the Sur Empire was also more reliant on the support of Hindu nobles, so in the interests of maintaining their power they may not want to proselytize and potentially destabilise their regime.