Muslims, followers of the Islamic religion, are India’s largest religious minority. They number about 75 million in all, over 10% pf the country’s population. This makes India one of the largest Islamic nations in the world. India has had two Muslim presidents, several cabinet ministers and state chief ministers since Independence. Islam is the most recent and most widespread of the Mediteranean across to India and is the major religion east of India in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The religion’s founder, the prophet Mohammed, was born in 570 AD at Mecca, now part of Saudi Arabia. He had his first revelation from Allah (God) in 610 and this and later visions were complied into the Muslim holy book, the Koran. As his purpose in life was revealed to him, Mohammed began to preach against the idolatry for which Mecca was then the centre. Muslims are strictly monotheistic and believe that to search for God through images is a sin. Muslim teachings correspond closely with the Old Testament of the Bible, and Moses and Jesus are both accepted as Muslim prophets, although Jesus is not the son of God.
Eventually Mohammed’s attacks on local business caused him and his followers to be run out of town in 622. They field to Medina, the ‘city of the prophet’, and by 630 were strong enough to march back into Mecca and take over. Although Mohammed died in 632, most of Arabia had been converted to Islam within two decades.

The Muslim faith was more than a religion, it called on its followers to spread the word- if necessary by the sword. In succeeding centuries Islam was to expand over three continents. The Arabs, who first propagated the faith, developed a reputation as being ruthless opponents but reasonable masters, so people often found it advisable to surrender to them. In this way the Muslims swept aside the crumbling Byzantine Empire, whose people felt no desire to support their distant Christian Emperor.
Islam only traveled west for 100 years before being pushed back at Poitiers, France, in 732, but it continued east for centuries. It regenerated the Persian Empire, which was then declining from its protracted strugglers with Byzantium, and in 711, the same year the Arabs landed in Spain, they sent dhows up the Indus River into India. This was more a casual raid than a full-scale invasion, but in the 12th century all of north India fell into Muslim hands. Eventually the Moghul Empire controlled most of the subcontinent. From here it was spread by Indian traders into South-East Asia.
At an early stage Islam suffered a fundamental split that remains to this day. The third caliph, successor to Mohammed, was murdered and followed by Ali, the prophet’s son-in-law, in 656. Ali was assassinated in 661 by the governor of Syria, who set himself up as caliph in preference to the descendants of Ali. Most Muslims today are Sunnites, followers of the succession from the caliph, while the others are Shias or Shi’ites who follow the descendants of Ali.

Despite its initial vigour, Islam eventually became inertial and unchanging though it remains to be seen what effect the fanatical fundamentalism of Shi’ite Iran will have on the religion worldwide. In India itself, despite Islam’s long period of control over the centuries, it never managed to make great inroads into Hindu society and religion. Converts to Islam were principally made from the lowest castes, with the result that at Partition Pakistan found itself with a short-age of the educated clerical workers and government officials with which India is so liberally endowed. Although it did not make great numbers of converts, the visible effects of Muslim influence in India are strong in architecture, art and food.
Converts to Islam have only to announce that ‘There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet’ and they become Muslims. Friday is the Muslim holy day and the main mosque in each town is known as the Jami Masjid or Friday Mosque. One of the aims of every Muslim is to make the pilgrimage (haj) to Mecca and become a hajji.