History textbooks that deny genocide and religious atrocities on Hindus by Muslim invaders, irreparably damage our cultural identity. I compared the description of just one Islamic ruler in a history textbook “Medieval India” by Satish Chandra against evidence in Islamic sources.

The textbook describes Delhi Sultan Feroz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388 CE) as a peaceful administrator and reformer. But Islamic sources clearly contradict this, showing instead that he surpassed even the Mughals in killing and enslaving Hindus and destroying temples – to spread Islam.

In 1360 CE, Firoz desecrated the Jagannath temple of Puri, massacring thousands, defacing the Murti by piercing its nose, kicking & throwing it. Other hidden Murtis were dug out, mutilated and buried under mosque doorways to humiliate Hindus and constantly be stepped on by Muslims.

But the distorted version in Chandra’s textbook completely ignores this religious destruction and massacre – not even mentioning Jagannath! It only says Firoz “led a campaign to Orissa and desecrated temples there to gather rich plunder but made no attempt to annex Orissa”.

After desecrating Jagannath, Firoz pursued 100,000 Hindus to Chilika Lake. He massacred them in a “basin of blood” & 1000s of victims including pregnant mothers and kids were savagely raped and enslaved in homes of every Muslim soldier. But Chandra doesn’t even mention the incident.

Just as Jagannath temple is not mentioned, Firoz’s destruction of the ancient Jvalamukhi temple in Himachal Pradesh is also completely erased from the textbook! The story of Firoz’s desecration of this holiest of temples is merely described as a “campaign to Kangra” by Chandra.

In 1360-61, Firoz destroyed the ancient Jvalamukhi temple and its deity. He broke sacred murtis into tiny pieces, mixed them with beef and put the mixture inside nosebags hung around Brahmins necks. The main deity was sent as a trophy of Islam’s victory over Hindus to Medina.

A huge library of 1300 manuscripts at Jvalamukhi temple was razed to the ground. Many of the Hindu religious manuscripts were burnt, but several treatises on music, medicine, mathematics, etc. were saved to be translated into Persian, to exploit the knowledge of Hindu sciences.

Chandra’s textbook distorts this incident to depict Firoz as a tolerant ruler who translated Hindu ”religious works” from Sanskrit into Persian to “better understand Hindu ideas”. But Islamic accounts clearly tell of the intolerant burning of Hindu and Shia books during his rule.

Firoz was proud of his destruction of Hindu temples and killed anyone who built them. In Kohana village, Hindu Murtis, books and puja vessels were publicly burnt. Even Shia books were publicly burnt. Would such a fanatic translate books to further Hindu religious ideas?

Firoz’s mind-numbingly cruel enslavement of over 180,000 Hindus is downplayed and justified by a deliberately concocted lie that Hindus also enslaved prisoners of war during the Mahabharat era. A mere sentence euphemistically mentions that “some slaves were treated harshly”

Firoz was famous for ordering his officers to capture as many attractive Hindus as possible to be enslaved and forcibly converted to Islam. 180,000 Hindus were forced into sexual slavery and abused for labor in every way. Even converted Hindu slaves were treated worse than cattle.

Next, Firoz is praised as a “humanitarian” ruler who banned mutilation and torture, conveniently ignoring that any benevolence was reserved only for Muslims. In reality Firoz publicly mutilated, tortured and slaughtered Hindus just for practicing their religion, even in secret.

Official Muslim accounts relate how Firoz got an old Brahman in Delhi dragged out for making a wooden tablet with Hindu images and worshipping it. When he refused to be forcibly converted, he was hung with hands and feet tied, roasted on burning embers and burnt alive in public.

The era of Delhi Sultanate is glorified as a time of “peace & development” along with the lie that Hindus were free to openly practice their religion. Nothing was further from the truth. Firoz publicly persecuted and massacred 1000s of Hindus for practicing Hindu rituals.

In 1380 CE, Firoz slaughtered 1000s and brutally enslaved 23,000 Hindus in Katehr (Rohilkhand) as revenge for 3 Muslim tyrants being killed. So vicious was his Islamic zeal that he ordered massacre & destruction of the region every year for 5 years to teach Hindus a lesson.

In the village of Maluh, Firoz ordered the wholesale slaughter of 1000s of Hindus including women and children for daring to build temples and worship deities near a holy Kund. He boasted of destroying temples to build mosques on top and massacring Hindu priests for Islam’s glory.

Firoz’s imposition of Jizyah tax on Hindus is whitewashed as a harmless protection tax. The textbook blatantly lies that Jizyah was not used to convert Hindus to Islam, when Firoz himself explicitly states that he used Jizyah as an economic weapon to forcibly convert Hindus.

The most outrageous claim in the book is that Muslim invaders simply replaced the “privileged” Hindu upper castes. This lie fully falsifies the true nature of Islamic invaders – to forcibly subjugate and occupy Bharat for the sake of Islam’s victory over Kafir Hindus and Hindu Dharma.

This analysis focused on the textbook’s description of only one Islamic invader’s rule. The text even claims conversion to Islam was not by sword. Imagine the extent of lies being fed to impressionable young minds, permanently distorting their perception of their own identity.

History textbooks have a maximal impact on affirming civilizational identity in young minds. We cannot allow them to be made part of a sinister plan to falsify historical evidence, deny religious bigotry, erase Hindu identity and underplay genocide by fanatic Muslim invaders.

Our textbooks must be changed to reflect actual historical evidence so that future generations are not misled about their true cultural identity. Our past cannot be falsified to satisfy delusions of a “composite culture”, in instances where none existed.

On Thursdays, crowds assemble at the Firoz Shah complex in Delhi, where Jinns supposedly descend from Heaven to grant wishes. But who will grant peace to the thousands of disturbed Hindu souls massacred by Firoz. Can’t we give them some justice – at least in our textbooks?

Sources

(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread originally tweeted by Savitri Mumukshu – सावित्री मुमुक्षु (@MumukshuSavitri) on November 29, 2022.)