Note 119 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.
Reading edition
To give one instance only: in Ghātampur, in the district of Cawnpore, one branch of a large family is Muslim in obedience to the vow of their ancestor, Ghātam Deo Bais, who while praying for a son at the shrine of a Muhammadan saint, Madār Shāh, promised that if his prayer were granted, half his descendants should be brought up as Muslims. (Gazetteer of the N.W.P., vol. vi. pp. 64, 238.)
The worship of Muhammadan saints is so common among certain low-caste Hindus that in the Census of 1891, in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh alone, 2,333,643 Hindus (or 5·78 per cent. of the total Hindu population of these provinces) returned themselves as worshippers of Muhammadan saints. (Census of India, 1891, vol. xvi. part i. pp. 217, 244.) (Allahabad, 1894.) ↑