Note 24 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

How little was effected towards the spread of Islam by violence on the part of the Muhammadan rulers may be judged from the fact that even in the centres of the Muhammadan power, such as Dehli and Agra, the Muhammadans in modern times in the former district hardly exceeded one-tenth, and in the latter they did not form one-fourth of the population.24 A remarkable example of the worthlessness of forced conversion is exhibited in the case of Bodh Mal, Raja of Majhauli, in the district of Gorakhpur; he was arrested by Akbar in default of revenue, carried to Dehli, and there converted to Islam, receiving the name of Muḥammad Salīm. But on his return his wife refused to let him into the ancestral castle, and, as apparently she had the sympathy of his subjects on her side, she governed his territories during the minority of his son Bhawāni Mal, so that the Hindu succession remained undisturbed.25 Until recently there were some strange survivals of a similarly futile false conversion, noticeable in certain customs of a Hindu sect called the Bishnois, the principal tenet of whose faith is the renunciation of all Hindu deities, except Viṣṇu. They used recently to bury their dead, instead of burning them, to adopt G͟hulām Muḥammad and other Muhammadan names, and use the Muslim form of salutation. They explained their adoption of these Muhammadan customs by saying that having once slain a Qāḍī, who had interfered with their rite of widow-burning, they had compounded for the offence by embracing Islam. They have now, however, renounced these practices in favour of Hindu customs.26