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Mohammad, the messenger of Allah (God), founded Islam after he heard heavenly messages on a mountain in the city of Mecca of the country of Saudi Arabia in 610 AD. Mohammad lived between 570 AD and 632 AD for 62 years. In the beginning from 610 AD to 620 AD, Islam had only a handful of followers. It's believed that till 615 AD hardly 100 people believed in it. But patience and hard work always pay. Mohammad taught his followers to work hard for the spread of Islam and at the same time to be patient too. There were incidences in those 10 years between 610 and 620 AD, when people used to mock at him saying why he has just a few dozen followers since Islam began before 5 to 6 years. But he did not pay any attention to his critics. Instead he just focused all his energies on a single task of the spread of Islam, wholeheartedly and in a highly committed manner. He asked his followers to work very hard to spread this new religion. At the same time he asked them to be patient too. He was no doubt a great man in that aspect. But his critics won't agree ever with whatever he did or say in his lifetime. They would criticize some verses in the holy book of Islam, Quran-e-Sharif (Quran). For example, one of the most debated verse is the one in which according to Mohammad, Allah says "Islam is the only religion in the world(!!) All other previous religions that existed before Islam stand null and void from now on, especially of those who believe in idol-worship. Gods can't be many. There is only 1 God from now on and that is Allah(!!) The rest of the Gods now get cancelled. Those who adopt Islam hereby automatically have to follow these: By hook or crook, try and associate as many people of the world with Islam as possible. Try your hardest to join them with Islam. First try to convert them with love and affection. If they don't get converted you must try "force"(!!!)" Some muslims interpreted this as a right to kill on behalf of the muslim world, towards those who denied to convert to Islam. Millions have been murdered in the last 1400+ years just due to this verse. This particular verse is the root cause of the constant friction that exists between Islam and other religions of the world, since Islam was born in 610 AD. The priests of christianity, buddhism and hinduism argue: "How can Islam order the killing of innocents if they deny to follow their religion?" This debate has gone on and on for centuries and has accelerated substantially after the 9/11 attacks on the US by Osama Bin Laden and his al-qaeda terrorists. A prediction says that this very verse will create the next World War. Let's pray it does not.
Some people also like to criticize Mohammad himself. They say that all the things written inside the Quran is not from Allah but from Mohammad's own mind. They don't hesitate in trying to demean him and doubt his intentions heavily. But, let's not focus on the negatives here. Instead let's focus on the positives. As discussed earlier, Mohammad was definitely a great man, who possessed very rare qualities like patience, hard work and commitment. Else, how can Islam be them 2nd most prominent religion in the world right now? His determination for spreading Islam was incredibly huge, undoubtedly. That's why it has grown from strength to strength over the last 14 centuries. Let's see how.
As discussed earlier, Islam was born in 610 AD and by 615 it had just about 90 to 100 followers. This figure increased 5 fold by 620 AD to 522. It existed only in Saudi Arabia till then. After Mohammad died in 632 AD, it started spreading swiftly. By 660 AD, it had 5000 followers. By 710 AD that figure went up to 100,000 which means there was a small explosion in terms of its followers here. But then after 710 AD until 910 AD - for these 200 years, it exploded heavily. By 910 AD, i.e. by the end of 300 years since it was born, its strength grew to more than 13,00,000. It had spread to 6 countries only yet which included Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria & Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Turkey. By 1000 AD one more country got added to the list above viz. Afganistan. But the real magic happened for its spread after it entered what I would prefer to call - mainland India. Mohammad would have loved this moment. Which one? It was the one when in 1100 AD muslim invaders entered India and were able to confiscate some part of it after a battle with the indigenous Hindu kings there. When muslims entered India, their total population worldwide was around 18 lakhs only. But it got a massive boost after they managed to grab some parts of northern India. Muslim invaders called the part of the land they confiscated as "Delhi Sultanate" (दिल्ली सल्तनत) which had a Sultan (king) that ruled from its central portion of erstwhile purani Dilli, now known as old Delhi city. The muslim population exploded worldwide after this from 18 lakhs to 30 lakhs in the first 100 years from 1100 to 1200 years after Islam's entry into India. By the time of year 1510, Muslim population grew to more than 150 lakhs (1.5 crore or 15 million), which is 900 years after the birth of Islam. Babar, the descendants of the Mughals entered India in 1526 AD and was successful in defeating Ibrahim Lodi, a muslim ruler, that ruled overs some northern parts of India. That was the beginning of the Mughal Empire. He was followed by his son Humayun, who was a weak ruler. Humayun got defeated by a muslim king and was forced to flee away from India for a few years! But after that he regained strength & courage and attacked India again. He won back everything he had lost earlier, thus restoring the pride of the Mughals. He died early however which led to the arrival of the most famous and prominent amongst the Mughal emperors to the royal throne - Akbar, the great.
Mohammad Jalaluddin Akbar was just 13 when he ascended to the throne in 1553 AD. He has many good things attached to his name - the topmost among them being his efforts to re-establish and increase brotherhood among the native Hindu population and the Muslim population. He succeeded considerably in that. He was equally popular amongst the Hindus as he was amongst the Muslims. Everyone respected him from their hearts. He successfully expanded the Mughal Empire across the entire cross-section of India, from its northern borders with Afghanistan to the Southern places where its border coincide with the Indian Ocean and from the Western region of Sindh to the Eastern region where its borders met with China. The reign of Akbar was the one when Art, Music, and Culture flourished a lot. Some historians believe that it was the best rule by a King after the rule of Lord Rama, popularly known as राम राज्य , around 6600 years before Akbar.
Akbar's favorite wife was Jodhabai. She gave birth to their son, Jahangir. He ascended the Mughal throne in 1602, when Akbar died. He too ruled for a long period of 29 years. It was during his rule that the East India Company, of Britain entered India and asked for his permission to trade with Indian merchants. He permitted them. Later on this approval would cost Indians their independence, a huge loss of human lives and a lot of wealth. After Jahangir his son ShahJahan came to power around 1631 AD. He is known for the building of the TajMahal, one of the 7 wonders of the world, as on today. He built this massive monument in memory of his late beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. India is known to the western world today, mainly because of Taj Mahal. It's definitely a great legacy that Hindus inherited from the muslim Mughals. However, there were quite a few negative legacies too that the Mughals gave to the Hindus and to India indirectly. That we will consider some other day here. The TajMahal was built over a period of 15 years. Precious stone's like Ruby, Emerald etc. were engraved in its walls. The british, who mostly acted like looters and thieves during their 190 year rule in India, took out all of them and fled to their country, the UK. Most of the wealth that lies in their metros like London, Manchester, Birmingham etc. is a product of the british art of looting others and then naming the loot as original british heritage. The costliest diamond of the world, "Kohinoor" that has been beautifying the crown of the King of England since centuries now, is the direct product of this british art as it was looted away by the British from India.
ShahJahan had 4 sons amongst whom Dara Sikoh was the eldest and hence the rightful ascendent to the throne. But Aurangzeb, his brother, killed him and two other brothers in a single night, arrested his own daddy, ShahJahan and forcefully ascended the throne of the Mughal Emperor in 1656. He was a tyrant. He demolished thousands of Hindu temples and constructed mosques at those very places. He imposed heavy taxes (जज़िया शुल्क) on the Hindu population too, in order to impoverish them compared to the Muslims. The period of his rule (1656-1707), is considered to be the worst for communal harmony in the history of India, wherein he reduced one part of the population to rags & tags whilst the other part, viz.the muslims was zooming upwards, dancing with joy derived from a lot of wealth. It was a great relief for Hindus to hear the news of the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. By then this tyrant Mughal had ruled for the term of 51 years, longest amongst all the Mughal kings. Many mughal kings came after him but none was as distinct as these Top Six described in some detail above. Gradually the size and extent of the Mughal rule started diminishing from 1707 onwards until 1857 when their last king BahadurShah Zafar, came to the throne, which was already depleted of the charishma and glory it possessed during the rule of the Top Six. Zafar colluded with the rebels of 1857 AD and eventually got banished from India to Rangoon, the capital of Myanmar, where he died a lonely death. With that came the end of the Mughal Empire which had started in 1526 AD with the advent of Babar. It lasted for roughly 331 years and to be exact for 325 years.
By then the muslim populations of India had surpassed the muslim population of every other country in the world!!! In 1947, United India got partitioned into India and Pakistan. At that time, the muslim population of India stood at 1.59 crores roughly (15.9 million). Pakistan's muslim population then was 14.2 million. Till 1985, the population of muslims in India was higher than that inside Pakistan! After 1985, that reversed. As on today in 2023, the muslim population of Pakistan is estimated at 22.8 crore (228 million), that of India it is 20.8 crore (208 million), that of Indonesia is 23.7 crore (237 million) and that of Bangladesh it is 18 crore (180 million). These are the 4 countries with the largest population of the muslim community. All of them are located in the Asian continent, with little distance between themselves. One can safely say that Islam has spread most easily and most extensively in these South East Asian countries, compared to other parts of the world. The reasons for this are: 1) Comparatively liberal state of mind of Hindus and Buddhists right from the time when the Muslims invaded their regions around 1100 AD. 2) Huge plains in this regions with great facilities for agriculture and thus expansion of human population over there, compared to the arid regions of Middle-east. 3) Christianity, the most prominent religion on the planet right now does not have that much presence here as what it has inside Europe, which directly means that the spread was easier here compared to Europe because of lesser conflict of same type of religion.
The future of Islam looks bright as well as dark both. If the jihadis and terrorists - the hardliners of Islam continue to torment the rest of the world, based on their ridiculous beliefs there are chances that the future demography of the world will be divided into 2 main parts: Muslims and Non-muslims. A world war can not be ruled out in the next 30 to 40 years from now. If that happens, chances are that more than 75% of the human population will be wiped of from the surface of earth. Right now the world population stands at approximately 800 crore humans or 8000 million humans. 75% of that means 600 crore or 6000 million. This many people will die in just a matter of few days during World War 3, which will primarily be a nuclear war. The war will be fast and extremely dreadful. It will end in days and neither years or months. Humans will return to stone age after that because every technology would have been destroyed by then. In this craziness of the crazy species, 95% of muslims will die. Currently their population is 28% of world's total population. A figure estimates that 224 crore muslims inhabit the planet right now. Take out 95% of them, which means hardly 11 crore of them will be alive by the end of a gruesome war. Same will be the fate of christians, buddhists and hindus too. A major chunk of their populations too will die, during the war.
The brighter side of the coin for the muslim world tells us that if the war doesn't arrive, if the strength and power of the rightwing muslims like the Jihadis and terrorists is not allowed to flourish by the wise & peace-loving people still present in that religion, then the muslim population will keep expanding at the same rate as what it is right now. By 2056, the muslim population will overtake the christian population of the world, thereby becoming the largest demographic accumulation of any single religion on earth. It will be a whopping 380 crore or 3800 million strong one, making 34% of the total population of the world. That also means that 1 among every 3 people on earth, will be a muslim by then. If we just check what Nostradamus, the great French Astrologer had said about Islam and Muslims "By 2070 AD, there will be not even a single person belonging to the Muslim religion left. All those who were erstwhile muslims would have either died in a bloody war or converted to some other religion by then." Let's see what happens and who turns out to be more correct.
- (KB/Original/18-04-2023/1)
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