Influence of Islam on Indian Culture

This essay was written in 1922. Circumstances over which I had little control prevented me from revising or completing it. I publish it now as it was written, because I no longer entertain the vain hope that I will be able to devote in the near future adequate time and attention to fulfil my original plan of writing a history of Indian civilization during the middle ages. The development of Indian civilization is a subject of absorbing interest, and historians are now beginning to pay attention to it. This interest is not merely topical, arising out of the clashes of our presentday life in India. The subject has a wiejirnport and deeper philosophical significance. We are studying today the problems of migrations of primitive and prehistoric cultures, and of conflicts of races and of civilizations during the past and in the present. The history of India which furnishes a striking illustration of the impact of many divergent cultures which were gradually transformed by a process of mutual adjustment, surely needs the attention of a student of sociology and history who endeavpurs to understand the inter actions of human mind and the effects of cultural contacts as presented in the customs, religion, literature and art of a people. Before any generalizations can be made, it is necessary to collect facts. I have sought mainly to collect facts in this essay and facts too connected with only two aspects bf civilizationreligion and art. I am conscious of the inadequacy of the attempt. It is partly due to the nature of the enquiry cultural facts are so deeply shrouded in obscurityand partly to my personal difficulties. But for the encouragement of friends who read the essay in the manuscript and considered publication worthwhile, it might still lie mouldering in. My thanks are due to Dr. Banarsi Prasad Saxena for pre paring the index and making improvements in the manuscript, and to Mr. Bhagwat Daya for reading the proofs. I am indebted to Mr. H. K. Ghosh, the enterprising proprietor of The Indian Press, for undertaking its publication.