The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760

Front Cover
University of California Press, 1996 M07 31 - 359 pages
In all of the South Asian subcontinent, Bengal was the region most receptive to the Islamic faith. This area today is home to the world's second-largest Muslim ethnic population. How and why did such a large Muslim population emerge there? And how does such a religious conversion take place? Richard Eaton uses archaeological evidence, monuments, narrative histories, poetry, and Mughal administrative documents to trace the long historical encounter between Islamic and Indic civilizations.

Moving from the year 1204, when Persianized Turks from North India annexed the former Hindu states of the lower Ganges delta, to 1760, when the British East India Company rose to political dominance there, Eaton explores these moving frontiers, focusing especially on agrarian growth and religious change.
 

Contents

PART ONE BENGAL UNDER THE SULTANS
3
The Articulation of Political Authority
22
Early Sufis of the Delta
71
Economy Society and Culture
95
Theories and Protagonists
113
PART TWO BENGAL UNDER THE MUGHALS
137
Mughal Culture and Its Diffusion
159
Islam and the Agrarian Order in the East
194
Mosque and Shrine in the Rural Landscape
228
The Rooting of Islam in Bengal
268
Conclusion
305
Mint Towns and Inscription Sites under Muslim
317
Principal Rulers of Bengal 12041757
323
Index
343
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About the author (1996)

Richard M. Eaton is Professor of History at the University of Arizona and the author of several groundbreaking books on India before 1800.

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