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So, converting this country which means India from 'Dar-ul-Harb'<br />
into 'Dar-ul-Islam' was one of the more important objects of the<br />
Muslim conquests in India. Anyway, the upshot is that not only<br />
the N.W.F.P. which was more or less considered a part of the<br />
larger Mghanistan, Islam, through the centuries ofits dominance,<br />
had converted huge populations right upto the river ]helum<br />
excepting perhaps of Khukhrains, the Hindu townsmen in the<br />
salt range. In fact, all major tribes of Punjab up to ]helum had<br />
become Muslim to a man. But beyond the ]helum, or more<br />
precisely speaking, to the east of that river, there were important<br />
pockets of Hindu influence.<br />
However, in the Rachna Doab which means the Doab<br />
between the rivers Chenab and Ravi, the Hindu-Sikh population<br />
was large enough not to be considered marginal. And beyond<br />
the Ravi, the Hindus and the Sikhs started preponderating. This<br />
demographic composition was almost intact right up to the<br />
Partition of India. And if the Hindus and the Sikhs had settled<br />
in the towns of extreme Western Punjab as willing agents of the<br />
British for the purpose of trade and commerce during the<br />
comparatively peaceful times of the British rule, the main<br />
purpose of it was to open up the country for commercial<br />
exploitation.<br />
But one important change did seem to have defmitely taken<br />
place. The Muslims of Punjab had started looking upon<br />
themselves as no more than a separate caste and not a<br />
community. That the Muslims were a separate nation did not<br />
occur to them at all. It is this position that Shah Mohammed states<br />
in the stanza quoted earlier. In point of fact, the concept of caste<br />
had been so deeply ingrained in the common mind that Shah<br />
Mohammed looked at the Feringhee as yet another caste now<br />
intruding upon the Hindu-Muslim oneness. Now what does it<br />
mean?<br />
Going by my personal experience in childhood in one of<br />
the more important mother villages of the Hindus of the Rachna<br />
Doab viz., Eminabad, the Muslims had themselves started<br />
looking upon the Hindus as a separate and superior caste. I often<br />
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