\n
\nSher Shah, the Afghan ruler who had snatched the Mughal empire from the hands of Humayun in 1540, vowed to punish the Hindu zamindars who, according to him, had, \u201cafter destroying the mosques and places of worship of the Mussalmans converted them into places of idol-worship\u201d. Earlier on, in the port city of Cambay in Gujarat, the Parsis \u2018instigated the Hindus to attack the Mussalmans, and the minaret atop (a mosque) was destroyed, the mosque burnt and eighty Mussalmans killed\u2019. To the credit of the Hindu ruler, who checked the facts and found them to be true, he had the mosque restored to its old state.
\nIn Akbar\u2019s time, the theologian Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi complained that \u201cthe Hindus are demolishing mosques and are building their own places of worship in their stead\u201d. Shah Jahan is also on record having seized seven mosques \u201cfrom their unlawful proprietors\u201d who had \u201cviolently seized and appropriated them for their own use in Punjab\u201d. Aurangzeb too refers to one of his two Rajput nobles with the highest mansab<\/em> of 7000 given to any noble \u2013 Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur \u2013 who had in around 1658-59 \u201cdestroyed mosques and built idol-temples in their stead\u201d. Yet, the two worked together for the next 20-odd years until the Rajput\u2019s death in 1679.
\nSimilarly, there is testimony for reverse conversions from Muslims to Hinduism, unthinkable in a theocratic Islamic state.<\/p>\n
Mahmud bin Amir Ali Balkhi, a Central Asian traveler to India in Jahangir\u2019s reign was horrified to see a group of 23 Muslims in Banaras who had deserted their religion and turned Hindu, having fallen in love with Hindu women. \u201cFor some time\u201d, he records, \u201cI held their company and questioned them about their mistaken way. They pointed towards the sky and put their fingers on their foreheads. By this I understood that they attributed it to Providence\u201d, Balkhi concludes ruefully.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Zain al-Abidin, pre-Mughal ruler of Kashmir (1420-70) formally permitted Muslim converts to return to their Hindu faith if they so wished. As did Akbar later on, who also\u00a0decreed that a Hindu converted against his will at any age \u201ccould return to the religion of his forefathers\u201d. The eminent 15th-16th century saint-poet Chaitanya Mahaprabhu reconverted the Muslim governor of Odisha and converted a group of Pathans, who were not Hindus in the first instance, even as Hinduism is not a proselytising religion. They earned the sobriquet of \u2018Pathan Vaishnavas\u2019.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/vedkabhed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Ramzanama-190x300.jpg\")