India Ideas

**CelticPagan** · December 10, 2007, 03:33 PM

Found some interesting info I thought I'd share (had to put it here since Rajput thread is closed, and some doesn't belong there anyway...)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Ethiopians in India in Ancient and

Early Medieval Times

by Dr. Richard Pankhurst

Today, and for the next few weeks, we are going to look at the Ethiopian diaspora. We are, however, restricting ourselves, for the moment, to the historic diaspora in India.
Trade Winds
We should note at the outset that commercial contacts between Ethiopia and India were much facilitated over the centuries by the Trade Winds which blew the scope and extent of such relations are indicated in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Graeco-Egyptian commercial manual written around the first century AD. This work shows that the Aksumite port of Adulis, on the Red Sea coast of Africa, traded extensively with various parts of Western India, which supplied Ethiopia with both textiles and spices. Aksumite exports consisted mainly of ivory and rhinoceros horn, but according to the Roman writer Pliny, also included slaves. The latter were also shipped, according to the Periplus, from Opone, later known as Ras Hafun, a promontory on the Indian Ocean coast of Africa, ninety miles south of Cape Guardafui.
An On-going Affair...
Aksumite trade with the East was an on-going affair in ancient times, as evident from an early sixth century Graeco-Egyptian text, the Christian Topography of Kosmas Indikopleustes. It states that the Aksumites were at that time trading with India and Taprobane, i.e Ceylon, as well as Arabia and Persia.
Definitions: Habshis, Sidis, and Kaffirs
The coming of Ethiopian, and other East African, slaves to India a millennium or so later is abundantly documented in Indian, and in particular Gujarat, records. These refer to such slaves mainly by three more or less alternative names: Habshis, Sidis, and Kaffirs.
The term Habshi was a corruption of Habash, the Arabic name for Abyssinia. This name is believed to have derived from Habashat, the name of a Semitic people located in northern Tegray in present-day Ethiopia, and a neighboring stretch of Eritrea. They are believed by many to have migrated in ancient times from Yaman..
The word Habshi, as its derivation implies, doubtless at first applied primarily to Abyssinians (or, in modern parlance, Ethiopians), but was later used more widely for any Africans. However, most slaves taken from Africa to India would, for geographical reasons, have originated on the eastern side of continent. For much of the time covered in this paper they would probably have included a substantial, if not a predominant, proportion of Abyssinians.
The term Sidi by contrast was a corruption of the Arabic Saiyid, or "master". The word, as Edwardes notes, had "an honourable import" when first assumed, but, in common parlance, had become "rather an appellation of reproach than distinction" This is confirmed by the Frenchman François Pyrard of Laval, who, reporting on a visit to the Maldives in 1607, observed that "the greatest insult that can be passed upon a man is to call him a cisdy", i.e. Sidi.
The term Kaffir was derived from the Arabic Kafir, originally an Infidel, or Unbeliever in Islam. The word tended to be used in India for any non-Muslim, and was in many, though not all, cases applied to African immigrants and their descendants.
Converts to Islam
Ethiopian and other African slaves taken to India (or indeed Arabia, their first port of call) were for the most part converted to Islam. This change of religion sometimes occurred even on the boats transporting the captives across the sea. After conversion they almost invariably abandoned their pre-Muslim names, in favour of Islamic ones. This was unfortunate from the historical point of view, for it destroyed the possibility of identifying the slaves’ places of origin from their personal or family names.
Slaves in Islamic India, on the other hand, benefited from their conversion, in that it facilitated their integration into Indian Muslim society. Unlike Negro slaves in the New World, slaves in Muslim India were largely free from racial discrimination. They differed from slaves in America and the West Indies, moreover, in that they were not subjected to plantation labour. Many slaves in India entered the personal service of rulers and other politically important personalities, in not a few instances as palace guards. This enabled them, like such functionaries in many lands, to exercise immense power, not only as king-makers, but, after successful coups d’etat, as kings themselves.
From the Early 13th. to the Late 15th. Century
The first Ethiopian slaves arriving in the Indian sub-continent may have come early in the Christian era. This would appear probable, in view of the antiquity of the Horn of Africa’s slave exports, and the extensive trade between the Ethiopia and India indicated in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Documentation on African slaves in India is, however, scarcely available for over a millennium, until the early thirteenth century.
The North and West: Delhi, Gujarat, the Gulf of Cambay, and MalabarThe first Habshi of whom there is historical record was probably Jamal al-Din Yaqut, a royal courtier in the kingdom of Delhi, in the north of the sub-continent. A handsome and most likable individual, he won the favour of the then reigning sovereign Queen Radiyya (1236-1240). This incurred him much jealousy at court, on which account he was eventually murdered by his rivals.
Habshis, it is evident from fourteenth century reports, were soon also prominent in several other parts of India. The largest concentrations of slaves was apparently found in the north-west, facing Africa: in Gujarat, and, immediately to the east, around the Gulf of Cambay. Both areas had long been in close commercial contact, across the Arabian and Red Seas, with Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
The Evidence of Ibn Battuta
Early evidence of an Ethiopian slave presence in the sub-continent is provided by the famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta. Describing the situation between 1333 and 1342, he recalls that on embarking on a ship at Qandahar, or Gandhar on the west coast of India, he found on board "fifty Abyssinian men-at-arms", and adds, with admiration: "these latter are the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean; let there be but one of them on a ship and it will be avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters". Half a century later, in 1375-6, Gujarat was reported as paying a tribute of 400 slaves, described as "children of Hindu chiefs and Abyssinians".
A sizable number of Habshis were also found much further south, at Calicut, which also faced the African continent, and traded with Ethiopia. Ibn Battuta tells of a shipowner’s agent at the port, who, when going ashore, was "preceded by archers and Abyssinians with javelins, swords, drums, trumpets and bugles".
Habshis were likewise in evidence further south again, at Colombo, in Ceylon, where Ibn Battuta reports that Jalasti, "the wazir and ruler of the sea", had "about five hundred Abyssinians".
The North: Alapur and Jaunpur
Habshis were also reported in the interior of northern India. Ibn Battuta recalls that at Alapur, north of Delhi, the governor was "the Abyssinian Badr..., a man whose bravery passed into a proverb". He was "continually making raids on the infidels alone and single-handed, killing and taking captive, so that his fame spread far and wide and the infidels went in fear of them". Gossip had it that he had retained some non-Indian ways: according to Ibn Battuta he used to eat "a whole sheep at a meal", and, "following the custom of the Abyssinians", would, after consuming it, drink a pound and a half of ghee, or clarified butter.
Later in the century a slave called Malik Sarwar, described as a Habshi, was appointed further north as governor of Jaunpur. He was succeeded by his son Mubarak Shah, who struck coins in his own name, and was succeeded in turn by his brother Ibrahim Shah. The latter reigned for almost forty years, and is remembered as a patron of literature and the arts.
The North-East: Bengal
Numerous Habshis and other foreign slaves were likewise politically very prominent in fifteenth century Bengal, a region in north-east India which also enjoyed extensive trade with Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. The then Bengali ruler, Sultan Rukn al-Din (1450-1474), reportedly had no less than 8,000 African slaves, some of whom rose to positions of considerable importance. Such slaves were particularly influential during the ensuing reign of Jalal al-Din Fath Shah (1481-1487). This caused the modern Indian historian Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar, a stern critic of the Habshis, to remark:
"The Abyssinians... presented a serious problem... they had captured most of the high positions and now swarmed in the palace and in the city. Power made them arrogant and like the Turks in the employ of the later Abbaside Caliphs, they behaved with the citizens with increasing violence. The more defiant of them, according to Firishta, were consequently punished ‘with the scourge of justice’".
The Habshis were in fact so powerful in Bengal that a group of them, including the chief eunuch, conspired to overthrow the then ruler Jalal al-Din Fath. Taking advantage of the absence on campaign of the loyal Habshi commander-in-chief, Amir al-Umara Malik Andil, the Habshi commander of the palace guards, Sultan Shahzada, assassinated Jalal al-Din. "From protectors of the dynasty", one historian wrote, "the Abyssinians became masters of the kingdom".
Shahzada duly assumed the throne, in 1486, and adopted the name of Barbak Shah. He was, however, soon afterwards killed by the Habshi Amir al-Umara who in his turn made himself king, with the name Sayf al-Din Firuz (1487-1490). A kind man, he is said to have confounded his treasury officials by the largesse of his gifts to the poor. His reign was, however, short, for he was replaced only three years later by an infant king. Real power, however, fell into the hands of another Habshi, Habash Khan, who was later killed by yet another Habshi, Sidi Badr "the madman", who had the young king put to death. Badr then seized the throne, under the name of Shams al-Din Muzaffar Shah, and instituted a reign of terror. His cruelty, however, provoked strong opposition against him, and by extension against Habshi domination. His army, which included no less than 5,000 well-armed Habshis, was besieged for three months, at the end of which he died.

And some info on possible other Indian Factions, thogh mostly about the Kingdom of Bihar:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Beauchamp** · December 10, 2007, 03:40 PM

I agree about the idea of trade winds, especially since they were essential for trade ships to get to Muscat and the Persian gulf.

**Shadowcry** · December 10, 2007, 10:39 PM

Wow Bihar looks like an awesome faction if it were to be created, perhaps an ally from which the rajputs could rely on.

**Kiki52** · December 10, 2007, 11:09 PM

What religion would the BC team put for Bihar if they did it? I doubt it could be a faction in BC 1.0. Perhaps for BC 2.0 it could be another faction added along with the Mongols, Kara-Khitai, and Kievan Rus. I don't think they can put Buddhism because there are CA-made hardcoded limit to the number of religions/cultures.

But it'd be cool if Bihar if it got in in maybe 2.0 or 3.0 if any maybe has Hinduism as the religion because Buddhism is mostly an offshoot of Hinduism just like Christianity and Islam are offshoots of Judaism. Buddhism has many things Hinduism has with one notable exception, they do not have a system of castes and Gautama Buddha himself said to the Brahmins at this time they they are blind men who lead blind men who lead blind men. So maybe just for simplification purposes Bihar could be Hindu so as to be more of an ally to the Rajputs, but they won't have units based upon the caste systems like a Kshatriya unit but some other equivelant powerful swordsmen unit or somehow different than Rajput roster.

So you can scare the small and greatly outnumbered Muslim invaders with the combined superhordes of Hindu warriors. It'd be just like the movie 300, except in reverse the larger force will win.