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97-653: Hamza was born in the 14th-century into a ruling class Bengali Muslim Sunni family known as the Ilyas Shahi dynasty , in the Bengal Sultanate . His father, Sultan Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah , was the grandson of Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah – the founder of the ruling dynasty as well as the nation. Hailing from what is now eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan , Hamza's family was of Sistani ancestral origin. The reasoning behind

194-525: A lexicostatistical study of the New Indo-Aryan languages based on a 100-word Swadesh list , using techniques developed by the glottochronologist and comparative linguist Sergei Starostin . That grouping system is notable for Kogan's exclusion of Dardic from Indo-Aryan on the basis of his previous studies showing low lexical similarity to Indo-Aryan (43.5%) and negligible difference with similarity to Iranian (39.3%). He also calculated Sinhala–Dhivehi to be

291-532: A Muslim majority. Tripura , a north-eastern state of India has around 3.8 lakh Bengali Muslim population, or say 9% as of 2021. The Rohingya community in western Myanmar have significant Bengali Muslim heritage. A large Bengali Muslim diaspora is found in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf , which are home to several million expatriate workers from South Asia. A more well-established diaspora also resides in

388-566: A bare majority of the population of Bengal proper (50.2 percent compared with the Hindus at 48.5 percent). However, in the eastern part of Bengal, Muslims were thick on the ground. The proportions of Muslims in Rajshahi, Dhaka and Chittagong divisions were 63.2, 63.6 and 67.9 percent respectively. The debate draws on the writings of some late nineteenth-century authors, but in its current form was initially formulated in 1963 by M.A. Rahim. Rahim suggested that

485-783: A branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family . As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Bangladesh , North India , Eastern Pakistan , Sri Lanka , Maldives and Nepal . Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent , large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe , Western Asia , North America ,

582-473: A converted Muslim. He maintained a good rapport with non-Muslims in his kingdom. According to an interpretation of a Sanskrit sloka by D. C. Bhattacharya, Jalaluddin appointed Rajyadhar, a Hindu, as the commander of his army. He gained support of Muslim scholars – Ulama and the Sheikhs . He reconstructed and repaired the mosques and other religious architectures destroyed by Raja Ganesha. The Bengal region

679-627: A good relationship with the Yongle Emperor of Ming China , and had an heir named Muhammad bin Hamzah . Hamza's reign was interrupted by a nationwide civil war instigated by Raja Ganesha. According to the Egyptian scholars Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and Al-Sakhawi who were alive at the time of receiving the news, Sultan Hamza Shah was murdered by his slave Mamluk Shihab in 1412. The 20th-century Indian historian R. C. Majumdar however, believes that Shihab

776-671: A major scale. A huge mosque called the Adina Mosque was built following the design of the Great Mosque of Damascus . A distinct Bengali Muslim architectural style developed, with terracotta and stone buildings showing a fusion of Persian and Bengali elements. Mosques included two categories, including multi-domed rectangular structures and single-domed square structures. A distinct style of Bengali mihrabs , minbars , terracotta arabesque , and do-chala roofs developed; this influence also spread to other regions. The Bengal Sultanate

873-481: A minaret or floral design enshrining the word " Allah " which means "God" in Arabic. Rickshaw and rickshaw painting of Bangladesh are listed as ' intangible heritage ' by UNESCO. As a people's craft, of Bengal cloth architecture has seen transformation in the past decade for open-air public functions such as melas and religious gatherings like urs and waz-mahfil and Eidgahs for Eid prayers. The Patua of Bangladesh are

970-632: A significant proportion of Bengal's Muslims were not Hindu converts but were descendants of 'aristocratic' immigrants from various parts of the Muslim world. Specifically, he estimated that in 1770, of about 10.6 million Muslims in Bengal, 3.3 million (about 30 percent) had 'foreign blood'. In the late 1980s Richard Eaton, in a book and a series of papers, raised awkward questions about the social liberation theory of conversion from Hinduism to Islam that have yet to be fully addressed, further endorsing Rahim's argument. In

1067-607: A single, unitary, independent Bengal Sultanate. The creation of the Bengal Sultanate sparked several Bengal-Delhi Wars , which resulted in Delhi recognizing Bengal's independence. The Ilyas Shahi dynasty consolidated Bengali statehood, the economy and diplomatic relations. A network of Mint Towns - provincial capitals which produced the Sultan's sovereign currency called the taka - was established across Bengal. The Bengali state followed

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1164-493: A standardised and Sanskritised register of Dehlavi , is the official language of the Government of India (along with English ). Together with Urdu , it is the third most-spoken language in the world. The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Magadhan languages, are spoken throughout the eastern subcontinent, including Odisha and Bihar , alongside other regions surrounding the northwestern Himalayan corridor. Bengali

1261-613: A subfamily of Indo-Aryan. The Dardic group as a genetic grouping (rather than areal) has been scrutinised and questioned to a degree by recent scholarship: Southworth, for example, says "the viability of Dardic as a genuine subgroup of Indo-Aryan is doubtful" and "the similarities among [Dardic languages] may result from subsequent convergence". The Dardic languages are thought to be transitional with Punjabi and Pahari (e.g. Zoller describes Kashmiri as "an interlink between Dardic and West Pahāṛī"), as well as non-Indo-Aryan Nuristani; and are renowned for their relatively conservative features in

1358-502: A unique community, in that their traditional occupation is the painting which is known as Patachitra and modelling of Hindu idols, yet many of them are Muslims. Gazir Pata (scroll of Gazi Pir ) is the most famous scroll painting made by Bengali Patuas . The weaving industry of Bengal has prospered with the help of the Muslims natives. The Bengali origin Jamdani is believed to be a fusion of

1455-586: Is dear" (Mayrhofer II 182), Priyamazda ( priiamazda ) as Priyamedha "whose wisdom is dear" (Mayrhofer II 189, II378), Citrarata as Citraratha "whose chariot is shining" (Mayrhofer I 553), Indaruda/Endaruta as Indrota "helped by Indra " (Mayrhofer I 134), Shativaza ( šattiṷaza ) as Sātivāja "winning the race price" (Mayrhofer II 540, 696), Šubandhu as Subandhu "having good relatives" (a name in Palestine , Mayrhofer II 209, 735), Tushratta ( tṷišeratta, tušratta , etc.) as *tṷaiašaratha, Vedic Tvastar "whose chariot

1552-650: Is in many cases somewhat arbitrary. The classification of the Indo-Aryan languages is controversial, with many transitional areas that are assigned to different branches depending on classification. There are concerns that a tree model is insufficient for explaining the development of New Indo-Aryan, with some scholars suggesting the wave model . The following table of proposals is expanded from Masica (1991) (from Hoernlé to Turner), and also includes subsequent classification proposals. The table lists only some modern Indo-Aryan languages. Anton I. Kogan , in 2016, conducted

1649-464: Is not fully understood. Lack of primary sources from that era have resulted in various hypotheses. Generally modern prevailing hypotheses about the early stages of Islamification of East Bengal focus on Sufi missionaries capitalizing on disaffected Buddhists and other indigenous groups following the initial conquest of the area by the Brahmin and Kshatriya dominated Sena Empire followed a few decades later by

1746-566: Is one of the best known accounts of the prelude to the Bengal Sultanate. Ibn Battuta visited Bengal during the reign of Sultan Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah , a rebel governor of the Delhi Sultanate who established a city state in Sonargaon . At the time, Bengal was divided into the three city states of Sonargaon, Satgaon and Lakhnauti . In 1352, the three city states were united by Ilyas Shah into

1843-577: Is suggested that "proto-Munda" languages may have once dominated the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain , and were then absorbed by Indo-Aryan languages at an early date as Indo-Aryan spread east. Marathi-Konkani languages are ultimately descended from Maharashtri Prakrit , whereas Insular Indo-Aryan languages are descended from Elu Prakrit and possess several characteristics that markedly distinguish them from most of their mainland Indo-Aryan counterparts. Insular Indo-Aryan languages (of Sri Lanka and Maldives ) started developing independently and diverging from

1940-650: Is the state religion and commands the demographic majority. The Indian state of West Bengal is home to an estimated 23-24 million Bengali Muslims as per 2021 estimation, rest 6-7 million Muslims are Urdu and Surjapuri speaking Muslims. Two districts in West Bengal ;– Murshidabad and Maldah have a Muslim majority and North Dinajpur has a plurality. The Indian state of Assam has over 9   million Bengali Muslims out of 13 million Muslim population in Assam. Nine out of thirty-three districts in Assam have

2037-604: Is the official language of Gujarat , and is spoken by over 50 million people. In Europe, various Romani languages are spoken by the Romani people , an itinerant community who historically migrated from India. The Western Indo-Aryan languages are thought to have diverged from their northwestern counterparts, although they have a common antecedent in Shauraseni Prakrit . Within India, Central Indo-Aryan languages are spoken primarily in

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2134-562: Is the seventh most-spoken language in the world, and has a strong literary tradition; the national anthems of India and Bangladesh are written in Bengali. Assamese and Odia are the official languages of Assam and Odisha , respectively. The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Magadhan Apabhraṃśa and ultimately from Magadhi Prakrit . Eastern Indo-Aryan languages display many morphosyntactic features similar to those of Munda languages , while western Indo-Aryan languages do not. It

2231-643: Is vehement" (Mayrhofer, Etym. Wb., I 686, I 736). The earliest evidence of the group is from Vedic Sanskrit , that is used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent , the foundational canon of the Hindu synthesis known as the Vedas . The Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni is of similar age to the language of the Rigveda , but the only evidence of it is a few proper names and specialized loanwords. While Old Indo-Aryan

2328-607: The Abbasid caliph in Cairo . Portuguese India was the first European state entity to establish relations with the Bengal Sultanate. The Bengal Sultan permitted the opening of the Portuguese settlement in Chittagong . Soon after its creation, the Bengal Sultanate sent the first Muslim army into Nepal . Its forces reached as far as Varanasi while pursuing a retreating Delhi Sultan. Arakan

2425-451: The Bhati region of East Bengal, the most fertile part of the delta. This made East Bengal a thriving melting pot with strong trade and cultural networks. It was the most prosperous part of the subcontinent. East Bengal became the center of the Muslim population in the eastern subcontinent and corresponds to modern-day Bangladesh. According to the 1881 Census of Bengal, Muslims constituted

2522-513: The Brahmaputra Valley and up to Hajo . Bengali ships dominated the Bay of Bengal and were the largest ships in the Indian and Pacific oceans. A royal vessel from Bengal could accommodate three tribute missions- from Bengal, Brunei and Sumatra- and was evidently the only vessel capable of such a task. European travelers like Ludovico di Varthema , Duarte Barbosa and Tomé Pires wrote about

2619-731: The Caribbean , Southeast Africa , Polynesia and Australia , along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeastern Europe . There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages. Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit , through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits ). The largest such languages in terms of first-speakers are Hindi–Urdu ( c.  330 million ), Bengali (242 million), Punjabi (about 150 million), Marathi (112 million), and Gujarati (60 million). A 2005 estimate placed

2716-551: The Hanafi school of jurisprudence. There are also minorities of Shias and Ahmadiyas , as well as people who identify as non-denominational (or "just a Muslim"). Rice-cultivating communities existed in Bengal since the second millennium BCE. The region was home to a large agriculturalist population, marginally influenced by Dharmic religions . Buddhism influenced the region in the first millennium. The Bengali language developed from Apabhramsa , Sanskrit , Magadhi Prakrit between

2813-1080: The Hussain Shahi dynasty which was of Arab origin. They were in turn replaced by the Pashtun rulers of the Suri dynasty , who first acted as regional governors before restoring Bengali independence. The last dynasty, the Karrani dynasty , was also of Pashtun origin. The sultanate period saw a flourishing of Islamic scholarship and the development of Bengali literature . Scholars, writers and poets of sultanate-era Bengal included Usman Serajuddin , Alaul Haq , Sheikh Nur Qutb Alam , Alaol , Shah Muhammad Sagir , Abdul Hakim , Syed Sultan , Qadi Ruknu'd-Din Abu Hamid Muhammad bin Muhammad al-'Amidi, Abu Tawwama, Syed Ibrahim Danishmand , Syed Arif Billah Muhammad Kamel and Syed Muhammad Yusuf among others. Bengal's tradition of Persian prose

2910-571: The Indian National Congress , which accused the British of a divide and rule policy, caused the British government to reconsider the new provincial geography. During the Delhi Durbar in 1911, King George V announced that provinces would once again be reorganized. The first partition of Bengal was annulled; while Calcutta lost its status as the imperial capital of India. The imperial capital

3007-644: The Partition of Bengal in 1947. The Radcliffe Line made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan . It was later renamed as East Pakistan , with Dhaka as its capital. The East Pakistan Awami Muslim League was formed in Dhaka in 1949. The organisation's name was later secularised as the Awami League in 1955 with the support o Maulana Bhasani . The party was supported by the Bengali bourgeoisie , agriculturalists,

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3104-663: The Partition of India in 1947, they comprised the demographic majority of Pakistan until the independence of East Pakistan (historic East Bengal ) as Bangladesh in 1971 . A Bengali is a person of ethnic and linguistic heritage from the Bengal region in South Asia speaking the Indo-Aryan Bengali language . Islam arrived in the first millennium and influenced the native Bengali culture . The influx of Persian, Turkic, Arab and Mughal settlers contributed further diversity to

3201-474: The 10th-century were of various religious backgrounds. During this time, Arab geographer Al-Masudi , who authored The Meadows of Gold , travelled to the region and noticed a Muslim community of inhabitants. In addition to trade, Islam was also being introduced to the people of Bengal through the migration of Sufi missionaries prior to conquest. The earliest known Sufi missionaries were Syed Shah Surkhul Antia and his students, most notably Shah Sultan Rumi , in

3298-529: The 1170s. This was an era of significant Buddhist-Brahmin religious conflict as they represented diametrically opposite camps in the Dharmic tradition with the Buddhist focus on equality threatening the Brahmin caste-based power structure. In the preceding centuries Buddhism underwent a slow decline as Hindu kingdom gradually enveloped Buddhists states in the area and began of process of "de-Buddification" manifested by

3395-759: The 11th century. Rumi settled in present-day Netrokona, Mymensingh where he influenced the local ruler and population to embrace Islam. While Bengal was under the Hindu Sena Empire , subsequent Muslim conquests helped spread Islam throughout the region. Bakhtiyar Khalji , a Turkic Muslim general, defeated king Lakshman Sen in 1206 CE and annexed large parts of Bengal to the Delhi Sultanate . Khalji also mounted an invasion of Tibet . Following this initial conquest, an influx of missionaries arrived in Bengal and many Bengalis began to adopt Islam as their way of life. Sultan Balkhi and Shah Makhdum Rupos settled in

3492-474: The 16th-century, many Ulama of the Bengali Muslim intelligentsia migrated to other parts of the subcontinent as teachers and instructors of Islamic knowledge such as Sheikh Ali Sher Bengali to Ahmedabad , Usman Bengali to Sambhal and Yusuf Bengali to Burhanpur . The process of Islamization of eastern Bengal, now Bangladesh, is not fully understood due to limited documentation from the 1200s to 1600s,

3589-438: The 17th and 18th centuries. Today, the weaving of Jamdani is classified by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage . Modern science was begun in Bengal during the period of British colonial rule. Railways were introduced in 1862, making Bengal one of the earliest regions in the world to have a rail network. For the general population, opportunities for formal science education remained limited. The colonial government and

3686-594: The 1960s, particularly with the Six point movement for autonomy. The rise of pro-democracy and pro-independence movements in East Pakistan, with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the principal leader, led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Bangladesh was founded as a secular Muslim majority nation. In 1977, however, President Ziaur Rahman , trying to consolidate his power under martial law, removed secularism from

3783-553: The 7th and 10th centuries. It once formed a single Indo-Aryan branch with Assamese and Oriya , before the languages became distinct. The spread of Islam in the Indian subcontinent can be a contested issue. Historical evidences suggest the early Muslim traders and merchants visited Bengal while traversing the Silk Road in the first millennium. One of the earliest mosques in South Asia is under excavation in northern Bangladesh, indicating

3880-573: The Bengali elite established several institutes for science education. The Nawabs of Dhaka established Ahsanullah School of Engineering which later became the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology . Qazi Azizul Haque pioneered fingerprint classification . In the second half of the 20th century, the Bengali Muslim American Fazlur Rahman Khan became one of the most important structural engineers in

3977-601: The Emperor of China as a tribute to China-Bengal relations. The Chinese Muslim admiral Zheng He visited Bengal as an envoy of the Emperor of China. Bengali ships transported the embassies of Sumatra , Brunei and Malacca to the port of Canton . China and the Timurid ruler of Herat mediated an end to the Bengal Sultanate-Jaunpur Sultanate War . The Sultan of Bengal also acknowledged the nominal authority of

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4074-718: The Mittani are either in Hurrian (which appears to have been the predominant language of their kingdom) or Akkadian (the main diplomatic language of the Late Bronze Age Near East), these apparently Indo-Aryan names suggest that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrians in the course of the Indo-Aryan expansion . If these traces are Indo-Aryan, they would be the earliest known direct evidence of Indo-Aryan, and would increase

4171-519: The Persian model of statecraft. Muslims from other parts of the world were imported for military, bureaucratic and household services. These immigrants included Turks from upper India who were originally recruited in Central Asia; as well as Abyssinians imported via East Africa into the Bengali port of Chittagong. A highly commercialized and monetized economy evolved. Islamic architecture was introduced on

4268-619: The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan . The first Bengali Muslim settlers in the United States were ship jumpers who settled in Harlem , New York and Baltimore , Maryland in the 1920s and 1930s. Surnames in Bengali Muslim society reflect the region's cosmopolitan history. They are mainly of Arabic and Persian origin, with a minority of Bengali surnames. Zainul Abedin, who's better known as Shilpacharya (Master of Art)

4365-470: The ancient cloth-making techniques of Bengal with the muslins produced by Bengali Muslims of Dhaka since the 14th century. Jamdani is the most expensive product of traditional Bengali looms since it requires the most lengthy and dedicated work. The traditional art of weaving jamdani was declared a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013 and Bangladesh received geographical indication (GI) status for Jamdani Sari in 2016. Sheikh Zainuddin

4462-662: The arrival of Bakhtiyar Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate in the early 1200s and the later agrarian reforms of the Mughal Empire in the 1500s. Centuries prior to the advent of Islam into the region, Bengal was a major center of Buddhism on the Indian Subcontinent. The area was under the rule of the Buddhist Pala Empire for several centuries until its collapse and subsequent conquest by the Hindu Sena Empire in

4559-420: The college curriculum, including Persian, Sanskrit, mathematics, history and algebra. All towns became connected by an inter-district road network. The population of the capital city Dacca rose by 21% between 1906 and 1911. An important moment in the history of Bengali self-determination was the Lahore Resolution in 1940, which was promoted by politician A. K. Fazlul Huq . The resolution initially called for

4656-418: The constitution and replaced it with "a commitment to the values of Islam." In 2010, the Bangladesh Supreme Court reaffirmed secular principles in the constitution. Historical Islamic kingdoms that existed in Bengal employed several clever technologies in numerous areas such as architecture, agriculture, civil engineering, water management, etc. The creation of canals and reservoirs was a common practice for

4753-438: The construction of Islamic seminaries as far as Mecca and Madina in the Middle East. The people of Arabia came to know these institutions as al-Madaris al-Bangaliyyah ( Bengali madrasas ). The Bengal Sultanate was a melting pot of Muslim political, mercantile and military elites. During the 14th century, Islamic kingdoms stretched from Muslim Spain in the west to Bengal in the east. Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta 's diary

4850-451: The context of Proto-Indo-Aryan . The Northern Indo-Aryan languages , also known as the Pahari ('hill') languages, are spoken throughout the Himalayan regions of the subcontinent. Northwestern Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in the northwestern region of India and eastern region of Pakistan. Punjabi is spoken predominantly in the Punjab region and is the official language of the northern Indian state of Punjab , in addition to being

4947-403: The continental Indo-Aryan languages from around 5th century BCE. The following languages are otherwise unclassified within Indo-Aryan: Dates indicate only a rough time frame. Proto-Indo-Aryan (or sometimes Proto-Indic ) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans . Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be

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5044-433: The creation of a sovereign state in the "Eastern Zone" of British India . However, its text was later changed by the top leadership of the Muslim League . The Prime Minister of Bengal Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy proposed an independent, undivided, sovereign "Free State of Bengal" in 1947. Despite calls from liberal Bengali Muslim League leaders for an independent United Bengal , the British government moved forward with

5141-431: The cultural development of the region. The Muslim population in Bengal further rose with the agricultural and administrative reforms during the Mughal period, particularly in eastern Bengal. Today, most Bengali Muslims live in the modern country of Bangladesh, the world's fourth largest Muslim-majority country, along with the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam. The majority of Bengali Muslims are Sunnis who follow

5238-519: The death of Hamza's father, Sultan Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah , is contested between a natural death or an assassination plotted by Raja Ganesha , the Hindu zamindar of Bhaturia who gained prominence in the Sultanate court. Following the death, Hamza assumed the throne with the grand title of " Sultan-us-Salatin ", meaning Sultan of Sultans , in 1420 CE with the support of the court nobles. He began minting coins in his name from cities such as Satgaon , Muazzamabad and Firuzabad . Hamza also maintained

5335-569: The fertile Ganges plain. The lead to greater concentrations of people in the area with more opportunities for Sufi missionaries to preach Islam. According to historian Richard M. Eaton, Islam became the religion of the plough in the Bengal delta . Islam's emergence in the region was intimately tied with agriculture. The delta was the most fertile region in the empire. Mughal development projects cleared forests and established thousands of Sufi-led villages, which became industrious farming and craftsmanship communities. The projects were most evident in

5432-449: The global Bengali population, they are the second-largest ethnic group among Muslims after Arabs . Bengali Muslims make up the majority of Bangladesh 's citizens, and are the largest minority in the Indian states of West Bengal , Tripura and Assam . They speak or identify the Bengali language as their mother tongue . The majority of Bengali Muslims are Sunnis who follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. The Bengal region

5529-405: The horse race). The numeral aika "one" is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian in general or early Iranian (which has aiva ). Another text has babru ( babhru , "brown"), parita ( palita , "grey"), and pinkara ( pingala , "red"). Their chief festival was the celebration of the solstice ( vishuva ) which

5626-402: The largely disaffected Buddhist East Bengal versus the largely Hindu regions of West Bengal. A few centuries later the agrarian reforms of the Mughal Empire accelerated conversion and population growth across Bangladesh by creating a system of farming villages centered around Sufi missions. The Mughals granted landless peasants land around these missions in order to accelerate development of

5723-438: The late 19th century, when the first census was conducted on Bengal region in the year of (1872), it was found that the number of Hindus are at (18m) and Muslims at (17.5m) were almost the same. According to the 1872 Census, only 1.52% or say 2.66 lakhs of the Bengali Muslim population claimed foreign ancestry. Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah was born as Jadu, the son of Hindu King Raja Ganesha . He later ruled most of Bengal as

5820-416: The latter withdrew from the Indian Ocean in the mid-15th-century. Bengali port cities like Chittagong and Satgaon were possibly entrepots for importing and re-exporting goods to China. The Mughal Empire eventually controlled the region under its Bengal Subah viceregal province. The Mughal Emperors considered Bengal their most prized province. Emperor Akbar redeveloped the Bengali calendar . In

5917-429: The leadership of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan the promotion the English language among Muslims of India also influenced Bengali Muslim society. Social and cultural leaders among Bengali Muslims during this period included Munshi Mohammad Meherullah , who countered Christian missionaries, writers Ismail Hossain Siraji and Mir Mosharraf Hossain ; and feminists Nawab Faizunnesa and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain . A precursor to

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6014-474: The middle class, and the intelligentsia . Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin , Mohammad Ali of Bogra , and H. S. Suhrawardy , all of whom were Bengali Muslims, each served as Pakistan's prime minister during the 1950s; however, all three were deposed by the military-industrial complex in West Pakistan. The Bengali Language Movement in 1952 received strong support from Islamic groups, including the Tamaddun Majlish . Bengali nationalism increased in East Pakistan during

6111-517: The model of Bengali tanka for 300 years, even after the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate. A total of 16 Arakanese kings used Muslim titles. Arakan forcefully deported thousands of Bengali Muslims and Hindus during its invasions and collusion with the Portuguese. Deportees included the poet Alaol . As a result, the Bengali minority in Arakan developed a distinct Arakanese identity and became influential elites in Arakanese society. Arakanese Muslims, known today as Rohingya people , trace their ancestry to

6208-442: The modern state of Bangladesh was the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam in British India . The province was created on 16 October 1905 by the Viceroy of India Lord Curzon . The province covered present-day Bangladesh, northeastern India and a part of West Bengal. It had a Bengali Muslim majority. Dacca , the former Mughal capital of Bengal, was declared by the British as the capital of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The province

6305-502: The most divergent Indo-Aryan branch. Nevertheless, the modern consensus of Indo-Aryan linguists tends towards the inclusion of Dardic based on morphological and grammatical features. The Inner–Outer hypothesis argues for a core and periphery of Indo-Aryan languages, with Outer Indo-Aryan (generally including Eastern and Southern Indo-Aryan, and sometimes Northwestern Indo-Aryan, Dardic and Pahari ) representing an older stratum of Old Indo-Aryan that has been mixed to varying degrees with

6402-469: The most widely-spoken language in Pakistan. Sindhi and its variants are spoken natively in the Pakistani province of Sindh and neighbouring regions. Northwestern languages are ultimately thought to be descended from Shauraseni Prakrit , with influence from Persian and Arabic . Western Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in central and western India, in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan , in addition to contiguous regions in Pakistan. Gujarati

6499-483: The newer stratum that is Inner Indo-Aryan. It is a contentious proposal with a long history, with varying degrees of claimed phonological and morphological evidence. Since its proposal by Rudolf Hoernlé in 1880 and refinement by George Grierson it has undergone numerous revisions and a great deal of debate, with the most recent iteration by Franklin Southworth and Claus Peter Zoller based on robust linguistic evidence (particularly an Outer past tense in -l- ). Some of

6596-586: The period during which Islamization is believed to have occurred. There are numerous theories about how Islam spread in region; however, the overwhelming evidence is strongly suggestive of a gradual transition of the local population from Buddhism, Hinduism and other indigenous religions to Islam starting in the thirteenth century facilitated by Sufi missionaries (such as Shah Jalal in Sylhet for example) and later by Mughal agricultural reforms centered around Sufi missions The factors facilitating conversion to Islam from Buddhism, Hinduism and indigenous religions, again

6693-509: The period of Bengali influence in Arakan. The Bengal Sultanate also counted Tripura as a vassal state. Bengal restored the throne of Tripura by helping Ratna Manikya I to assume the throne. The Bengal Sultanate controlled Odisha at various points since the reign of Ilyas Shah . During the reign of Alauddin Hussain Shah , Bengal became an expanding regional empire. Under Hussain Shah, Bengali territory covered Arakan, Assam, Tripura, Orissa, Bihar and Jaunpur. Hussain Shah minted coins with

6790-542: The precision in dating the split between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages (as the texts in which the apparent Indicisms occur can be dated with some accuracy). In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra , Varuna , Indra , and the Ashvins ( Nasatya ) are invoked. Kikkuli 's horse training text includes technical terms such as aika (cf. Sanskrit eka , "one"), tera ( tri , "three"), panza ( panca , "five"), satta ( sapta , seven), na ( nava , "nine"), vartana ( vartana , "turn", round in

6887-453: The predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE), which is directly attested as Vedic and Mitanni-Aryan . Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, however, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a small number of conservative features lost in Vedic . Some theonyms, proper names, and other terminology of the Late Bronze Age Mitanni civilization of Upper Mesopotamia exhibit an Indo-Aryan superstrate. While what few written records left by

6984-551: The presence of Muslims in the area around the lifetime of Muhammad . Starting in the 9th century, Muslim merchants increased trade with Bengali seaports. Islam first appeared in Bengal during Pala rule, as a result of increased trade between Bengal and the Arab Abbasid Caliphate . Coins of the Abbasid Caliphate have been discovered in many parts of the region. The people of Samatata , in southeastern Bengal, during

7081-717: The presence of a large number of wealthy Bengali merchants and shipowners in Malacca. The trade between Bengal and the Maldives , based on rice and cowry shells , was probably done on Arab-style baghlah ships. The Chinese Muslim envoy Ma Huan wrote about a flourishing shipbuilding industry and Bengal's significant seaborne trade. The muslin trade in Bengal , the production of silk and the development of several other crafts were indicated in Ma Huan's list of items exported from Bengal to China. Bengali shipping co-existed with Chinese shipping until

7178-399: The present-day Rajshahi Division in northern Bengal, preaching to the communities there. A community of 13 Muslim families headed by Burhanuddin also existed in the northeastern Hindu city of Srihatta (Sylhet) , claiming their descendants to have arrived from Chittagong . By 1303, hundreds of Sufi preachers led by Shah Jalal aided the Muslim rulers in Bengal to conquer Sylhet , turning

7275-560: The proclamation "conqueror of Kamrupa, Kamata, Jajnagar and Orissa". The Pratapgarh Kingdom came under Bengali suzerainty . The island of Chandradwip was annexed by the Hussain Shahi dynasty. In 1498, the Hussain Shahi dynasty dispatched an army under Shah Ismail Ghazi to conquer the Kamata Kingdom . The Bengal forces overthrew the Khen dynasty . Bengali control of Assam extended into

7372-713: The reframing of Buddhist figures as Hindu avatars and the reincorporation of resistant Buddhist subjects into lower castes in society. As the Pala Empire's base of power was in Northern and Eastern Bengal, it is likely that these were areas with large Buddhist majorities which were likely heavily subjugated the Sena Empire. A few decades following the Sena Conquest of the region, the Sena, themselves, were conquered by Bakhtiyar Khalji opening up

7469-576: The region to a greater influx of Sufi missionaries. This hypothesis would explain why the Islam spread faster in East Bengal than West Bengal. Essentially, East Bengal had a large Buddhist population compared to West Bengal. The conquest of the area by Hindu kingdoms lead to the subjugation of Buddhists in the region. With the Turkic conquest, came the arrival of Sufi missionaries who were more successful at converting

7566-528: The region's Muslim society of what they deemed "un-Islamic practices". They were successful in galvanising the Bengali peasantry against the EIC. However, the movement experienced a crackdown after the suppression of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and lost impetus after the death of Haji Shariatullah's son Dudu Miyan . After 1870, Muslims began a seeking British-style education in increasingly larger numbers. Under

7663-633: The region. Bengali Islamic architecture emerged as a synthesis of Bengali, Persian, Byzantine, and Mughal elements. Indo-Aryan languages Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes simply Indic languages ) are

7760-489: The sultanate. New methods of irrigation were pioneered by the Sufis. Bengali mosque architecture featured terracotta, stone, wood and bamboo, with curved roofs, corner towers and multiple domes. During the Bengal Sultanate, a distinct regional style flourished which featured no minarets, but had richly designed mihrabs and minbars as niches. Islamic Bengal had a long history of textile weaving, including export of muslin during

7857-492: The theory's skeptics include Suniti Kumar Chatterji and Colin P. Masica . The below classification follows Masica (1991) , and Kausen (2006) . Percentage of Indo-Aryan speakers by native language: The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca) are a group of Indo-Aryan languages largely spoken in the northwestern extremities of the Indian subcontinent. Dardic was first formulated by George Abraham Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India but he did not consider it to be

7954-402: The total number of native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million people. Other estimates are higher suggesting a figure of 1.5 billion speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. The Indo-Aryan family as a whole is thought to represent a dialect continuum , where languages are often transitional towards neighboring varieties. Because of this, the division into languages vs. dialects

8051-531: The town into Jalal's headquarters for religious activities. Following the conquest, Jalal disseminated his followers across different parts of Bengal to spread Islam, and became a household name among Bengali Muslims. The establishment of a single united Bengal Sultanate in 1352 by Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah finally gave rise to a "Bengali" socio-linguistic identity. The Ilyas Shahi dynasty acknowledged Muslim scholarship , and this transcended ethnic background. Usman Serajuddin , also known as Akhi Siraj Bengali ,

8148-546: The western Gangetic plains , including Delhi and parts of the Central Highlands , where they are often transitional with neighbouring lects. Many of these languages, including Braj and Awadhi , have rich literary and poetic traditions. Urdu , a Persianised derivative of Dehlavi descended from Shauraseni Prakrit , is the official language of Pakistan and also has strong historical connections to India , where it also has been designated with official status. Hindi ,

8245-693: The world, helping design the world's tallest buildings. Another Bengali Muslim German-American, Jawed Karim , was the co-founder of YouTube. In 2016, the modernist Bait-ur-Rouf Mosque, inspired by the Bengal Sultanate-style of buildings, won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture . Bengali Muslims constitute the world's second-largest Muslim ethnicity (after the Arab world) and the largest Muslim community in South Asia. An estimated 152   million Bengali Muslims live in Bangladesh as of 2021, where Islam

8342-646: Was annexed by the East India Company (EIC) in 1757. In the following decades, Bengalis led numerous revolts against Company rule . In the early 19th century, Titumir led a peasant uprising against the East India Company. Meanwhile, the Bengali Muslim Haji Shariatullah led the Faraizi movement , which advocated Islamic revivalism . The Faraizis sought to create a caliphate and cleanse

8439-441: Was Hamza's son and did not kill Hamza but rather succeeded him after his death. This South Asian history -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bengali Muslim Bengali Muslims ( Bengali : বাঙালি মুসলমান ; pronounced [baŋali musɔlman] ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis . Comprising about two-thirds of

8536-514: Was a native of Gaur in western Bengal and became the Sultanate's court scholar during Ilyas Shah's reign. Alongside Persian and Arabic, the sovereign Sunni Muslim nation-state also enabled the language of the Bengali people to gain patronage and support, contrary to previous states which exclusively favoured Sanskrit , Pali and Persian . The converted Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah funded

8633-413: Was a prominent Bengali Muslim artist in the 18th century during the colonial period. His works were inspired by the style of Mughal courts. An indigenous style of Islamic architecture flourished in Bengal during the medieval Sultanate period. Traditional Bengali Islamic architecture includes elements like brick, floral terracotta and stone craftsmanship. Mosques with multiple domes are proliferated in

8730-435: Was a prominent painter. His famine sketches of the 1940s are his most remarkable works of all time. The unique trend of rickshaw art started from major cities of Bangladesh like Rajshahi and Dhaka and took its own style in each district. Chittagong being a more pious city than Dhaka mostly had floral or scenery art whereas Cumilla has plain rickshaws with beautiful blue and green hoods, on which are sewn an appliqué of

8827-447: Was a supreme power of the medieval Islamic East. European traders identified the Bengal Sultanate as "the richest country to trade with". Bengal viceroy Muhammad Azam Shah assumed the imperial throne. Mughal Bengal became increasingly independent under the Nawabs of Bengal in the 18th century. The Bengali Muslim population emerged as a synthesis of Islamic and Bengali cultures. After

8924-515: Was acknowledged by Hafez . The Dobhashi tradition saw Bengali transliteration of Arabic and Persian words in Bengali texts to illustrate Islamic epics and stories. During the independent sultanate period, Bengal forged strong diplomatic relations with empires outside the subcontinent. The most notable of these relationships was with Ming China and its emperor Yongle . At least a dozen embassies were exchanged between China and Bengal. The Sultan of Bengal even gifted an East African giraffe to

9021-582: Was common in most cultures in the ancient world. The Mitanni warriors were called marya , the term for "warrior" in Sanskrit as well; note mišta-nnu (= miẓḍha , ≈ Sanskrit mīḍha ) "payment (for catching a fugitive)" (M. Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen , Heidelberg, 1986–2000; Vol. II:358). Sanskritic interpretations of Mitanni royal names render Artashumara ( artaššumara ) as Ṛtasmara "who thinks of Ṛta " (Mayrhofer II 780), Biridashva ( biridašṷa, biriiašṷ a) as Prītāśva "whose horse

9118-580: Was established through the first partition of Bengal . The British government cited administrative reasons for the creation of the new province. It promised increased investment in education and the economy of the new province. The partition galvanized Muslim nationalism in South Asia and led to the formation of the All India Muslim League in Dacca in 1906. It also stoked anti-Muslim sentiment and anti-British sentiment among Hindus. Growing opposition from

9215-509: Was ruled by five dynastic periods, with each period have a particular ethnic identity. The Ilyas Shahi dynasty was of Turkic origins. It was replaced by the Bengali-origin dynasty of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah and Shamsuddin Ahmad Shah for a few decades before being restored. In the 1490s, a series of Abyssinian generals took turns in becoming the Sultan of Bengal. They were succeeded by

9312-409: Was shifted to New Delhi; while Calcutta became the capital of a reunited, albeit smaller, Bengal province. Assam was made a separate province. Orissa and Bihar were also separated from Bengal. As a compensation for Dacca, the British government established a university for the city in 1921. During the short lifespan of the province, school enrollment increased by 20%. New subjects were introduced into

9409-629: Was the most volatile neighbor of the Bengal Sultanate. In 1428, the forces of Bengal restored Min Saw Mun as the king of Arakan after he fled to the court of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah. According to traditional Arakanese history, Arakan became a tributary state of Bengal and its kings adopted Muslim titles to fashion themselves after Bengali Sultans. Arakan later shrugged off Bengali hegemony and restored full independence. It later invaded southeastern Bengal several times, sometimes with success and sometimes unsuccessfully. Arakan continued to mint its coins following

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