Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India

Few issues in India’s current public discourse are more controversial than that of the political status of religious monuments. In particular, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 raised a number of urgent questions relating to the desecration of temples in India’s medieval period. Some of those questions that are historical in nature are addressed in this monograph: What temples were in fact desecrated in medieval India? When and by whom? How and for what purpose? What role did the desecration of temples play in the legitimization or delegitimization of royal power in medieval India? Were mosques and temples functionally equivalent as religious and political monuments? In short, the monograph explores the basis for the view, currently much in vogue, of wholesale temple destruction by Muslims in medieval India.