Somanatha, an ancient South-Asian city whose temple was allegedly raided by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026, became a rallying point for the British and later, Hindu Nationalists. The British ignored Hindu sources from the time period which made no mention of Ghazni’s raid. Rather, they relied solely on Muslim chronicles trying to legitimate their ruler’s power and legitimacy. In fact, they deliberately mistranslated these chronicles which wrote about various raids simply as war against a neighbouring kingdom–whether Muslim, Hindu, or Jain–and turned these commonplace raids into jihads, or holy wars against infidels. In reality, South Asia around this medieval time period was very diverse, fractured amongst many kingdoms. There was no Hindu/Muslim animosity. Rather Hindus and Muslims lived and worked together quite peacefully. The temple at Somanath around the time of Ghazni’s raid even had a dedication inscription by a local Muslim merchant in both Arabic and Sanskrit. To find the cause of the raid one must look at politics instead of religion.
