Mughal religious tolerance tempered some British Islamophobia before 1857

Evidence

The third aspect of pre-1857 conditions that mitigated British Islamophobia was the model of tolerance some Britons saw as instrumental to Mughal success. For instance, long after Mughal political power had evaporated, Anglican bishop Reginald Heber reported in his Indian travelogue (1828) that “the fierce Mohammadans” only had begun to question British control because Britons had disrespected the Mughal court. The same year, Walter Hamilton in his gazetteer of India stumped for a respectful Mughal policy, “The most rational course appeared to be, to leave the king’s authority exactly in the state in which it was found, and to afford the royal family the means of subsistence…not unsuitable to a fallen but illustrious race.” A quarter century later, Edward Thornton noted in his gazetteer, “The feelings of deference for the throne of Delhi extended to provinces very remote from the seat of its former grandeur, and to Hindoos not less than to Mahomedans. It was in fact universal.” Undoubtedly, this transcommunal respect must have struck some Britons in India as evidence of toleration’s advantages, just as Locke and others promoted at home. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 57

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Locke’s writings on toleration, and to scholarship on how colonial observers rationalized Mughal decline while admiring its tolerance. — connects to: Diminished Muslim threat let British observers admire Mughal culture despite Orientalist negative stereotypes. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 52; British anti-Muslim prejudice outlasted the 1857 rebellion by decades. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 62; Mughal rulers employed a policy of wide religious inclusion. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1263 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• British anti-Muslim prejudice outlasted the 1857 rebellion by decades. #qualifies-own (0.70) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 62
• Mughal rulers employed a policy of wide religious inclusion. #corroborates (0.50) — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 1263
• British Islamophobia intensified only when Muslims ceased to be a safely declining power #complicates (0.50)
• British colonial ideology consolidated the essentialized idea of Islam as a homogeneous threat #complicates (0.40)
• Western hostility to Islam shifted from theological to political rationales across the centuries #expands (0.40) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 106
• Although Britons in India differed from Americans because of the active (if exaggerated) threat to their political order, both shared a conviction regarding two alleged qualities of Islam that… #qualifies (0.40)
• Direct contact with Muslims shaped imperial perceptions of Islam. #corroborates (0.40) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 118
• Nineteenth-century Orientalism essentialized Muslims as intrinsically inferior during colonial expansion. #complicates (0.30) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 201