ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the interrelationships and mutual perceptions of Muslims and Hindus—in particular between Muslims and Caitanya Vaisnava Hindus—under various Muslim-dominated regimes in Bengal. It sketches the broad framework of Muslim–Hindu relationships throughout the period of Muslim dominance from the early thirteenth through mid eighteenth centuries. The chapter examines in detail Caitanya Vaisnavas’ relations with Muslims in three specific areas: Caitanya’s associates’ involvement with the Husain Shahi sultanate early in the sixteenth century, Vaisnava leaders’ roles in the consolidation of Mughal rule in Bengali toward the turn of the seventeenth century, and Vaisnava zamindars’ relationships with the semi-autonomous Mughal nawabs in the eighteenth century. The strategic situation of the Mughals in Bengal was quite different. They were outsiders, not upholders of an autonomous Bengal and a Bengali way of life. Bengal in the time of Caitanya had already experienced nearly 300 years of Muslim-dominated regimes.
