dynamics of yore

The key to understand human nature is wealth if you ask Marx, sex if you ask Freud and power if you ask Russell. I don't dare to take sides in this tri-party war therefore, let me bypass this war ground altogether. Coming to the contemporary writing we've got another couple of freaks who think they have found the philosopher's stone when they try to prove "People respond to incentives" in their books titled 'Freakonomics' and 'Superfreakonomics'. They say that the key to understand human nature is in understanding the incentives that lie behind their decisions. Let us give this theory a chance...

In the recorded history of India there is no evidence of any large scale forced conversion of non-muslims into Islam. With few notable exceptions all the muslim rulers of medieval India were bigots, they often plundered and destroyed shrines of other religions and many of them were cruel as well. But even Aurangzeb-the most fanatic of all didn't resort to forced conversions. Why? Perhaps the economical incentives explain this. Almost all the muslim rulers be it Delhi sultanate period or the Mughal period imposed an additional tax called 'Jaziya' on all non-Muslims and the revenue generated from that tax constituted a big chunk in income of the state. So once a Hindu is converted into Islam he ceases to be a source of additional income. And a sane ruler would not jeopardize royal treasury just for the sake of proselytizing. There was a strong disincentive for forcible conversion. Wasn't it mentioned earlier that "People respond to incentives"?

Just one thing which needs to be added is that all the mughal emperors except Aurangzeb were more like sufi muslims than like extremist mullahs. They celebrated art, music, poetry and were inclusive of non-muslims in their court. They were not so much bigoted as their stereotypical portrayals are. Hence, the reason given in above para may not be the only reason that explain the lack of forcible conversions.