I think Hinduism being unorganized might have given political openings of rival abrahmic religions. But as far as the philosophy itself is concerned, this fluid unorganized nature is again the reason that Hinduism survived so well, after more than a millennia of persecution.
Most importantly, there is no nucleus that you can grab and attack. It's all in the air and it's everywhere .. like the grains of sand and the grass leaves.
In India this was the biggest issue faced by missionaries as well.
Regards,
Virendra
Well, there are two implicit assumptions made in this post:
1) By stating that the "fluid, unorganized nature" of Hinduism is the reason why it survived, you are assuming that more organized religions could not survive in similar circumstances. It that were true, there would be no Christian in Spain, Portugal, Serbia, Greece or Bulgaria today, let alone over 10 million Christians in Egypt, right in the middle of the Arab world.
2) You are also assuming that Hinduism was able to "resist" conversions by nature of its fluidity. That claim does not entirely withstand scrutiny. The largest conversions in Islamic history, in terms of sheer numbers of people converted, took place in the Indian subcontinent. In particular, the conversion of East Bengal ranks as the single largest conversion in Islamic history. Indeed, the Indian subcontinent today has more Muslims than the whole West Asia (the heart and birthplace of Islam) combined.
Many people assume Islam "failed" in the Indian subcontinent simply by looking at religious percentages of India today (some 80% "Hindu" and 15% Muslim, though the percentage of Muslims is much higher if one takes into account Pakistan and Bangladesh as well, both also part of the Indian subcontinent). However, this view is flawed. Before continuing, some basic points need to be made:
1) In general, Islamization is a long, protracted process spanning many centuries. There were hardly any regions of the world where Islam was instantly accepted en masse.
2) In general, Islamization proceeds much faster in sparsely-populated regions with small populations (like much of West Asia), than in densely-populated regions with large populations (like the Indian subcontinent). This is simply because it takes less time to reach a "critical mass" of converts in societies with small populations, than in those with large populations.
3) Continuing from above, the rate of conversion generally tends to increase with increasing numbers of Muslims, especially once the "critical mass" of Muslims as percent of the total population is reached.
Using these three basic, logically-derived assertions, we can better understand the progress of Islamization in the Indian subcontinent.
First, we should understand that the India has always been far more densely populated than West Asia, Central Asia, and North Africa. This is true as of the present, but the difference in population was even more pronounced in the past. For example, around 1900, the population of Iran was less than 10 million, and that of Syria and Iraq combined around 5 million, whereas the population of India was over 300 million. What this means, is that conversions could take place faster in these regions, than in India. If 100,000 Indians covert to Islam (for example), this would have much less impact on the overall character of society than if, say, 100,000 Syrians or 100,000 Iraqis converted to Islam. Having a larger population means that more people need to be converted before the "critical mass" can be reached, which leads to a corresponding decline in the rate of Islamization (as a percent of the whole) compared to less-populated societies. This is just basic mathematics, and nothing too complicated.
To get a better understanding of this, we should compare the growth of Islam in India with its growth in other regions. It is a popular misconception that many regions in West Asia were Islamized very rapidly, following the Arab conquests. But in reality, as I mentioned in the first point above, Islamization is almost always a slow process. In Iran and Anatolia for example, which had historical populations just a fraction of India's, Islamization took several centuries. Iran possessed a large Muslim majority only by the end of the 11th century (four centuries after the initial Islamic conquest), and the Islamization of Anatolia also took about four centuries from the initial Turkish conquests. Given how large India's population was compared to that of Iran or Anatolia, it is only natural that Islamization (as a percent of total population, but NOT in terms of raw numbers) would take much longer.
I also find it quite interesting that you mentioned the cliche of Hinduism surviving "after more than a millennia of persecution", even after arguing against the notion that Muslims dominated North India from the 13th-18th centuries (which is just half a millennium). But even in that half a millennium, the numbers of Muslim converts were quite large; as mentioned previously, the population of Subcontinental Muslims is larger than most West Asian countries put together. The parts of the Indian subcontinent that really DID witness over one millennium of Islamic rule, such as Sindh, NWFP, and parts of Panjab, are all overwhelmingly Muslim today (90%+).
