(۱) The historian who tries to give a survey of the history and situation of Islam in Indo-Pakistan is faced with constant contradictions. (2) On the one hand he admires the cultural activities of devoted mystical leaders, of orders and fraternities which formed the nuclei of spiritual life in the Middle Ages and won over many Hindus to the Islamic faith. (3) On the other hand he deplores the constant succession of wars, feuds, and display of the darkest sides of political history; a history of kings who all too often ordered their followers “to relieve an enemy’s (or relative’s) body from the wieght of his head”, yet who adorned India with some of the most grandiose sacred buildings in the world of Islam. (4) The tension inherent in the many-sided and colourful Indian Islam seems to be expressed best in the two sons of Shahjahan and Mumtaz Mahal, whose mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, embodies everyone’s dream of an ideal India: Dara Shikoh the mystic and Aurangzeb the practical, orthodox minded ruler reflect those trends, which were to result finally in the partition of the Subcontinent in 1947. (5) Literature on the subject is equally equivocal.