the taming of a river
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Incomplete Question.....
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This is one great historical puzzle. To solve it, we need to understand a few things.
First, we need to understand that for most of history, Bengal, especially the Eastern part, was frontier land. By frontier, I mean as Americans use it: it was a limit of civilized settlement. Sanskritic civilization had penetrated the Western part bordering Bihar and Orissa, etc. What happened in the Eastern part was a mystery. There were practitioners of animistic faith, Sino Tibetan people, Buddhist faith, Khasi people, Hindu faith, descendants of Arabs, even Christians. But most of the area was thickly forested with few exceptions like Vikrampur (Sena capital). Abul Fazl (1590) writes of a people around Chittagong forests who don’t have beard, who are neither Hindu nor Muslim, and who have unusual practices like brother-sister marriage.
Next, we need to understand that the mighty Ganges river or Ganga has shifted course. In year 1000 AD, its delta used to be where river Bhagirathi (Adi Ganga) is today in West Bengal . It has shifted Eastwards to where rivers Padma and Meghana are now in East Bengal. Roughly 1/3rd of the land of Bangladesh was obtained after 1200 AD as new alluvial plain was added by a river changing its course. That explains why Hindu pilgrimage centers are on Bhagirathi (like Mayapur) and none where Ganga’s delta is right now. Most of the fertile new land created, of course, was quickly encroached by forests.
So, we have frontier land, increase in fertility of Eastern land , and new land appearing. And add to that mix: the appearance of the energetic Mughals. By 1610, most of Bengal is under Mughals. Mughals were not active proselytizers, but they were interested in maximizing revenue. So they encourage a policy of Agrarian expansion: clear the forest, bring the land to cultivation, and settle it with people. East Bengal is called Bhati to be distinguished from West Bengal which is just Bangal. An agricultural boom of epic proportions sweeps this new area: wet-rice from East Bengal feeds far off places like Maldives. Revenue from Bhati quadruples as the boom ensues. It was an ecological disaster as rainforests are cleared but the economic boom in real.
Where does Islam come into this? Because most of pioneers are Muslims with the Mulla or Pir as the frontier man and Masjid or Sufi shrine as the nucleus of expansion . The insightful book The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 records how Islam took root with the taming of the East. In it author, Richard M. Eaton writes:
Although Vaishnava temples, śaiva temples, and individual Brahmans received numerous forest grants, the bulk of these went to members of Islam’s religious gentry—petty mullās, pilgrims returned from Mecca, preachers, and holy men (pīrs)—men who had overseen, or had undertaken to oversee, the clearing of forest and the construction of mosques or shrines ….. Islam became a religion of the plow….
Just as the Brazilian frontier and expansion led to the growth in the numbers of Portuguese-speakers and Catholic-adherents, and American frontier and expansion led to the growth of English language and Protestant religion; Bengali frontier and expansion led to the growth of speakers of Bengali language and followers of Islamic religion. This 17–18th century expansion of Bengal resulted in the largest Islamic group outside of Arabs becoming Bengalis.
This unique expansion happened only at the new alluvial plains of Bengal and never at the hills or at the fully-settled old Ganges plains of the West. Hence Muslim Bangladesh gets “surrounded” by non-Muslims, in answer to your question.
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