Question

why was northern india greatly influenced by Muslim culture

Answer 1

Except for Jammu & Kashmir none of these regions have Muslim majority.Yet some of these states have significant Islamic cultural influence because of years of Muslim rule. It is natural that however a person resists or how much ever they try to not modify their culture, cultural influences of those that are in power can easily influence others.

It was the same thing that happened when the British ruled. There was a significant influence on Indian culture. This is the same with Islamic culture and this is also true when Buddhist ideas were adopted to Hinduism during Ashoka's rule and even when Puranic ideas were absorbed over Vedantic ideas during Gupta's rule.

Inspite of states like Kerala, Assam or Bengal having a even higher Muslim population, the center of power was less in the hands of Islamic rulers compared to the core of North India. So you can find Muslims in these states closer to local cultural practices than the Islamic culture.

Another factor is that UP, Delhi and Punjab used to have a significant Muslim population. But after partition the numbers decreased steeply. So though these states seem to have less Muslim population today, Islamic culture influence is still significant.

In fact in places like Gujarat, Kerala and West Bengal where Islam traditionally spread via trade exchanges, those Muslims adopted local cultural practices while Islam that spread under Muslim rulers had influence the other way round.

plz mark me as brainliest