ievers, the wicked", with epithets like accursed and hapless tossed in for good measure.(85) Babur conquers not for Indias riches, but "For the sake of Islam"(87) Baburs experience of Islam is one of a master ruler manipulating a religion to provide political justifica-tion for his ruler and moral ammunition for the soldiers and for war. 250 years later, after the Battle of Plassey and after the dwindling of the Mughal empire, we see a young Indian-English boy experience a similarly violence-sanctioning Islam, this time on the receiving end. His captors are Haider Ali (Hyder) and Tipu Sultan (Tippoo), who were aware of the danger of the East India Company and the need to secure a independent army and in-come in order to combat British power.(Stein, 210) Thus Islam in the 1780s is again manipulated politically to bolster Muslim rulers strength in the face of British presence and continuous harassment provided by the Marathas. Scurry and his companions are pieces in a larger geo-political game when they are told by a European in Muslim dress "that we were to be circumcised and made Mohammedans of, by the express order of Hyder."(102) It is unclear on the side of Haider, if a genuine conversion was wanted. However, there is no doubt that Haider and the Muslim elite understood the efficacy of forced conversion on destroying not only the boys morale, but the morale of the English officers they had accompanied. Much like the Hindu rulers who had held Hajj pilgrims hostage, or like Tipus use of a Hindu tem-ple as a dungeon(123), the public Islamicization of English boys served as exquisite psychological warfare. After the circumcisions and a painful cleans-ing ritual, the boys were "hailed as the children of the Prophet, and the favourites of the Nabob" (104) and paraded before the English officers prisons in full Mohammedan dress" (105) Scurry conjectures it is "grief [that] de-stroyed Colonel Baileys constitution", as he cried w...
