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An unexpected, perhaps inevitable but nevertheless, sad consequence of the multiple traumas of 1857 was a decline in the status of Persian in India. In consequence the ashraf suffered most, and some of the rational sciences, those distinctive contributions of Iran and Central Asia to Indian Islam, began to lose their relevance and were in the process cultivated less and less. Instead traditions that emphasised the study of the Quran and the hadith and which mingled with the Naqshbandi accent on reform became ascendant in Islamic thinking. Seeds of introspective Sufism, planted long back by Sheikh Ahmad Sarhindi, began to flower. Besides, Indian Islam began moving more towards the orthodox, with a sharper, more fundamentalist hue. The ashraf did not, or could not, resist this change for they, (besides, other factors) were far too ease-loving to be in the front ranks of the energetic wielders of this proselytising sword of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n