In India the infidels occupy one continuous piece of land and inhabit regions which are adjacent to those of the Muslims. The Muslims dominate the in… - Ibn Battuta

Most interesting and instructive are the details connected with Alapur, a small city, most of whose inhabitants were infidels under protection (zimmi). The commandant of this place “was one of those heroes, whose bravery was proverbial. Ceaselessly and quite alone he would fall upon the infidels and would kill them or take them prisoner, so much so that his reputation spread widely and he made a name for himself and the infidels feared him”. One day he fell upon a Hindu village and was killed in course of the fray. But his slaves seized the village. “They put its male population to the sword and made the womenfolk prisoner and seized everything in it”. Later, the Hindus avenged the insult by killing his son (p. 162-63). Immediately after narrating this, Ibn Batiitah mentions an incident which shows the precarious tenure of a Hindu life. When he visited Gwalior he went to see the commandant who ‘‘was going to cut an infidel into two halves’. At Ibn Batitah’s request the life of the infidel was saved (p.163)...
One day while Ibn Batitah was taking his meals with the Sultan a Hindu (infidel) “was brought in along with his wife and their son who was seven years of age. The Sultan beckoned the executioners ordering them to cut off the Hindu’s (infidel’s) head”’, and then uttered some words meaning “and his wife and son”. Ibn Batitah turned away his eyes while this was being done. Another day the Sultan ordered the hands and feet of a Hindu to be cut off. Ibn Batiitah left the place on pretence of saying prayers, and when he returned he found the unfortunate Hindu weltering in blood (p. 228)... In the capital city of a Hindu State in Malabar coast, “there are about four thousand Muslims, who inhabit a suburb of their own inside the jurisdiction of the city. There is fighting between them and the inhabitants of the city often” (p. 185)... The Brahmans, says Ibn Batitah, “are revered by the infidels and inspire hatred in the Muslims” (p. 188).

After five days’ travelling we reached ‘Ala al-Mulk’s province, Lahari, a fine town on the coast where the river of Sind discharges itself into the ocean. It possesses a large harbour, visited by men from Yemen, Fars, and elsewhere. For this reason its contributions to the Treasury and its revenues are considerable; the governor told me that the revenue from this town amounted to sixty lakhs per annum. The governor receives a twentieth part of this, that being the footing on which the sultan commits the provinces to his governors. I rode out one day with ‘Ala al-Mulk, and we came to a plain called Tarna, seven miles from Lahari, where I saw an innumerable quantity of stones in the shape of men and animals. Many of them were disfigured and their forms effaced, but there remained a head or a foot or something of the sort. Some of the stones also had the shape of grains of wheat, chickpeas, beans and lentils, and there were remains of a city wall and house walls. We too saw the ruins of a house with a chamber of hewn stones, in the midst of which there was a platform of hewn stones resembling a single block, surmounted by a human figure, except that its head was elongated and its mouth on the side of its face and its hands behind its back like a pinioned captive. The place had pools of stinking water and an inscription on one of its walls in Indian characters. ‘Ala al-Mulk told me that the historians relate that in this place there was a great city whose inhabitants were so depraved that they were turned to stone, and that it is their king who is on the terrace in the house, which is still called ‘the king’s palace.’ They add that the inscription gives the date of the destruction of the people of that city, which occurred about a thousand years ago.

One day I rode in company with ‘Alã-ul-mulk and arrived at a plain called Tarna at a distance of seven miles from the city. There I saw innumerable stone images and animals, many of which had undergone a change, the original shape being obliterated. Some were reduced to a head, others to a foot and so on. Some of the stones were shaped like grain, wheat, peas, beans and lentils. And there were traces of a house which contained a chamber built of hewn stone, the whole of which looked like one solid mass. Upon it was a statue in the form of a man, the only difference being that its head was long, its mouth was towards a side of its face and its hands at its back like a captive’s. There were pools of water from which an extremely bad smell came. Some of the walls bore Hindî inscriptions. ‘Alã-ul-mulk told me that the historians assume that on this site there was a big city, most of the inhabitants of which were notorious. They were changed into stone. The petrified human form on the platform in the house mentioned above was that of their king. The house still goes by the name of ‘the king’s house’. It is presumed that the Hindî inscriptions, which some of the walls bear, give the history of the destruction of the inhabitants of this city. The destruction took place about a thousand years ago…