With the conquest of northern India by the Muhammadans, many
of the Minas, being bound by no ties to Hinduism, might be expected
to embrace the new and actively proselytising religion, while their
robber bands would receive fugitive Muhammadans as recruits as well
as Hindus. Thus probably arose a Musalman branch of the community,
who afterwards became separately designated as the Meos. As already
seen, the Meos and Minas intermarried for a time, but subsequently
ceased to do so. As might be expected, the form of Islam professed
by the Meos is of a very bastard order, and Major Powlett's account
of it is reproduced in a short separate notice of that tribe.

3. Their robberies

The crimes and daring of the Minas have obtained for them a
considerable place in history. A Muhammadan historian, Zia-ud-din
Bami, wrote of the tribe: [265] "At night they were accustomed to
come prowling into the city of Delhi, giving all kinds of trouble and
depriving people of their rest, and they plundered the country houses
in the neighbourhood of the city. Their daring was carried to such an
extent that the western gates of the city were shut at afternoon prayer
and no one dared to leave it after that hour, whether he travelled
as a pilgrim or with the display of a king. At afternoon prayer they
would often come to the Sarhouy, and assaulting the water-carriers
and girls who were fetching water they would strip them and carry
off their clothes. In turn they were treated by the Muhammadan rulers
with the most merciless cruelty. Some were thrown under the feet of
elephants, others were cut in halves with knives, and others again were
flayed alive from head to foot." Regular campaigns against them were
undertaken by the Muhammadans, [266] as in later times British forces
had to be despatched to subdue the Pindaris. Babar on his arrival at
Agra described the Mewati leader Raja Hasan Khan as 'the chief agitator
in all these confusions and insurrections'; and Firishta mentions two
terrible slaughters of Mewatis in A.D. 1259 and 1265. In 1857 Major
Powlett records that in Alwar they assembled and burnt the State ricks
and carried off cattle, though they did not succeed in plundering any
towns or villages there. In British territory they sacked Firozpur
and other villages, and when a British force came to restore order
many were hanged. Sir D. Ibbetson wrote of them in the Punjab: [267]

"The Minas are the boldest of our criminal classes. T