of temples and their significance, wOverall, the policy of

Preservation of temples with Islamic religious justification is a long-running tradition in India. The first Muslim army to come to India in 711 under Muhammad bin Qasim promised religious freedom and security of temples to Hindus and Buddhists. The same policy had been followed for hundreds of years before the Mughals. However, Aurangzeb did not disregard the Islamic laws regarding protection of religious minorities. Aurangzeb himself even noted that Islamically, temple desecration was not permitted when in 1659 he wrote, “According to the Shariah [Islamic law], and the exalted creed, it has been established that ancient temples should not be torn down.” 1
So if Aurangzeb did not demolish temples for religious reasons, why did he do it? The answer lies in the political nature of temples in the 1600s.
Hindu and Sikh temples (unlike Muslim mosques) were not just places of worship. They also had political significance. Temples acted as political offices and state property, and the priests that were in charge of them were in the employ of the government. When seeking to get the support of Hindus in a particular area, Mughal emperors (and even Hindu kings in non-Mughal areas) would rely on the priests to rally the local population through the temple. As such, a temple was more than just a religious building, it was also a potentially powerful political tool.
With this understanding of temples and their significance, we can move on to understand Aurangzeb’s destruction of certain temples. No historical records show that he had an indiscriminate policy of temple destruction across India. The temples he chose to destroy were carefully selected and a small fraction of the total Hindu houses of worship in India. This is because when Aurangzeb chose a temple for destruction, it was a politically motivated act, not a religious one.