majority of the population of Bengal proper (50.2 percent compared with the Hindus at 48.5 percent). However, in the eastern part of Bengal, Muslims were thick on the ground. The proportions of Muslims in Rajshahi, Dhaka and Chittagong divisions were 63.2, 63.6 and 67.9 percent respectively. The debate draws on the writings of some late nineteenth-century authors, but in its current form was initially formulated in 1963 by M.A. Rahim. Rahim suggested that a significant proportion of Bengal's Muslims were not Hindu converts but were descendants of 'aristocratic' immigrants from various parts of the Muslim world. Specifically, he estimated that in 1770, of about 10.6 million Muslims in Bengal, 3.3 million (about 30 percent) had 'foreign blood'. In the late 1980s Richard Eaton, in a book and a series of papers, raised awkward questions about the social liberation theory of conversion from Hinduism to Islam that have yet to be fully addressed, further endorsing Rahim's argument. In the late 19th century, when the first census was conducted on Bengal region in the year of (1872), it was found that the number of Hindus are at (18m) and Muslims at (17.5m) were almost the same. According to the 1872 Census, only 1.52% or say 2.66 lakhs of the Bengali Muslim population claimed foreign ancestry. Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah was born as Jadu, the son of Hindu King Raja Ganesha. He later ruled most of Bengal as a converted Muslim. Jalaluddin played a major role in converting the Hindus of Bengal to Islam. He maintained good rapport with Non-Muslims in his kingdom. According to an interpretation of a Sanskrit sloka by D. C. Bhattacharya, Jalaluddin appointed Rajyadhar, a Hindu, as the commander of his army. He gained support of Muslim scholars – Ulama and the Shaikhs. He reconstructed and repaired the mosques and other religious architectures destroyed by Raja Ganesha. British colonial period The Bengal region was annexed by the East India Company (EIC) in 1757. In the following decades, Bengalis led numerous revolts against Company rule. In the early 19th century, Titumir led a peasant uprising against the East India Company. Meanwhile, the Bengali Muslim Haji Shariatullah led the Faraizi movement, which advocated Islamic revivalism. The Faraizis sought to create a caliphate and cleanse the region's Muslim society of what they deemed "un-Islamic practices". They were successful in galvanising the Bengali peasantry against the EIC. However, the movement experienced a crackdown after