Tipu formed a large corps of young Muslim lads whom he called his sons and now provided them with handsome young wives from the Hindu fold. These atrocities were perpetrated during the wet months of 1785. In Malabar he had converted, in one stroke, a hundred thousand Hindus to his faith. Portuguese missionaries wrote that 'he tied naked Christians and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces.' In 1786 he declared himself emperor and had the khutba read in his name in all the mosques throughout his kingdom. His contention was that 'those idiots who introduce the name of Shah Alam in the khutba act through ignorance since the real condition of the so called emperor is this: that he is actually enslaved and a servant of the Scindia. So to pronounce the name of someone dependent on the infidels while reciting the sacred khutba was blasphemy.