Sikandar won the sobriquet of but-shikan or idol-breaker, due to his actions related to the desecration and destruction of numerous temples, chaityas, viharas, shrines, hermitages, and other holy places of the Hindus and Buddhists. He banned dance, drama, music, iconography and such other religious, cultural or aesthetic activities of the Hindus and Buddhists, and classified them as heretical and un-Islamic. He forbade the Hindus to apply a tilak mark on their foreheads.