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Pakistan
Index
Figure 3. Kushan Empire, ca. A.D. 150
Source: Based on information from William C. Brice, ed., An
Historical Atlas of Islam, Leiden, 1981, 47-53; and C. Collin
Davies, An Historical Atlas of the Indian Peninsula,
London, 1959, 15.
The initial entry of Islam into India came in the first
century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad
(see Basic Tenets of Islam
, ch. 2). The Umayyad caliph in Damascus sent an
expedition to Balochistan and Sindh in 711 led by Muhammad
bin
Qasim (for whom Karachi's second port is named). The
expedition
went as far north as Multan but was not able to retain
that
region and was not successful in expanding Islamic rule to
other
parts of India. Coastal trade and the presence of a Muslim
colony
in Sindh, however, permitted significant cultural
exchanges and
the introduction into the subcontinent of saintly teachers
(Sufi--see Glossary).
Muslim influence grew with conversions.
Almost three centuries later, the Turks and the Afghans
spearheaded the Islamic conquest in India through the
traditional
invasion routes of the northwest. Mahmud of Ghazni
(979-1030) led
a series of raids against Rajput kingdoms and rich Hindu
temples
and established a base in Punjab for future incursions.
Mahmud's
tactics originated the legend of idol-smashing Muslims
bent on
plunder and forced conversions, a reputation that persists
in
India to the present day.
During the last quarter of the twelfth century,
Muhammad of
Ghor invaded the Indo-Gangetic Plain, conquering in
succession
Ghazni, Multan, Sindh, Lahore, and Delhi. His successors
established the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, the
Mamluk
Dynasty (mamluk means "slave") in 1211 (however, the Delhi
Sultanate is traditionally held to have been founded in
1206).
The territory under control of the Muslim rulers in Delhi
expanded rapidly. By mid-century, Bengal and much of
central
India was under the Delhi Sultanate. Several Turko-Afghan
dynasties ruled from Delhi: the Mamluk (1211-90), the
Khalji
(1290-1320), the Tughlaq (1320-1413), the Sayyid
(1414-51), and
the Lodhi (1451-1526). As Muslims extended their rule into
southern India, only the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar
remained
immune, until it too fell in 1565. Although some kingdoms
remained independent of Delhi in the Deccan and in
Gujarat, Malwa
(central India), and Bengal, almost all of the area in
presentday Pakistan came under the rule of Delhi.
The sultans of Delhi enjoyed cordial, if superficial,
relations with Muslim rulers in the Near East but owed
them no
allegiance. The sultans based their laws on the Quran and
the
sharia (see Glossary)
and permitted non-Muslim subjects to
practice their religion only if they paid
jizya (see Glossary)
or head tax. The sultans ruled from urban
centers--while military camps and trading posts provided the nuclei
for
towns that sprang up in the countryside. Perhaps the
greatest
contribution of the sultanate was its temporary success in
insulating the subcontinent from the potential devastation
of the
Mongol invasion from Central Asia in the thirteenth
century. The
sultanate ushered in a period of Indian cultural
renaissance
resulting from the stimulation of Islam by Hinduism. The
resulting "Indo-Muslim" fusion left lasting monuments in
architecture, music, literature, and religion. The
sultanate
suffered from the sacking of Delhi in 1398 by Timur
(Tamerlane)
but revived briefly under the Lodhis before it was
conquered by
the Mughals.
Data as of April 1994
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