The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c7.1

c7.1

In the last chapter have been described the stages in which Punjab and Sind were annexed to the growing Ghoride empire. Muslim rule in these countries was not new; the conquest was little more than a dynastic change, and resistance to the invader could never assume the colour of a socio-religious war. Such conflict was bound to occur in territories which had an unbroken tradition of Hindu rule, and there it was that the Turco-Muslims met with real and sustained opposition. Not only were they of an alien race but were followers of a religion which had little in common with that practised in India. Hinduism has amazing powers of assimilation; it has absorbed countless peoples in the past whose identity is now lost in the mosaic of Indian society and culture. But not so the Muslims; they resolutely maintained their identity and refused compromise in religion. For the first time in her history, India was to reconcile herself to the existence of a separate culture-community.