The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c19.34

v3.c19.34

The later history of Islam in Sind is obscure, but the religion flourished, and retained its dominion over idolatry. The authority of the Caliphs in the province was virtually extinguished in 871, when two Arab chiefs established independent principalities at Multān and Mansūrah. The former comprised the upper valley of the united Indus as far as Aror; the latter extended from that town to the sea, and nearly coincided with the modern province of Sind. Little is known of the details of the history of these dynasties, but they seem to have left the administration of the country largely in the hands of natives and to have tolerated freely the Hindu religion. Their power was maintained by an Arab soldiery supported by grants of land, and though they were in fact independent they retained the fiction of subordination to the Caliphate, for as late as the beginning of the eleventh century, when Mahmūd of Ghaznī was wasting northern India with fire and sword, the Muslim governor of Sind professed to be the Caliph’s representative.