Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c14.20

c14.20

Similar was the situation in Gujarat. A military expedition was sent out in A.D. 636 from Uman to pillage the coasts of India. It proceeded as far as Thana (near Bombay).¹³ About the same time expeditions were sent to Broach and Debul, but because of Caliph Umar's opposition to hazardous voyages, the policy of armed interference by sea remained in abeyance. Meanwhile commerce by sea continued. In the eighth century, Arab fleets attacked Broach and port towns on the Kathiawar coast.¹⁴ Thus because of armed attacks, but more so through the channel of trade, foreign Muslims and indigenous converts began to be seen in the coastal towns of Gujarat. Ibn Hauqal (A.D 968) observes that ‘from Kambaya to Saimur is the land of Balhara...It is a land of infidels, but there are Muslims in its cities’.¹⁵ Masudi, who visited India in 916, found Muslims of Siraf, Oman, Baghdad and Basra at Saimur (modern Chaul) besides others who were children of Arabs born there. There were Jama Masjids at Famhal, Sindan, Saimur (Chaul) and Kambaya.¹⁶ All these facts indicate the presence of some Muslims in Gujarat. But their number was not large. This finds confirmation in the fact that in an attack on Cambay's Muslims, in the middle of the eleventh century, when there was almost a general massacre, only eighty persons had been killed.¹⁷ Besides, the population of traders is by nature and profession migratory, and the number of the Muslims in Gujarat does not seem to have been large.