Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c8.34

c8.34

Similarly, the evidence of the Arab-geographers shows that India was a thickly populated country in the ninth and tenth centuries. Al Masudi, writing about A.D. 941-42, speaks of Kanauj as a very great kingdom. It had four armies. "Each of them numbers 700,000 to 900,000 men",¹⁹ and is assigned to repulse an attack in any of the four directions. About Multan Masudi says, "it is one of the strongest frontier places of the Musalmans, and around it there are one hundred and twenty thousand towns and villages".²⁰ Ibn Hauqal, who finished his work in A.D. 976, also calls Multan a city with a strong fort, "but Mansura is more fertile and prosperous".²¹ Debal "is a large mart, and the port not only of this but neighbouring regions".²² These geographers were interested only in Islamic countries, and stopped their narratives when they reached the extreme eastern border of the dominions of Islam',²³ namely Sind, where Muslims ruled, and Gujarat, with which they had commercial intercourse. Even so, their general impression was that India was a large and populous country.