Indian Muslims: Who Are They c4.8

c4.8

Similar was the situation in Gujarat. A military expedition was sent out in C.E. 636 from Oman 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 Umars 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 (C.E. 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 and Kambaya.¹⁶ All these facts indicate the presence of some Muslims in Gujarat. But their number was small. This finds confirmation in the fact that in an anti-Muslim riot in Cambay, in the middle of the eleventh century, only eighty persons had been killed.¹⁷ Besides, the population of traders is by nature and profession migratory, and the number of Muslims in Gujarat does not seem to have been large.