Indian Muslims: Who Are They c7.23

c7.23

However, during this period a good number of Afghans had migrated to India, compensating to some extent the loss of Muslim population. In the region comprising the modern districts of Bijnor, Moradabad, Badaon, Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Rohilla Afghans had started settling in the seventeenth century.⁶⁶ Sometime during the reign of Shahjahan, Daud Zai Afghans (had) settled in this tract and founded the important town of Shahjahanpur. But in the eighteenth century, while the rise of Nadir Shah scattered the Afghans in their own country and many of them came to India, the disturbed political state of India and the anxiety of the different leaders to secure military assistance of the warlike Afghans provided the necessary openings which the Afghans well utilized.⁶⁷ Thus the displacement from Qandhar and the country around by Nadir Shah and the pull exercised by the political vacuum caused by the rapid decline of the Mughal empire resulted in the immigration of a goodly number of Afghans.⁶⁸ By the middle of the eighteenth century Najibuddaulah, a Yusufzai Rohilla Nawab in India, declared on the eve of the battle of Panipat (1761) that he could depend upon the support of 150,000 Afghans who were in India.⁶⁹