The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c11.123

v1.c11.123

The Arab conquest of Sind has been described as ‘a mere episode in the history of India which affected only a fringe of that vast country.’² As a political force or from the point of view of Arab missionary enterprise the Arab conquest of Sind certainly played an inferior part. But trade was active during the period; and with the interchange of commodities there appears to have been also an exchange of ideas. Arab Sind formed a link in a vast empire and the Arabs soon became the carriers of the seed of Indian culture and mediums of exchange of eastern and western thoughts.³ Astronomy in Arab civilization seems to have come chiefly from India. The study of Mathematics learned from Greece and India, was developed by Arab writers, who in their turn became the teachers of Europe in the 16th century. Al-Bīrūnī tells us that the numeral signs which the Arabs used were ‘derived from the finest forms of the Hindu signs.’ In this connection Amir Khusrau, the Persian poet (died 1325 A.D.) in one of his *mathnavīs* entitled the *Nuh sipihr* (nine skies) gives us some interesting information. According to him the word *Hindsa* (هندسه) means the mathematical system of the Indian professor *Āsa*. He tells us that the Arab astronomer Abū Ma‘shar went to Benares and studied this system for ten years, and we are informed that whatever he has written is derived from the Hindus. This Abū Ma'shar is probably to be identified with Abū Ma'shar of Balkh, who died in 885 A.D.¹ In the field of medicine, folklore, and religion also the contact was not less fruitful. Al-Bīrūnī has already noticed the Arab translation of the work of Caraka and the stories of the *Pañcatantra*, known in his time as the book of Kalīla and Dimna. In religion, in the opinion of competent authorities, the monastic strain and other features in Ṣūfism such as the use of the rosaries, the doctrine of fanā (*Nirvāṇa*?), and the system of 'stations' (*maqāmāt*) on the road thereto were borrowed from Buddhism and other schools of Indian thought. Writing on Ṣūfism Prof. Nicholson observes: "It looks as though the legend of Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, a prince of Balkh, who one day suddenly cast off his royal robes and became a wandering Ṣūfī, were based on the story of Buddha."