The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c12.55

v1.c12.55

The steps which gradually brought Islam into the Kābul valley, are recorded in the Arab annals, and incidentally throw some light on the history of the Hindu dynasties that ruled from the Zarah Lake to the Indus river. In the year A.H. 30 (A.D. 650), the Arab general ‘Abd Ullāh ibn ‘Āmir, when he set out for Khurāsān, despatched ar-Rabī‘ ibn-Ziyād to Sijistān.¹ Ar-Rabī‘ reached the Hindamand (Helmund) and appeared before Zaranj, the capital of the country. The people of the city “opposed him fiercely” and “a number of Moslems were wounded,” but in the end they were defeated and driven back into the city with slaughter. Ar-Rabī‘ struck terror into the heart of the *Satrap*, who submitted and allowed the Arab general to enter the city.² Balādhūrī, to whom we are indebted for this account does not tell us the name of the overlord of this *Satrap*. But it seems from his subsequent account that he was probably an officer of the line of Indian princes who ruled in the Kābul and Helmund valleys and were variously known to the Arabs as Rutbīl, Rantbīl, or Zunbīl.³ After two and a half years Ibn ‘Āmir next appointed ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Samurah as governor of Sijistān. This new officer compelled the Satrap to pay him 2,000,000 dirhams, and made himself the “master over everything between Zaranj and Kishsh⁴ of the land of al-Hind, and over that part of the region of the road of ar-Rukhkhaj which is between it and the province of ad-Dāwar.”⁵ In his description of this campaign