The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c8.s15.2

c8.s15.2

The late Stanely Lane-poole expressed the opinion that the Arab conquest of Sindh was “an episode in the history of India and Islam, a triumph without results.” This has been accepted as correct by many writers of Indian history. The history of the Arabs in Sindh, according to them, shows that the Arab adventure “led to nothing.” The province, of course, remained in their hands till its conquest and annexation by the Turks; but the Arabs, who had a glorious record of conquest elsewhere, never succeeded in making a concentrated effort to conquer any other province, to say nothing of a major portion of our country. They had, no doubt, made a promising beginning, but their success, whatever it was, did not lead them beyond the frontiers of Sindh and Multan, except for a stray raid here and there. Hence the verdict of historians that the Arab conquest of Sindh was a mere episode in the history of Islam. As far as India was concerned, it learnt no lesson, and our people did not pause to consider the necessity of making a combined attempt to drive away the Arab invader from Sindh, nor did they make any attempt to close their ranks and to guard their north-western frontier from any future danger from that side. They were found as unprepared and as indifferent to the happenings outside three centuries later when the Turks began hammering the gates of their frontiers as in the early years of the eighth century A.D. when Muhammad bin Qasim took Dahir by surprise. It is for this reason that the Arab conquest of Sindh is an episode in the history of India. Historians have attributed the impermanence of the Arab regime to many causes. They can conveniently be divided into two, namely, internal causes and external causes. Among the internal causes the most important was the internal weakness of the Khalifa's empire. As has already been shown, a revolution at Damascus in 750 A.D. led to the overthrow of the Umayyaids by the Abbasids which greatly weakened the power and prestige of the Caliphate. The quarrel between the two ruling houses was carried into Sindh and dealt a mortal blow to the Arab prestige there. Secondly, in the wake of this revolution there occurred a still greater revolution in Baghdad which transformed the character and mode of life of the Arabs. Under Harun-al-Rashid the Arabs forgot their old vigour and "lost touch with everything original and vital in Islam." They became fond of a luxurious way of life and preferred speculative philosophy to the "Quranic orthodoxy and Arabian simplicity." This led to their eventual demoralization, making the Arabs unfit for any great military exploit or for an adventure in the field of administration. Thirdly, a wave of nationalism swept over the Muslim world and rent the primitive Islamic brotherhood into factions. Religious schism, too, raised its head high. A number of heretical sects appeared on the scene. Fourthly, under the religious impulse the Arabs had accomplished the conquest of Sindh. After their success, however, when they had consolidated their position in the province and their religious enthusiasm died out, their unity disappeared and they showed themselves incapable of coalescing into a system of concord and subordination. Fifthly, the Arab domination received a rude shock at the hands of the Turkish ambition which usurped power and reduced the Khalifa's empire to a mere phantom. Under these circumstances the Arab rulers could take little interest in the fortunes of their agents in Sindh. Sixthly, owing to these internal convulsions the Arabs could not spare adequate forces without which Sindh could not be retained in their possession and further conquests in India were unthinkable.