The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c8.s2: The causes
The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c8.s2
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The causes
c8.s2.1
Since time immemorial there had been commercial intercourse between India and Arabia. Long before the Arabs embraced Islam in the seventh century A.D., they used to visit our western coastal regions for trade and commerce and received a cordial welcome here. Our rulers and peoples, anxious to foster material prosperity, accorded generous treatment to these foreigners. There was hardly any change in our attitude towards them even after the Arabs had become Muslims. But certainly the Arab attitude towards our people and country underwent a great change owing to their religious and political cohesion and to the enthusiasm brought about in their native land by the teachings of Muhammad. Though commercial profit continued to be the avocation of a section of them, as before, the Arabian people, as a whole, had now begun cherishing the ambition of conquest and propagation of Islam. Their first expedition which aimed at the conquest of Thana near Bombay was undertaken as early as 636 A.D. (15 A.H.) during the Caliphate of Umar, but it was repulsed.² This was followed by successive expeditions to Broach,³ to the Gulf of Debal in Sindh and to Baluchistan (Makran), then a part of the Kingdom of Sindh.⁴ In spite of difficulties and defeats the Arabs continued raiding the frontier of Sindh both by land and sea. They concentrated their attacks on Kikan (Kikanan), a hilly region round the Bolan pass which was peopled by hardy Jats who led pastoral lives and who bravely defended their country from the Arab invaders. In 659 A.D. (39 A.H.) al-Haris gained some initial success, but was defeated and killed in 662 A.D.⁵ Another fruitless expedition was that of al-Muhallab in 664 A.D.⁶ He was followed by Abdullah who was defeated and slain. Sinan bin Salamah seems to have been fortunate in gaining a short-lived triumph in Makran, but Rashid bin Amir lost his life in an expedition in that very region.⁷ The same fate overtook another Arab adventurer named al-Mudhir. Notwithstanding these successive failures the Arabs persevered on and captured Makran, that is, modern Baluchistan, most of which then formed a part of Sindh “after a fierce and successful campaign” under Ibn al-Harri al-Bahitti in the first decade of the eighth century A.D. The way to the conquest of Sindh proper now lay open and the ambitious al-Hajjaj, the Arab governor of Iraq, secured the Caliph’s support to his forward policy. He despatched one after another two well-planned expeditions against Dahir; but both these expeditions were beaten and their commanders Ubaidullah and Budail were slain on the fields of battle.⁸ Stung by these successive reverses and humiliation, Hajjaj selected his own cousin and son-in-law Imad-ud-din Muhammad bin Qasim, an ambitious and daring youth of seventeen, and despatched him to Sindh at the head of a powerful force. Starting from Shiraz, he reached Makran which now belonged to the Arabs, and passing *via* Panj-gur, Armbil and Qaubati, he arrived at Debal near Karachi. This attempt proved a success, and Sindh and Multan were conquered in 712-13 A.D. Sindh thus lost its independence after more then seventy-five years’ brave resistance against the mightiest empire of the medieval age.
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² *Biladuri, K. F. B.*, Part II, p. 209.
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³ *Ibid.*
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⁴ *Ibid*, p. 210.
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⁵ *Ibid.*
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⁶ *Ibid.*
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⁷ *Ibid*, pp. 211-12.
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⁸ *Ibid*, p. 216.
c8.s2.9
Some modern scholars, notably, Woolseley Haig, seem to hold that the main cause of the conflict between the Arabs and Sindh was the provocation given by the latter owing to its ruler’s failure to make a reparation for certain Arab ships plundered by some pirates off the coast of Sindh. The details given above from contemporary sources, however, reveal the fact that ever since their rise to power the Arabs had cast their eyes on our rich ports and had before their final success in 712 A.D. made many unsuccessful attempts to capture Sindh and the kingdoms of Kabul and Zabul by force of arms. Their design on India and their successful conquest of Sindh was only a part of their general aggressive scheme which brought under their sway, within a hundred years of the death of their Prophet, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Iran, Baluchistan, Trans-Oxiana, the whole of the northern coast of Africa, Upper and Lower Egypt, Spain and Portugal and the southern part of France, besides their own native Arabia. Thus the political and territorial ambition of the Arabs, and not the brigandage of the Sindh pirates, constituted an important cause of their invasion of Sindh. Coupled with this was the overpowering economic incentive, the desire to acquire wealth by easy and quick means, that is, fighting and plundering, and thereby to improve their material condition. But the principal driving force was the religious zeal which made them feel and act as if God was using them as agents for the propagation of Islam and the uprooting of infidel faiths from the face of the earth. Almost all the modern writers have either ignored or minimised the religious cause, forgetting the stark naked truth that the Arabs not only imposed their own religion and culture on the conquered people everywhere, but even almost completely wiped out the indigenous faiths and ways of life from most of the countries that they subjugated. Verily, the Arab ambition of imposing Islam on Sindh was one of the most powerful causes of this invasion.
c8.s2.10
The occasion or rather the pretext for the final conflict was the charge that some Sindhi pirates had plundered a few Arab vessels off the coast of Debal near Thana. The story is variously related by different writers and seems to be apocryphal. One version is that the ruler of Ceylon had despatched to Hajjaj, governor of Iraq, a part of the Arabian empire, orphan daughters of some Arab merchants who had died in his country and when the ships carrying them and their belongings reached the coast of Sindh they were plundered by Sindhi pirates. Another writer says that the king of Ceylon, who had embraced Islam (which is historically incorrect), was sending tribute and valuable presents to the Khalifa himself and that these were plundered. A third source has recorded that the Khalifa had sent agents to India to buy some female slaves and certain other articles and these were plundered and carried off by brigands near Debal. It is said that Hajjaj was deeply affected by the outrage. He wrote to king Dahir of Sindh to punish the culprits and make reparations for the loss. Dahir replied that the pirates were not his subjects and that he was powerless to punish them. This infuriated Hajjaj, who obtained Khalifa Walid's permission to send an expedition against Dahir. Accordingly, Ubaidullah was despatched at the head of a respectable army, but he was defeated by Dahir and slain on the battle-field. The next expedition under Budail was also beaten and the commander killed. Muhammad bin Qasim, an ambitious and daring youth of seventeen, was now chosen to punish the king of Sindh.