The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c8.s2.10

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.