Talk:Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent

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Note: This article was previously called Islamic invasion of India. To see the history of that article, follow the link of the redirect to Islamic invasion of India.

Archives

/Archive 1

Majority converted by Sufis? Yeah right

How many Sufis exist in Pakistan? Punjab? Most of north India? Pakistan is Sunni and Wahhabi with some Shia and barely any Sufi influence. If Sufis spread SUFISM (which is what sufis do) , where are they right now? Modern day Pakistan is a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, and hate, all of which are contradictory to Sufism which in itself entails all sorts of shirk and un-Islamic concepts such as Wahdat-al-Wujood (http://en.wikipedia.org/Wahdat_al-wujud). So where are those beliefs in India? Where are the whirling dervishes? Where are the millions of Sufis?

Where is the historical proof of millions of Sufis?

Sufis do not convert people to Islam, they convert people to SUFISM. Wahhabis, Sunnism, and Sufism are all drastically different, and according to many ISLAMIC scholars Sufism is heretical and un-Islamic. This whole "converted by the Sufis" theory is representative of the extreme minority. The Muslims of south asia are not majority Sufi, nor do they show any Sufi influence by majority. Only in places like Kashmir is the presence of Sufism felt.

lol. One does not need much imagination to recognise that each new generation of muslims do not neccesarily practice the type of islam of their fathers. One also has to contend with the fact that if Muslims had forced conversions on Hindus, there would be very little hinduism in India. The Proof - recognise that Indonesia was predominantly hindu, as was the maldives. They are now overwhelmingly Muslim.

That is hardly a proof. More of a control demonstration.Of course it is correct that Muslim attitudes are fluid and have fluctuated over time. Certainly, the Saraceans under Salah-ud-din were more broad minded than the Christians during the crusades.However, the normative precept of "convert or kill" has always been there. The differences over time was quantitative, like under Akbar, when it was at it's lowest, or under Aurangzeb, when it was at it's peak.Hkelkar 01:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Most Hindus in ancient Indonesia were nominal Hindus, and they are nominal Muslims now. Indonesia is not a good example. The Maldives was (and is) home to a handful (<100000 or so) of fishermen, not a great example.Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Background

I have removed the word "Sedentary" as neither there was any evidence provided nor I could surmise any relevance. I am new to this, so not sure whether it was the correct way.

Integrity of source

Can materials found on fundamentalist websites be used as proof for writing crap in Misplaced Pages? Sounds cool. Soon, people would be searching Mein Kampf now to rewrite history. What a Shame!

Islamophobic content posted by non-Muslims

I have removed the Islamophobic content posted by user "Raghu Kuttan". He has also dared to give links to fundamentalist Hindu supremacist websites as a source! How do I report this creep? I have replaced the content from MSN Encarta and Britannica Encyclopaedia. I have also removed 70 occurences of the extraneous word "Hindu" in this article. This bloke clearly has some hidden agenda.

So anything that makes Muslims look bad is Islamophobic eh?

Islamic invasion of India

I merged the content of Islamic invasion of India to this article. I'm not sure if this is the correct way to do this. If somebody thinks that the history of the old article ought to be transferred to this article, then the content of this article (the merged article) should be copied into Islamic invasion of India, so that Islamic invasion of India can then be moved to this namespace. Maybe such a move should be requested on WP:RM. --Kefalonia 14:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

'Stereotypes' and 'Generalizations'

It is quite inaccurate to say that India was invaded by the followers of Islam. These people were just plain old conqurers and they probably never read the Quran.

If any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people. - Quran 5:32

Hitler caused one of the biggest holocausts of all time and he was "Christian?". Can we call the holocaust the "Christian massacre of Jews"? Certainly not. Jesus Christ was the prince of peace and the Jews certainly did not deserve what they got.

Please look in the dictionary under the words 'Stereotypes' and 'Generalizations'. Salma 18:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Quran 9:5 provides perfect justification for the slaughter of Hindus. And dont give me that "context" excuse because the context isnt mentioned in the Quran, and hence literal translation is perfectly viable and was used as justification for mass slaughter of Hindus.

Changing history

Muslims are trying to white-wash their illegitimate history in India. It is these same Muslims who complain about the American occupation of Iraq, or the oppression of Palestinians by Israelis, but also get mad and angry when their "glorious Muslim empires" are questioned and their legitimacy put to the test.

I've read a lot of stupid posts on Misplaced Pages talk pages but the one above should be kept for posterity ... a masterpiece ! In fact this semi-illiterate user has quite a simplistic world view: the people who invaded India a thousand years ago are the same ones who get oppressed today in Iraq or Palestine ... so the child in Falluja who saw his father and brother shot by a G.I. shouldn't complain because his co-religionists massacred people in the Indo-Gangetic Plain around the year 1000. I urge all honest users to not let themselves be led by ethnic-nationalist feelings when discussing this subject ... this is serious history, far too complicated to be seen as just Islam vs. Hinduism.

I get what you are saying, at first I mis-read it, too. Basically, the original poster is stating that there is a group of Muslims who are trying to white-wash their history. This white-washing, includes not only the history of Muslims in India, but current day affairs as well. He is not saying that the Muslims of a thousand years ago are the same ones in Iraq.

While the first poster's examples are erroneous, it must be admitted, that Muslims from their beginning have proposed a self-serving revision of history. In order to maintain their claim of legitimacy, they must ignore a mountain of data on the historical figure of Jesus Christ 1. I would not put it past them to do so on any number of matters.

To the author of the second response, get your head out of the sand. I am not reffering to the physical individuals but to the Muslim populations in general. The same Muslim populations whos "golden era" comprised of when they were the conquerors and invaders of countries like India. The same Muslims who take great pride in their illegitimate occupations of countries and lands like India.

So yes, there is no complaining considering the fact that everything that is happening to Muslims is a reflection of what they have done to others in the past for a period of 1000+ years. Now compare 1000+ years to a few decades of "Israeli occupation" it is no contest. The bottom line is that Muslims are hypocrits, they take pride in their blood-empires yet complain and throw a stink when they are on the recieving end. Seems like they can dish it out but they cant take it.

Re. Koran 5:32: Please spare us the Taqqiva! The verse in Koran 5:32 is a warning the Jews, not directed to the muslims! As more of us Kaffirs read the Koran, fewer fall for these tricks...

Re. Hitler: He was hardly "Christian". In fact, he was highly sympathetic to Islam. Cfr Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich (page 143): “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” (Adolf Hitler)

Yawn, sorry mate he was highly involved and motivated as a Christian, can't disown coz he gives you a bad rep, his treatment of Jews he justified from the scriptures

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.

-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

and

The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were".... I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.

-Adolf Hitler, 26 April 1933,

Not sure what you meant by the reference to 5:32 either probably need to pick a different verse to press your point; ya its true for the Jews but it is repeated as an instruction that continues for the muslims and is followed with the modification from Abel's charecterization exception that if they fight you then fight back. It's also quite clear that it refers to wanton killing, maybe you kaffir's need to read what is written rather than what you want to read as written to fit your propoganda.

27. Recite to them the truth of the story of the two sons of Adam. Behold! they each presented a sacrifice (to Allah.: It was accepted from one, but not from the other. Said the latter: "Be sure I will slay thee." "Surely," said the former, "(Allah) doth accept of the sacrifice of those who are righteous. 28. "If thou dost stretch thy hand against me, to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against thee to slay thee: for I do fear Allah, the cherisher of the worlds. 29. "For me, I intend to let thee draw on thyself my sin as well as thine, for thou wilt be among the companions of the fire, and that is the reward of those who do wrong." 30. The (selfish) soul of the other led him to the murder of his brother: he murdered him, and became (himself) one of the lost ones. 31. Then Allah sent a raven, who scratched the ground, to show him how to hide the shame of his brother. "Woe is me!" said he; "Was I not even able to be as this raven, and to hide the shame of my brother?" then he became full of regrets- 32. On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our apostles with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land. 33. The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter; 34. Except for those who repent before they fall into your power: in that case, know that Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. 35. O ye who believe! Do your duty to Allah, seek the means of approach unto Him, and strive with might and main in his cause: that ye may prosper.

--213.42.21.75 16:27, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Aryan invasion of India

Please also look up Aryan Invasion of India. Many of these so called Muslim conquerers intermarried with the locals and spread their religion. The ancestors of these poor victims (Indians) completely wiped out the original people of India called the Dravidians and pushed the remaining people down south. The Dravidians were turned into "untouchables" or "Shudras" and treated worse than animals. Please refer to the Indian Caste System. What goes around comes around, eh? Salma 18:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

First Aryan Invasion theory itself is contested. I'm not defending caste-system or something but again the proportion of dalits to population was only about 4-5% and not all were Dravidians just as not all Dravidians were shudras. Anyways discuss the issue at hand and Caste system doesnt give Muslims the license to kill and convert. अमेय आरयन AMbroodEY 15:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I dont see how one can compare the Muslim invasion of India with the Aryan migration into India. They happened in two different ways. The Aryan migration was not a series of planned military raids that led to empires and conquests. The Aryan migration was a simple migration of people into a region, looking for a place to settle down and establish a home. These people did fight and subdue local peoples in an effort to claim the land for themselves, but it was not planned. It was more spontaneous. They werent so much armies as they were mere family groups. Also, the Aryans themselves intermixed with the locals and combined their religion with that of the Dravidians to produce modern Hinduism. In case if any of you havent noticed, two of the most widely worshipped god aspects in Hinduism, Shiva and Krishna, happen to be of local origin, not Aryan origin. Many Dravidians themselves entered the high castes, such as Manu and many "Aryanic" tribes such as the Sakas and Pahlavas were degraded to the rank of Shudra. The Muslim invasion in India was more of a real invasion, planned and everything. There were actual leaders who went in armies into the subcontinent, intent on plunder. These people were iconoclasts who would destroy temple after temple and kill millions of Hindus and Buddhists, as recorded by many noted Muslim historians of the time. Many Indians became Muslims out of fear of these invaders. Yet there were also many Sufi mystics who came with these invaders and promoted Islam more peacefully and preached it's virtues to the people. The Untouchables were most attracted to these aspects of Islam and ended up embracing it in large numbers as a result. Islam spread both peacefully and by force. Many Muslim invader-origin dynasties themselves would by wiped out by later Muslim dynasties. Basic point is, Hinduism began in the subcontinent as a synthesis of the theologies of the Aryans and Dravidians whereas Islam came as a separate theology from elsewhere and was not changed in basic theology by contact with local beliefs. Afghan Historian 22:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Salma

There are too many inaccuracies and discrepancies on the article. It should be up for deletion. Street Scholar 18:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

It wont get deleted that easily .

There should also be discussion on how nuslims saved hindu females from being burnt alive with their dead husbands ( Muhammad bin Qasim was the first one to prohibit this practice ) . Also how muslims saved dilats/shuders from being less important than cows , & made them equal humans . And the effect of Sufism on conversions . If I remember correctly , 250000 people converted to islam by the works of data gunj buksh . 9 million on the hands of Khawja chishti ajmeri . The whole punjab, sindh, dekkan & bengal became muslim because of the hard work of Sufis . Reading the article it seems like muslim rulers killed everybody hindu , & left only who were muslim . By that definition , there shouldnt be a single hindu alive in India . Farhansher 20:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

If you see something missing in the article, then expand the article and add sources. Actually the article is very incomplete at the moment. What you say about the Sufis is also a disputed matter. Kefalonia 16:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Also that hindu population decreased by 80 million should not imply that these people were killed since most converted. This article is also pov in many other areas. --a.n.o.n.y.m 20:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The 80 million is about genocide, not population decrease or conversion. But it should be made clear in the article that it is only an estimate, not an official number. There is no "official" death toll for the period. Only estimates exist, based mostly on the muslim chronicles and demographic calculations. I think the article is also not without a pro-islamic pov, and that the islamic and hindu pov currently balance each other out. But of course there are always things that can and should be written more npov. Kefalonia 16:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

No, it is not about genocide. In his book, Prof. Lal estimates that population decreased. That does not necessarily mean that they were killed. Hindu conversions were large at the time so that probably did contribute. --a.n.o.n.y.m 20:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that you have read Lal's book. I didn't add the information to the article and I didn't read the book either, but a web search turns out the following:

According to Prof. K.S. Lal, the author of the Growth of Muslim population in India, the Hindu population decreased by 80 million between 1000 AD, the year Mahmud Ghazni invaded India and 1525 AD, a year before the battle of Panipat.

K. S. Lal writes of the 60-70 million Hindu victims murdered by their Muslim masters.

A first glance at important testimonies by Muslim chroniclers indicates that, over 13 centuries and a territory as vast as the subcontinent, Muslim warriors easily killed more Hindus than the six million of the Jewish Holocaust. ... Prof. K.S. Lal once estimated that the Indian population declined by 50 million under the Sultanate, but that would be hard to substantiate; research into the magnitude of the damage Islam did to India is yet to start in earnest.

...Professor K.S. Lal, who calculated that the Hindu population decreased by eighty million between the year 1000 and 1525, indeed, probably the biggest holocaust in the world's history, far greater than the genocide of the Incas in South America by the Spanish and the Portuguese.

Lal's book is of the year 1973 however, and it would be interesting to know what he thought of this estimate in later years.

Ideological and religious bias should be kept out of this article, wether it is Islamic or Hindu bias. User:Street Scholar, a user with a history of pov-warring, has brought this article and the Muhammed of Qasim article up on a public religion-related project page: , . For me this looks as distasteful as if someone wrote on the Germany Notice board about the Holocaust article or someone on the Christian noticeboard about the Crusades or Inquisition articles that he thinks that these articles were Anti-German or Anti-Christian or "very biased", and that things like atrocities should be denied or negated. Let's keep religious and ideological issues out of here, this has not to do with religion but with the evils of war and of the failures and evils of individual rulers. There's no need to claim that Qasim and the like were saints, nor should their atrocities be denied. Others have committed the same atrocities, in the name of Christianity atrocities were committed during the Inquisition, the Crusades and in the Americas, but the Christians and Germans look upon such things with disgust, sorrow and indignation. I didn't see an indication of such a reaction to Street Scholar's comments there. I have also brought up the Sreet Scholar issue on this page. --Kefalonia 12:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

What happened to the map?! --Dangerous-Boy 19:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What is disputed

I'm removing the NPOV tag unless somebody gives be credible reasons for keeping it.

P.S Dont delete comments from the talk page. अमेय आरयन AMbroodEY 18:03, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Title

Why is it titled "Islamic conquest of South Asia" and not "Islamic conquest of Indian sub-continent or Hindustan"? South Asia includes Sri Lanka, Maldives and Burma. Ofcourse there was no Islamic conquest on Sri Lanka and Burma. And from the Islamic conquest viewpoint, the entire area from Hindukush ranges to the shores of Bay of Bengal and down to the shores of Indian Ocean was considered Hindustan.

Burma is apart of southeast asia.--Dangerous-Boy 10:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding NPOV

Please refrain from using Sati as a base for justifying the Islamic invasion. The practice of Sati and Jauhar was accentuated by the Islamic Invasion. Further can the current record of honour killings in Pakistan attributed to Islam? Or is it a local culture? It is abhorrent to even imply that the invasion was a good thing because there were seemingly bad practices in a different culture. Basically are we suggesting here that if you find a particular aspect of a certain culture distateful, one has the God given right to massacre them? User:Abhijna

User:Salmaakbar please read up on the history of Razakkars before delving into Islamic Invasion. User:Abhijna

POV

One sided article . So where is other side's POV . All hindus converstd because they were forced to !! All those 8 million hindus were....killed ?? What happened to all those Sufis ?? Why after 1000 years of muslim rule , hindus still exist in India ?? Compare the number of hindus to Muslims in Spain or Native Americans in America . Can any body add a short para about the reason behind Bin Qasim's invasion .

Hindus still exist in India because they fought back but a crapload were killed in the process. There used to be tons in afghanistan and pakistan. But after they the invasion, they were wiped out. The Kyber pass was the staging ground for the invasions. Native americans didn't have tech to fight western powers or the immunity from disease. Muslims conquered most of spain! Sufis aren't mentioned because they arrived with the muslim invaders. Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, a disciple of Khwaja Abu Abdal Chishti, the propounder of this order introduced it in India. He came to India from Afghanistan with the army of Shihab-ud-Din Ghuri in 1192 AD and started living permanently in Ajmer since 1195. Centuries later, with the support of Mughal rulers, his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Akbar used to visit the shrine every year. Turkic invaders into India were accompanied by four Sufi mystics of the Chistiyya order from Afghanistan. This article isn't about islamic rule. It's about the invasions. Stop put the tags up. It's not POV. The achievements of muslims are mentioned.--Dangerous-Boy 20:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Weapons or not, 1000 years is a long time to kill. The difference is clearly not of weapons, but of intentions. Tons of people were converted to Islam in Afghanistan & Pakistan mainly by Sufis. These people still have the very same Pashtuns & Baloochs , which means they weren’t wiped out . The whole Punjab converted to Islam on the hands of Data Gunj Bakhsh & Baba Farid , the rest were converted to Sikhism by Kabir Das & Guru Nanak . Millions converted in Bengal without a fight. The whole Dekkan was heavily influenced by Moinuddin Chisti . These three are the most fertile & as a result most populous regions of South Asia. If Lal thinks the population of Hindus decreased by eighty million, it doesn’t mean they were all killed. Are Lal & Durant the only people who are knowledgeable on this topic? Do you have any citations from Muslim writers? How can you call this article NPOV? Just see at the sources, this article is propaganda. Now you can keep on arguing that the missing Hindus were killed, & I can keep on arguing that they were abducted by aliens. Until both sides of the story is given the article remains POV. And yea……this article is not about achievements of Muslims. It’s about invasions. But for unknown reasons, it is filled with accusation about how millions of Hindus were allegedly wiped out. Either we’ll have to remove the allegations/give some citations from Muslim sites, or else, the tag stays here. F.a.y. 19:44, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Sufis mostly converted in Bengal. Those people coverted so they could move up. They were discriminated against for being Hindu. Hardcore muslims converted mostly in North India, Pakistan, and afghanistan. If the they were converted by sufis, they wouldn't have been so agressive. I'm open to your sources unless they are like Street scholar's. That guy is a fundie and his sources are jihadi pov. The Chach-Nama is a source I support. And there are islamic references. Look at the bottom of the page. The tags will be removed soon. If you say they are abducted by aliens, you better have sources. And for your information, a conquest is an achievement. The muslims invaded a foreign land, set up their own government, showed millions the glory of islam.--Dangerous-Boy 07:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW shouldnt the article be named Muslim conquest of South Asia . I dont think we have a Christianity conquest of South Asia article . Although we dont have a Christian conquest of South Asia article either . WE do have British conquest, Spanish conquest kind of articles . F.a.y. 21:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:Islamic conquests. That's why. --Dangerous-Boy 10:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Source given, still deleted

Some Islamophobe deleted the source link which proves that Indian economy reached peak during Aurangazeb's rule. How do I report that fellow?

I have also removed the islamophobic content that is extraneous and has no source. Anwar saadat 23:31, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I have also removed the links to Hindu fundamentalist websites.

First of all I am moving the comment down since new comments should be added below all others.
Indian economy reached peak during Aurangazeb's rule is not reflected from the following fact

India's GDP share in 1 CE = 32.9% and in 1700 = 24.4% given at List of countries by past GDP (PPP)

I am reverting your last changes to the article. You have made substantial (maybe POV) change without discusing in the talk page. If you think that the earlier version was also a POV you can give the reason here in the talk page and then tag the article with {{pov}} template.
Btw I have edited the article only once. If you want to get on to a debate regarding whether the wrting is POV or not, I can leave a message to the editors who have worked on this article considerably. regards --Raghu 03:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Dispute

So... This article is pretty seriously disputed, eh? Whats the deal? Sam Spade 13:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

No real deal. Just troll attacks. deeptrivia (talk) 14:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah ok. That was some dispute tho, eh! I don't think I've ever seen so many disputes at once. I even had my kid come and look ;) I'll have a look and see if I can clean things up and get the last dispute header removed... Sam Spade 14:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Moved from article

Often reviled as a persecutor of Hindus—because in many cases Hindu temples were looted and destroyed—much of Mahmud's army was made up of Hindus. Indeed, some of his army commanders were of Hindu origin. For example, Sonday Rai was the commander of Mahmud's crack regiment and took part in several important campaigns with him. The coins struck during Mahmud's reign bore his own image on one side and the figure of a Hindu god on the other.

Mahmud was also a great patron of learning. His court was full of scholars including giants like the poet Ferdowsi, the historian Abolfazl Beyhaghi (whose work on the Ghanavid Empire is perhaps the most substantive primary source of the period), and Al-Biruni, the versatile scholar who wrote the Ta'rikh al-Hind ("Chronicles of India"). It was said that Mahmud spent over 400000 golden dinars on scholars. He invited them from all over the world and was thus known as an abductor of scholars. During his rule, Lahore also became a great center of learning and culture. It was called "Small Ghazni," since Ghazni received far more attention during Mahmud's reign. Saad Salman, a poet of those times, wrote about the academic and cultural life of Muslim Lahore and its growing importance.

The above seems a bit POV, and if nothing else the extended compliments for mahmud are out of place. Sam Spade 15:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

We should mention that he practiced Pederasty.--Dangerous-Boy 11:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I added some information on the Conversion Debate. The Write-up in general was rather terrible, excessively verbose and too biased. I took the time to edit SOME of it, not for content but for style (since its up for clean-up) at the same time. I grew tired of it pretty soon and so towards the latter half only touched things that socked me in the eye. Another thing I noticed was the article wanders a fair bit so it needs better definitions, and I second the vote to change the title from ".. of South Asia" to the "sub-continent"

Sorry, I did not leave any citations, but the concepts I put in were something I came across in my University Class on Sufism, and since I am not quite the scholar so I can't give a specific book but will point generally towards the works of Dr. Anne Marie Schimmel on Sufism.

Dates for Mahmuds Conquests

Is Qanoch the same as Kanauj in the Main Mahmud of Ghazni Page? The other names noted in that sentence giving the timetable for the fall have the same understandable similarity in naming convention, except for the strange discrepency in dates with the ones in the main page. Which one is correct?? Can someone please verify and make the corrections, I think they may actually refer to some of his 17 raids.

Also has anyone heard of Kabulistan or Raja Jeebal? I would venture it is talking about Raja Jaipal of the Shahi Dynasty. Input anyone or I will come back and make the change at a later date.

And where is this city called Maili attributed as a target to Mohalib?? The link takes you to a city that is in Hawaii. Could it be Multan as mentioned in the link under Mohalib or are we talking about another place altogether.

go to Shahi. --Dangerous-Boy 18:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Renaming article

Shouldn't the article be renamed to Indian subcontinent but this article spefically talks about India, Pakistan and Bangladesh while South Asia is a much more broader term which includes Afghanistan too. UN includes Iran too as a part of South Asia! So I don't think the name of this article is very accurate. --Spartian 20:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Dangerous-Boy 18:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur --CltFn 23:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Muslim conquest of India

Historian Will Durant on the Muslim conquest of India (section from Our Oriental Heritage) VI. THE MOSLEM CONQUEST

The weakening of India - Mahmud of Ghazni - The Sultanate of Delhi- Its cultural asides- Its brutal policy - The lesson of Indian history

The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within. The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India’s boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.

The first Moslem attack was a passing raid upon Multan, in the western Punjab (664 A.D.) Similar raids occurred at the convenience of the invaders during the next three centuries, with the result that the Moslems established themselves in the Indus valley about the same time that their Arab co-religionists in the West were fighting the battle of Tours (732 A.D.) for the mastery of Europe. But the real Moslem conquest of India did not come till the turn of the first millennium after Christ.

In the year 997 a Turkish chieftain by the name of Mahmud became sultan of the little state of Ghazni, in eastern Afghanistan. Mahmud knew that his throne was young and poor, and saw that India, across the border, was old and rich; the conclusion was obvious.

Pretending a holy zeal for destroying Hindu idolatry, he swept across the frontier with a force inspired by a pious aspiration for booty. He met the unprepared Hindus at Bhimnagar, slaughtered them, pillaged their cities, destroyed their temples, and carried away the accumulated treasures of centuries.

Returning to Ghazni he astonished the ambassadors of foreign powers by displaying “jewels and unbored pearls and rubies shining like sparks, or like wine congealed with ice, and emeralds like fresh sprigs of myrtle, and diamonds in size and weight like pomegranates.”

Each winter Mahmud descended into India, filled his treasure chest with spoils, and amused his men with full freedom to pillage and kill; each spring he returned to his capital richer than before. At Mathura (on the Jumna) he took from the temple its statues of gold encrusted with precious stones, and emptied its coffers of a vast quantity of gold, silver and jewelry; he expressed his admiration for the architecture of the great shrine, judged that its duplication would cost one hundred million dinars and the labor of two hundred years, and then ordered it to be soaked with naphtha and burnt to the ground. Six years later he sacked another opulent city of northern India, Somnath, killed all its fifty thousand inhabitants, and dragged its wealth to Ghazni. In the end he became, perhaps, the richest king that history has ever known.

Sometimes he spared the population of the ravaged cities, and took them home to be sold as slaves; but so great was the number of such captives that after some years no one could be found to offer more than a few shillings for a slave. Before every important engagement Mahmud knelt in prayer, and asked the blessing of God upon his arms. He reigned for a third of a century; and when he died, full of years and honors, Moslem historians ranked him as the greatest monarch of his time, and one of the greatest sovereigns of any age.

Seeing the canonization that success had brought to this magnificent thief, other Moslem rulers profited by his example, though none succeeded in bettering his instruction. In 1186 the Ghuri, a Turkish tribe of Afghanistan, invaded India, captured the city of Delhi, destroyed its temples, confiscated its wealth, and settled down in its palaces to establish the Sultanate of Delhi- an alien despotism fastened upon northern India for three centuries, and checked only by assassination and revolt. The first of these bloody sultans, Kutb-d Din Aibak, was a normal specimen of his kind- fanatical, ferocious and merciless. His gifts, as the Mohammedan historian tells us, “were bestowed by hundreds of thousands, and his slaughters likewise were by hundreds of thousands.” In one victory of this warrior (who had been purchased as a slave), “fifty thousand men came under the collar of slavery, and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus.” Another sultan, Balban, punished rebels and brigands by casting them under the feet of elephants, or removing their skins, stuffing these with straw, and hanging them from the gates of Delhi. When some Mongol inhabitants who had settled in Delhi, and had been converted to Islam, attempted a rising, Sultan Alau-d-din (the conquerer of Chitor) had all the males- from fifteen to thirty thousand of them- slaughtered in one day.

Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlak acquired the throne by murdering his father, became a great scholar and an elegant writer, dabbled in mathematics, physics and Greek philosophy, surpassed his predecessors in bloodshed and brutality, fed the flesh of a rebel nephew to the rebel’s wife and children, ruined the country with reckless inflation, and laid it waste with pillage and murder till the inhabitants fled to the jungle. He killed so many Hindus that, in the words of a Moslem historian, “there was constantly in front of his royal pavilion and his Civil Court a mound of dead bodies and a heap of corpses, while the sweepers and executioners were wearied out by their work of dragging” the victims “and putting them to death in crowds.” In order to found a new capital at Daulatabad he drove every inhabitant from Delhi and left it a desert; and hearing that a blind man had stayed behind in Delhi, he ordered him to be dragged from the old to the new capital, so that only a leg remained of the wretch when his last journey was finished. The Sultan complained that the people did not love him, or recognize his undeviating justice. He ruled India for a quarter of a century, and died in bed. His successor, Firoz Shah, invaded Bengal, offered a reward for every Hindu head, paid for 180,000 of them, raided Hindu villages for slaves, and died at the ripe age of eighty. Sultan Ahmad Shah feasted for three days whenever the number of defenseless Hindus slain in his territories in one day reached twenty thousand.

These rulers were often men of ability, and their followers were gifted with fierce courage and industry; only so can we understand how they could have maintained their rule among a hostile people so overwhelmingly outnumbering them. All of them were armed with a religion militaristic in operation, but far superior in its stoical monotheism to any of the popular cults of India; they concealed its attractiveness by making the public exercise of the Hindu religions illegal, and thereby driving them more deeply into the Hindu soul. Some of these thirsty despots had culture as well as ability; they patronized the arts, and engaged artists and artisans- usually of Hindu origin- to build for them magnificent mosques and tombs; some of them were scholars, and delighted in converse with historians, poets and scientists. One of the greatest scholars of Asia, Alberuni, accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni to India, and wrote a scientific survey of India comparable to Pliny’s “Natural History” and Humboldt’s “Cosmos”. The Moslem historians were almost as numerous as the generals, and yielded nothing to them in the enjoyment of bloodshed and war. The Sultans drew from the people every rupee of tribute that could be exacted by the ancient art of taxation, as well as by straightforward robbery; but they stayed in India, spent their spoils in India, and thereby turned them back into India’s economic life. Nevertheless, their terrorism and exploitation advanced that weakening of Hindu physique and morale which had been begun by an exhausting climate, an inadequate diet, political disunity, and pessimistic religions.

The usual policy of the Sultans was clearly sketched by Alau-d-din, who required his advisers to draw up “rules and regulations for grinding down the Hindus, and for depriving them of that wealth and property which fosters disaffection and rebellion.” Half of the gross produce of the soil was collected by the government; native rulers had taken one-sixth. “No Hindu,” says a Moslem historian, “could hold up his head, and in their houses no sign of gold or silver... or of any superfluity was to be seen.... Blows, confinement in the stocks, imprisonment and chains, were all employed to enforce payment.” When one of his own advisers protested against this policy, Alau-d-din answered: “Oh, Doctor, thou art a learned man, but thou hast no experience; I am an unlettered man, but I have a great deal. Be assured, then, that the Hindus will never become submissive and obedient till the are reduced to poverty. I have therefore given orders that just sufficient shall be left to them from year to year of corn, milk and curds, but that they shall not be allowed to accumulate hoards and property.”

This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry.

Basis for Edits Made

1. Article was up for clean-up and really looked like it needed it so I was bold. In my opinion the introduction stills need a re-write for style and organization but its too touchy a subject for me to attempt to retouch. In my opinion the Duran quote should be moved to the quotes and the entire Sword vs. Sufi theory conflict to a seperate sub-header as well. IT can actually use a new artcile all or a million on its own I suppose.

2. Two sections were identified as extremely verbose, encyclopedic and repetitive. The other sections are more in line with what I think this article should read like to be smooth. There is no reason for this situation when there exist links to main sections where the same details can be found. I beleive the sections in this page should be a quick overview and briefly mention some aspects and move everything else to the sub-sections where they can be addressed in greated detail. An expanding tree structure. A lot of I deleted included a lot my own prior contributions but they were really not justifying their space here.

3. Anything not found/addressed in those articles but found here I added to those articles. (This was very little.)

4. A lot of material under Muhammad Bin Qasim actually dealt with the situation before and after him and was distinct enough to break them off, and thereby enhance comprehension and readibility.

5. Typically this article has a history of POV edits. I accept that and have attempted to watch my edits to avoid this and still get things concise. No intentional POV was intended just a summary overview containing highlights.

6. Lots of hyperlinks were broken, or not made which greatly enhance the capability of the article to privde information.

I am not perfect, if you can think of ways to improve the edit feel free selectively to re-incorporate the shortcomings into the edits. I attempted the same by editing in parts and summarising what I did. I am inviting comments and criticisms to make this article tight and all encompassing. Thats the point of the Wiki I beleive bt it requires continous feedback.

Criticism of sword theory

It's hard to believe any notable historian will give such an argument. Large parts of Southern India was ruled by Deccan sultans and nizams, Bengal entirely by nawabs, Muslims in Western Burma are entirely immigrants from Bengal. It would help to have citations for this. deeptrivia (talk) 20:01, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Happy Hindus, blissful Buddhists

The article is written to seem like Hindus and Buddhists were delighted to be invaded and forciable converted by Muslims. I think that needs to be worked out. (Anonymous User) 22 June 2006

I don't really think the event should really be even attempted to fleshed out here beyond a summary clinical mention, it needs to be dealt with seperately altogether somewhere else. --Tigeroo 09:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Length and Readability

This article suffers from too much information. An attempt to cram everyting here. I believe it should just serve as a portal to major descriptors of the period is all so here are my suggestions:

1) Can we please trim down the Ghur and Ghaznavid Sections in this article to no more than a sketch of what, who and when they conquered and really major events during their reign and put anything else on their respective pages.

2) Remove the Views, Narratives section entirely or move them out to new pages with just links under See also.

3) Same goes for Cultural Influences and Impact of Islams and Muslims in India.

Based upon the above recommendataions and the B-Class rating I want to nominate once again for cleanup. --Tigeroo 09:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

End of Islamic rule

Nothing is mentioned in this article about the end of Islamic rule with the coming of Shivaji and the Maratha empire. --→Talk 18:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this article is supposed to be about the conquests that led to the establishment of Islamic rule and doesn't deal with the entire history. deeptrivia (talk) 00:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Views of Gandhi

Are the views of M.K. Gandhi about the 7th century Arabia relevant here? We are talking about muslim conquest not Islam and Arabia. If nobody has an objection then I'll remove it. --Jankit 22:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC) I removed the following quote as per above M. K. Gandhi said about the spread of Islam in the 7th century Arabia:

...I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and his own mission. These, and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every trouble. YOUNG INDIA, 1924

Jankit 07:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC) Sorry I removed it too early, but the quote section is too POV. Does anyone has objection to removing Gandhi's quote? Jankit 17:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this quote is irrelevant here in any case. Spread of Islam in the 7th century Arabia has little to do with Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent. deeptrivia (talk) 00:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

No more "quotes"

We have enough "quotes" here already. Put them in Wikiquote if you have any more. In fact, I'd suggest moving these to wikiquote as well. --→Talk 11:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this quotes buisness is wrong headed and detracts from the article. It can be succintly just summarized in the article and linked to as a reference.--Tigeroo 07:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've moved these quotes to a wikiquote article. --→Talk 08:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Good decision to move the quotes Jankit 10:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Islam in South India

Islam is believed to have been practised in Kerala even during the lifetime of Muhammed. Is that outside the purview of the conquest? (I'm not being sarcastic. This is an innocent question!)-- thunderboltz 04:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It probably deserves a brief mention in the Early Muslim Communities section, and then just linked out to the main article, as well as mentioned in the See also list of links. Unless it was also involved in conquests, there is no mention of the Bahmanis and Qutbshahis and others whose conquests took it southard, brief intros and link to main articles can probably be accomodated, or a new table created to handle them if there are way too many.--Tigeroo 09:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Highly improbable, if not impossible. Muhammed spent a good part of his life struggling to find followers in his own native Arabia. To think that the religion would have spread as far as India in that timespan is a little ridiculous.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.170.193 (talk • contribs)

No, there were active trade links between the western coast of India and the Middle east since ancient times. There are biblical evidences that support this. Considering that, there is nothing imporbable in the theory. The second mosque in the world to offer Jummah, the Cheraman Juma Masjid, was built in India in 629 AD. Hence, Islam existed in India during the lifetime of Muhammed. It might be interesting to note here, that Christianity is also believed to have existed in this region even before it became established in Rome.-- thunderboltz 07:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

That is a big assumption that the "Biblical evidence" is factual. Most of the references to the St Thomas Myth have been disproved or doubted by European scholars since a long time now. Coming back to the topic, the "Mappilais" have had contact with Kerala since a long time, but that these first Arabs were actually Muslims and that they came during the times of Mohammed is doubtful, as they married among the native Kerala Hindus then and were still following the popular Hindu customs until recently. Nevertheless, this topic seems to be Off-topic in this article since this is supposed to talk about the military conquests of Islamic armies in India, not the trade-links/refugee-settlements of Muslims/Christians in India as such.→Talk 08:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Laughable claim

The very claim that Hindus converted to Islam to escape "caste injustices" is a joke unless stated as a claim made by some scholars. It defies simple logic given that Muslims have their own cozy little caste system in India (Ashraf/Ajlaf, OOnchi Biradari/Neechi Biradari).Hkelkar 20:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Laughable? do a search on google now, and you will see that many lower caste indus are still converting to islam in their thousands, as well as to christianity and buddhism.

..and getting persecuted by upper caste Christians and Muslims. I feel sorry for those poor "converts".Hkelkar 01:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and let's not forget that India's total population is 1,000,000,000.Few thousand/1 billion=0.0001%.Not particularly impressive.Hkelkar 02:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Urdu under the Sultanare???

Rubbish. Sultanate spoke Persian in courts, as well as the Mughals of the Second Islamic Empire. Urdu developed under the later Mughals.Hkelkar 21:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Historians representation

I have no problems with the mention of William Durant he did say Islam spread to violence.
Serge is again not notabale enough to deserve mention, plus he is mired in polemics and more in the linke of hate-books and too tied to his political affiliation with Serbs and the war in the Balkans, read the Hague Tribunals etc. Can we just remove his name and find a more notable and reputable source.
Sir Jadunath charecterization is accurate about repressing but including him with Durant about bloody is inaccurate because to quote him "Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects." He was more focused on the role "dhimmitude" and opressive legal and social conditions played in India. He makes special note of difference of operating principle of the Hanafi school of thought prevalent in India vs. that of Shafa'i played. Also while he was more focused on it's effect on Hindu upperclasses "The barrenness of intellect and meanness of spirit of the Hindu upper classes are the greatest condemnation of Muhammadan rule in India." & "The leaders of Hindu religion and society were systematically repressed, to deprive the sect of spiritual instruction,.." I agree it can be generally be extended to Hindu's in general as a class as well. However his stance is differently qualified in the way he was implying "Jihad" vs. the way it appears portrayed in the article.--Tigeroo 21:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Tarikh-i-Yamini

I take back my intial objection to it's being literary, I took a better look and see that while it uses very colorful imagery and flowery speech in descriptions its quite literal, and this view is also supported by Elliot . However there is still a problem with the line when it says that "it attests to the genocide of millions". I think the problem is obvious here. Also the title is inaccurately spelled or referenced and seems to have been pulled in from a copy paste from some other webpage on the net.--Tigeroo 21:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent revert-warring by User:BhaiSaab

He has been revert-warring on other articles that got protected because of that and now has sauntered off here. I am disputing all the edits to which he has reverted as non-neutral and taking a position on the conversion by sword theory instead of listing it dispassionately.Hkelkar 03:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps some users are apologetic for genocide and wiping countries and people off maps ?Bakaman _Bakatalk 03:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps some users like to persistently misrepresent statements. BhaiSaab 04:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The Conversion by Sword Theory is an old theory captured by Gibbon in the sword in one hand and koran in the other and most f other scholars such as Lewis have generally discarded it. Yes it is controversial especially due to the modern climate and political athmosphere, I think it is more NPOV to include both sides of the view and I guess fixed the points I raised above as well. The section is a mess but I think it was a good faith edit to balance out the views, it did not neglect to mention the genocide proponents either the too few opinions is fine, though i think the entire section probably deserves a page on it's own article like the other parts of this page as it threathens to grow significantly.--Tigeroo 21:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick question: Title

I am not here to argue or propose a change. But should not the title of this article be Muslim invasions in the Indian subcontinent? The reason I think that the word conquest should be replaced by invasions is that often the Muslim invaders would come, sack cities, destroy temples and go back. Hence, it was not necessarily "conquests" which lead to the effects mentioned in this article but "invasions", both inclusive and exclusive of "conquests". Any comments? (Jvalant 07:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC))

Not really, what you may be thinking of is just the instance the Mahmud of Ghazni, but then he was busy building and maintaing his holdings and competing with the political factions in the muslim heartlands primarily, Indian holdings were intially a diversion that later became more important. He raided across north india and set up vassal tributary states who tended to "rebel" quite often which is why some maps include them in his empire while others don't. Even Mahmud was actually quite local seeing that Ghazni is right along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region and that he actively controlled and administered Sindh and parts of the Punjab so there was no real "going back" generally more of a here to stay. After him the Ghaznavids got booted out of their western territories by the Seljuk dynasty and they moved their capital to Lahore and their realm was limited to the Pakistan region till it was conquered by the Ghurids. The Ghurid assault was a conquest of the Ghaznavid territories and then a major push at conquests and raids beyond those limits and led to breakaway factions setting up their own territories ushering in the era of Sultanates. Usually what happenned was they they came, they conquered, they stayed and expanded settling in and conquering even more. The later Ghaznavids, Qutb-ud-din Aybak for the Delhi Sultanate, Babur of the Mughal Empire all conquered, ruled and governed in the sub-continent from capitals in the sub-continent. Invasion is merely act of initiating and ambigious, conquest demonstrates that they vanquished, controlled and administered the territory as well. Remember the Indian subcontinent extends to include Pakistan where two independent states were established as a result of Qasim's conquests in Sindh for three centuries before Mahmud came when the Turks overran the Arab's in the Middle east and tookover. Some people often try to include Afghanistan in the region as well though it has spent most the last 3 centuries under Persian centric control, the political history and the timelines of the northwestern region of the sub-continent is quite different from the gangetic-plains.P.S on a related go see Middle kingdoms of India to see the series of "Invaders/Conquerors" coming in from the same region pre-Islam, who were a little less successful in establishing themselves south of the Hindu Kush.--Tigeroo 10:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply - I must admit, my knowledge of this era is quite limited. (Jvalant 13:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC))

Maddison and Biraben

While both their names show up in my searches, the books listed don;t seem to show up in library. Could the editor who put the refs in plz post the ISBN numbers, publishers etc so that I may verify the content? Thanks.Hkelkar 20:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't find the Maddison piece listed at all, even on his home page (http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/). There is a lecture with a similar name, but a different topic.

The Biraben is not a book but an article. Perm Dude 01:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

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