What were the Consequences of Arab Conquests of India?

The Arab conquest of Sindh is quite significant in the history of India as well as an Arabia undoubtedly it did not help in the future establishment of Muslim empire in India. According to Stanley Lane-Poole, “The Arabs had conquered Sindh but the conquest was only an episode in the History of India and of Islam, a triumph without results.”

According to Sir Wolseley Haig, “Of the Arab conquest of Sindh, there is nothing more to be said. It was a mere episode in the History of India and affected only a small portion of the fringe of that vast country. It introduced into one frontier tract the religion which was destined to dominate the greater part of India for nearly five centuries, but it had none of the far-reaching effects attributed to it by Tod in the Annals of Rajasthan.

Mohammad-bin-Quasim never penetrated to Chitor in the heart of Rajputana; the Caliph Walid First did not ‘render tributary all that part of India on this side of the Ganges’; the invader was never on the eve of carrying the war against Raja Harchund of Kanauj much less did he actually prosecute it; If Harun-ur-Rashid gave to his second son, al-Ma’-mun, ‘Khorasan, Zabullisthan, Cabulisthan, Sindh and Hindusthan’, he bestowed on him at least one country which was not his to give; nor was the whole of Northern India, as Tod maintains, convulsed by the invasion of the Arabs.

One of these, as we have seen, advanced to Adhoi in Cutch, but no settlement was made, and the expedition was a mere raid: and though the first news of the irruption may have suggested war-like preparations to the princes of Rajasthan their uneasiness cannot have endured. The tide of Islam, having overflowed Sindh and the lower Punjab, ebbed, leaving some jetam on the strand. The rulers of states beyond the desert had no cause for alarm. That was to come later and the enemy was to be, not the Arab but the Turk, who was to present the faith of the Arabian prophet in a more terrible guise than it had worn when presented by native Arabians.” (Cambridge History of India, Vol. Ill, p. 10).

According to Prof. Habibullah, “The Arab was not destined to raise Islam to be a political force in India. Whatever its cultural implications, politically the Sindh affair led to a dead end. It touched only a fringe of the Indian continent and the faint stirrings it produced were soon fortotten. In the Islamic Commonwealth the Arab soon began to lose ground; geography stood in the way of his expansion in India; and by the tenth century, his conquering role having been played out, the Indian princes recognised in him only the enterprising and adaptable merchant of old.” (Foundation of Muslim rule in India, p. 2.)

When the Arabs settled in Sindh, they were dazzled by the ability of the Indians. Instead of influencing them, they were themselves influenced by them. The Arab scholars sat at the feet of the Brahmanas and Buddhist monks and learnt from them philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, chemistry, etc., and later on transmitted the same to Europe. It is contended that the numerical figures which the Europeans learnt from the Arabs were originally learnt from the Indians.

The Arabic name for figure, Hindsa, points out to its Indian origin. During the Khilafat of Mansur in the 8th century A.D., Arab scholars went from India to Baghdad and they carried with them the Brahma Sidhanta and Khanda-Khandvaka of Brahma Gupta and those were translated into Arabic with the help of Indian scholars.

The Arabs also learnt from them the first principles of scientific astronomy. Hindu learning also was encouraged by the ministerial family of Barmaks during the Khilafat of Harun from 786 to 808 A.D. They invited Hindu scholars to Baghdad and asked them to translate Sanskrit books on medicine, philosophy, astrology etc., into Arabic. They also put the Hindu physicians in charge of their hospitals.

According to Havell, from a political point of view, Arab conquest of Sindh was a comparatively insignificant event but its importance on account of its effect upon the whole culture of Islam was great. For the first time, the Nomads of the Arabian Desert found themselves in the holy land of the Aryans in close contact with Indo-Aiyan civilization, which from all points of view politically, economically and intellectually had reached a far higher plane than their own.

To the poetic imagination of the Arab tribesmen, India seemed a land of wonders. In all the arts of peace, India then stood at the pinnacle of the greatness. The Arabs were charmed by the skill of the Indian musicians and the cunning of the Hindu painter. The dome of the temple Mandapam became the dome of the Muslim mosque and tomb. The simplified symbolism of Muslim ritual was all borrowed from India. The pointed arc of the prayer carpet and mihrab was a symbolic arc of the Buddhist and Hindu shrines.

The cathedral mosques of the Muslim royalty were like the Vishnu temple. The entrances of the mosque corresponded to the temple Gopuram and gates of the Indian villages. The Minars of the Mosques were adaptations of the Indian towers of victory. Havell points out that in Sindh, the Arab Shaikhs had their first practical lessons in Indo-Aryan statecraft under the guidance of their Brahman officials. They learnt to adapt their own primitive patriarchal policy to the complicated problems of the highly organised systematic government evolved by centuries of Aryan’s imperial rule.

The court language, etiquette and literary accomplishments were borrowed from the Iranian branch of Aryan civilisation. All these scientific elements which made the Arabs famous in Europe were borrowed directly from India. Islam was able to tap the inexhaustible resources of India, spiritual and material and became the agent for their distribution over the whole of Europe. The Indian Pandits brought to Baghdad the works of Brahmputra and those were translated into Arabic. In the palmy days of the great Harun, the influence of Indian scholars was supreme at the Baghdad court.

Hindu physicians were brought to Baghdad to organise hospitals and medical schools. Hindu scholars translated Sanskrit works into Arabic. The Arabs also went to Indian universities for acquiring knowledge. Havell points out that it was India and not Greece that taught Islam in the impression able years of its youth formed its philosophy and esoteric religious ideals and inspired its most characteristic expression in literature, art and architecture. The Arabs never won for themselves a permanent political footing in India nor did the Western School of Islam ever take any strong hold upon the mentality or religious feeling of the Indian Muslims.

It is wrong to maintain that the Arab conquest of Sindh had absolutely no effect on India. It cannot be denied that the Arab conquest of Sindh showed the seed of Islam in India. A large number of persons in Sindh were converted to Islam. The footing got by Islam in Sindh proved to be permanent. The legacy of the Arab conquest of Sindh lies in the “debris of ancient buildings which proclaimed to the world the vandalism of the destroyer or a few settlements of a few Muslim families in Sindh as the memorial to Arab conquest of Sindh.”_

A question has been raised whether the Arab invasion of Sindh was inspired by religion or not. The view of Dr. Tarachand is that it was not. In support of his view, he points out that a number of prominent and influential Hindus favoured Quasim. Among them were Sisakar, the Minister of Dahir, Moka Bisaya, chief of a tribe, Ladi, Dahir’s queen, who married Quasim after her husband’s death and actually induced the besieged Hindus of Bahmanabad to surrender. On the other side, Allafi, an Arab Commander of Arab horsemen, fought on the side of Dahir and was his advisor. No Hindu rule came forward to help Dahir against the Arabs. His son also appealed for help to his brother and nephews and not to the Hindu chiefs of the country.

The Hindu cheifs surrendered in many cases without resistance merely on the assurance that they will be treated kindly. The Hindu defenders submitted and were not molested. The only exceptions were men bearing arms. Quasim took Sisakar into his confidence and told him all his secrets. He relied upon Moka Bisaya to lead foraging parties against Jaisiya. He appointed Kaksa, a cousin of Dahir, as his Vazier with precedence over all Muslim nobles and army commanders. All these facts show that the invasion of Sindh was not a religious crusade.

Dr. Tarachand says that even the results do not justify this conclusion. It is doubtful whether many Sindhis were converted to Islam by the invaders. Their places of worship were not damaged as is proved by the case of the temple at Multan. Many Brahmans were employed in the administration. The Sumras who ruled over Sindh bore Hindu nomes. The Hindu Amils were the official class under the Kalhoras and Talpurs.

The history of Sindh shows that the factor of religion has been exaggerated. It is stated in Chach Namah and Futuh at Buldan of ATBH adhuri that Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq, who had dispatched Quasim had a balance sheet of the war prepared which showed that 60,000 silver Dirhems was the expenditure and 120,000 Dirhems was the income from the campaign. The expedition was as much a business enterprise as a venture for the expansion of the empire.