India Under Muslims
The Arabs and Muslim Rulers
The genesis of Pakistan is linked with the advent of Islam in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent after the conquest of Province of Sind in 711 AD by Mohammad bin Qasim, the Arab general and nephew of ruler of Iraq and Persia. The Arab invasion was later a cue for many such adventures by Muslim conquerors from the North, which continued for next ten centuries and thus Islam flourished by leaps and bounds.
After Bin Qasim, for three centuries no worthwhile activity took place. Then Afghans, Turks and Persians found their way from the North. The spread of Islam gained impetus after Mahmud of Ghazni, an Afghan, invaded in 997. With the conquest of Punjab in the early 11th century, the centre of Muslim rule shifted to the historical and ancient city of Lahore.
Between 1175 and 1186 the regions of Sind and Punjab were conquered by Muhammad of Ghuri who hailed from Afghanistan. At his death in 1206, all of north India was under his control. That year his general Qutubuddin Aybak laid the foundations of an independent Muslim kingdom in India, the Delhi Sultanate. Thirty-five sultans ruled this rich and powerful sultanate from 1206 to 1526. The sultanate included most of Punjab and Sind during this period.
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The Mughuls
With the emergence of Zaheer ud Din Muhammad Baber, a descendant of Tamerlane, the Mughul rule set-in in 1526 AD in the Indian sub-continent. Mughal Empire was born after Lodhis were defeated at famous battle field of Panipat. Babur’s kingdom stretched from beyond Afghanistan to the Bengal region along the Gangetic Plain.
Humayaun, Babar’s son jad two stretches of rule since Sher Shah Suri defeated him and rule India before Humayun could again come back and defeat him. The famous Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Dehli was built by Sher Shah Suri (also known as “Gernaili Sarak – Generals’ Road). Humayun’s son Akbar further extended the empire and for a brief spell changed the capital to Fateh Pur Sikri and then back to Dehli. Akbar allowed religious tolerance and brought Hindus, Christians and others to his court and this encouraged the Europeans to frequently visit the courts and by and by became active in trade. Some attribute this openness for the British ingress into internal affairsof India and finally ruling it.
After Akbar, Shah Jehan, Jahangir and Aurangzeb (portrait left)ruled India. Although he was an outstanding general and a rigorous administrator, Aurangzeb’s aggressive expansion of the frontiers of the empire weakened his rule And with his demise the the Mughul empire started to crumble and finally collapsed in 1857 with the British taking over the reins of India for yet another century.
Impact on Culture and Architecture
From 711 AD onwards, when Muhammad Bin Qasim invaded the coastal town of Bhambore, the culture of this part of the Indian sub-continent changed from statues to calligraphy, Quranic engravings and change in the life style of the people. Though the Arabs did not left profound imprints, it was the Afghans, Turks and Persians who changed the architecture, life style and above all the language and its script. Strategically built forts, tombs and mosques sprang up all over the sub-continent, some which are still preserved close to their original form (specially the mosques and the tomb, and the Islamic calligraphy and art) while forts are deteriorating due to negligence.
Although the British pioneered the railway system in the subcontinent, Sher Shah Suri built the Uttarâpatha “the upper road” which connected the cities of the Ganges plain (e.g., Patna), with the towns in the eastern Punjab (Amritsar, Lahore), and Taxila in the western Punjab and Peshawar in NWFP. The present day Grand Trunk Road has almost the same alignment as of the Upper Road or sometimes referred to as Gernaili sarak. The remains of the road can still be found near Rawalpindi just besides the Nicholson’s monument.
Suri aslo built the the massive and impressive Rohtas Fort in 1540 A.D. The strength and width of this fort can be imagined from the fact that it could easily accommodate 12,000 men of Sher Shah’s army who were once stationed here to defend his domain against the Ghakkar tribes living in the vicinities of the Salt Range.
Till the arrival and gaining of the stronghold of entire subcontinent by the Euorpeans, specially the British, the landscape of India changed altogether and Islam was at its highest. It produced a pattern of organized unity, though it gradually dismantled due to ineptness of the rulers in the later part of 17th century and served as a harbinger for the British to take over and inject a new cultural and economic system completely tangent to what has been in vogue.(More details about Mughul architecture in site about Lahore).
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