Muslim Kings also fought with Hindu kings to just expand their empires
India was not divided into states during the era of migration of Arabs, Turks, Iranians and other regions of Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. Different kings were ruling in different parts of their regions. Sindh and Baluchistan were one state, Malwa was another, Kanyakubj (Kannauj) and Varanasi were one state and Rajputana was another state. While one dynasty ruled in Bengal, another king ruled in the southern part. States were named Thanesar, Mathura and likewise.
Violent wars erupted between the kings of all these states and it was customary to capture each others’ kingdom. Earlier, I had written that in the greed for power, rulers did not see beyond anything except the expansion of their kingdom. It is evident that when a Hindu king attacked the kingdom of a Hindu king, it was not because of religion.
Muslim kings fought with Hindu kings to expand empires, not religious reasons
Similarly the Muslim kings who were attacking the kings of that time did it solely with the goal of expanding their kingdoms and never for religious reasons. If Mahmud Ghaznavi and Mohammad Ghori were attacking the rulers of India, then it had nothing to do with Islam, but only to gain wealth and extend their rule.
Those who call Mahmud Ghaznavi’s attacks as Hindu Muslim war hide the fact that Mahmud Ghaznavi got his kingdom by killing his own brother Ismail. Ismail was declared his successor by his father Sabuktagin but Mahmud defeated his elder brother and captured Ghazni.
Here, no mention is made of the fact that Mahmud Ghaznavi destroyed Muslim states before attacking India. If he was bringing Islam to India, why did he destroy the kingdom of Khalaf ibn Ahmad, the Muslim ruler of Sistan? Similarly, people associate the attacks of Mohammad Ghori with the arrival of Muslims. They do not speak of the multitudes of Muslims who shed blood before Ghori invaded India which is also recorded in history. It raises the questions:
Didn’t he along with his brother kill Abul Abbas, the ruler of Ghor, to capture the region of Gour?
Did not Ghori wage a war against his real uncle, defeat him and kill the Saljuqi governor of Herat and Balakh?
Did Muhammad Ghori not capture Herat and Pushang?
The pertinent query is, “Did he execute these wars for power or for Islam?
The reality is Islam in India did not come with the invaders but with the traders, Ulema and Sufis. In a pamphlet published in 1964 by the Publications Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, the same fact has been written in these words, “The story of the influence of Islam in India and the increasing number of Muslims is about twelve hundred years ago.”
In history, while attacks are mentioned, peaceful movements are often overlooked. The first Muslims to come to India were not invaders who came after the invasion of Muhammad bin Qasim in AD 712. In contrast, there were Arab sailors and traders who preceded them in India had arrived and settled on the shores of Kerala.
The first Muslims to come to India were the neo-Muslim Arab traders from Muscat and Hormuz who settled on the Malabar coast. The same view is supported in the book “History of Kerala” by Mr. M. Panicker. Unfortunately, no department of Government of India brings out these facts and the message that Islam came to India through invaders is relay edaround.
How Dalits embraced Islam
Professor Khaliq Ahmed Nizami, while describing the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, wrote, “Although the Rajputs in the North tried very vigorously in the era of the Ghaznavi rulers to check the growing political influence of the Turks, Muslim merchants, ulema, Sufis, and the missionaries kept entering this country without fighting and settled in many important places. These people generally started living in the settlements of Dalits due to which Dalits who were oppressed for thousands of years came under the shadow of Islam. ”
In the next section, I will give you information about the Sufis who had made India their home forever, long before the attacks of Ghaznavi and Ghori. (This will be continued in my ongoing series)
(To be continued)