Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent
The Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent or Indo-Muslim period is conventionally said to have started in 640 with the conquest of Makran by the Rashidun Caliphate and was continued in 712–714, after the conquest of Sindh and Multan by the Umayyad Caliphate under the military command of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim. It began in the Indian subcontinent in the course of a gradual conquest. The perfunctory rule by the Ghaznavids in Punjab was followed by Ghurids, and Sultan Muhammad of Ghor is generally credited with laying the foundation of Muslim rule in Northern India. Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent also led to major developments in architecture, including the introduction of Persian-influenced designs, arches, domes, and decorative calligraphy. These styles shaped many of the region’s most iconic structures and contributed to the formation of Indo-Islamic architecture.
From the late 12th century onwards, Muslim empires dominated the subcontinent, most notably the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. Various other Muslim kingdoms ruled most of South Asia from the mid-14th to late 18th centuries, including the Bahmani, Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, Kashmir, Multan, Mysore, Carnatic and Deccan Sultanates. Though the Muslim dynasties in India were diverse in origin, they were linked together by the Persianate culture and Islam.
The height of Islamic rule was marked during the reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, during which the Fatawa Alamgiri was compiled, which briefly served as the legal system of Mughal Empire. Additional Islamic policies were re-introduced in South India by Mysore's de facto king Tipu Sultan.
Sharia was used as the primary basis for the legal system in the Delhi Sultanate, most notably during the rule of Firuz Shah Tughlaq and Alauddin Khilji, who repelled the Mongol invasions of India. On the other hand, rulers such as Akbar adopted a secular legal system and enforced religious neutrality. Muslim rule in India saw a major shift in the cultural, linguistic, and religious makeup of the subcontinent. Persian and Arabic vocabulary began to enter local languages, giving way to modern Punjabi, Bengali, and Gujarati, while creating new languages including Hindustani and its dialect, Deccani, used as official languages under Muslim dynasties. This period also saw the birth of Hindustani music, Qawwali. Religions such as Sikhism and Din-e-Ilahi were born out of a fusion of Hindu and Muslim religious traditions as well.
In the 18th century the Islamic influence in India begin to decline following the decline of the Mughal Empire, resulting in former Mughal territory conquered rival powers such as the Maratha Empire. However, Islamic rule would still remain under regional Nawabs and Sultans.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, large parts of India were colonized by the East India Company, eventually establishing the British Raj in 1857. Regional Islamic rule would remain under princely states, such as Hyderabad State, Junagadh State, and other minor princely states until the mid of the 20th century.
Today, Bangladesh, Maldives and Pakistan are the Muslim majority nations in the Indian subcontinent while India has the largest Muslim minority population in the world numbering over 204 million.
History
Early Muslim dominions
Local kings who converted to Islam existed in places such as the Western Coastal Plains as early as the 7th century. Islamic rule in India prior to the advent of the Mamluk dynasty included those of Arab Caliphate, Ghaznavids and Ghurids.Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate was the first of the two major Islamic empires which was based in mainland India between 1206 and 1526. It emerged after the disintegration of the Ghurid empire in 1206. During the last quarter of the 12th century, Muhammad of Ghor invaded the Indo-Gangetic plain, conquering in succession Ghazni, Multan, Lahore, and Delhi. Qutb-ud-din Aybak, one of his generals proclaimed himself Sultan of Delhi. In Bengal and Bihar, the reign of general Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji was established. Shamsuddīn Iltutmish, established the Delhi Sultanate on a firm basis, which enabled future sultans to push in every direction. Within the next 100 years, the Delhi Sultanate extended its way east to Bengal and south to the Deccan. The sultanate was in constant flux as five dynasties rose and fell: the Mamluk dynasty, Khalji dynasty, Tughlaq dynasty, Sayyid dynasty, and Lodi dynasty. Power in Delhi was often gained by violence—nineteen of the thirty-five sultans were assassinated—and was legitimized by reward for tribal loyalty. Factional rivalries and court intrigues were as numerous as they were treacherous; territories controlled by the sultan expanded and shrank depending on his personality and fortunes.The Delhi sultanate peaked under Muhammad bin Tughlaq in 1335. However, it came under gradual decline afterwards, with kingdoms like the Bengal Sultanate, Madurai Sultanate, Khandesh Sultanate and Bahmani Sultanate all asserting independence. Timur's invasion in 1398 only accelerated the process, and the Gujarat Sultanate and Jaunpur Sultanate broke away. Some of these kingdoms, such as Jaunpur, were again brought back under the Delhi Sultanate's control, although the rest remained independent from central rule until the conquests of the Mughal Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Both the Qur'an and sharia provided the basis for enforcing Islamic administration over the independent Hindu rulers. According to Angus Maddison, between the years 1000 and 1500, India's GDP, of which the sultanates represented a significant part, grew by nearly 80%, to $60.5 billion; however, this growth was lower than India’s GDP growth during the prior 1,000 years. Additionally, Maddison estimates that India’s population grew by nearly 50% during the same period. The Delhi Sultanate period coincided with a greater use of mechanical technology in the Indian subcontinent. While India previously already had sophisticated agriculture, food crops, textiles, medicine, minerals, and metals, it was not as sophisticated as the Islamic world or China in terms of mechanical technology. Sultan 'Ala ud-Din made an attempt to reassess, systematize, and unify land revenues and urban taxes and to institute a highly centralized system of administration over his realm, but his efforts were abortive. Although agriculture in North India improved as a result of new canal construction and irrigation methods, including what came to be known as the Persian wheel, prolonged political instability and parasitic methods of tax collection brutalized the peasantry. Yet trade and a market economy, encouraged by the free-spending habits of the aristocracy, acquired new impetus both in India and overseas. Experts in metalwork, stonework and textile manufacture responded to the new patronage with enthusiasm. In this period Persian language and many Persian cultural aspects became dominant in the centers of power, as the rulers of the Delhi Sultanate had been thoroughly Persianized since the era of the Ghaznavids.
File:Taj Mahal in March 2004.jpg|thumb|right|The Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan.
Mughal Empire
The Mughal empire was the second & last major Islamic empire to assert dominance over most of the Indian subcontinent between 1526 and 1857. The empire was founded by the Turco-Mongol leader Babur in 1526, when he defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate at the First Battle of Panipat. Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb are known as the six great Mughal Emperors. Apart from the brief interruption of 16 Years by the Afghan Sur Empire between 1540 and 1556, the Mughals continued to rule in one form or other till 1857.India was producing 24.5% of the world's manufacturing output up until 1750. Mughal economy has been described as a form of proto-industrialization, like that of 18th-century Western Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution.
After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the empire declined and reduced subsequently to the region in and around Old Delhi by 1757 to 1760. The decline of the Mughals in the 18th century provided opportunity for the Nawabs of Oudh and Bengal as well as Nizam of Hyderabad to become independent. The empire was formally dissolved by the British Raj after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Western and central India
carried out extensive conquests in the western India. He invaded the kingdoms of Gujarat, Jaisalmer, Ranthambore, Chittor, Malwa, Siwana, and Jalore. These victories ended several Rajput and other Hindu dynasties, including the Paramaras, the Vaghelas, the Chahamanas of Ranastambhapura and Jalore, the Rawal branch of the Guhilas, and possibly the Yajvapalas; and permanently establishing Muslim rule in the regions of central and western India. After his death, independent Islamic kingdoms emerged there.Gujarat Sultanate
The Gujarat Sultanate was founded by Sultan Zafar Khan Muzaffar, whose ancestors were Tāṅks from southern Punjab. Earlier, he was the governor of Gujarat appointed by the Tughlaq Sultans of Delhi. However, in the aftermath of the destruction of Delhi by Emir Timur, he declared independence in 1407. The next sultan, his grandson Ahmad Shah I moved the capital to Ahmedabad in 1411. His successor Muhammad Shah II subdued most Rajput chieftains. The prosperity of the sultanate reached its zenith during the rule of Mahmud Begada. He also subdued most Gujarati Rajput chieftains and built a navy off the coast of Diu. In 1509, the Portuguese empire wrested Diu from the Sultanate in the battle of Diu. The Moghul emperor Humayun attacked Gujarat in 1535 and briefly occupied it, during which Bombay, Bassein & Damaon would become a Portuguese colony, thereafter Bahadur Shah was killed by the Portuguese while making a deal in 1537. The end of the sultanate came in 1573, when Akbar annexed Sultanate of Guzerat into his empire. The kingdom was primarily based in the present-day state of Gujarat, India.File:India in 1525 Joppen.jpg|thumb|right|Map of Indian subcontinent in 1525. Sultanates of Gujarat, Malwa, Bengal, Kashmir and Delhi as well as Deccan sultanates can be seen in the south.