Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent
The Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent mainly took place between the 13th and the 18th centuries, establishing the Indo-Muslim period. Earlier Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent include the invasions which started in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, especially the Umayyad campaigns in India during the 8th century. Mahmud of Ghazni, sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, invaded vast parts of Punjab and Gujarat during the 11th century. After the capture of Lahore and the end of the Ghaznavids, the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor laid the foundation of Muslim rule in India in 1192. In 1202, Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji led the Muslim conquest of Bengal, marking the easternmost expansion of Islam at the time.
The Ghurid Empire soon evolved into the Delhi Sultanate in 1206, ruled by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the founder of the Mamluk dynasty. With the Delhi Sultanate established, Islam was spread across most parts of the Indian subcontinent. In the 14th century, the Khalji dynasty under Alauddin Khalji, extended Muslim rule southwards to Gujarat, Rajasthan, and the Deccan. The successor Tughlaq dynasty temporarily expanded its territorial reach to Tamil Nadu. The disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate, capped by Timur's invasion in 1398, caused several Muslim sultanates and dynasties to emerge across the Indian subcontinent, such as the Gujarat Sultanate, Malwa Sultanate, Bahmani Sultanate, Jaunpur Sultanate, Madurai Sultanate, and the Bengal Sultanate. Some of these, however, were followed by Hindu reconquests and resistance from the native powers and states, such as the Telugu Nayakas, Vijayanagara, and Rajput states under the Kingdom of Mewar.
The Delhi Sultanate was replaced by the Mughal Empire in 1526, which was one of the three gunpowder empires. Emperor Akbar gradually enlarged the Mughal Empire to include a large portion of the subcontinent. Under Akbar, who stressed the importance of religious tolerance and winning over the goodwill of the subjects, a multicultural empire came into being with various non-Muslim subjects being actively integrated into the Mughal Empire's bureaucracy and military machinery. The economic and territorial zenith of the Mughals was reached at the end of the 17th century, when under the reign of emperor Aurangzeb the empire witnessed the full establishment of Islamic Sharia through the Fatawa al-Alamgir.
The Mughals went into a sudden decline immediately after achieving their peak following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, due to a lack of competent and effective rulers among Aurangzeb's successors. Other factors included the expensive and bloody Mughal-Rajput Wars and the Mughal–Maratha Wars. The Afsharid ruler Nader Shah's invasion in 1739 was an unexpected attack which demonstrated the weakness of the Mughal Empire. This provided opportunities for various regional states such as Rajput states, Mysore Kingdom, Sind State, Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad, Maratha Empire, Sikh Empire, and Nizams of Hyderabad to declare their independence and exercising control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent further accelerating the geopolitical disintegration of the Indian subcontinent.
The Maratha Empire replaced Mughals as the dominant power of the subcontinent from 1720 to 1818. The Muslim conquests in Indian subcontinent came to a halt after the Battle of Plassey, the Battle of Buxar, Anglo-Mysore Wars, Anglo-Maratha Wars, Anglo-Sind War and Anglo-Sikh Wars as the British East India Company seized control of much of the Indian subcontinent up till 1857. Throughout the 18th century, European powers continued to exert a large amount of political influence over the Indian subcontinent, and by the end of the 19th century most of the Indian subcontinent came under European colonial domination, most notably the British Raj until 1947.
First phase (8th to 10th centuries)
Early Muslim presence
The first ever recorded incursion by Arabs in India occurred around 636/7 AD, during the Rashidun Caliphate, long before any Arab army reached the frontier of India by land. Uthman ibn Abi al-As al-Thaqafi, the governor of Bahrain and Oman, had dispatched naval expeditions against the Sasanian coast, and further east to the borders of India, as confirmed by the contemporary Armenian historian, Sebeos. Uthman, on his own initiative and without the sanction of Caliph Umar, according to the history of al-Baladhuri, had also launched two naval raids against ports of the Indian subcontinent, the first of these raids targeted Thane and Bharuch. The second raid targeted Debal.The assault on Thane, the first recorded Arab raid on India, was commanded by Uthman's brother al-Hakam, who also led the raid on Bharuch. The following raid on Debal was commanded by another brother, al-Mughira. The raids were probably launched in according to al-Baladhuri. These expeditions were not sanctioned by Caliph Umar and Uthman escaped punishment only because there weren't any casualties.
The raids on Thane and Bharuch may have been successful as the Arabs had lost no men during these raids, but al-Baladhuri does not specifically state these raids as successful,, so some scholars are of the opinion that the Arabs raids may have been failures. and forced the Arabs to retreat. The raid on Debal may have occurred in 643 AD and faced success, but it is unlikely as Umar was still the Caliph and Uthman was unlikely to disobey his directive on sea raids, and the source reporting this is deemed unreliable.
The motivation for these expeditions may have been to seek plunder or to attack pirates to safeguard Arabian trade in the Arabian Sea, not to start the conquest of India. Shortly after the Muslim conquest of Persia, the connection between the Sindh and Islam was established by the initial Muslim missions during the Rashidun Caliphate.
Rashidun Caliphate and the frontier kingdoms
The kingdoms of Kapisa-Gandhara in modern-day Afghanistan, Zabulistan, and Sindh in modern-day Pakistan, all of which were culturally part of Indian subcontinent since ancient times, were known as "The Frontier of Al Hind" to the Arabs. Makran had been conquered by Chach of Aror in 631 AD, but ten years later, it was described as "under the government of Persia" by Xuanzang, who had visited the region in 641.The first clash between a ruler of an Indian kingdom and the Arabs took place in 643, when Arab forces defeated Rutbil, the King of Zabulistan in Sistan. Arabs led by Suhail b. Abdi later defeated a Sindhi army in the Battle of Rasil in 644 on the Indian Ocean coast, then reached the Indus River. Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab denied Suhail permission to carry on across the river. Al-Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, who attacked Makran in the year 649 AD, was an early partisan of Ali ibn Abu Talib.
Abdullah ibn Aamir led the invasion of Khurasan in 650 AD, and his general Rabi b. Ziyad Al Harithi attacked Sistan and took Zaranj and surrounding areas in 651 while Ahnaf ibn Qais conquered the Hepthalites of Herat and advanced up to Balkh by 653. Arab conquests now bordered the Kingdoms of Kapisa, Zabul and Sindh in modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Arabs levied annual tributes on the newly captured areas, and after leaving 4,000 men garrisons at Merv and Zaranj, retired to Iraq instead of pushing on against the frontier of India. Caliph Uthman b. Affan sanctioned an attack against Makran in 652, and sent a recon mission to Sindh in 653. The mission described Makran as inhospitable, and Caliph Uthman, probably assuming the country beyond the Indus was much worse, forbade any further incursions into Indian subcontinent. During the caliphate of Ali, many Hindus of Sindh had come under the influence of Shi'ism and some even participated in the Battle of Camel and died fighting for Ali.
Under the Umayyads, many Shias sought asylum in the region of Sindh, to live in relative peace in the remote area. Ziyad Hindi was one of those refugees.
Umayyad expansion in Al Hind
established the Umayyad rule over the Arabs after the First Fitna in 661 AD, and resumed expansion of the Muslim empire. Al-Baladuri wrote that, "In the year 44 H., and in the days of the Khalif Mu'awiya, Muhallib son of Abu Safra made war upon the same frontier, and advanced as far as Banna and Alahwar, which lie between Multan and Kabul."After 663-665 CE, the Arabs launched an invasion against Kapisa, Zabul and what is now Pakistani Balochistan. Abdur Rahman b. Samurra besieged Kabul in 663 AD, while Haris b Marrah advanced against Kalat after marching through Fannazabur and Quandabil and moving through the Bolan Pass. Al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra took a detachment through the Khyber pass towards Multan in Southern Punjab in modern-day Pakistan in 664 AD, then pushed south into Kikan, and may have also raided Quandabil. Turki Shah and Zunbil expelled Arabs from their respective kingdoms by 670, and Zunbil began assisting in organizing resistance against the Arabs in Makran.
This was the beginning of a prolonged struggle between the rulers of Kabul and Zabul in modern-day and Pakistan against successive Arab governors of Sistan, Khurasan and Makran. The Kabul Shahi kings and their Zunbil kinsmen successfully blocked access to the Khyber Pass and Gomal Pass routes into India from 653 to 870 AD, while modern Balochistan, Pakistan, comprising the areas of Kikan or Qiqanan, Nukan, Turan, Buqan, Qufs, Mashkey and Makran, would face several Arab expeditions between 661 and 711 AD. The Arabs launched several raids against these frontier lands, but repeated rebellions in Sistan and Khurasan between 653 and 691 AD diverted much of their military resources in order to subdue these breakaway provinces and away from expansion into Al Hind. Muslim control of these areas ebbed and flowed repeatedly as a result until 870 AD. Arab troops disliked being stationed in Makran. Fierce resistance stalled Arab progress repeatedly in the "frontier zone". and the Arabs had to focus on tribute extraction instead of systematic conquest as a result.