Conflicting Heroes

You might have come across this statement by Pakistani Senator & ANP Leader Haji Adeel:
**
Hindu King Raja Dahir, Not Arab Conqueror Mohammad Bin Qasim, Is Our Hero

http://www.thememriblog.org/urdupashtu/blog_personal/en/26599.htm

**We all know that major events of history are pro conqueror. Be it Alexendra, Mehmmod Ghauri, Mehmood Ghaznavi, Ahmed Shah Abdali, they have been given status of heroes in history.

On the other side, people like Haji Adeel gives importance to the local rulers like Raja Dahir, Porus, Prithvi Raaj considering they tried to safeguard their homeland from the intruders whose main objective was to loot the country.

Whats your turn on this issue?

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Muhammad bin qasim came after raja Dahir captured ship of muslims....
so Muhammad bin Qasim is a hero without any doubt...........

Haji sahanb is a nationalist person but he can not compare raja dahir and Muhammad bin Qasim....

Why was hazrat Salman farsi( radi allah ta'ala anhu) was fighting for arabs.....
why muhajirin migrated to medina fighting against their fellow residents of makkah.............
whatever may happen but Islam comes first.......
That haji sahab must have to gain from such foolish statements.....
here in india we heard about an afghan king Dulha Rehman Shah who was about to be married but when
he heard that a king of india insulted islam he attacked that king before marriage and Dulha Rehman shah became shaheed...
sister of that hindu king accepted islam so great were those muslim kings....
calling our heroes looters is a shame for ummah....
there may be few kings who were looters but not everyone who attacked india were looters....

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Well said Ninja.

I was just thinking whether the history of conquerors be accepted as it is. The motive behind the campaign of Muhammad Bin Qasim is surely to free the Muslim pilgirms from Raja Dahir, but he was not given proper time to complete his expeditions due to interefrence from Iraq. We all know about the character of Hajaj bin yousif and can we accept that he supported campaigns of Sindh & Spain just for Islam?

Atatcks from Mehmood Ghaznavi to Ahmed Shah Abdali were not for Islam, because at the time of Mehmmod Ghaznavi there was no majority of muslims in India who were being supressed by the local rulers. We all know who were the major victims of Abdali's attacks..Majority included Muslims.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

but mehmood gazanavi is respected by lot of muslims....

as far as Ahmad shah abdali is concerned his help was asked by shah waliullah dehelvi because mughal were weak and marathas
were trying to capture delhi and we should also remember that blow given by ahmad shah abdali was so stong that maratha empire disintegrated after that...
may be its off topic but as i m from maharashtra there is common saying in marathi "panipat hone" which is still used to denote someone's embarrassing defeat....
panipat was the place where abdali defeated maratha.......

Re: Conflicting Heroes

But what were the motive of Mehmood Ghaznavi to attack India again & again?

Did Abdali's attacks strengthen the Muslims in India. The general condition of masses can be described in one line by Baba Bulleh Shah:

** "* Khahda peeta lahe da te baqi Ahmad Shahe da*" (Consume as much as you can because the rest is going to be taken away by Ahmad Shah anyway). **

Re: Conflicting Heroes

purpose of gazanavis raids i think was to weaken india as far as possible...

while ahmad shah has to return to take care of afghanistan thats why it never helped indian muslims properly....

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Weaken for the sake of ?? Were local rulers at that time were posing any danger to Ghazni's state?

[QUOTE]

while ahmad shah has to return to take care of afghanistan thats why it never helped indian muslims properly....
[/QUOTE]

We are missing the condition Baba Bulleh shah is pointing at

Re: Conflicting Heroes

actually even nooristan region of afghanistan was religiously hindu as much as i know…
may be rule of ahmad shah created problem for common ppl may be his bureaucracy was corrupt…
Mahmud’s first campaign to the south was against the Ismaili Fatimid Kingdom at Multan in a bid to curry political favor and recognition with theAbbassid Caliphate, he engaged with the Fatimids elsewhere. At this point, Raja Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi Dynasty in Kabul attempted to gain revenge for an earlier military defeat at the hands of Mahmud’s father, who had controlled Ghazni in the late 980s and had cost Jayapala extensive territory. His son Anandapala succeeded him and continued the struggle to avenge his father’s suicide. He assembled a powerful confederacy which faced defeat as his elephant turned back from the battle in a crucial moment, turning the tide into Mahmud’s favor once more at Lahore in 1008 bringing Mahmud into control of the Hindu Shahi dominions of Updhanpura.[SUP][4]](Mahmud of Ghazni - Wikipedia)[/SUP]

Re: Conflicting Heroes

aipal was the king of Hindushahi Kingdom. Mahmud had already fought against him, when Subuktagin was the king of Ghazni. When Mahmud became the king, he decided to attack on Hindushahi Kingdom, as its king, Jaipal, was his old enemy.
In 1001, Mahmud attacked the Hindushahi Kingdom. 15,000 Hindu soldiers were killed. Jaipal was defeated and captured. He was presented before Mahmud with his 15 other relatives; 500,000 enslaved persons were also brought along.
Mahmud looted all his wealth. He received 250,000 Dinars to free Jaipal. About 5,00,000 Indians were taken to Ghazni as slaves. Though Jaipal was freed, but he refused to survive his disgrace. He cast himself upon a funeral pyre and died.

Anandpal was the son of Jaipal, and now became the king of Hindushahi Kingdom.
In 1008, Mahmud attacked on Anandpal. Anandpal called other Hindu kings to help him. The kings of Ujjain, Gwalior, Kalinjar, Kannauj, Delhi, Ajmer etc. came to help him with their armies. In the battlefield of Peshawar, both the armies remained standing before each other, but no one attacked. Meanwhile the Khokhars (a race) also came there to help Hindus. Mahmud deployed 6,000 archers to attack.Khokhars attacked the Muslims and killed approximately 5,000 Muslims.
Unfortunately, Jaipal’s elephant became infuriated and ran from the battlefield. As soon as Jaipal left the battlefield, the Hindu army got confused and ran away. Muslims chased them and killed 20,000 Hindus. Thus, the best organized national efforts ever made by medieval Hindu India against the foreigners ended.
http://orbat.com/site/cimh/kings_master/kings/mahmud_ghaznavi/Mahmud%20Ghaznavi.html

may be that was the reason behind 17raids on india

Re: Conflicting Heroes

So this again proves that religion has nothing to do with those atatcks. It was either personal revenge or for gaining wealth (including slaves) and we call Ghaznavi ‘But shikan’ - The destroyer of idols.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

no this wealth was most needed to run affairs of state and war machine....
as far as title of but shikan is concerned he destroyed idols instead of extorting money in return of their safety...
thats why he is entitled to be called but shikan.......

when he destroyed other temples;priests of somnath announced that if gazanavi will ever attack somnath he will be destroyed himself
so he chose to attack somnath as per my knowledge.....

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Affairs of which state?? Afghanistan or India? Does Islam teaches us to attack another state just for meeting expenses of our own state?

[QUOTE]

as far as title of but shikan is concerned he destroyed idols** instead of extorting money in return of their safety...
thats why he is entitled to be called but shikan.......**

when he destroyed other temples;priests of somnath announced that if gazanavi will ever attack somnath he will be destroyed himself
so he chose to attack somnath as per my knowledge.....
[/QUOTE]

Contrary to popular belief that he opt to destroy idols at Somnath just for faith, there is a view that he knew that what he was being offered was nothing against the hidden treasure, which he was aware of.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

affairs of afghanistan and may be i used wrong words but the money was to meet expenses of war ......

as far as question of hidden treasure is concerned how can he came to know that secret of somnath....

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Somnath was one of the biggest temples of India where people gave costly holdings (ornaments, gold, jewels) as a tradition or devotion and this must be a well known fact of that time and having attacked India 17 times Mehmood could know these things and we should not forget the role spies and traitors like Meer Jafar plays for conquerors.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

i accept that we can not term every attack was for religious purpose....

that is why we had so many kingdoms in sub continent.......

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Technically, Yusuf Bin Hajjaj is the hero in this example, because he is the one that chose to answer the call. Muhammad Bin Qasim was simply the tool through which Bin Hajjaj's will was carried out.

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None of the Muslim rulers of India attacked/captured/invaded India for Islam. Everyone did it for power and greed. My personal bit, but I dont consider them heroes.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Exactly, if anyone tries to prove that these attacks were for spreading Islam, then he/she is indirectly proving the infamous theory that 'Islam was spread by sword' which is not the fact. Islam was not spread by the attacks and wars, it was spreaded by Auliya Allah (saints) and their preaching of love, humanity and tolerance.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

And the thing about Raja Dahir and MBQ: I dont know how true our history is, but long time ago, I went to Sukhhar with few friends of mine and locals had a different view of Dahir/MBQ story.

They said that a ship full of widowed and orphan kids came to Sindh, asking Dahir to save them from Hajjaj. Dahir gave them panah. Hajjaj, when he heard that news, sent MBQ to bring those people back. That was the start of the fight. According to locals of Sukhkhar (all Muslims), Dahir was the hero.

In fact they showed us the island in indus river which is known as Island of 7 virgins (or something like that). Story is that the island has graves of 7 women who committed suicide when MBQ tried to take them back. They preferred to die than to go back with him.

Re: Conflicting Heroes

Can an independent reader of history believe that Hajjaj was that much concerned about the call of a woman, when we know that he was the right hand of those who attacked Makkah and Medina where Muslim women were raped.

Don't we know that he is the man who throwned stones on Kaaba through Manjaneeq during Haj period (fighting during Zilhaj was considered a biggest sin even in pre- Islamic period). Hajjaj was the one for whom Hazrat Umar Bin Abdul Aziz (RA) said that only Hajjaj can be presented in a competition against all the evil and vices of the world.