Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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One of the other discussions in another thread lead to this discussion, I think it it an interesting enough topic that it should have a thread of its own so that we can find out how several different members of PA’s think about this issues.

PD and Mods, I hope you guys are OK with me starting a new thread on this topic.

I was reading up a post by PD which made me come up with following reply in regards with a academic course “Pak studies” that is taught from Primary schools in Pak.

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Re: Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

PD's first response.

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Re: Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

Captain's response.

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Re: Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

Its an interesting topic no doubt, will discuss about it later today.

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So if Taliban or TTP these days, forcibly convert someone while trying to protect their personal version of islam in Pak or tell other that they are converting people in banner of Islam and their duties to religion, are you telling me that the next generations of those forcibly converted muslims should not even question the manner/motives that made TTP and other self interest loving people that mask their personal interests in the name of Islam?

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It is refreshing to see folks unafraid of critical analysis. If every individual would do the same, there would be no rah- rah patriotic fervor. Just an objective search for truth. A rarity - especially in a polarized world.

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Re: Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

No, I am not advocating forcibly conversions, nor I advocate use of force to "implement" a particular version as it will be against Allah's orders/Quran. There might have been forced conversions and there might have been 'good-will' conversions, fight for wealth was all over the place, it still is all over the world, so I will not be surprised by that.

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Re: Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

History taught in schools in almost in any country is biased. If Portuguese were successful in colonizing India, I am sure the history taught now would be drastically different. They put Muslim invaders in a slightly positive light since they themselves converted people to Catholicism by force in South India and thought about Hindus as misguided ‘idol worshipers’ in a similar vein as Muslim invaders.

I studied Pakistan Studies in the 80s and the ‘sarkari’ version of it. Nikema and PD, yes, the history taught is biased but you should also realize that the world is not black and white. If it is wrong to say that invaders’ primary intention was to ‘bring the message of Islam’ to India, it is equally wrong to assume that they were tyrants and all conversions to Islam were forced. Remember that such invasions would not have been successful without help and invitation from locals either. We also need to realize that spread of Islam in subcontinent was gradual with increasing trade and cultural exchanges with middle east, not like a tsunami that came with invaders. Reading Schimmel’s “Islam in India” would give you a positive (call it biased) view of these invaders vis-a-vis some modern Indian historians.

Calling these invaders ‘looters’ and ‘murderers’ is also an extreme. Looking from a present day standards, they might seem to be savages, but at that time, this is how world worked. It was a way of life at that time with empires continuously trying to expand and dominate (militarily, economically and culturally) others. Unfortunately, they did not have IMF at that time. :smiley:

You cannot really call the Muslim invaders as ‘Early invaders’ either. The geographical area that is present day Pakistan, was attacked and ‘colonized’ from the East by Mauryas eventually forcing Alexander out of the western borders as well. They brought their own version of Hinduism and later Buddhism to this area. Since that time locals have rarely ruled over this area.

Speaking Volumes: **Religion **and **Teaching History **in India](Speaking Volumes: Religion and Teaching History in India on JSTOR) is an interesting article demonstrating how history taught even within India in different schools under different religion-influenced schools has different shades for important events happening in the subcontinent.

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Re: Early Invaders of Hind and Islam

Pakistan studies starts from the invasions of muslims ignoring our rich historical past. After reading our history books it seems as if history of Pakistan started from Muhammad bin Qasim, and then Ghaznavi and Ghauri.

Although the region forming Pakistan now has had a very long and colorful past. The invaders have been ransacking this area for thousands of years, and almost all these invasions have been through Central Asia (Afghanistan) and Persia.

Before muslims, the invaders used to be Persians, Greeks, Sakas, Scythians, Mongols, White Huns etc. No invasion is peaceful! Another interesting thing is that most of the muslim 'invaders' had mongol blood in them, Moghuls stand out...So the invaders more or the less remained same, only the religion changed. The interesting thing is that before Ghaznavi and Ghauri, 'Hindushahis' were ruling Punjab and KP. And guess what that was also a Kabul based (Afghan) Kingdom. The religion of KP and Punjab has always been the religion of Afghanistan (when it was Budhishm and Hindusim in Afghanistan we had the same religions in our areas).

As far as conversions are concerned, some might have taken place by force or to get some benefits from the new rulers. But the biggest reason were not the invaders, they were the sufis who came to the region and preached equality and peace. This is the main reason that the population of muslims was the greatest in all those regions where most of these sufis made their home.

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I think a key issue is that "Pakistani" history is very recent. Our history is intertwined with India's and a lot of patriots probably hate this fact, which is why I think patriotism is idiotic. The glorification of Muslim invaders is an attempt to tie our past with said invaders, to differentiate ourselves from Hindus.

We should realize that we are the same people culturally as Indians, and should try to look at history without a religious bias. Thus, all invaders should be treated as outsiders (at some point), some of whom settled down here and contributed to the culture, while others simply looted and ran.

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Why wasxit that the area that is current day Pakistan had more Muslims than present India? Closer location to Iran Iraq etc?

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That doesn’t explain Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.

I believe more conversions took place along the trade routes with Middle East, Central Asia and Persia.

http://www.east-site.com/images/silk_road_map.gif

http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch2en/conc2en/silkroad.html

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closer to Iran and Central Asia, like I mentioned above...most of Pakistan's religion has always been same to that of the Afghans, some how history has intertwined the two countries together during the history and this is true even today.

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Going through some information (available on internet) regarding Mahabharata it seems as if the people on the fringes of the Indiansubcontinent, which includes North West (Pakistan and Afghanistan) and East (Bangladesh) were never really ardent followers of Hinduism and Buddhism(unlike mainland India) and were despised for that. Maybe the caste system was very strong in these areas as well, therefore when they got a chance they joined Islam. How can one explain the creation of Sikhism in Punjab?