Hello to you all

 

Well there are many reasons for this, first was the civil war and then fall of the Ummayyads. The Umayyads were agressive conquerors, they succeeded in conquering all the lands they sent armies to except Byzantium. Muhammad bin Al-Qasim wante to go to India because of the enormous wealth there and because pagans accepted Islam much easier than Christians or Zoroastrians. Native population of Sindh and southern Punjab welcomed Arabs and allied themselves with them, this no doubt encouraged Muhammad to plan for further incursion into India especially after the successful naval operations against Gujurat and the arrival of new troops. But the death of Al-Walid I spelt doom for ibn Al-Qasin and his conquest. For a very weak charge he was tried and killed. His troops were withdrawn for war effort in the Byzantine front and even after the failure of the siege of 717, new problem started, civil war in spain, major revolts in Khurasan, Mazandran and transoxania and then the great Khazar invasion which threatened the very existance of the Ummayyad empire. All that lead to the withdrawall of all the troops in Sindh. When the Abbasids came, they had little attention payed to conquest and focused on preserving what was already in their hands. Later, they allowed the existance of client dynasties that became responsible for securing the realm of Islam, these clients soon became fully independet and started the long and bloody process of conquering India.

 

Al-Jassas 

     I think that your assertion is a bit of an over-generalization.  

 

First, I never heard of the proverb you said however there are other quotes by several leaders which are close to what you said.

 

As for Pagans accepting Islam, it is true. Persians were majority Zoroastrians till the 10th century then there were some forced conversions to Shiism in certain places. Several provinces like Kashan and Yazd had upto 25% of its population Zoroasrians when the Safavids forced the rest of Persia to convert to Shiism in the 16th century. Indonesians were Hindu and were peacefully converted so was most Sindhis, Kashmiris, Punjabis etc. It was only when later dynasties resorted to bloody attacks n hindus did the conversion rate became static. Dynasties wanted to rule more tha to spread Islam and if they did that peacefully India woud hve been majority muslim long ago.

 

Al-Jassas

 

 

 

     That proverb is hosted on this site.

 

       And most of the population which was converted to Islam was actually Bhuddist. And the population which was converted to Islam was converted to Sufi islam, of which most arabs are not very big fans, who prefer Wahabism instead. 

 

Obviously you no nothing about Arabs so I will explain some things to you. First, Arabs are not Wahhabis because there is no such thing. Second, he first people who attacked the Wahhabi movement were neighbouring Arabs wether they be in Nejd or in Egypt or Iraq, Sunni or Shia. The Wahhabis were puritanical reformers simmilar to the English puritans. The movement ceased to exist a long time ago because its goals were accomplished, purifying religion from pagan influences. In the rest of the Islamic world, Sufism is still strong, there are some 20% of the population of Egypt and up to 90% of that of Morocco and Sudan. The rest of the population whil not sharing the same creed of Sufis have been influenced by them and many celebration and practices that are not acceptable by Sunni scholars are widely practised among non Sufis. Islam entered India before Sufis began to have the upper hand there. Sufism started to grow rapidly after the ongolian hordes distroyed much of the Islamic world. The collapse of the Islamic system of education and the advent of illiterate rulers surrounded by sufis meant that sufism not traditional sunni Islam was to gain followers that is why many Indians are sufis but most are still Sunnis with sufi infuences.

 

AL-Jassas

 

          I have to say that you also know very little about the subcontient culture. Islam did enter India before the Sufis but it was the Sufis who really converted the local poulation. Since you are not a Pakistani therefore you don't the know the Sufi influence here, it is everywhere from music to shrines and folk poetry and all. And i know for a fact that many so called teachers of Islam went to the Arab countries and were greatly influenced by Wahabism and then going back to the subcontinent caused immense social strife there. 

 

         And about your claim that Persia was not really mostly muslim until about 1000 A.D. Well that is strange, i have read 1001 Arabian nights, which is actually 1001 Persian nights from around 800 A.D and Persia is as Muslim as it could be there with no signs of Zoarastrianism anywhere. Read it, you will know what i mean. 

Here is the problem, which version of the Nights you mean, if you don't know it by now, there is some 3 main versions if not more and many have completely different themes. The version that I read a long time ago was in 7 volumes and the Egyptian influence, nicknames, jockes etc is much more appareant than any other influence. 8th century Baghdad was actually 15th century Cairo.

 

Al-Jassas

I don't know what you think Pagan means. According to the dictionary it means:

"One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially an adherent of a polytheistic religion in antiquity."

I don't know about you, but I'm quite content with calling Hindus people who aren't Christian, Muslim or Jew and are polytheist. In the context of Muhammed bin Qasim, they were also in antiquity.

 

I don't think the age of a religion has anything to do with it being pagan or not.

Only the Buddhists actually, who were quite happy to get rid of the Brahmin rule. Nearly the whole of the Buddhist population converted over time, that is still evident in the demographics of india. The current muslim population is quite proportional to ancient buddhist populations.

I think the effect of Sufis is greatly overstated.

 

This is specially useful explaining why Bengal became muslim, relativelly isolated from the rest of the islamic world.

 

No it isn't sorry i couldn't explain well. I mean, if you look a map of percentage of population like this

 

http://www.libreria-mundoarabe.com/Boletines/n%BA59%20Abr.08/map_islamic_world.jpg - http://www.libreria-mundoarabe.com/Boletines/n%BA59%20Abr.08/map_islamic_world.jpg

 

you would note that Bengal is sorrounded by less important muslim populations in the middle of hindu or buddhist populations There are other muslims arounds but in a minor scale. In the context of South Asia, Bengal was an special region as the northwestern was, because had a buddhist caste system.

 

Two interesting maps about religion in SA between 8-12th century

 

http://www.tifr.res.in/~akr/culturalsites_india_800-1200.jpg - http://www.tifr.res.in/~akr/culturalsites_india_800-1200.jpg

http://www.tifr.res.in/~akr/cult_ind_bot.jpg - http://www.tifr.res.in/~akr/cult_ind_bot.jpg

 

First of all, pagan isn't an insult, it is a well known term for polytheist as Omar said.

 

Second, there was no mention in any of the Arab historical sources that Muhammad ibn Al-Qasim was defeated. The battle of Rajasthan never occured except in poetry and legend. Muhammad ibn Al-Qasim went till Multan and beyond but decided to make the Chenab river his frontier because of lack of troops (He conquered half of todays Pakistan with only 20k regulars and 15-20k allies). Qasim was excecuted because he allegedly took a princess of one of the conquered kingdoms as his concubine which was forbidden since royals always were taken to the Caliphal household and since she was pagan it was considered adultry.

 

The defeat did come but way later during the time of the civil wars (750-770) when the Punjab was retaken by a hindu lord but Sindh remained under full Islamic control until the Ghaznavids came.

 

Al-Jassas

 

Proof please. I can name at least 15 major battles where Ummayyads were defeated by foreigners (Turks, Byzantines, Khazars, Berbers etc.) and were described with boring detail in Arab history books and believe me, some of those defeats were really embarissing (in one battle over a 20k army went into Mazandran and didn't return and there is an Arabic saying "until the army of Mazandran returns").

 

Muhammad ibn Al-Qasim was stripped of his command, tried and executed. The trial is recorded in detail if he was defeated this would have definitely been brought up and since it didn't happen this means Ibn Al-Qasim wasn't defeated.

 

finally, I doubt that the Shahnama (if that is what you are quoting) is a reliable historical source, so bring real sources.

 

I never said Arabs were not defeated, They were but not Muhammad ibn Al-Qasim, the defeat came much later about 800 when Hindu kingdoms retook Multan and Punjab. It was the Ghaznavids who returned later.

 

Al-Jassas

 

Thats it! I can't take any more. This sick obsesstion with Islam and Jihad has reached untolerable proportions and eaglecap is reflecting his deep hatred for Islam on his posts.

 

Quoting psuedo-historians like Mr. Bostom (an MD by profession but with endorsment of fanatic religious rightwingers the greatest historian ever) and LK Lal (RSS member and official historian) who thinks muslims have no right to live in India since they are "foreign" and a guy no serious historian takes for granted (again except for twisted freaks who think the only right muslims have is the right to die).

 

The problem in these days that the only people who get publicity and are consulted and hailed as great historians are not those who spent decades studying and fully learning 4 or 5 languages and read thousands of books like Ram Sharan Sharma. People like Bostom who never even took a standard course in history, doesn't know Arabic and of course a self declared hater of Islam becomes an "expert" on Islam.

 

Oxford university spent millions of pounds to produce its "history of Islam" and "Oxford history of India", books written by tens of scholars, real historians, and peer-reviewed by even more scholars yet when you say to a fanatic this is my source he reply's by saying Dan Pipes or Bostom. One is a jewish extremist who says killing Palestinian children is legitimate and yet dares attack Islam and Jihad and the other, well he is too insignificant to be even considered.

 

As for Ruffian's reply, after some search, it didn't take long, there is no mention whatsoever of Zayd son Amru or Abu Hakim Shaibani in any of the biographical books I retuned to nor any history books. Plus, using names like Imad Al-Din and Salah Al-Din and like only began in the 11th century AD (300 years of Ibn Al-Qasim). This totally discredits your sources.

 

Al-Jassas

 

I have no problem with any guy writing history as long as he does that, write history not interpret it. Mr. Bostom is a certified MD. He has little qualifications in any area except hating Islam and medicine. He simply doesn't know what he is writing about. What you are saying is that if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabh_Bachchan - Amitabh Bachchan  wrote a book about the History of the Inca then he is a legitimate source and even an expert despite the guy never even went to South America and knows nothing about Spanish. That is unacceptable.

 

As for LK Lal, I will grant you he is a historian and an expert too. But the guy's politics and fanaticism cloud his judgement. He wrote thousands of pages on how evil muslim rulers were and how Islam not character was behind the atrocities committed then and yet conveniently forgets that Hindus controlled the state under them, were the majority of his soldiers and commanders and were active in making those policies go through.

 

As for my sources, well according to the sources you quote these guys were governors and commanders with Ibn Al-Qasim. Ibn Al-Qasim's campaign is well sourced and if these guys were important as the sources say they would have been mentioned. Plus as I said you forgot an important contradiction in the names, Imad Al-Din was not used till 400 years after Ibn Al-Qasim's death. This alone distroys the argument completely.

 

Al-Jassas