Islamic Invasions of India

LurkerBaba

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Well, this is from the "stroy of civilization" by Will Durant.......

All these are absolutely true facts, most of them recorded by Muslim historians of court with much glee. The book is a superbly researched one, a lifetime spent writing it.
Have to agree on that
 

The Messiah

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Well, this is from the "stroy of civilization" by Will Durant. I don't have an online link but have a soft copy. I can send you by mail if you want.

All these are absolutely true facts, most of them recorded by Muslim historians of court with much glee. The book is a superbly researched one, a lifetime spent writing it.

Second, India now has 500 million plus Muslims from almost zero before the invasions began. 50% of Muslims worldwide have Hindu roots.

Not bad at all in terms of success rate!
500 million muslims in India ? i thought figure was 150 million. I know you taken into account pak and bangladesh also.

arabs literally converted the whole population of persia into Islam because it was there motive....but it wasn't there motive in India. It if were there'd be more muslims than hindus right now.
 

Vinod2070

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500 million muslims in India ? i thought figure was 150 million. I know you taken into account pak and bangladesh also.
Yes.

arabs literally converted the whole population of persia into Islam because it was there motive....but it wasn't there motive in India. It if were there'd be more muslims than hindus right now.
The Arabs never made much gains in India except Sindh.

The Turks were brutal and genocidal and converted millions and millions and killed another whole lot of millions. The accepted toll is 80 million murdered in undivided India.
 

The Messiah

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Yes.



The Arabs never made much gains in India except Sindh.

The Turks were brutal and genocidal and converted millions and millions and killed another whole lot of millions. The accepted toll is 80 million murdered in undivided India.
130m was the population in 1900 and it would be even less in 1700 so you think they killed more than 80% of the population ? i think not.
 
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Vinod2070

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Taking this from the first post, and jus to put matters into perspective given the one sided and concocted views of the author,

Muslims view that the Muslims fought only when attacked, or in the context of a wider war of self-defense. They argue that Muhammad was the first among the major military figures of history to lay down rules for humane warfare, and that he was scrupulous in limiting the loss of life as much as possible.
Yousuf, you know that historical facts don't agree with what you mention here.

Persia, Egypt, Spain, India or so many other countries didn't attack Muslims. It was the reverse.

And those invasions were brutal. Genocides, rapes, slave taking, booty were common.

And it was all done in the name of the final and perfect religion!

Javed Ahmed Ghamidi writes in Mizan that there are certain directives of the Qur'an pertaining to war which were specific only to Muhammad against Divinely specified peoples of his times (the polytheists and the Israelites and Nazarites of Arabia and some other Jews, Christians, et al.) as a form of Divine punishment—for they had persistently denied the truth of Muhammad's mission even after it had been made conclusively evident to them by Allah through Muhammad, and asked the polytheists of Arabia for submission to Islam as a condition for exoneration and the others for jizya and submission to the political authority of the Muslims for exemption from death punishment and for military protection as the dhimmis of the Muslims.
I changed the emphasis of your own words. Do you see some contradiction with the other oft quoted phrase "no compulsion in religion"!

Was it really made conclusively evident! How? Were they fools to not see that conclusive evidence?

What was so conclusive other than self made claims?

See the intent is not to discuss Islamic theology itself but the nature of these invasions and accompanying violence.

Muslims may believe what you mention here all they want but others can't take them at face value as self evident truth.

Therefore, after Muhammad and his companions, there is no concept in Islam obliging Muslims to wage war for propagation or implementation of Islam, hence now, the only valid reason for war is to end oppression when all other measures have failed.
Obviously Muslims failed to see it that way? Why would it be so?

Was the message not clear enough or the Muslims didn't find it practical?

The basic principle in fighting in the Qur'an is that other communities should be treated as one's own. Fighting is justified for legitimate self-defense, to aid other Muslims and after a violation in the terms of a treaty, but should be stopped if these circumstances cease to exist. The principle of forgiveness is reiterated in between the assertions of the right to self-defence.

During his life, Muhammad gave various injunctions to his forces and adopted practices toward the conduct of war. The most important of these were summarized by Muhammad's companion and first Caliph, Abu Bakr, in the form of ten rules for the Muslim army:
" O people! I charge you with ten rules; learn them well!

Do no betray or misappropriate any part of the booty; do not practice treachery or mutilation. Do not kill a young child, an old man, or a woman. Do not uproot or burn palms or cut down fruitful trees. Do not slaughter a sheep or a cow or a camel, except for food. You will meet people who have set themselves apart in hermitages; leave them to accomplish the purpose for which they have done this. You will come upon people who will bring you dishes with various kinds of foods. If you partake of them, pronounce God's name over what you eat. You will meet people who have shaved the crown of their heads, leaving a band of hair around it (monks). Go in Gods name, and may God protect you from sword and pestilence.


This very clearly sets aside any precedence that any barbarian claiming to be a muslim to use in his plunder of India or any other part of the world. The same holds good for modern times as well where Islam is used to further vested interests and other causes. Very clearly told in the Quran that what Prophet Mohammed PBUH did was heavenly ordained and that after him, no one should use his example. The ethics of battle followed by Him and His followers at the time were completely forgotten by those whose sole motive was loot and plunder.
This is all very well but all wars by even early Muslims accompanied loot, booty, slave taking, massacres etc. and it continued for as long as Muslims were the dominant.

Where was the failure?
 
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Vinod2070

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130m was the population in 1900 and it would be even less in 1700 so you think they killed more than 80% of the population ? i think not.
Well, rate of population increase used to be small earlier (it increased in the 20th century due to better medical facilities).

The 80 millions figure is supposed to be across several centuries. Entirely plausible.

The Mongols killed several tens of millions in Central Asia and Arabia and China. The depopulation of Muslim countries by the Mongols was in fact much bigger.
 

Vinod2070

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Don't you think when Indian Muslims bore the brunt of invasions many a times, then terming it Islamic is a bit unfair to them ?
When Genghis Khan's mongol hordes invaded it was a Muslim king who saved India.
When Nader Shah invaded it was the Muslims who lost the most same with when Timur invaded.
True. No one should associate the barbaric acts with present day Indian Muslims.

On the flip side, no Indian or any Muslims should defend the acts.

I know Pakistanis call these people their heroes and they are the biggest fools as they were the biggest victims, just that they live in denial of their identity.

Whether Islam permits or not is a theological debate, and if whether the Invaders themselves were goaded by Islam or not is the moot point.
Why we call Talibani terrorism as Islamic terorism ? because they justify it in the name of Islam.

Had Nader Shah, Timur, Genghis Khan, Mughals, Tughlaqs, Lodis, Suris, Sayyids, Mamluks ever claimed an invasion of India by invoking Islamic tenets ? I think not.
Genghis Khan was not Muslim. In fact he and other Mongols killed millions of Muslims.

Timur (and many others in this list) surely tried to justify their evil deeds on the basis of Islam. I agree it was a sham and they were just filthy bandits.
 

Vinod2070

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What I don't undestand is why some feel the need to use the term "Islamic invaders" or to imply some sort of Islamic sanction to military exploits or atrocities even and try to connect that back to Islam as a faith. As Jaswant Singh says. Why are they not called Mongol invaders or Turkic invaders. There is no Islamic sanction for this and as can be seen in numerous historians that most empire expansions were politcal and economical in nature. And this is for muslim or non-muslim rulers. Infact some of the most brutal invasions when you read proper historical accounts was done by non-muslim Mongols and in Ashokas invasion of Kalinga. Infact, the persian and arab muslim community where infact much more brutally affected by the Mongol invaders than their Indian counterparts at that time. Timur had sacked the cities and killed hundreds of thousands of muslims in Herat, Persia, Baghdad all the way to present day Syria in Aleppo before he turned his attention to India to attack another kingdom that was ruled by a muslim as well. Sufi mystics and muslim traders played a much much much greater role in spread of Islam as a religion than any king or sultan did and hence 80-90% of the muslims in the sub-continent are ethnic locals. So if Islam has to be connected, it has to be connected with the Sufis primarily who explicitly said that this was their purpose in life. To spread the teachings of Islam.

The Indian culture as such infact extends to central asia as well historically. The Indus valley civilisation-the mother civilisation- as it moved towards the west gave rise to the persian civilisation, while towards the east we got the indo-gangetic civlisations. Hence you had the Buddha statues of Bamiyan that existed without being destroyed(until by the unIslamic acts of the Taliban) by "invaders" who were native to this place and even now the name of the central asian countries end with sthan, a sanskrit term meaning land showing linguistic if not cultural continuity. Before most of the warrior tribes in central asia converted to Islam, most of them were Buddhist and in their muesems still show a lot of these artifacts. The name Timur even is said to be Buddhist-Sanskrit hybrid meaning Iron. Showing the close interactions of the Indus and Persian civilisations from times immemorial. Infact, Linguistics put Sanskrit under the Indo-Aryan family and that includes Vedic Sanskrit as well. So are these really "foreign" in that sense? Avesta and other Iranic languaged go back to the Indo-Aryan origin as well. Isn't this going back to a common history to the beginning of civilisation? The further we go back the more we end up belonging to a common origin.

And so I think I would go one step further and say its about time we revisit with this idea of regarding Central Asians or Afghans as foreign invaders when it comes to India just because it is not part of the present politcal boundaries of India. But just consider is the Indus Valley civilisation a foreign civilisation now? What about the Kushan empire which was basically based in presentday Afghanistan and founded the Buddhist council in Kashmir a foreign civilisation? When Ashoka who was a native of present day Bihar an foreing invader of Punjab, Maharahstra and present day central asia? Would he be called a Hindu/Foreign invader of Kalinga(present day Orissa) were he was responsible for brutally killing almost the entire population including their women. Are we to consider the Marathas as foregn invaders of Bengal or Punjab similarly? What about considering the Cholas who were basically Tamil but extended their empire along the east coast of India by invading Orissa and Bengal all the way to Indonesia? Arethey to be now cosnidered foreign invaders of Bengal? So I don't see why we should consider Afghans or central asians as foreign invaders when they have been part of the Indian civilisations if not politcally atleast culturally and religiously more thousands of years just because they don't form part of the present day Republic of India.

Ofcourse, the article in itself is from an extremist website and if you do want a balanced account of history there are numerous historians that have done acommendable job on this. But the main problem is for those who base their aggrived sense of history on accounts of Britishers post 1857. Infact, most of the claims are from the book History as told by its Historians written right after 1857 revolt to break up the sense of unity that was forged between Hindus and Muslims that shook the foundations of the British and let to the end of Company rule. Now there is a complete cottage industry where modern Hindus who should have no reason to feel victimised or marginalised are being told by websites like these that they should nurse a sense of grave historical hurt and victimhood. I actually thought it was interesting that the website in question actually says "The modern history of Bharat (India) begons with the onset of Islamic invasions on the frontiers of Gaandhaar (Afghanistan) in 700 A.D". How can such a website be objective after introducing its view of history as such! Particularly when Islam actually reach India first during the time of the Prophet himself in presentday Kerala where the local King coverted to Islam. And the first milary conflict in that region was from Persia under an Arab general. What next, will the invasion by the greek Alexander be somehow re-written to be an Islamic invasion as well? Now one understands that Kings had been ruling for the sake of power and wealth and victor kings many a times destroyed the defeated king's holy place to humiliate the defeated king as an ego trip or similar. The British initially introduced communal historiography aiming to pursue the policy of 'divide and rule' propagated that Muslim Kings destroyed Hindu temples to insult Hindu religion and how now some Hindus believe that this is in some way santioned by Islam. This type of Historiography spread hatred amongst communities and became the foundation on which the communal violence started taking place in due course. This has to stop somewhere and a balanced version of history has to be adhered too as most prominent historians of India have already done this for us.

The sad part is that this --as evidenced by comments like vishal's about Islam---it is countinuing to aggravte young Indians as well. While many would continue to try to approach with a balanced viewpoint to the historical nuances, I don't see how such a view of history will help communal harmony particularly when Hinduism and Islam as Najeeb Jung are part of the DNA of India.

Sorry if this is off-topic but I feel it necessary to let it be known that Forum users must use their own judgment on reading history from well known authors rather than controversial websites if they really want to enhance their historical knowledge. And to develop a health overview of history and strategic outlook, the ideological and communal burdens have to left aside if you want to arrive at an unbiased and correct conclusion on any issue.
A very good post.

I would like to however ask you to find holes in the facts of the OP rather than just dismissing it as an "extremist site"!

I think we should be mature enough to discuss the historical facts in their proper context.

The brutalities did happen and the current Indian Muslims are not responsible for them. That is a given.
 

Vinod2070

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Ruthlessness in invasion has nothing to do with religion. It was more a political and economic strategy than anything.

Nadir Shah or Abdali or Mahmud - all were very prominent persons in history of their respective countries. They are considered among best of the bests not only for their expeditions but for other attribute of kingships too. But they all considered India as a source of finance that could help in prosperity of their homelands. Now to carry out expedition in India, so far from their capital they needed to raise a large army. And it was not possible to pay all of them in hard cash for their service. So only option was to allure them to huge wealth they could collect for themselves in India. Naturally these rulers turned a blind eyes to their soldiers even when their deeds were un-Islamic.

But it is wrong to say that other rulers of early medieval era did not employ the same policy. It was impossible to keep a large army and take them to alien land without having a carrot on the stick. There is not much historical account of ancient or earlier medieval dynasties to get a fair account of what policy they took to maintain large army. But before British era Marathas too took similar ploy. Their irregular army "Bargee" plundered as far as Bengal under the leadership of Bhaskar Pundit before beaten back by Aliwardi Khan. The Maratha chiefs supported the Pindaris too to get a share of their loots which led to third Anglo-Maratha war.

Before the arrival of the British, the Europeans like Portugease (so called civilized) too involved in plundering villages of Bengal and capturing men-women and children and transporting them as slaves. From Ancient times there is no exception of this. The defeated had always been plundered by the victors. Code of conduct, care for civilians etc are just fairy tales even in days of modern warfare.
They may be prominent in their own countries (actualy I think al of them come from a single country, Afghanistan). That doesn't mean they were not genocidal maniacs. They killed millions (mostly civilians) and raped and looted.

No civilized person can condone that. Their country is repaying a very minor fraction of the debt for the last few decades.

Unfortunately they will be paying much more in future. What goes around comes around.
 

Singh

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The origin of the term "Hindu Kush" is a matter of some controversy. It could mean "Hindu Killer", from the Persian verb kushtar which means to "to kill, to slaughter". This might be a reference to the times when Persian and Central Asian armies took over the areas and eliminated the local Hindu population. Many Hindu slaves died while trying to pass over the mountains, thus giving it its name.

However, it might also be a simple corruption of Hindu Kuh, since "Kuh" means "mountain" in Persian. For example, the 10th century Persian poet called the mountains "Kuh-e-Hind", or "Indian mountains".
Hindu in Persian means Black. So Hindu Kush also refers to the Mountains where Black Skinned don't exist.
 

jatkshatriya

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Its strange...this word hindu is not used in the vedas and we ended up calling ourselves hindus....and i also do not know why are indians called black when a large chunk of them are fair or wheatish..
 

ahmedsid

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Its strange...this word hindu is not used in the vedas and we ended up calling ourselves hindus....and i also do not know why are indians called black when a large chunk of them are fair or wheatish..
Indians who are Fair or Wheatish are not Exactly White Skinned, like the others in say, Germany. Our Fair Skins are considered Dark when compared to theirs
 

jatkshatriya

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Indians who are Fair or Wheatish are not Exactly White Skinned, like the others in say, Germany. Our Fair Skins are considered Dark when compared to theirs
actually our fair skin is what actually is fair..their fairness is pale..they are pale skinned with the melanin under their skin seen right through...i mean u cannot call Aishwarya Rai dark from any angle....and if that is true we shud be called brownies rather than blackies...ahh man why dont we have a fascist party in india ..i would proove how we are superior to the paleskins in every way..lol
 

The Messiah

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Its strange...this word hindu is not used in the vedas and we ended up calling ourselves hindus....and i also do not know why are indians called black when a large chunk of them are fair or wheatish..
persians couldn't say indus so they said hindus....it basically means people living on other side of indus.
 

Nagraj

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Luker stop bumping old threads or i willl report you :troll:
 

Payeng

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persians couldn't say indus so they said hindus....it basically means people living on other side of indus.
Sorry for the late entry but have it something to do with Hindukush mountain range?
 

Payeng

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I thought the term Hindu is being initiated by the Afghans/Pathans to term the people living over Hindukush mountain range and was not actually initiated be the persians, though I may be wrong.
 

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This article mentioned about enslaving people. Do you know why the Mamluk dynasty was called slave dynasty. Because three most prominent rulers of this dynasty were slaves in their earlier life. The got the opportunity to get education and training, became relatives of their masters through marriage and ultimately became the rulers. The earlier Tughlaks were not only slaves but Hindu who converted to Islam. And the formidable general of Ala-ud-in Khilji - Kafur (who became Malik Naib after his success against four Deccan kingdoms) was a slave of the Raja of Khambat who handed him over to Ala-ud-din's brother Nusrat Khan after the defeat. The barbaric Muslim kings gave a lot of opportunity to their slaves. The word "Dasa" (slave) existed in ancient India too much before the Muslim invasion. I want to know who were the people who volunteered to be slaves those days.
So what if Islamic kings gave opportunities to their slaves? The same phenomenon existed in pre-Islamic India.
Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire, came from a family of peacock-tamers.
The Nanda dynasty that he overthrew also consisted of lower-caste Hindus who became kings.

Only the Muslims treated the women badly. If you take the epics 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata' as mirror of ancient society what your opinion about treatment of Sita and Droupadi or about elopement of Amba and her sisters by Bhisma. These were the tradition of those days or the great epic writers imagined them from thin air. You heard of Rajyashree- sister of Harsavardhan? She too were captured by Devagupta of Malwa. Chandragupta II married Dvala Devi - wife of his brother Ramgupta whom he killed to get the throne. The tradition of 'Devdasi' and 'Sahamarana' continued even up to British period. But you keep mum about these things.

It is not a mud throwing contest but just to remind you the fact those were the days of the monarchs and even if some biased people try to create hatred by partial representation - it does not change history.
Did you just quote from the Ramayana and Mahabharata?
For all we know, those scriptures are mythological stories that do not describe historical events.
 

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