SINDH FALLS,TEMPLES DESTROYED

Islam Comes to India 5

Raja Dahir (663 – 712 CE) was the last Hindu ruler of Sindh, present-day Pakistan, in the northern region of the Indian subcontinent. He was member of the Brahmin dynasty.He was a Pushkarna Brahmin king, son of Chach of Aror, who ascended the throne after the death of his uncle, Chandar. Eight years later, Dahir’s kingdom was invaded by Ramal at Kannauj. After initial losses, the enemy advanced on Aror and he allied himself with Alafi, an Arab. Alafi and his warriors (who were exiled from the Umayyad caliphate) were recruited; they led Dahir’s armies in repelling the invading forces, remaining as valued members of Dahir’s court. In a later war in 711 with the caliphate, however, Alafi served as a military advisor but refused to take an active part in the campaign; as a result, he later obtained a pardon from the caliph.

In 711 CE, his kingdom was conquered by the Ummayad Caliphate led by General Muhammad bin Qasim. He was killed at the Battle of Aror at the banks of the Indus River, near modern-day Nawabshah.

Before the war,he is believed to have said:

“I am going to meet the Arabs in the open battle, and fight them as best as I can. If I crush them, my kingdom will then be put on a firm footing. But if I am killed honourably, the event will be recorded in the books of Arabia and India, and will be talked about by great men. It will be heard by other kings in the world, and it will be said that Raja Dahir of Sindh sacrificed his precious life for the sake of his country, in fighting with the enemy.”

 The primary reason cited in the Chach Nama for the expedition by the governor of Basra, Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, against Raja Dahir, was a pirate raid off the coast of Debal resulting in gifts to the caliph from the king of Serendib (modern Sri Lanka) being stolen. Meds (a tribe of Scythians living in Sindh) also known as Bawarij had pirated upon Sassanid shipping in the past, from the mouth of the Tigris to the Sri Lankan coast, in their bawarij and now were able to prey on Arab shipping from their bases at Kutch, Debal and Kathiawar.

Al-Hajjaj gave Muhammad bin Qasim  the command of the expedition between 708 and 711, when Qasim was only 15–17 years old, apparently because two previous Umayyad commanders had not been successful in punishing Sindh’s ruler Raja Dahir for his failure to prevent pirates from disrupting Muslim shipping off the coast of Sindh.Al-Hajjaj superintended this campaign from Kufa by maintaining close contact with Qasim in the form of regular reports for which purpose special messengers were deputed between Basra and Sindh.

The military strategy had been outlined by Al-Hajjaj in a letter sent to Muhammad bin Qasim.

My ruling is given: Kill anyone belonging to the ahl-i-harb (combatants); arrest their sons and daughters for hostages and imprison them. Whoever does not fight against us…grant them aman (safety) and settle their tribute [amwal] as dhimmah (protected person)…

 The army which departed from Shiraz under Muhammad consisted of 6,000 Syrian cavalry and detachments of mawali (sing. mawla; non-Arab, Muslim freedmen) from Iraq.At the borders of Sindh he was joined by an advance guard and six thousand camel cavalry and later, reinforcements from the governor of Makran were transferred directly to Debal (Daybul), at the mouth of the Indus, by sea along with five manjaniks (catapults).The army that eventually captured Sindh would later be swelled by the Gurjars and Meds as well as other irregulars who heard of the Arab successes in Sindh.When Muhammad passed through the Makran desert while raising his forces, he had to subdue the restive towns of Fannazbur and Arman Belah (Lasbela), both of which had previously been conquered by the Arabs.

 The first town assaulted in Qasim’s Sindh campaign was Debal and upon the orders of al-Hajjaj, he exacted a retribution on Debal by giving no quarter to its residents or priests and destroying its great temple.From Debal, the Arab army then marched northeast taking towns such as Nerun and Sadusan (Sehwan) without fighting. One-fifth of the war booty including slaves were remitted to al-Hajjaj and the Caliph.The conquest of these towns was accomplished with relative ease; however, Dahir’s armies being prepared on the other side of the Indus had not yet been confronted. In preparation to meet them, Qasim returned to Nerun to resupply and receive reinforcements sent by al-Hajjaj. Camped on the east bank of the Indus, Muhammad sent emissaries and bargained with the river Jats and boatmen. Upon securing the aid of Mokah Basayah, “the King of the island of Bet”, Qasim crossed over the river where he was joined by the forces of the Thakore of Bhatta and the western Jats.

Sometime before the final battle, Dahar’s vizier approached him and suggested that Dahar should take refuge with one of the friendly kings of India. “You should say to them, ‘I am a wall between you and the Arab army. If I fall, nothing will stop your destruction at their hands.'” If that wasn’t acceptable to Dahar, said the vizier, then he should at least send away his family to some safe point in India. Dahar refused to do either. “I cannot send away my family to security while the families of my thakurs and nobles remain here. “

Dahir then tried to prevent Qasim from crossing the Indus River, moving his forces to its eastern banks. Eventually, however, Qasim crossed and defeated forces at Jitor led by Jaisiah (Dahir’s son).

At Ar-rur (Rohri) Qasim was met by Dahir’s forces and the eastern Jats in battle. Dahir died in the battle,his head was cut off from his body and sent to Hajjaj ; his forces were defeated and Qasim took control of Sindh.In the wake of the battle enemy soldiers were executed —though artisans, merchants and farmers were spared —and Dahir and his chiefs, the “daughters of princes” and the usual fifth of the booty and slaves were sent to al-Hajjaj. Soon the capitals of the other provinces, Brahmanabad, Alor (Aror) and Multan, were captured alongside other in-between towns with only light Muslim casualties.Multan was a key site in the Hindu religion.

 After battles all fighting men were executed and their wives and children enslaved in considerable numbers and the usual fifth of the booty and slaves were sent to al-Hajjaj.Where resistance was strong, prolonged and intensive, often resulting in considerable Arab casualties, Muhammad bin Qasim’s response was dramatic, inflicting 6,000 deaths at Rawar, between 6,000 and 26,000 at Brahmanabad, 4,000 at Iskalandah and 6,000 at Multan.

The concept of Jihad as a morale booster was used by Qasim. He established Islamic Sharia law over the people of the region.

Everywhere taxes (mal) and tribute (kharaj) were settled and hostages taken — occasionally this also meant the custodians of temples. Non-Muslim natives were excused from military service and from payment of the religiously mandated tax system levied upon Muslims called Zakat, the tax system levied upon them instead was the jizya -that tax came to exist for the first time in India. The preference of collection of jizya over the conversion to Islam is a major economic motivator. Hindus and Buddhists who were classified as Dhimmis had to pay mandatory Jizya,.

 In Al-Biruni’s narrative, according to Manan Ahmed Asif – a historian of Islam in South and Southeast Asia, “Qasim first asserts the superiority of Islam over the polytheists by committing a taboo (killing a cow) and publicly soiling the idol (giving the cow meat as an offering)” before allowing the temple to continue as a place of worship. Some temples escaped destruction such as the Sun Temple of Multan on payment of jizya.Majority of the population continued to remain Hindu who had to pay the jizya imposed by the Muslim state. Qasim’s success has been partly ascribed to Dahir being an unpopular Hindu king ruling over a Buddhist majority who saw Chach of Alor and his kin as usurpers of the Rai Dynasty. This is attributed to having resulted in support being provided by Buddhists and inclusion of rebel soldiers serving as valuable infantry in his cavalry-heavy force from the Jat and Meds. Brahman, Buddhist, Greek, and Arab testimony however can be found that attests towards amicable relations between the adherents of the two religions up to the 7th century.

Three women from Chachnama, Dahar’s wife, Queen Ladi, and Dahar’s daughters Suriya and Preemal carry equal weight in the cultural memory of Sindhi and broader Indian past. The stories are recited to explicate the nationhood of Sindh to argue against imperial aggressors. These women are seen as proud, daring personifications of ancient Sindhi culture that resisted conqueror.

Sindh

The conquest of Sindh, in modern-day Pakistan, although costly, was a major gain for the Umayyad Caliphate. However, further gains were halted by Hindu kingdoms during Arab campaigns. The Arabs attempted to invade India but they were defeated by the north Indian king Nagabhata of the Gurjara Pratihara Dynasty and by the south Indian Emperor Vikramaditya II of the Chalukya dynasty in the early 8th century. After the failure of further expeditions on Kathiawar, the Arab chroniclers conceded that the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) gave up the project of conquering any part of India.