View source for The Caliphate and India — A Timeline (636–1030)

[[File:Indopedia-logo.png|thumb|right|150px|Four centuries, one banner — the chain from Thana (636) to Ghazni (1030).]]
This page tests a simple question against four centuries of record: '''who sent the invaders?''' For the Arab chapter the answer is literal. Thana (636) was raided under Caliph Umar's governors; Sindh (711–12) was commanded by the Umayyad viceroy al-Hajjaj in Caliph al-Walid's name; '''Muhammad bin Qasim was a serving officer of that caliphate.''' For the Turkic chapter the answer is subtler — and more revealing: the Abbasid caliph of Mahmud's day, a captive of the Shia Buyids in his own capital, '''commanded no armies; he franchised them.''' At his investiture of 999 Mahmud received the title ''Yamin al-Dawla'' — "Right Hand of the State" — and, Gardizi records, vowed a jihad into Hind every year; after each triumph a victory dispatch (''fatḥ-nāma'') went to Baghdad, and after Somnath fresh titles came back. '''First the caliphate commanded its generals; later the sultans commanded themselves, and the caliphate signed.''' The banner never changed.<ref name="franchise-tl">On the investiture of 999, the annual vow, the dispatches and the Somnath titles: Gardīzī, ''Zayn al-Akhbār''; al-ʿUtbī, ''Tārīkh al-Yamīnī''; Nazim, ''The Life and Times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna'' (1931); Bosworth, ''The Ghaznavids'' (1963).</ref>

'''And what did the banner demand?''' Submission before conversion. In practice the conquerors '''taxed unbelief rather than abolishing it''': at the Brahmanabad settlement (713) the temples stayed open and the jizya was levied — the dhimma extended, in effect, to Hindus. Conversion advanced with ''rule'', generation by generation, not with the raids themselves; coercion is attested (the Shahi prince Sukhpal, converted in captivity), and so is reversion the moment power receded (Sukhpal again, and Dahir's son Jaisiah, who conformed under Caliph Umar II's invitation while the pressure lasted). The aim of the enterprise, as the sources show it, was '''the extension of the realm of Islamic rule''' — political submission sanctified as faith and financed as plunder. The souls were expected to follow the state.<ref name="brahmanabad">''Chachnama'' and Al-Balādhurī on the Brahmanabad settlement and the jizya; Wink, ''Al-Hind'' I, on dhimma practice in Sindh; al-ʿUtbī on Sukhpal.</ref>

'''How to read the table.''' Rows in gold are the repulses and reversals — the entries the textbooks skip.

== The timeline ==
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%; font-size:93%"
! style="width:8%" | Year !! style="width:20%" | Under whose banner !! style="width:40%" | What happened !! style="width:32%" | The Indian answer
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 636 || Medina — Caliph Umar || '''The first Arab raids on India''' — by sea, at Thana near today's Mumbai, then Bharuch and Debal, within four years of the Prophet's death || Repulsed or withdrawn; Umar forbids further sea ventures
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 644 || Medina || Columns reach Makran; the commanders' report on its poverty becomes famous || '''Umar halts the advance''' — the Indus is not to be crossed
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 661–700 || Damascus (Umayyad) || Forty years of war at the Kabul–Zabul gates: Kabul taken briefly (665) and lost; an Arab army ransomed (683); the ''Jaysh al-Fanāʾ'' — "Army of Destruction" — annihilated by the Zunbil (698); the Peacock Army mutinies (700) || '''The Turk Shahis and Zunbils hold the gates'''
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 708–10 || Damascus — viceroy al-Hajjaj || Two expeditions against Dahir of Sindh fail; the commander Budail falls at Debal || '''Sindh holds'''
|-
| 711–12 || Damascus — ordered by al-Hajjaj for Caliph al-Walid I || '''Muhammad bin Qasim''': Debal stormed; [[Raja Dahir]] dies at Aror (June 712); Multan falls (713) || The one conquest that held — Sindh becomes a caliphal province
|-
| 713 || Damascus || The Brahmanabad settlement: temples open, jizya levied — '''unbelief taxed, not abolished''' || Rule, not conversion, is the working aim
|-
| 715 || Damascus — Caliph Sulayman || Qasim recalled in the faction purge; dies in prison, about twenty || The conqueror outlives his conquest by three years
|-
| c. 715–24 || Damascus — Caliph Umar II || Jaisiah, Dahir's son, recovers the interior; the caliph invites the princes to Islam — they conform while the pressure lasts || Junaid later kills Jaisiah as an "apostate"
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 724–39 || Damascus || Junaid's deep raids: Saurashtra, Malwa, the Rajasthan marches || '''The great repulse''': Bappa Rawal (tradition), Nagabhata I (Gwalior praśasti), Pulakeshin's Navsari victory in stone (739); the Arabs build al-Mahfuza, "the Sheltered", to hide in
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 733–60 || — || The north's high noon: '''Lalitaditya's Kashmir''' — Yashovarman humbled, an embassy to the Tang court (733) || The mountain passes stay shut
|-
| 754 || Baghdad (Abbasid) || The caliphate changes house; Sindh a remote province || The frontier is static
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| c. 776 || Baghdad || Arab fleets sail against Saurashtra || '''Turned back by the Saindhava sea-lords'''
|-
| 9th c. || Baghdad — nominal only || Sindh fragments into two autonomous Arab emirates: Habbari '''Mansura''', Banu Munabbih '''Multan''' || The caliph's command is over; the banner remains
|-
| 870 || (Saffarid warlord) || Ya'qub the Coppersmith takes Kabul — a Persian dynast's blow, not a caliphal army || The Shahis shift to Hund: the '''[[Hindu Shahis|Hindu Shahi]]''' line begins
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 910s || Baghdad — nominal || Al-Masudi sees the '''Gurjara-Pratihara wall''': "no greater foe" of the caliphate's faith || The wall stands
|-
| 963–77 || Ghazni || Alptigin, then '''Sabuktigin''': a Samanid slave-garrison becomes a dynasty on the Hindu marches || The new spearhead is Turkic, not Arab
|-
| 965–c. 985 || Cairo — the Fatimid rival || '''Multan goes Ismaili'''; the dāʿī destroys the great sun-temple || One caliphate's outpost defects to the other
|-
| 986–91 || Ghazni || Sabuktigin defeats [[Jayapala]] in the Laghman country || The Shahi frontier falls back toward the Indus
|-
| 999 || Ghazni ⇄ Baghdad || '''The franchise''': Caliph al-Qadir invests Mahmud as ''Yamin al-Dawla''; Gardizi records the vow of a jihad into Hind '''every year''' || Plunder becomes policy, sanctified annually
|-
| 1001–26 || Ghazni, under Baghdad's blessing || '''Mahmud's seventeen campaigns''': Peshawar (1001), Waihind (1008), Somnath (1026) — and the omitted entries: '''Lohkot fails twice''' (1015, 1021), '''Kalinjar untaken''' (1023), the desert retreat (1026) || The full ledger, battle by battle: [[Mahmud of Ghazni — The Raider and the Resistance]]
|-
| 1026 || Baghdad || The ''fatḥ-nāma'': Somnath reported to the caliph; '''fresh titles shower''' on Mahmud and his sons || Victory is currency; the caliph pays in legitimacy
|-
| 1030 || — || Mahmud dies at Ghazni || In that same city, Al-Biruni completes the ''Kitāb al-Hind''
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 1043 || — || '''The league under the raja of Delhi retakes Hansi, Thanesar and the Nagarkot country''' || The confederate idea outlives Mahmud
|- style="background:#F7E8C8"
| 1186 || — || The last Ghaznavid extinguished at Lahore — '''while Kumarapala's rebuilt [[Somnath Temple — The Shrine Eternal|Somnath]] (1169) stands''' || The ledger closes where it began
|}

== Sources ==
* Al-Balādhurī, ''Futūḥ al-Buldān'' — Thana, Makran, Qasim, al-Mahfuza, the recall.
* ''Chachnama'', trans. Kalichbeg (1900) — with the cautions noted at [[Dynasties of India]].
* Gardīzī, ''Zayn al-Akhbār''; al-ʿUtbī, ''Tārīkh al-Yamīnī'' — the vow, the campaigns, the dispatches.
* Al-Masʿūdī, in Elliot & Dowson, Vol. I; Navsari plates, ''Epigraphia Indica'' XXV; Gwalior praśasti, ''EI'' XVIII.
* Kalhana, ''Rājataraṅgiṇī'' (trans. Stein, 1900), Bks. IV & VII.
* Wink, ''Al-Hind'' I (1990); Bosworth, ''The Ghaznavids'' (1963); Nazim (1931); Habib (1927); Majumdar (ed.), ''The Age of Imperial Kanauj'' and ''The Struggle for Empire''.

== References ==
<references />

[[Category:Military History]]