Question

How did Islam invade into India?

Answer 1

While others have correctly pointed out the spread of Islam in India through South and North, there is a piece missing which is how the Hindu Kingdoms in the early 8th century stopped the Islamic Caliphate’s Juggernaut and delayed the advent of Islam by four centuries. The third wave of military expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate lasted from 692 to 718 CE. The reign of Al-Walid I (705–715 CE) saw the most dramatic Marwanid Umayyad conquests, in a period of barely ten years, as North Africa, Spain, Transoxiana, and Sindh were subdued and colonised. It is indeed hard to imagine that armies which conquered half of the known world, from sindh to spain were stopped by a relatively unknown dynasty. The Pratihara dynasty was formed after the disintegration of the empire of Harsha, who was the last major ruler in the Northern and Western parts of India. In 712 CE, Muhammad Bin Qasim conquered Sindh and all territories upto Multan and asked the remaining kings to pay tribute to the Caliphate. In 725 CE, when the Umayyad Calpihate armies tried to make inroads into the Indian heartland, they were defeated by Nagabhata in the Malwa region. While the Pratihara dynasty frustrated the Caliphate armies from entering west of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the arab armies which tried to go south of Gujrat met the powerful Chalukyan army of Vikramaditya II. Such was the enormity of the victory that Vikramaditya’s general Pulakesi was awareded the title "Repeller of the Unrepellable" (Anivartaka-nivartayitr). Again few years later in 738 CE, the Caliphate armies tried a revenge attack but this time Nagabhata I was ready and with the help of his feudatories met the invading armies before they crossed into Gujrat and routed them completely. The Arab chronicler Sulaiman describes the army of the Pratiharas as it stood in 851 CE, "The ruler of Gurjars maintains numerous forces and no other Indian prince has so fine a cavalry. Among the princes of India there is no greater foe of the Islamic faith than he. This was a prime example of the erstwhile Hindu kingdoms uniting to face the external threat and stopping the Islamic Juggernaut right on the borders. This unity lasted for 300 more years. Sadly the foolishness of Prithvi Raj Chauhan who eloped with the daughter of Raja Jayachandra of Kannauj made him an enemy of the man who could have been his greatest ally in the battle against the Turkic Invaders and his foolish decision to release Ghori maganaminously ensured that after the famous Second battle of Tarain in 1192 CE, there was no stopping the Islamic conquest of India.