DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31218#0176
THE CASTE SYSTEM OF NORTHERN INDIA
Sind, and within three years was master of the country
from the sea to Multan. Tradition holds that the
Sumera Rajputs drove the invaders out in 750 a.d., and
that the latter took refuge in Afghanistan. But this is
incorrect. There is contemporary evidence to show that
a Qureshi Arab was reigning as Amir of Multan in 915,
and that the kingdom had been hereditary in his family
‘nearly from the beginning of Islam’. Another Arab
dynasty was formed in a new town called Mansura in
Lower Sind. Other evidence shows that the sarne situ-
ation existed in 976 and in 985. In 1006, the Multan ruler
allied himself with the Hindu Raja of Lahore against
Mahmud of Ghazni. It is clear, therefore, that this Arab
settlement did not come to an end, as usually alleged;
but its hold on the country was probably feeble, there
were few converts to Islam,1 and in course of time all
effects of the sole Arab settlement in northern India dis-
appeared.
After the Sind adventure, India was free from
Muhammadan aggression for some three
4. Isiam in centuries. But during that period, events
Persia and were taking place in neighbouring coun-
Centrai Asia tries that profoundly affected the nature
of the later invasions. By 650, the Arab
forces had conquered Persia as far as the Oxus; by 714
they had advanced the boundary of their empire to the
Aral Sea and the Jaxartes (Syr Daria). In 820 the Arab
empire began to break up; and in the process there came
into existence on the north-western borders of India an
independent Muslim kingdom, consisting of Khorasan,
Khwarizm, Transoxiana, and the greater part of modern
Afghanistan, with its capital at Bokhara.2 The earlier
1 Rose, Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and N.-W.F.P.
(1911), Vol. I, p. 489. Lane-Poole, Mediaeval India under Mohamniedan
Rule (1917), p. 12.
2 Khorasan was a large Persian province. Khwarizm corresponds
roughly to the Trans-Caspian territories (Khiva and Merv). Transoxiana
is that part of Turkestan between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. The
parts of Afghanistan that formed part of this kingdom were Kandahar,
Kabul and ‘Zabulistan1, i.e. the tracts round Ghazni. Rose, op. cit.,
Vol. I, p. 40.
I 62
Sind, and within three years was master of the country
from the sea to Multan. Tradition holds that the
Sumera Rajputs drove the invaders out in 750 a.d., and
that the latter took refuge in Afghanistan. But this is
incorrect. There is contemporary evidence to show that
a Qureshi Arab was reigning as Amir of Multan in 915,
and that the kingdom had been hereditary in his family
‘nearly from the beginning of Islam’. Another Arab
dynasty was formed in a new town called Mansura in
Lower Sind. Other evidence shows that the sarne situ-
ation existed in 976 and in 985. In 1006, the Multan ruler
allied himself with the Hindu Raja of Lahore against
Mahmud of Ghazni. It is clear, therefore, that this Arab
settlement did not come to an end, as usually alleged;
but its hold on the country was probably feeble, there
were few converts to Islam,1 and in course of time all
effects of the sole Arab settlement in northern India dis-
appeared.
After the Sind adventure, India was free from
Muhammadan aggression for some three
4. Isiam in centuries. But during that period, events
Persia and were taking place in neighbouring coun-
Centrai Asia tries that profoundly affected the nature
of the later invasions. By 650, the Arab
forces had conquered Persia as far as the Oxus; by 714
they had advanced the boundary of their empire to the
Aral Sea and the Jaxartes (Syr Daria). In 820 the Arab
empire began to break up; and in the process there came
into existence on the north-western borders of India an
independent Muslim kingdom, consisting of Khorasan,
Khwarizm, Transoxiana, and the greater part of modern
Afghanistan, with its capital at Bokhara.2 The earlier
1 Rose, Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and N.-W.F.P.
(1911), Vol. I, p. 489. Lane-Poole, Mediaeval India under Mohamniedan
Rule (1917), p. 12.
2 Khorasan was a large Persian province. Khwarizm corresponds
roughly to the Trans-Caspian territories (Khiva and Merv). Transoxiana
is that part of Turkestan between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. The
parts of Afghanistan that formed part of this kingdom were Kandahar,
Kabul and ‘Zabulistan1, i.e. the tracts round Ghazni. Rose, op. cit.,
Vol. I, p. 40.
I 62