History
The ship was hauled up by Dahir's men while it was passing a port located in the Sindh province of Pakistan and the people were taken as captives. At that time, Hajjaj bin Yusuf was the governor of present-day Iraq. Upon hearing the news, he wrote to Raja Dahir and demanded him to release the prisoners. Raja Dahir, who was the governor of Sindh at that time, refused to accept the request which tempted Yusuf to order Muhammad bin Qasim to proceed to Sindh along with an army unit of 6,000 troops in order to get the prisoners released. Qasim was hardly seventeen years of age at that time, however he was a ruthless and capable military commander, the main reason for which Yusuf may have recruited him.
After being deployed to Sindh, Qasim defeated Raja Dahir's troops and the prisoners were liberated. He also conquered Sindh and annexed the entire areas up to Multan, into Muslim territory. From that time on, the South Asia experienced its first formal contact with the Arabs and there were significant elements of Arab culture, food, sciences, arts and traditions brought into the region. This period also marked the introduction of Islam into what is now Pakistan, and the rest of South Asia, which thrived and flourished considerably. Today, Islam is the predominant state-religion of Pakistan and also has an immense number of followers in India. Islam is currently followed by at least 400-500 million people in South Asia.
After the death of Qasim, the areas of Sindh continued to remain under Arab rule for two centuries.
Read more about this topic: Arabs In Pakistan
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