History of The Punjab - The Shahi Kingdoms and The Muslim Invasions

The Shahi Kingdoms and The Muslim Invasions

see main articles, Kushano-Hephthalites and Shahi

The Hephthalites were defeated by a Sassanid and Gokturk alliance in 557 AD, and the Hephthalite remnants formed smaller Kushano-Hephthalite or Turki Shahi kingdoms that were dominated by Persia. Taank and Kapisa both dominated Gandhara.

Following the birth of Islam in Arabia in the early 7th century, the Muslim Arabs rose to power and replaced the Zoroastrian Persian Empire as the major power west of India in the mid 7th century. In 711–713 AD, Arab armies from the Umayyad caliphate of Damascus conquered Sind and advanced into the present-day southern Punjab, occupying Multan, which was later to become a center of the Ismaili sect of Islam.

The conquest of Sindh and southern Punjab was the first and last great achievement of the Arabs in India. They failed to end their dominance beyond Sindh and southern Punjab. Even there, they could hold on to only two principalities of Mansura (near modern Hyderabad) and Multan. Despite repeated campaigns, in 698 and 700 AD, the Arabs failed to occupy the Kandahar-Ghazni-Kabul route to the Khyber Pass. Two small Hindu states of Zabul and Kabul in southern Afghanistan stubbornly defended this strategic area between the river Sindh and Koh Hindu Kush. Punjab was thus protected for another three hundred years. The Ghaznavids had conquered almost all Muslim ruled areas to the west and north of Ghazni before they occupied Punjab, which became the springboard for attacking deep inside India.

The Pratiharas who played a major role in confining the Arabs within Sindh ruled over a large empire with its capital at Kannuaj, during the ninth and tenth centuries. According to Al Masudi, who visited India in the year 915–16 AD, the Pratiharas maintained four large armies, in four directions, one of it against the neighbouring Muslim ruled state of Multan. The Pratihara rule extended up to East Punjab, in the north-west.

While a Brahmana dynasty, more commonly known as the Hindu Shahis, was ruling from Kabul/Waihind, another kindred Brahmana dynasty ruled in Punjab, between the rivers Satluj and Sindh. Bachan Pala, Ram Singh, Bir Singh and Prithvi Pala of his family ruled in Punjab. The kingdoms of Kannauj, Punjab, Kabul and Samarqand all prospered mainly due to international trade caravans passing through their respective dominions. Perfect ‘balance-of-power’ ensured peace and no conflicts are reported among them – making it a ‘dark period’ for historians.

Bhima Deva Shahi was the fourth king in Al Beruni’s list of Hindu Shahi kings of Kabul. As a devout Brahmana, in his old age, he committed ritual suicide in his capital town of Waihind, located on the right side of river Sindh, fourteen miles above Attock. As Bhimadeva had no male heir, Jayapala son of Prithvipal of Punjab, succeeded to the combined kingdoms of Punjab and Eastern Afghanistan. Jayapala thus ruled over a vast area from Sirhind to Kabul.

During this period a Turkic kingdom came up at Ghazni and Sabuktagin ascended its throne in 977 AD. He first added Muslim ruled Bust, Dawar, Qusdar, Tukhristan and Gaur to his kingdom and started nibbling at the border territories of the Shahi king at Waihind. To put an end to this menace, Jayapala twice attached Sabuktagin but failed in his objective. Gradually, Sabuktagin conquered all Shahi territories in Afghanistan, north of the Khyber Pass. He died in 997 AD and was succeeded by his son Mahmud after a brief war of succession among the brothers.

Like his father, Mahmud first consolidated his position in the west. The tottering Samanid kingdom of Samarqand was given a shove and its dominions divided by Mahmud and Ilak Khan of Kashghar- with Oxus as the boundary between them. Mahmud now stood in the place of the great Samanids, his former over-lords. Having acquired considerable fighting experience and a seasoned army, Mahmud was ready to deal with ‘Hind’.

Jayapala was defeated at Peshawar in 1001 AD and the Shahis lost all territory north of river Sindh. Anandapala and Trilochanapala, his son and grandson respectively, stubbornly resisted Mahmud for another quarter of a century but Punjab was finally annexed to the Sultanate of Ghazni, around 1021 AD. After that Mahmud repeatedly attacked various religious places and royal treasuries in India, where immense wealth had been accumulated over a period of several centuries.

Mahmud's successors, known as the Ghaznavids, ruled for 157 years. Their kingdom gradually shrank in size, and was racked by bitter succession struggles. The Ghaznavids lost the western part of their kingdom (in present-day Iran) to the expanding Seljuk Turks. The Hindu Rajput kingdoms of western India reconquered the eastern Punjab, and by the 1160s, the line of demarcation between the Ghaznavid state and the Hindu kingdoms approximated to the present-day boundary between India and Pakistan. The Ghorids of central Afghanistan occupied Ghazni around 1150, and the Ghaznavid capital was shifted to Lahore. Muhammad Ghori conquered the Ghaznavid kingdom, occupying Lahore in 1186–1187, and later extending his kingdom past Delhi into the Ganges-Yamuna Doab.

Read more about this topic:  History Of The Punjab

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