Was Islamic Conquest of India Easy for Muslim Invaders?

Rindfleisch
Published on Apr 14, 2021
Islam came into existence in the early 7th century. Between 615 and 630 AD, when Prophet Muhammad established it in the Saudi Arabia. How he did it is very interesting, but we donâ€™t have time to address that right now. The interesting thing to keep in mind is that within 30 years of its existence, Islam had defeated two major empires in the world, the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Sassanid Empire in the east. This is a mind-boggling achievement. It is as if the Eskimos were to get together today and defeat both US and Russia in just a period of 30 years.

This was almost a miracle and they were convinced that the God was on their side. With such a high morale, over the next hundred years Islam spread rapidly over to Northern Africa, Spain and Central Asia.

By 650 AD Islam had arrived in the modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, beyond this they could not move for next 350 years. It is only later at the time of Mahmud of Ghazni in early 11th century that Muslims started to move into our current India. The actual Muslim Rule of our India happens much later in 1192 when Muhammad Ghori defeats Prithviraj Chauhan in second battle of Taraian.

So keep in mind that nations after nations fell to Islam elsewhere, it had to wait for centuries to really make its way into India. Yet we curse our forefathers for falling to Islam. So the assumption that India was just sitting there ready to be conquered by Muslims is incorrect. Muslims had to struggle for centuries and even then, they were never able conquer the whole India ever.

Moreover by 1700s we see Sikhs and Maratha rising up to power, overthrowing the Muslims.

Instead of feeling the bitterness, we should appreciate that
1. Great resistance was presented to an unstoppable force of Islam in India
2. Even after many centuries of enslavement, our culture and identity survived and still stands firm and solidly grounded.