refused to submit to Ali. Finally when Ali was assassinated, Muawiya
became caliph and founded a dynasty called the Umayyads (661–749).
Within a century, however, the Umayyads were also overthrown by the
Abbasids (749–1258), who had secretly built up their strength among the
anti-Umayyad sections of the Iranian and Arab population. Although the
Umayyads and the Abbasids were called caliphs, they were hereditary. The
first four rulers (Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman and Ali) following the Prophet are
known as Rashidun (rightly guided caliphs).
Arabs in Sind
Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sind was part of the forward policy of
the Umayyad governor of Iraq. Hajjaj, to annex the region from Sind to
Transoxiana. Sind was then ruled by Dahir, the son of Chach, who had
usurped power from the previous Buddhist rulers. In 712, Muhammad
invaded Sind and killed Dahir in a hotly contested battle near Brahmanabad.
Muhammad married Dahir’s widow. Rani Ladi, and became the master of
lower Sind. The Chach Namah deals with the administrative regulations
Muhammad introduced in Sind. On the orders of Hajjaj, the people of Sind
were accorded the status of zimmis (protected subjects), and hence no
interference was to be made in their lives and property. Among the founders
of different Islamic schools of law, it was only Abu Hanifa (founder of the
Hanafi school, eighth century AD) who had authorised the collection of jizya
from the Hindus, while others had ordered for them ‘either death or Islam’.
Haijaj’s death in 714, followed next year by that of his patron, Caliph Walid,
led to the recall of Muhammad. The new Caliph put him in prison, and
subsequently the administration in Sind broke down.
     Henceforth Sind continued to be under Muslim occupation. But the Arabs
were unable to penetrate further into India in the eighth century due to the
presence of the formidable Pratihara kingdom in western India and also due
to the wrong choice of Sind, which could not provide them with the
necessary resources to conquer India.
Rise of Arabs to Power Islam rose and grew up in the deserts of Arabia,
and Arabs, its first converts, made it a powerful force in Asia. They decided
to spread their new religion and