Early History of Islam in India

Trade relations have existed between Arabia and the Indian
subcontinent from ancient times. Even in the pre-Islamic era , Arab
traders used to visit the Malabar region , which linked them with the
ports of South East Asia . Newly Islamised Arabs were Islam's first
contact with India. According to Historians Elliot and Dowson in their
book The Historyof India as told by its own Historians , the first
ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on theIndian coast as early as
630 AD. H.G. Rawlinson, in his book: Ancient and Medieval History of
India [ 36 ] claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast
in the last part of the 7th century AD. Shaykh Zainuddin Makhdum's
"Tuhfat al-Mujahidin"is also a reliable work. [ 37 ] This fact is
corroborated, by J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts
Manuals , [ 38 ] and also by Haridas Bhattacharyain Cultural Heritage
of India Vol. IV . [ 39 ] It was with the advent of Islam that the
Arabs became a prominent cultural force in the world. The Arab
merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they
propagated it wherever they went. [ 40 ]
Muslim neighborhood in Delhi circa 1852.
The first Indian mosque is thought to have been built in 629 A.D,
purportedly at the behest of Rama Varma Kulashekhara , who is
consideredthe first Indian Muslim, during the lifetime of Muhammad (c.
571–632) in Kodungallur , Kerala by Malik Bin Deenar . [ 41 ] [ 42 ] [
43 ] [ 44 ]
In Malabar , the Mappilas may have been the first community to convert
to Islam as they were more closely connected with the Arabs than
others. Intensive missionary activities were carried out along the
coast and a number of natives also embraced Islam. These new converts
were now added to the Mappila community. Thus amongthe Mappilas, we
find, both the descendants of the Arabs through local women and the
converts from among the local people. [ 40 ]
In the 8th century, the province of Sindh (in present day Pakistan)
was conquered by an Arab army led by Muhammad binQasim . Sindh became
the easternmost province of the Umayyad Caliphate .
In the first half of the 10th century, Mahmud of Ghazni added the
Punjab to the Ghaznavid Empire and conductedseveral raids deeper into
modernday India . In 11th century, Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud played
significant role. A more successful invasion came at the end of the
12th century by Muhammad of Ghor . This eventually led to the
formation of the Delhi Sultanate .
Arab-Indian interactions
There is much evidence in history to show that Arabs and Muslims
interacted with India and Indians from the very early days of Islam,
if not before the arrival of Islam in Arabia. Arab traders transmitted
the numeral system developed by Indians to the Middle East and Europe.
Many Sanskrit books were translated into Arabic as early as the Eighth
century. George Saliba writes in his book 'Islamic Science and the
Making of the European Renaissance' that"some major Sanskrit texts
began to be translated during the reign of the second Abbasid caliph
al-Mansur [754–775], if notbefore; some texts on logic even before
that, and it has been generally accepted that the Persian and Sanskrit
texts, few asthey were, were indeed the first to be translated."