Critiques on four volumes
Book One: Pre-Muslim Period by A.H. Dani
Critique by Arthur Llewellyn Basham: Author of the first volume, Prof A. H. Dani is not only an expert archaeologist and prehistorian, but also an able Sanskrit scholar with a very important study of Indian palaeography to his credit. Its interest for the non-Pakistani reader lies chiefly in the attempt to find common factors in the ancient culture of what is now Pakistan. Although a great treasure of ancient Buddhist artefacts is discovered, no significant specimen of Mauryan Empire and Mauryan art is to be found in Pakistan. Gupta Empire also had little influence here. The book has been praised by Basham as "a work which no sensible Pakistani or Indian could object to or accuse of undue prejudice" [1]
Book Two: Muslim Rule under the Sultans by M. Kabir
Critique by Philip B. Calkins: This volume gives a survey of the history of the Sultanate period. After an introductory chapter which describes some of the sources for the history of the period, nine chapters are devoted to an account of the Sultanate, its Muslim antecedents in Sindh and Afghanistan, and the independent Muslim kingdoms which developed out of it. The final chapter deals with administration, society and culture. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this volume is historiographical rather than historical, since it is part of a series of Pakistan and Muslims since their arrival in the sub-continent. [2] Calkins, calls for a more deeper analysis of the history than presented in this volume. Despite of the apparent image of "the official Pakistani point of view" intended to be used as textbook for undergraduate students, the volume should have been able to offer more for those who desire more rudimentary knowledge of sultanate period. He praises the particular aspect of the book as "historigraphical rather than historical". [2]
Book Three: The Mughal Empire by Sh. A. Rashid
Critique by Fritz Lehman: Given that this book is intended as a textbook for Pakistani undergraduates, Shaikh Ahmed Sarhindi predictably appears as the chief preserver of separate Islamic identity in India, yet only a very general and most inadequate description of his ideas and his influence is given. Chapters on Akbar and Aurangzib are the longest and the most revealing. The tone of the book in general is more reasonable and moderate than such earlier publications. Assessment of the Marathas, for example, while unsympathetic is fair to the facts. [3]
Lehman criticises the volume's implications that Muslims living under "Hindu rule" was "the worst disaster in the history of Islam in South Asia", a view he describes as 'consistent with the Two-Nation Theory', but one that he finds "disquieting". [3]
Book Four: Alien Rule and the Rise of Muslim Nationalism by M. A. Rahim et al.
Critique by Aziz Ahmed: Determination of national identity quite understandably tends to be re-evaluation of history. The educator's job is to make such re-evaluation available to the university student. It needs further analysis whether the Hindu officials of the Bengal Nawwabs conspired with the East India Company because they were Hindus or because, like Muslim officials, they were simply greedy. [4]
Ahmad criticises this volume as a "warped subjectivity", and the portrayal of British rule in the region as "merely the lesser weakness of Rahim's historical presentation. His greater weakness is a complete lack of objectivity". According to the reviewer, the book portrays Hindus and the British as "villains" and Muslims as "victims". [4] He further writes that the narrative is "dangerous" for it will not guide younger historians in Pakistan towards proper national self-criticism. [4]
Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; by 4500 BCE, settled life had increasingly spread, and gradually evolved into the Indus Valley civilisation, which flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE in present-day Pakistan and north-western India. Early in the second millennium BCE, persistent drought caused the population of the Indus Valley to scatter from large urban centres to villages. Indo-Aryan tribes moved into the Punjab from Central Asia in several waves of migration. The Vedic Period was marked by the composition of their large collections of hymns (Vedas). Their varna system evolved into the caste system. The pastoral and nomadic Indo-Aryans spread from the Punjab into the Gangetic plain. Around 600 BCE, a new, interregional culture arose; then, small chieftaincies (janapadas) were consolidated into larger states (mahajanapadas). A second urbanisation took place, which came with the rise of new ascetic movements and religious concepts, including the rise of Jainism and Buddhism. The latter was synthesised with the preexisting religious cultures of the subcontinent, giving rise to Hinduism.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is a province of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the fourth largest province of Pakistan by land area and the third-largest province by population. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Balochistan to the south, Punjab to the south-east, the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan to the north and north-east, Islamabad Capital Territory to the east and Azad Kashmir to the north-east. It shares an international border with Afghanistan to the west. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has a varied landscape ranging from rugged mountain ranges, valleys, plains surrounded by hills, undulating submontane areas and dense agricultural farms.
The history of Pakistan preceding the country's independence in 1947 is shared with that of Afghanistan, India, and Iran. Spanning the western expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern borderlands of the Iranian plateau, the region of present-day Pakistan served both as the fertile ground of a major civilization and as the gateway of South Asia to Central Asia and the Near East.
Punjab is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is specifically located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern-Pakistan and northwestern-India. Punjab's major cities are Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Sialkot, Chandigarh, Shimla, Jalandhar, Gurugram, and Bahawalpur.
Sindh is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province by population after Punjab. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Balochistan to the west and north-west and Punjab to the north. It shares an International border with the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to the east; it is also bounded by the Arabian Sea to the south. Sindh's landscape consists mostly of alluvial plains flanking the Indus River, the Thar Desert in the eastern portion of the province along the international border with India, and the Kirthar Mountains in the western portion of the province.
The Partition of India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent and the creation of two independent dominions in South Asia: India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan—which at the time comprised two regions lying on either side of India—is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947. The change of political borders notably included the division of two provinces of British India, Bengal and Punjab. The majority Muslim districts in these provinces were awarded to Pakistan and the majority non-Muslim to India. The other assets that were divided included the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. Provisions for self-governing independent Pakistan and India legally came into existence at midnight on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.
The Delhi Sultanate, or the Sultanate of Delhi, was a Muslim empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent during the period of Medieval India, for 320 years (1206–1526). Following the invasion of South Asia by the Ghurid dynasty, five largely unrelated dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially: the Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), the Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), and the Lodi dynasty (1451–1526). It covered large swaths of territory in modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as well as some parts of southern Nepal.
Multan is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, located on the bank of the Chenab River. Multan was Pakistan's seventh most populous city in 2017 census. It is one of the five largest urban centres of Pakistan in 2023, with an estimated population of 2.2 million, and is the major cultural, religious and economic centre of Southern Punjab. Multan is known for ancient heritage and historic landmarks. Situated at the heart of South Asian subcontinent Multan region was centre of many civilizations.
Hindūstān, along with its shortened form Hind, is the Persian-language name for India, broadly the Indian subcontinent, that later became the commonly used name of the region in the Hindustani language. Since the Partition of India in 1947, Hindustan continues to be used to the present day as a historic name for the Republic of India, while earlier region is referred as Akhand Bharat.
Hindus have experienced both historical and ongoing religious persecution and systematic violence, in the form of forced conversions, documented massacres, genocides, demolition and desecration of temples, as well as the destruction of educational centres.
The Khalji or Khilji dynasty was the second dynasty which ruled the Delhi sultanate, covering large parts of the Indian subcontinent for nearly three decades between 1290 and 1320. It was founded by Jalal ud din Firuz Khalji.
The Lahore Resolution, also called Pakistan resolution, was written and prepared by Muhammad Zafarullah Khan and was presented by A. K. Fazlul Huq, the Prime Minister of Bengal, was a formal political statement adopted by the All-India Muslim League on the occasion of its three-day general session in Lahore on 22–24 March 1940. The resolution called for independent states as seen by the statement:
That geographically contiguous units are demarcated regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute ‘independent states’ in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.
Rahim Yar Khan is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the 9th largest city of Pakistan by population. It is the capital of the Rahim Yar Khan District and Rahim Yar Khan Tehsil. The administration of the city is subdivided into nine Union Councils.
The Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent (1206-1757) mainly took place between the 13th and the 18th centuries for 551 years. Earlier Muslim conquests in the subcontinent include the invasions which started in what is now modern-day Pakistan, especially the Umayyad campaigns during the 8th century and the Rajput resistance to Muslim conquests.
Muslim Rajputs or Musalman Rajpoots are the descendants of Rajputs in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent who are followers of Islam. They converted from Hinduism to Islam from the medieval period onwards, creating various dynasties and states while retaining Hindu surnames such as Rana and Chauhan. Today, Muslim Rajputs can be found mostly in present-day Northern India and Pakistan. They are further divided into different clans.
Pakistani nationalism refers to the political, cultural, linguistic, historical, [commonly] religious and geographical expression of patriotism by the people of Pakistan, of pride in the history, heritage and identity of Pakistan, and visions for its future.
Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi popularly known as I.H. Qureshi, SP, HI, was a Pakistani nationalist historian and playwright. He was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi from 1961 till 1971.
The History of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa refers to the history of the modern-day Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Muslim Khatris are desandants of Khatri community in Indian subcontinent. They embraced Islam during medieval times. They are now mostly concentrated in Pakistan provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Azad Kashmir and Northern India. They use titles like Sheikh, Sultan, Khan, Kapoor, Malik, Arora etc and they’re further divided into different clans. The community is scattered through out Punjab and Kutch region, and found both as nucleated and extended family.
Punjabi Muslims are adherents of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Punjabis. With a population of more than 109 million, they are the largest ethnic group in Pakistan and the world's third-largest Islam-adhering ethnicity after Arabs and Bengalis. The majority of Punjabi Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, while a minority adhere to Shia Islam. They are primarily geographically native to the Punjab province of Pakistan but, many have ancestry from the entire Punjab region as multiple millions were forced to migrate from East Punjab to West Punjab during 1947 partition due to widespread violence from Hindu and Sikh militias.
