Islam is the second-largest religion in
South Asia, with more than 640 million
Muslims living there, forming about one-third of the region's population. Islam first spread along the coastal regions of the
Indian subcontinent and
Sri Lanka, almost as soon as it started in the
Arabian Peninsula, as the Arab traders brought it to South Asia. South Asia has the
largest population of Muslims in the world, with about one-third of all Muslims living here.[16][17] Islam is the dominant religion in half of the South Asian countries (Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Afghanistan). It is the
second largest religion in India and
third largest in Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The first incursion occurred through sea by Caliph
Umar's governor of
Bahrain, Usman ibn Abu al-Aas, who sent his brother Hakam ibn Abu al-Aas to raid and
reconnoitre the
Makran region[28] around 636 CE or 643 AD long before any
Arab army reached the frontier of India by land. Al-Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, who attacked Makran in the year 649 AD, was an early partisan of
Ali ibn Abu Talib.[29] During the caliphate of Ali, many
HinduJats of Sindh had come under the influence of
Shi'ism[30] and some even participated in the
Battle of Camel and died fighting for Ali.[29] According to popular tradition, Islam was brought to
Lakshadweep islands, situated just to the west of Malabar Coast, by
Ubaidullah in 661 CE. After the
Rashidun Caliphate,
Muslim dynasties came to power.[31][32] Since 1947, South Asia has been largely governed by
modern states.[33][34]
Islamic influence first came to be felt in the Indian subcontinent during the early 7th century with the advent of
Arab traders. Arab traders used to visit the
Malabar region to trade even before Islam had been established in Arabia. Unlike the coasts of Malabar, the northwestern coasts were not as receptive to the Middle Eastern arrivals. Hindu merchants in
Sindh and
Gujarat perceived the Arab merchants to be competitors.
According to Historians
Henry Miers Elliot and
John Dowson in their book The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 CE. The first Indian mosque is thought to have been built in 629 CE, purportedly at the behest of an unknown
Chera dynasty ruler, during the lifetime of Muhammad (
c. 571–632) in Kodungallur, in district of
Thrissur, Kerala by Malik Bin Deenar. In Malabar, Muslims are called
Mappila.
Henry Rawlinson, in his book Ancient and Medieval History of India (
ISBN81-86050-79-5), claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century. This fact is corroborated, by
J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals,[35] and also by
Haridas Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV.[36]
The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went.[37] It was, however, the subsequent expansion of the
Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent over the next millennia that established Islam in the region.
According to Derryl N. Maclean, a link between Sindh and early partisans of Ali or proto-Shi'ites can be traced to Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, who traveled across Sind to Makran in the year 649AD and presented a report on the area to the Caliph. He supported
Ali, and died fighting on his behalf alongside Sindhi Jats.[38]
During the reign of Ali, many Jats came under the influence of Islam.[39] Jats fought against the Muslims in the
battle of Chains in 634[40] and later also fought on the side of
Ali in the
Battle of the Camel in 656 under their chief, Ali B. Danur.[41] After the
Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, the Muslim Arabs then began to move towards the lands east of
Persia and in 652 captured
Herat.[42]
The Islamic ambitions of the
sultans and
Mughals had concentrated in expanding Muslim power and looting, not in seeking converts. Evidence of the absence of systematic programs for conversion is the reason for the concentration of South Asia's Muslim populations outside the main core of the Muslim polities[43] in the northeast and northwest regions of the subcontinent, which were on the peripheries of Muslim states.[44]
The Sufis did not preach egalitarianism, but played an important role in integrating agricultural settlements with the larger contemporary cultures. In areas where Sufis received grants and supervised clearing of forestry, they had the role of mediating with worldly and divine authority.
Richard M. Eaton has described the significance of this in the context of
West Punjab and
East Bengal, the two main areas to develop Muslim majorities.[45] The partition was eventually made possible because of the concentration of Muslim majorities in northwest and northeast India.[46] The overwhelming majority of the subcontinent's Muslims live in regions which became Pakistan in 1947.[47]
These nominal conversions to Islam, brought about by regional Muslim polities, were followed by
reforms, especially after the 17th century, in which Muslims integrated with the larger Muslim world. Improved transport services in the nineteenth century brought Muslim masses into contact with Mecca, which facilitated reformist movements stressing
Quranic literalism and making people aware of the differences between Islamic commands and their actual practices.[48]
Islamic reformist movements, such as the
Faraizi movement, in the nineteenth century rural Bengal aimed to remove indigenous folk practices from Bengali Islam and commit the population exclusively to Allah and Muhammad.[49] Politically the reform aspect of conversion, emphasizing exclusiveness, continued with the Pakistan movement for a separate Muslim state[48] and a cultural aspect was the assumption of
Arab culture.[50]
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and the Maldives are Muslim-majority countries. The Muslim population in India is 14.5%, which still makes it the largest Muslim population outside the Muslim-majority countries.[59]
^Prof.Mehboob Desai,Masjit during the time of Prophet Nabi Muhammed Sale Allahu Alayhi Wasalam,Divy Bhasakar,Gujarati News Paper, Thursday, column 'Rahe Roshan',24 May,page 4
^Jo Van Steenbergen (2020). "2.1". A History of the Islamic World, 600–1800: Empire, Dynastic Formations, and Heterogeneities in Pre-Modern Islamic West-Asia. Routledge.
ISBN978-1000093070.
^Jalal, Ayesha; Bose, Sugata (1998), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (1st ed.), Sang-e-Meel Publications
^Talbot, Ian (2016), A History of Modern South Asia: Politics, States, Diasporas, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-21659-2
^Sturrock, J., South Canara and Madras District Manual (2 vols., Madras, 1894-1895)
^Derryl N. Maclean (1989). Religion and Society in Arab Sind. E. J. BRILL. p. 126.
ISBN90-04-08551-3.
^Ibn Athir, Vol. 3, pp. 45–46, 381, as cited in: S. A. N. Rezavi, "The Shia Muslims", in History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, Vol. 2, Part. 2: "Religious Movements and Institutions in Medieval India", Chapter 13, Oxford University Press (2006).
Eaton, Richard (1985), "Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India", in Richard C. Martin (ed.), Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies (1st ed.), Tucson: University of Arizona PressB, pp. 107–123