Question:

Assalam u alayekum sheikh hisham!
i believe that on this forum,only you can rectify the misconception posted here about ghazwatul hind.
I had asked about ghazwatul hind some months ago in response to which hajj gibril replied that the event has actually taken place.the other day i met a naqshybandi brother and we were talking about this event.when i told him hajj gibril’s opinion (without mentioning his name) he said that how can it be possible that such a great and significant event has taken place and not even a single person mentioned it.(and i myself wonder that if any saint of sub-continent mentioned it !!!!! no one has discussed that it ha taken place)
many of us who live in sub-continent are living on the hope that we’ll inshaAllah fight against kufr in this great event.
please clearify this.
am i right syyedi?

Answer:

`Alaykum as-Salam,

Mawlana Shaykh Hisham requested that I answer this question again, which bears on the understanding of the hadith mentioned in the Post “Ghazwatul Hind“. Mawlana Shaykh Nazim (Allah sanctify their souls) always stresses that we should study history, hence the importance of such information and of correcting the real misconceptions. In sha Allah this will be the last post on this issue.

It has been mentioned by many authorities that the raid (ghazwat) on India referred to in the hadiths of Ghazwat al-Hind (another narration in Musnad Ahmad says “Hind and Sind”) already took place many times:

– in the caliphate of Sayyidina Mu`awiya (Allah be well-pleased with him) in the Hijri year 44 as stated by Ibn Kathir in al-Bidaya;

– in the caliphate of al-Walid b. `Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (see on him  the Post “12 Imams?“), under the great general Muhammad b. Qasim al-Thaqafi (see Yaqut al-Hamawi in Mu`jam al-Buldan, article Multan) who conquered Sind for the Umayyads at the age of 17.

– during the Ghaznawi sultanate founded by the Turkish Afghan-born Sultan Nasiruddin Abu Mansur Sebüktigin (330-387/942-997) and his son Sultan Mahmud b. Sebüktigin Ghaznawi (361-421/971-1030) who seized and raided Northern India constantly, and waged about 400 military campaigns there, also as related by Ibn Kathir in the Bidaya, Ibn al-Athir al-Jazari in al-Kamil fil-Tarikh, and Ibn Khallikan in Wafayat al-A`yan. Mahmud Ghaznawi is the one whom history credits for first conquering India, as stated by Ibn Battuta in his Rihla. The breadth of his conquests has been compared to that of Sayyidina `Umar b. al-Khattab (Allah be well-pleased with him).

– Then the following dynasty, the Ghuris, ruled over all of India beginning with their first conqueror Shihab al-Din Muhammad b. Salim b. al-Husayn al-Ghuri, and their sultans assumed the title of King of India. His freedman Qutbuddin Aybak was the first Muslim king of Delhi in the 540s.

These were all Muslim kings (beginning with Mu`awiya) who waged not one, but hundreds of campaigns against kufr in India and they more than deserve candidacy for reaping the honor of that Prophetic hadith, and Allah knows best.

This is all well-known to the scholars and historians of that region from Firishta (967-1029/1560-1620) in his Persian chronicle translated as “History of Muslim Power in India” to Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi in his Maktubat and anyone that has a sense of Islamic history in the Indian Subcontinent. For about nine centuries most of India was under Muslim rule, from the time of those Muslim rulers until the British invasion (1877 CE). It is more than strange – and indeed a sign of the Last Days – that an educated Muslim could live there today and imagine that such a conquest and rule have never yet taken place!

Yes, it is possible that, by analogy with the hadith of the conquest of Constantinople, the hadith on the raid on India points to events that take place more than once and therefore could take place again in our future, despite both events (India and Constantinople) having already taken place in the past. However, it is not acceptable to deny that they already took place once, which would be tantamount to saying that the Muslim Kings never took India or that Sultan Muhammad Fatih (Allah have mercy on all of them) never took Constantinople.

Furthermore, no scholar has mentioned the raid on India as one of the signs of the Hour and it would also be a mistake to put on a par the two parts of the hadith (the raid on India and the emergence of `Isa upon him peace): the raid on India is a minor sign that occurred early as did several other raids (on Syria, Iraq, Persia, Egypt, Constantinople…) while the appearance of Sayyidina `Isa (upon him peace) is a major sign that occurs once, just before the Hour. This is why al-Saffarini in his book Lawami` al-Anwar al-Bahiyya implied that this hadith points to two events that are respectively at the beginning and at the end of this Ummah, by comparing it to the famous hadith “The similitude of this Ummah is as the rain: no-one knows whether its greater goodness will be at its end or at its beginning.” Another such hadith is “No Ummah will perish that has me at its beginning and `Isa b. Maryam at its end.” And Allah knows best.

Hajj Gibril Haddad