4
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES
AND MILITARY FEUDALISM
IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
THE ISLAMIC CONQUEST OF NORTHERN INDIA
AND THE SULTANATE OF DELHI
The year 1206 marks an important turning point in Asian history. In this
year a Mongol chieftain united the various Mongol tribes and embarked
on a campaign of conquest. His name, Chingis Khan, was soon known by
many peoples in Asia as well as in Europe. In the same year Qutb-uddin
Aibak—a Turkish slave of the sultan of Afghanistan and, on behalf of his
overlord, ruler of a large part of northwestern India—declared his
independence and founded the sultanate of Delhi. Whereas in the following
centuries most countries of Asia succumbed to the Mongol tempest, the
sultanate of Delhi withstood this onslaught and deeply influenced the
course of Indian history.
After having developed relatively undisturbed by outside influences in
the Early Middle Ages India was now subjected once more to the impact of
Near Eastern and Central Asian forces. This new impact can only be
compared to that made by the British from the eighteenth to the twentieth
centuries. The former, however, was in many respects more intense,
because the British never became Indian rulers; Qutb-ud-din’s declaration
of independence, on the other hand, meant that the sultans of Delhi had
staked their fate on India, as did the Great Mughals later on. Although
these new rulers of India did identify with the country they had conquered,
their faith nevertheless remained distinctly alien and this led to conflict and
tension hitherto unknown.
Even so, Indian culture was enriched by the encounter with Islam which
opened up new connections with West Asia, just as Buddhism had linked
India with East Asia. The Islamic countries of the West also transmitted
Indian ideas to Europe as, for example, the Indian numerical system which
was adopted in Europe as an ‘Arab’ one. In a similar way the famous game
of chess travelled from India via Persia to Europe.