The Pakistani Territory

of the Pakistani territory has been a large province of world’s earliest imperial power i.e. Iran. Afterwards, Alexander put an end to the Iranian rule and he invaded the Pakistani territory also. Alexander then went back but died in the way. But Iranian imperial rule and the type of Alexander’s vast scale military achievements drew profound impressions upon the political set up of the sub-continent. Chandar Gupata Moriah, following the Iranian imperial type political model, brought about most of the territory of northern India into a single political regime, which was later on further extended by his grandson Asoka.

But that large political set up could not last for long time period and the sub-continent was again divided into many small kingdoms of Hindu Rajas. A major political change, which shaped the identity of present day Pakistani territory was the event of 711AD when an Arab Muslim military commander, Muhammad bin Qasim, invaded the territory of Sindh, defeated the Hindu Raja Dahir and thus annexed the area of Sindh to the Muslim imperial rule of Umayyad Caliphate. Emergence of Muslim rule resulted in fundamental changes in the civil society of this area in a way that vast local population embraced Islam and thus acquired their identity as ‘Muslims’. After about three centuries, other Muslim invaders of Turkish origin managed to bring most of the northern Indian Territory including almost whole territory of present day Pakistan under the Muslim rule. Muslim society flourished under the Muslim rule because Muslim culture was more progressive and tolerant than the culture of Hindus, who were in majority. Muslim culture and society got its own distinct identity, which was quite different to the identity of majority Hindu culture. Muslim political rule continued over centuries until eighteenth century when signs of the decline of Muslim rule began to appear and many turn of events resulted in the shift of locus of political control in the hands of a British...