Historical Events of Muslim India

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz

Salar Masoud Ghazi
On June 15, 1038 AD, Salar Masoud Ghazi, a descendent of the Prophet’s vicegerent, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), through Mohammad al-Hanafiya, attained martyrdom in the town of Bahraich, 125 km northeast of Lucknow in what is now Uttar Pradesh state of India. He was a pious person, and after arriving in India with the armies of the Turkic conqueror, Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi, he penetrated the interior of India to propagate Islam. Revered till this day as Ghazi Miyan by both Muslims and Hindus, his tomb is the site of pilgrimage in India.

Empress Mumtaz Mahal
On June 17, 1631 AD, Empress Mumtaz Mahal of Hindustan (northern Subcontinent), died during childbirth in Burhanpour in the northern Deccan. Her husband, Emperor Shah Jahan, who deeply loved her, was to spend the next 17 years building over her tomb a magnificent mausoleum of white marble, the famous Taj Mahal in Agra, which is one of the 7 Wonders of the World. Born into a family of Iranian nobility and named Arjmand Banu Begum, she was a daughter of Abu’l-Hassan Asef Khan the son of Mirza Ghiyas Beg Tehrani entitled E'temad od-Dowla. She was thus a niece of Empress Noor Jahan, the wife of the previous Emperor, Jahangir. Mumtaz Mahal, who was a Shi'ite Muslim, gave birth to fourteen children, including Mohammad Aurangzeb the next Emperor and last of the Great Mughals.

The Iranian historian, Mohammad bin Khwandshah, popularly known as Mir-Khwand
On June 20, 1498 AD, the Iranian historian, Mohammad bin Khwandshah, popularly known as Mir-Khwand, passed away in Herat, which was then part of Khorasan and is now in present day Afghanistan. He was from a well-known Seyyed family of Bukhara tracing descent to Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Spending most of his life in Herat in the court of the last Timurid sultan, Hussain Bayqarah, he enjoyed the patronage of the renowned minister, Ali Shir Nava’i, a celebrated writer and poet himself. At the request of his patron, he wrote the general history in Persian titled "Rowzat os-Safa" (Garden of Purity). The work is composed of seven large volumes and a geographic appendix, often considered an 8th volume. The history begins with the pre-Islamic Persian kings and surveys the major Muslim rulers of Iran up to his times. Mir-Khwand’s maternal grandson, the historian Khwandamir, who migrated to Mughal India, wrote a sequel to it, and in the 19th century the Iranian scholar Reza Qoli Khan Hedayat wrote a supplement to this work. Mir-Khwand is often criticized for his highly embellished and bombastic style and for his uncritical approach to the sources, but his history preserves sections from earlier works that have since been lost. Volumes 5 and 6 are particularly reliable, for they utilize the abundant historiographic materials of the Mongol and Timurid periods and furnish independent information on events contemporary or near contemporary to the author’s lifetime.

Benazir Bhutto
On June 21,1953 AD, Benazir Bhutto, who served as Pakistan's prime minister for two terms – from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996 – was born in Karachi in a Sindhi Muslim family. She was the daughter of Prime Minister Zulfeqar Ali Bhutto, who was deposed and executed by coup leader General Zia ul-Haq. Her mother Nosrat Isfahani was of Iranian origin. Benazir was assassinated under suspicious conditions during a public rally on 27 December 2007 during General Pervez Musharraf’s rule, when it seemed that due to her immense popularity, she was all set to win the parliamentary elections.

The Battle of Plassey
On June 23, 1757 AD, the Battle of Plassey took place in Bengal between the forces of Nawab Mirza Mohammad Siraj od-Dowlah and the British, who with the help of traitors like Mir Ja’far, Rai Durlabh and Omichand, defeated the Indian forces. The young Siraj od-Dowlah, who was of Iranian origin was caught and murdered, and Robert Clive, the commander of the British forces, installed Mir Ja’far – also of Iranian origin – as the new Nawab of Bengal, after extracting huge concessions from him. With this battle the British established their foothold in India and would over the next half-century century take control of most of the Subcontinent.

Shah Beg Arghun
On 23rd of the Islamic month of Sha’ban in 928, Shah Beg Arghun, who established his rule over Sindh, died after invading Gujarat, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Shah Hussain. A Persianized Mongol, Shah Beg initially ruled Qandahar as a nominal vassal of the Timurid rulers of Herat, but with the rise of another Timurid prince, Zaheer od-Din Babar in Kabul, he realized the futility of holding on to Qandahar and in order to carve out a separate state, invaded Sindh. He defeated Jam Firuz of the Samma dynasty.

Sultan Ala ud-Din Khilji laid siege to the famous fort of Siwana
On July 3, 1308 AD, Sultan Ala ud-Din Khilji laid siege to the famous fort of Siwana, situated on a hilltop in the Marwar region of what is now Rajasthan state of India. Two months later he captured the fort. Ala ud-Din, the second ruler of the Persianized Turkic Dynasty, known as Khilji, because of its origin from Khilj in Afghanistan, ruled the greater part of the subcontinent for 20 years, after succeeding his uncle, Sultan Jalal ud-Din Firuz. He was a brilliant strategist and an outstanding military commander, although a ruthless person. He was the first Muslim ruler to penetrate into the Deccan or southern India, and is also noted in history for being one of the few rulers in the world to have repeatedly defended his empire against Mongol invasions. He defeated large Mongol armies and then launched punitive expeditions against them in Central Asia, around modern-day Afghanistan. During his rule, many Iranians migrated to what are now India and Pakistan, to escape the Mongol menace.

General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq staged a bloody coup
On July 5, 1977 AD, General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq staged a bloody coup to topple the elected government of Prime Minister Zulfeqar Ali Bhutto and seize power. Two years later he executed Bhutto and a number of his opponents, after closing the parliament and prohibiting the activities of parties and the press. In 1985, Zia orchestrated elections and elected himself as president with US blessings. In 1988, he once again dissolved the national and state assemblies, dismissing the premier with vague promises of another election. On August 17, 1988, Zia ul-Haq was killed, along with several Pakistani army commanders and the US ambassador, when a military plane they were travelling exploded in mid air. The present state of anarchy and rampant terrorism in Pakistan is because of General Zia’s dubious policies and his unholy alliance with the US and Saudi Arabia to tarnish the image of Islam.

Pakistani journalist and poet, Hassan Abedi
On July 7, 1929 AD, Pakistani journalist and poet, Hassan Abedi was born in Jaunpur, India and educated in Azamgarh and Allahabad. After partition of the Subcontinent in 1947, he moved to Pakistan and settled in Karachi. He became president of the Karachi Press Club and held office in both the Karachi Union of Journalists and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists. He was also an active member of the Irteqa Forum for promotion of the Urdu language and literature. His collections of poetry are “Navisht-e Naiâ€‌ (1995), “Jareedaâ€‌ (1998) and “Farar Hona Huroof kaâ€‌ (2004). Although he wrote classical ghazals as well as poetry for children, his poetical odes are a narrative of the socio-political aspects of the society. He persistently elegizes the changing value system that he finds alien and disconcerting.
On 28th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban in 1368 AH, the virtuous scholar Seyyed Ibn Hassan, son of Hassan Reza al-Jaisi, died in.

The Sikh ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh
On June 27, 1839 AD, the Sikh ruler, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, died after a reign of nearly forty years and within ten years the empire he had built up by conquering Punjab, Kashmir, and the Pashtu areas up to the frontier of Afghanistan, was annexed by the British. Acquainted with the Persian language, he began as a young soldier in the service of the Afghan king, Zamaan Shah Durrani, who made him governor of a part of Punjab.
He then assembled his Sikh army and began war with his Afghan benefactors by seizing Lahore and ending their rule in Punjab. He desecrated the grand Badshahi Mosque of Lahore by turning it into a stable. In 1818, he occupied Multan and advanced upon Peshawar.
His dreams of invading Afghanistan did not materialize, but when Shah Shuja sought asylum with the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh forced him to give up the fabulous Koh-e Noor diamond which Nader Shah of Iran had taken from the Mughal Emperor Mohammad Shah of Delhi and which after him had fallen to the share of the Afghan general, Ahmad Shah Abdali Durrani.
In 1849, when the British defeated the Sikhs, they seized Koh-e Noor which is Persian for Mountain of Light and which is currently in the crown of the British queen.