The Islamic Invasion of India was the gradual conquest of the Indian subcontinent (or Hindustan) by Islamic states.

Muslim invaders began entering India through Sindh in the early eighth century, on the orders of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef, the administrator of Iraq. Starting in 712 the raiders, commanded by the teen-aged Muhammad bin Qasim, demolished temples, shattered "idolatorous" artwork and killed many men (it took three days to slaughter all the inhabitants of the city of Debal ) enslaving the women and children. After the violence Qasim attempted to establish law and order in the newly-conquered territory by allowing a degree of religious tolerance. Hajjaj objected:

It appears from your letter that all the rules made by you for the comfort and convenience of your men are strictly in accordance with religious law. But the way of granting pardon prescribed by the law is different from the one adopted by you, for you go on giving pardon to everybody, high or low, without any discretion between a friend and a foe. The great God says in the Koran [47.4]: "0 True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads." The above command of the Great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else all will consider you a weak-minded man.

In a subsequent communication, Hajjaj reiterated that all able-bodied men were to be killed, and that their underage sons and daughters were to be imprisoned and retained as hostages. Qasim obeyed, and on his arrival at the town of Brahminabad massacred between 6,000 and 16,000 men.

In the early eleventh century Mahmud of Ghazni launched seventeen invasions of the Hindu parts of India. After the invasions not one temple survived intact in the cities of Varanasi, Mathura, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Jwalamukhi, and Dwarka. He had vowed to chastise idolaters every year of his life. In 1193 Muhammad Khilji burned a major Buddhist library. By the end of the 12th century, following the Islamic conquest of the Budhist stronghold in Bihar, Budhists ceased to be a significant presence in India. However the famous Indian Buddhist Dr. Ambedkar has stated that the power structure of North India remained unchanged and Brahmins used this opportunity to wipe out Buddhism from North India. The survivors retreated into Nepal and Tibet, or escaped to the south of the Subcontinent. The remnants of their culture lingered on even as far west as Turkestan. In March 2001, two giant statues of Buddha, the Buddhas of Bamiyan, were destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The invaders seemed to display the resentment of less developed warriors intimidated by the encounter with a more refined culture. Mosques were built over the sites of torn down temples (such as Ayodha ). Many Hindus were sold into slavery, to such an extent that the Hindu Kush was named after "the Slaughter of the Hindu", or the ordeal of slaves who died while being transported to Muslim courts in Central Asia.

In Islamic law Hindus were not people of the book, that is Christians or Jews as they recognised a number of gods and worshipped idols. Though many Sufis recognoized the Gita as the book of God.

In his book The Story of Civilization the historian Will Durant said the invasion was "probably the bloodiest story in history ... a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within."

However Mahatma Gandhi, the great Indian leader states. "I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These, and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every trouble."" It should also be noted that the period of Mughal Empire is known as the "Golden Age of India."

Although in sheer numbers they are bigger than infamous attrocities such as Mao’s devastations of the Chinese peasantry (although conducted over a longer period) they are almost unknown outside India for several reasons. During the British Raj the British were anxious to use the Muslims as a counterbalance to the more numerous Hindus and so underplayed the devastation of the Islamic invasion. During the struggle for independence leaders of the Hindu dominated Congress Party such as Gandhi and Nehru wished to stress Hindu-Muslim unity against the British occupation. With the present day rise of the Hindu nationalist BJP there have been concerns from both opponents and moderate BJP leaders of appearing divisive.

For more information on this topic visit this link: The Intervention of Alien rule from 1194 C.E. up to 1947 C.E. By Sudheer Birodkar [1] The Story of Ghulam Masih Naaman [2] Massacre of the Khalifa [3]