Islamic Conquest of Afghanistan
In 637 AD, only five years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, Arab Muslims shattered the might of the Iranian Sassanians at the battle of Qadisiya, and the invaders began to reach into the lands east of Iran. By the middle of the eighth century, the rising Abbasid Dynasty was able to subdue the Arab invasion, putting an end to the prolonged struggle. With the beginning of the Mussulman era, there set in a fresh epoch of conquest in the name of the prophet Mahomet, and to this conquest India was also subjected. During the time of their Caliph, Muavin, the Mussulmans had already possessed themselves of Kabul and Lughman ; and although in the year 699 AD they were driven therefrom, in the VIII. century AD having gained the line of the Hindu-Kush, they overran the whole of Afghanistan.
It does not appear when Kabul was either first or finally subdued by the Muhammadans. It is evident, however, that the first inroads were not followed by permanent occupation, and that there was no entire subversion of the native dynasty until the Ghaznivide dynasty rose to power around 962 AD. The first invasion was in the time of ’Abdu-llah, governor of ’Irak, on the part of the third Khalif, ’Usman [r. 644-656]. He was directed by the Khalif to send an emissary to explore the provinces of Hind; and notwithstanding a discouraging report, ’Abdu-lla ordered the country of Sijistan to be invaded by one of his cousins, ’Abdu-r Rahman, son of Samra. ’Abdu-r Rahman advanced to the city of Zaranj, and besieged the Marzaban, or Persian governor, in his palace, on the festival of the ’I'd. The governor solicited peace, and submitted to pay a tribute of two millions of dirhams and two thousand slaves.
After that, ’Abdu-r Rahman subdued the country between Zaranj and Kish, which was then styled Indian territory, and the tract between Ar-Rukhaj (Arachosia) and the province of Dawar—in which latter country he attacked the idolaters in the mountain of Zur, who sued for peace ; and though he had with him 8,000 men, the booty acquired during this incursion was so great, that each man received four thousand pieces of silver as his share. Their idol of Zur was of gold, and its eyes were two rubies. The zealous Musulmans cut off its hand and plucked out its eyes, and then remarked to the Marzaban how powerless was his idol “ to do either good or evil.” In the same expedition, Bust was taken. After this, ’Abdu-r Rahman advanced to Zabul, and afterwards to Kabul, in the time of Mu’awiya [the first Umayyad Caliph, r. 661-680].
When ’Abdu-r Rahman came in sight of Kabul, the ruler of the place (Kabul Shah), who was lame, was in the city. He came out and fought several engagements with the Musulmans, but retreated into the city, and came forth no more. ’Abdu-r Rahman besieged it, and remained seated before it, fighting with the garrison for a whole year. He and his soldiers had to endure many hardships during the siege, but at length they carried the place by assault; and when they entered it, they put the fighting men to the sword, and made the women and children prisoners. Kabul Shah was taken captive, and brought before ’Abdu-r Rahman; but when he was ordered to be beheaded he turned Muhammadan, and repeated the creed. ’Abdu-r Rahman treated him with honor and kindness. The plunder and the captives which had been taken in Kabul, Zaranj, and Sijistan, was collected, and a fifth portion was set apart and sent to ’Abdu-llah bin ‘Amir, with a report of the conquest of Sijistan and Kabu1.
Peace prevailed under the rule of the caliph Harun al Rashid (785-809) and his son, and learning flourished in such Central Asian cities as Samarkand. From the seventh through the ninth centuries, most inhabitants of what is present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, southern parts of the former Soviet Union, and areas of northern India were converted to Sunni Islam.
In the eighth and ninth centuries ancestors of many of today's Turkic-speaking Afghans settled in the Hindu Kush area (partly to obtain better grazing land) and began to assimilate much of the culture and language of the Pashtun tribes already present there.
By the middle of the ninth century, Abbasid rule had faltered, and semi-independent states began to emerge throughout the empire. In the Hindu Kush area, three short-lived, local dynasties ascended to power. The best known of the three, the Samanid, extended its rule from Bukhara as far south as India and west as Iran. Although Arab Muslim intellectual life still was centered in Baghdad, Iranian Muslim scholarship, that is, Shia Islam, predominated in the Samanid areas at this time. By the mid-tenth century, the Samanid Dynasty had crumbled in the face of attacks from Turkish tribes to the north and from the Ghaznavids, a rising dynasty to the south.
Out of the Samanid Dynasty came the first great Islamic empire in Afghanistan, the Ghaznavid, whose warriors, raiding deep into the Indian subcontinent, assured the domination of Sunni Islam in what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of India. The most renowned of the dynasty's rulers was Mahmud, who consolidated control over the areas south of the Amu Darya then carried out devastating raids into India--looting Hindu temples and seeking converts to Islam. With his booty from India, he built a great capital at Ghazni, founded universities, and patronized scholars. Mahmud was recognized by the caliph in Baghdad as the temporal heir of the Samanids. By the time of his death, Mahmud ruled the entire Hindu Kush region as far east as the Punjab as well as territories far north of the Amu Darya. However, as occurred so often in this region, the demise in 1130 of this military genius who had expanded the empire to its farthest reaches was the death knell of the dynasty itself. The rulers of the Kingdom of Ghor, southeast of Herat, captured and burned Ghazni, just as the Ghaznavids had once conquered Ghor. Not until 1186, however, was the last representative of the Ghaznavids uprooted by the Ghorids from his holdout in the Punjab.
The Ghorids controlled most of what is now Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and Pakistan, while parts of central and western Iran were ruled by the Seljuk Turks. Around 1200, most Ghorid lands came into the hands of the Khwarazm Turks who had invaded from Central Asia across the Amu Darya.
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