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Pakistan has a long history of human settlement as the cradle
of the Indus Valley civilization, the earliest-known civilization
in South Asia. This Bronze Age culture flourished in the area
of the Indus River Valley from about 2500 to 1700 BC. The Indus
River is considered the lifeblood of Pakistan, and the ancient
culture that arose there serves as an icon of Pakistan's territorial
identity. Important archaeological sites in Pakistan include
Mohenjo-Daro (Sindhi for "Mound of the Dead"), in
Sind Province, and Harappa, near the Ravi River (a tributary
of the Indus) in Punjab Province. |
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Pakistan's cultural identity is
traced to the centuries of Muslim rule in the region. In AD
711 Mohammad bin Qasim, an Arab general and nephew of Hajjaj,
ruler of Iraq and Persia, conquered Sind and incorporated it
into the Umayyad Caliphate. Thereafter Muslims continued to
rule areas of present-day Pakistan for almost 1,000 years. For
the first 300 years the region of Sind was the only part of
the Indian subcontinent that was under Muslim rule. Muslim rule
began to spread to other areas after the Afghan sultan Mahmud
of Ghazni, leader of the Ghaznavids, invaded in 997. After he
conquered the region of Punjab in the early 11th century, he
made Lahore his capital. Between 1175 and 1186 the regions of
Sind and Punjab were conquered by Muhammad of Ghur, leader of
the Turkish Ghurid Empire, which was centered in what is now
west central Afghanistan. His generals conquered all of north
India by the time he was assassinated in 1206. That year his
general Qutubuddin Aybak laid the foundations of an independent
Muslim kingdom in India, the Delhi Sultanate. Thirty-five sultans
ruled this rich and powerful sultanate from 1206 to 1526. The
sultanate included most of Punjab and Sind during this period.
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