Muhammad Bin Qasim

Legacy

Qasim's presence and rule was very brief. His conquest for the Umayyads brought Sindh into the orbit of the Muslim world.

The next Arab governor died on arrival. Dahir's son Jaisiah recaptured Brahmanabad and c. 720, he was granted pardon and included in the administration in return for converting to Islam. Later Umayyads killed Jaisiah and recaptured the territory before his successors once again struggled to hold and keep it. During the troubles between the Abbassid Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate the local emirs shook off all allegiance to the caliphs and by the 10th century the region the Umayyad control was destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni. The abbasids took this opportunity to set up their own government in Sindh. The Soomra dynasty ruled Sindh as the functionary of the Abbasid Caliphate until the Siege of Baghdad (1258). Mansurah was the capital of the Soomra Dynasty.

Coastal trade and a Muslim colony in Sindh allowed for cultural exchanges and the arrival of Sufi missionaries to expand Muslim influence. From Debal, which remained an important port until the 12th century, commercial links with the Persian Gulf and the Middle East intensified as Sindh became the "hinge of the Indian Ocean Trade and overland passway."

According to Pakistan Studies curriculum, Muhammad bin Qasim is often referred to as the first Pakistani. Muhammad Ali Jinnah also acclaimed the Pakistan movement to have started when the first Muslim put a foot in the Gateway of Islam.