In 1330 the country was invaded by the Mongols who indulged in arson, rape and murder throughout the Valley (of Kashmir). The king and the Brahmans f… - Mohammad Habib

Shorn of Marxist jargon, the thesis propounded by [Mohammad] Habib is very simple - the Turkish conquest of India was a historical necessity, a fortunate event in the history of its people. ... in short, Habib's "historical" explanation is factually incorrect, his understanding of Marxism faulty, and his interpretation of Turkish rule over India a futile effort to eulogize Islam's advent in the sub-continent.

Before writing this book it is clear that Professor Habib drank deep both of the teachings of Sir Saiyid Ahmad Khan and of western intellectual potions of a generation ago. There is the ‘protestant’ view of Islam as against the ‘catholic’—the urge to return to the Prophet and away from the accretions of later ages. There is, too, the western distinction between religion as social and religion as personal, the western urge to study the interpenetration and interaction of religious, social, and economic factors in the life of a society, the organic revolutionary conception of society and. of historical change. The whole tonc of the book is rational, secular, urbane, and dispassionate. The author's political position at the time of publication appears to be that of an Indian nationalist who, though he speaks as ‘a Muslim—for he feels the need to put Mahmud in a proper historical perspective—yet believes that differences in religion are private and personal and to be submerged in the larger unity of Indian nationhood.

The Quranic conception of God was, and can still be, a revolutionary force of incalculable value for the attainment of human welfare.”