ARAB SPEARS. CHAPTER I MOHAMMEDAN INVASION THE AKABS IN SIND 712 A.D. population of India in the present day is over J- three hundred millions, and every sixth man is a Moslem. Nine hundred years ago there were no Mo- hammedans east of the Indus, where now there are more than fifty millions and the King of England rules twice as many Moslem subjects as the Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of Persia together. For six centuries the Hindus submitted to the sovereignty of Mohammedan kings, and when the great effort was made in 1857 to throw off the British yoke, it was round the Moham- medan Emperor of Delhi, though but a shadow of a famous name, that the mutineers rallied. How the Moslems, foreigners both in creed and race, came to con- quer India, and how this small but increasing minority imposed its will upon the greater part of the people of the land, is the subject of this and the succeeding volume. When we speak of the Mohammedans as foreigners, we mean of course the original conquerors. The present Moslem population is almost as native as the Hindus
