CHAPTER II THE IDOL -BREAKER MAHMUD OF GHAZNI 997-1030 A.D. Arab invasion was a failure. It attacked from - the wrong quarter, occupied the least productive province, and was too feebly supported to spread far- ther. We hear no more of the Arabs as conquerors in India. The role devolved upon the Turks, and when we speak of the Mohammedan empire in India we mean the rule of the Turks. Their invasion was no part of the expansion of Islam as a religious movement. It was merely the overflow of the teeming cradle-land of Central Asia, the eastern counterpart of those vast migrations of Huns, Turks, and Mongols, which from time to time swept over Europe like a locust cloud. Huns and Scythians had poured into India in prehis- toric ages through those grim northwestern passes which every now and then opened like sluice-gates to let the turbid flood of barbarians down into the deep calm waters of the Indian world. Their descendants still muster in tribes and clans on the borders of Hin- dustan, and bring strange customs and beliefs to mingle 14
