Bab-ul-Islam: The Making of a National Myth

 

Hello, everyone! Today, we are going to talk about a title that almost every student in Pakistan has heard since they were in primary school: Bab-ul-Islam—The Gateway of Islam. We have been taught that Sindh is this gateway, the threshold through which the light of monotheism finally pierced the "age of ignorance" in the Indian subcontinent. The story is legendary: in 712 CE, a brilliant teenage general named Muhammad bin Qasim arrived, defeated the "tyrant" Raja Dahir, and just like that, the doors were flung open.

But let me ask you a question that might sound a bit strange: If a gateway is the first point of entry, then why do we call Sindh the gateway?

You see, historical geography tells us something very different. Decades before the Umayyad soldiers ever set foot in Sindh, Arab armies had already captured the Makran coast in modern-day Balochistan. Chronologically, Makran was the first point of contact and conquest. So, why does Sindh get the heavy title of "The Gateway"? Why did history—or rather, the people who wrote it—marginalise Makran and elevate Sindh?

To understand this, we have to look through an anthropological lens. We have to realise that place-names aren’t just labels on a map; they are social artefacts and modern claims to legitimacy.

 

The Forgotten Frontier: Why Makran Stayed a "Buffer Zone"

Let’s go back in time, all the way to the second Caliph, around 643–644 CE. Muslim expeditions had already reached the fringes of the subcontinent, specifically the coast of Makran.

In 644 CE, an Arab commander named Hakam ibn Amr al-Taghlibi successfully conquered Makran after defeating the local ruler. Now, imagine the scene: Hakam sends a messenger back to the city of Medina to tell the Caliph about this new land.

What do you think the messenger said? Did he describe it as a land of opportunity? No. His report was bleak. He wrote:

"O Commander of the Faithful! It is a land where water is scarce, the fruit is poor, and the robber represents the hero. A small army will be lost there, and a large army will starve."

Upon hearing this, the Caliph did something unexpected: he ordered a halt to further expansion. For the early Arabs, Makran wasn't a "gateway"; it was a dangerous frontier, a geographical barrier of rugged terrain that separated the fertile crescent from the riches of India. It was held only as a buffer zone, not a settled province.

So, why did Makran fail to become the "Gateway"? The answer is simple: the metaphor of a "gate" requires that the door opens onto something desirable. Makran was a cul-de-sac; it opened only onto more desert.

 

The Rise of Sindh: Civilisational Integration

Now, let’s look at Sindh in 712 CE. Why was this different?

When Muhammad bin Qasim arrived under the orders of Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf, he didn't find a barren wasteland. He found the agrarian surplus zone of the Indus Valley. He found populous, thriving cities like Debal, Nerun Kot (modern Hyderabad), and Aror.

The reason Sindh is called the Gateway is that it was the site of the first sustained attempt at governance by the Caliphate in the subcontinent. Qasim didn't just raid; he established an administration. He did something quite revolutionary at the time—the "Brahmanabad Settlement". He incorporated local elites into the bureaucracy and granted Hindus and Buddhists a status similar to Dhimmi (protected people).

This allowed for a syncretic socio-political order to grow. Sindh became a contact zone where Arab geographers, theologians, and linguists interacted with Indian pandits. Did you know that it was through Sindh that the Siddhanta (Indian astronomical works) travelled all the way to Baghdad? This actually helped fuel the Golden Age of Islam.

So, Sindh superseded Makran in our memory because of civilisational integration. It was here that the Islamic State first functioned as a governing body—minting coins and building mosques—rather than just manning remote watchtowers in the desert.

 

The Great Silence: When Nobody Called it "Bab-ul-Islam"

Now, here is a startling fact for you. If you go back to the primary sources of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, the term "Bab-ul-Islam" is nowhere to be found.

Let’s look at the evidence:

1. The Arab Geographers (8th–11th Century): Writers like Al-Baladhuri and Ibn Hawqal simply called the region Al-Sind. To them, it was just the easternmost province of the Caliphate. They wrote about trade, diverse beliefs, and "many kings," but they never called it a sacred gateway.
2. The Chachnama (13th Century): This is our foundational text for the conquest. But even the Chachnama focuses on political theory and statecraft. It tries to justify Muslim rule over a non-Muslim population, but it does not canonise Sindh as "The Gateway" for the whole Islamic world.
3. The Mughal Era (16th–18th Century): For the Mughals, Sindh was actually a peripheral, often rebellious province called the Subah of Thatta. Remember, the Mughals were Central Asian Turko-Persians who entered through the Khyber Pass. For them, the "Gateway to India" was Kabul or Lahore, not the Sindhi deserts.
4. The British Colonialists (19th Century): When the British arrived, they didn't see a holy land. Richard Burton called Sindh the "Unhappy Valley" or "Young Egypt". They were interested in irrigation and using Sindh as a buffer against Russia, not in its sacred status.

So, if the Arabs, the Mughals, and the British didn't use the term, where did it come from?

 

The 20th Century: Forging an Identity

The term Bab-ul-Islam is actually a modern creation, born in the 20th century amidst the heat of Muslim nationalism.

In the 1930s, Sindhi leaders were struggling to separate Sindh from the Bombay Presidency. To do this, they needed to assert a distinct identity that was separate from the Hindu-majority administration in Bombay. By emphasizing the Islamic character of Sindh, leaders like Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah and G.M. Syed (in his early days) built a political case for separation.

When the All India Muslim League gained momentum in the 1940s, the narrative of 712 CE became incredibly potent. The League needed a history for "Muslim India" that was separate from "Hindu India."

• If India’s history began with the ancient Vedas, then Pakistan’s history needed a "Year Zero".
• 712 CE became that Year Zero.

 

The epithet "Bab-ul-Islam" served two purposes:

1. Internally, it gave Sindhi Muslims pride—they were the "first" Muslims of the region.
2. Externally, it linked the identity of the new state of Pakistan directly to the Arab Middle East, bypassing the shared Mughal heritage with India.

 

Institutionalising the Myth: The Post-1947 Era

After 1947, the state of Pakistan faced an identity crisis: were we an extension of Indian history, or something entirely new? To sever the "umbilical cord" with ancient India, the state began to institutionalise the Bab-ul-Islam narrative.

In the 1950s, the Pakistan History Board was established, and later, under regimes like that of General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, this title became official state doctrine.

• The State used it to legitimise the Two-Nation Theory, essentially saying, "We have been a separate nation since 712 CE".
• Muhammad bin Qasim was reimagined—not as an Umayyad general—but as the "first Pakistani citizen". This anachronistic projection served to nationalize Islamic history.
• Religious parties used the term to argue that because the foundation of the land was the "Gateway of Islam," the state's purpose must be Islamic enforcement.
• Even rituals like "Youm-e-Babul Islam" (Bab-ul-Islam Day) were created to unify different ethnic groups under a single religious banner.

The Counter-Narrative: Whose Gateway?

But, as with all powerful stories, there has been a pushback.

The most famous critique came from G.M. Syed, the Sindhi nationalist leader. In his later years, he completely reversed the state narrative in his book Sindh Ja Surma (The Heroes of Sindh). He argued that:

• Muhammad bin Qasim was not a hero, but an imperialist invader who looted Sindh’s wealth.
• Raja Dahir was not a villain, but a national hero who died defending his soil.

 

Syed viewed the "Bab-ul-Islam" label as a tool used by the establishment to erase Sindhi culture—a culture that goes back millennia to Mohenjo-Daro—and replace it with an imported Arab-centric identity. To him, Sindh was the "Land of the Indus," not just a gateway for a foreign religion.

Modern historians like Manan Ahmed Asif have also challenged this. He argues that the "origins narrative"—the idea that Islam arrived only by the sword in 712 and created a total rupture with the past—is actually a British colonial invention. The British wanted to portray Muslims as foreign invaders (just like the British themselves) to justify their own rule. The Pakistani state simply took that colonial narrative and flipped the "invader" into a "hero."

Furthermore, scholars like Mubarak Ali point out that Islam was spreading peacefully through trade on the Malabar coast in Southern India even before Qasim's invasion. So why isn't Kerala called the Gateway? The answer is that a martial narrative of conquest suited the Pakistani military-state much better than a story of peaceful merchants.

 

Conclusion: The Gateway Today

So, what have we learned? The designation of Sindh as Bab-ul-Islam is a fascinating example of how history is curated to serve the present.

While it is true that Sindh was the first region to be a settled province of the Caliphate, its elevation to a theological title is a modern phenomenon. Medieval Arabs saw it as a province; the Mughals saw it as a periphery. It was only in the 20th century, during the friction of communal politics, that this title was forged to provide Pakistan with a historical lineage.

Today, the label remains contested. For some, it is a badge of honour. For others, it is a mechanism of erasure that invalidates the region’s pre-Islamic history, like Buddhism and the Indus Valley Civilization.

Thus, Bab-ul-Islam is less about 712 CE and more about 20th-century nation-building. Its continued contestation reveals Pakistan’s unresolved tensions between Islamic identity, ethnic diversity, and pre-Islamic heritage.

The real question we must ask ourselves is not why Sindh was called the Gateway, but rather: Whose gateway is it? And who is being invited—or barred—from passing through it?