Customer Reviews

Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 2, The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries

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This book is the second part of a projected five-part series on the history of Asia from the rise of Islam in the 7th century of the Christian era down to the 18th century. Few scholars would have the courage and even fewer the competence to undertake such an exercise. Nor is this a history of religion or of religious conversion : it is far vaster in its scope and ranges from the study of environments, demography, and economy to kinship, statecraft and military technique. What is more, the author seeks to establish structural linkages and connections between these very diverse historical phenomena - not just in a single region but right across Eurasia from Siberia to Sumatra. He touches, en passant, on issues like the (now extinct) elephant populations of China, horsebreeding in India, and the era of Tibetan military dominance in north-central Asia. The basic paradigm that informs this work is that of the interaction between the herding and trading peoples of Central Asia and the settled farming and city-dwelling populations that lived around them in West, South and East Asia. The great integrative role of Islamic society is seen in its capacity draw and integrate these diverse lifeways and fit them into a single ecumene.

It is inevitable that specialists will find some of Wink's assertions weak and some arguments speculative. Given the imperfect record of the past available to us, no grand synthesis of this type can ever be without some weak spots. I personally felt uncomfortable with the repeated citation of traditions recorded centuries after the events they purported to describe, and the heavy reliance on the stories of Marco Polo. But I would still conclude by saying that this is a book that well repays the reading - it is simply bursting with ideas and information.