History Of Sindh

History of Sindh
The first known village settlements date as far back as 7000 BCE. Permanent settlements at Mehrgarh to the west expanded into Sindh. This culture blossomed over several millennia and gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization around 3000 BCE. The Indus Valley Civilization rivalled the contemporary civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in both size and scope numbering nearly half a million inhabitants at its height with well-planned grid cities and sewer systems. Sindh was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century BCE. In the late 300s BCE, Sindh was conquered by a mixed army led by Macedonian Greeks under Alexander the Great. The region remained under control of Greek satraps only for a few decades. After Alexander's death, there was a brief period of Seleucid rule, before Sindh was traded to the Mauryan Empire led by Chandragupta in 305 BCE. During the rule of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, the Buddhist religion spread to Sindh.
Mauryan rule ended in 185 BCE with the overthrow of the last king by the Sunga Dynasty. In the disorders that followed, Greek rule returned when Demetrius I of Bactria led a Greco-Bactrian invasion of India and annexed most of northwestern lands, including Sindh. Demetrius was later defeated and killed by a usurper, but his descendants continued to rule Sindh and other lands as the Indo-Greek Kingdom. Under the reign of Menander I many Indo-Greeks followed his example and converted to Buddhism.
In the late 100s BCE, Scythian tribes shattered the Greco-Bactrian empire and invaded the Indo-Greek lands. Unable to take the Punjab region, they seized Sistan and invaded India by coming through Sindh, where they became known as Indo-Scythians (later Western Satraps). Subsequently, the Tocharian Kushan Empire annexed Sindh by the first century CE. Though the Kushans were Zoroastrian, they were tolerant of the local Buddhist tradition and sponsored many building projects for local beliefs.
The Kushan Empire were defeated in the mid 200s CE by the Sassanid Empire of Persia, who installed vassals known as the Kushanshahs. These rulers were defeated by the Kidarites in the late 300s. By the late 400s, attacks by Hephthalite tribes known as the Indo-Hephthalites or Hunas (Huns) broke through the Gupta Empire's North-Western borders and overran much of Northern and Western India. During these upheavals, Sindh became independent under the Rai Dynasty around 478 AD. The Rais were overthrown by Chachar of Alor around 632.
Arrival of Islam
In the year 711 Sindh was conquered by Umayyad Arabs from Damascus, led by the young Muhammad bin Qasim . Sindh became the easternmost province of the Umayyad Caliphate Referred to as Al-Sindh on Arab maps with lands further east known as Hind". Muslim geographers, historians and travellers such as al-Masudi, al-Tabari, Baladhuri, al-Biruni and Ibn Battutah wrote about or visited the region and also sometimes used the name "Sindh" for the entire area from the Arabian Sea to the Hindu Kush.
By the twelfth century Sindhi sailors from the port city of Debal voyaged to Basra, Bushehr, Musqat, Aden, Kilwa, Sofala, Malabar, Sri Lanka and Java.
Direct Arab rule ended with the ascension of the local Soomro dynasty, and they were the first local Sindhi Muslims to translate the Quran into the Sindhi language. The Soomros controlled Sindh directly as vassals the Abbasids from 1058 to 1249.
Sindh was also ruled by Muhammad Ibn Tughluq, his descendants and various other figures until the year 1524