: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th Centuries André Wink BRILL , 2002 - 396 pages , 2002 - History 1 Review In this volume, Andri Wink analyzes the beginning of the process of momentous and long-term change that came with the Islamization of the regions that the Arabs called "al-Hind -- India and large parts of its Indianized hinterland. In the seventh to eleventh centuries, the expansion of Islam had a largely commercial impact on "al-Hind. In the peripheral states of the Indian subcontinent, fluid resources, intensive raiding and trading activity, as well as social and political fluidity and openness produced a dynamic impetus that was absent in the densely settled agricultural heartland. Shifts of power occurred, in combination with massive transfers of wealth across multiple centers along the periphery of "al-Hind. These multiple centers mediated between the world of mobile wealth on the Islamic-Sino-Tibetan frontier (which extended into Southeast Asia) and the world of sedentary agriculture, epitomized by brahmanical temple Hinduism in and around Kanauj in the heartland. The growth and development of a world economy in and around the Indian Ocean -- with India at its center and the Middle East and China as its two dynamic poles -- was effected by continued economic, social, and cultural integration into ever wider and more complex patterns under the aegis of Islam.

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