Really wonderful book. This book focuses on an important period in South Asia (from around 1000 to the late eighteenth century) while challenging stereotypes (you know stuff like India was largely in decline until Europeans came and saved it.. 
or it was isolated from the rest of the world and it was brought forth etc).
This period is usually labelled as the “Muslim period” which began with the so-called “Muslim conquest” – a problematic characterisation. Why? Well, ask yourself why is religion foregrounded when it comes to Islam but not when it comes to European conquests?
When native Americans were forcibly Christianised in the sixteenth century, it is not referred to as the “Christian conquest” of America.
In fact, the Sanskrit term used to by contemporary Indians to describe the conquerors was not ‘Muslim’ but ‘Turk’ (turushka). This error (was it really?) is because we project our understanding on the past (anachronism).
Historically, the Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Rajputs etc were never identified by their religion.
Another reason why many historians define this period in religious terms is because it provides “Britain a rationale for occupying India” – the rulers before them were ‘despotic and unjust’ so we brought to you an “era of sound and just government”.
This was not the only reason. European rulers have a long history of ‘divide-and-rule’ using religion as a principal category.
The periodisation of India is also very telling (into ancient, medieval, and modern). The move from ancient to medieval implies a transition from a Hindu ‘golden’ age to one of ‘Mahomedan’ tyranny.
The modern period allowed British imperialists to claim that their period was one that saved them.
They weren’t alone in this. Hindu nationalists and Muslim separatists – motivated by different agendas – transposed this middle period in religious terms too.
This is an anachronistic reading of Indian history and is wrong on so many levels:
“For not only did India’s socio-cultural landscape differ vastly from that of today: the conceptual categories by which peoples of earlier times understood that landscape did too”.
“For not only did India’s socio-cultural landscape differ vastly from that of today: the conceptual categories by which peoples of earlier times understood that landscape did too”.
In fact, much of India’s history during this period is about sustained interaction between Sanskrit and Persianate worlds. A rich blend of language, literature, cuisine, attire, religion, modes of leadership, warfare, science, art and architecture flourishes.
This book shows all of that. And as it goes on to show, it was not religion but the concept of justice that provided the terms which allowed Persianate states, originating from Eastern Afghanistan, to flourish in India.
This allowed them to become indigenised by the time of the Mughals and produce a distinct hybrid civilization.
