Forty Hadith Qudsi

Description

India’s relations with the Arab world go back to hoary past,Long before the rise of Islam, there was brisk commercial con tact between India and Arabia and the Arab traders carried Indian goods to the European markets by way of Egypt and Syria. Elphinstone has rightly observed that from the days of Joseph to the days of Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama the Arabs were the captains of Indian commerce. There were large number of Arab colonies on the western coast of India and many Indian settlements in the Arab countries. Ubulla, for instance, was known as arz-ul-Hind on account of the large number of Indians who inhabited the region. When Islam spread and the Arabs got converted to Islam, these colonies continued to flourish as before. The Indian rajas appointed Muslim judges, known as hunarman, to decide their cases and provided all facilities to them to organize their community life. Commercial connect led to cultural relations and white large number of Arab navigational and other terms were adopted by the Indians, Indian customs, institutions and practices found their way to Arabia. Philologists have traced three Sanskrit words-misk (musk), zanjabil (ginger), and kafur (camphor)-in the Quran. An Indian raja is reported to have sent Indian pickle to the Prophet. The Prophet remark that ‘he received sweet fra grance from India’ has been quoted by many later writers. Azad Bilgrami has dealt in his Subhat-al-Marjan with many traditions of the Prophet in which reference is made to India.