Note 73 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

It would be strange if these traders, scattered about in the cities of the unbelievers, failed to exhibit the same proselytising zeal as we find in the Muhammadan trader elsewhere. To the influence of such trading communities was most probably due the conversion of the Sammas, who ruled over Sind from A.D. 1351 to 1521. While the reign of Nanda b. Bābiniyyah of this dynasty is specially mentioned as one of such “peace and security, that never was this prince called upon to ride forth to battle, and never did a foe take the field against him,”73 it is at the same time described as being “remarkable for its justice and an increase of Islam.” This increase could thus only have been brought about by peaceful missionary methods. One of the most famous of these missionaries was the celebrated saint, Sayyid Yūsuf al-Dīn, a descendant of ʻAbd al-Qādir Jīlānī, who was bidden in a dream to leave Bag͟hdād for India and convert its inhabitants to Islam. He came to Sind in 1422 and after labouring there for ten years, he succeeded in winning over to Islam 700 families of the Lohāna caste, who followed the example of two of their number, by name Sundarjī and Hansrāj; these men embraced Islam, after seeing some miracles performed by the saint, and on their conversion received the names of Adamjī and Tāj Muḥammad respectively. Under the leadership of the grandson of the former, these people afterwards migrated to Cutch, where their numbers were increased by converts from among the Cutch Lohānas.74