Let's just use the right words to make sense of this piece.
Bin Qasim founded modern Sindh. However Sindh has since disappeared in the folds of History,
Bin Qasim can be remembered as one of the pioneers of Islam in Asia to his greatest glory.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah founded Pakistan. Since Pakistan still exists today as a proud nation,
first of Islam to hold the nuclear bomb, known as a participant of value in the UN Blue Helmets,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah is the father of one of the nations that are part of the present of Earth.
Problem solved. For Bin Qasim to have been the founder of Pakistan, one would have to dismiss
the Lodi that made Pasthuns rulers over Punjab & Dehli, Mughal that extended into Persia but were
Mongol/Turkic in origin, the Afsharid presence with ( cough, cough ) strong Persian overtones and
then the British rule by 1820 that mixed both Western and Hindu values.
If modern Pakistan dates to prior than 1947 it must be through the man who fought this absorption,
Syed Ahmad Khan who fathered the 2-states proposition. Which is easy to show as Khan and Jinnah
overlap in both time and appurtenance to the Muslim League. One can then ask the following question :
Would Bin Qasim find the modern state to be similar to the one he "created"? Would he recognize his
Mansurah under Brahmanabad? Would he understand the presence of Persia/Iran and Shia Islam in
the midst of his Abbasid based Ummayad caliphate? Would he understand the Sihks as descendants
of the Jats he so dominated? Would he understand non-Muslims serving for Pakistan which he didn't
allow in his days and so on …
What's more, he left after a brief stay to face the problems of Al-Walid's succession and was killed soon
after so that we don't know if he would have wanted to come back to Sindh and Multan even if his son did.
In reverse though, the present government is allowed to draw a profile of intellectual linearity since Jinnah
himself is credited with saying that
"the Pakistan Movement started when the first Muslim put his foot on the soil of Sindh, the Gateway of Islam in India."
and that
first Muslim would be Bin Qasim?
I'd tentatively say that historically, the non-continuous rule of local Muslims since Bin Qasim's conquest
forbids to call him the founder of Pakistan while the emotional link is nonetheless coherent for sociological
considerations that made Independence the best solution do stem from the era despite linear hiatuses.
As a comparison, by the same historical standards, France dates back to 843 while the emotional link
goes back to the Gauls i.e. Gallia Celtica that sprang out of La Tène culture of 450 BC or late Celts.
Going that far back would however descend Pakistan from the Vedic era which may not please all.
Bypassing the Indo-Greeks would be more reasonable although that's when Sindh emerged later and set
initial Pakistan culture as that of the post Kushnan times, about the Guptas or even Sodha Rajputs?
Or one could instead go further back and find the Indus Valley civilization of 3 000 BC so that then Sindh
outdates Bharat and Indians descend from Pakis?
Which goes to show how emotional and historical realms are difficult to marry?
To each according to their personal philosophy, I guess.
Good day all, Tay.
