Beyond the Conquest Narrative: Reassessing Early Islamic Contact in Bengal before the Twelfth Century

Abstract

Historiography of Islam in Bengal has long been dominated by an invasion-centric paradigm that dates the origins of Islam to Bakhtiyar Khalji's campaigns (1202–1206 CE). This study challenges that narrative by reassessing the evidence for early Islamic contact before the twelfth century, distinguishing commercial and religious introduction from political conquest. Drawing on Arabic geographical literature, numismatic evidence, and epigraphic analysis, the study traces a three-stage trajectory: coastal entry through the port of Samandar (modern Chittagong), celebrated by ninth- and tenth-century Arab geographers; inland circulation documented by Abbasid coinage of Hārūn al-Rashīd (788 CE) from Paharpur and gold dinars from the Chandpur–Brahmanbaria zone; and the ruined mosque of Jameʿ As-Sahaba at Lalmonirhat, whose 69 AH (688/689 CE) tradition is shown to be paleographically and stylistically unsustainable. The paper argues that coinage attests primarily to economic connectivity and merchant mobility rather than settled Muslim communities, and that Lalmonirhat, pending scientific excavation, retains potential rather than proof. Islam, the paper concludes, had been part of Bengal's commercial world for over four centuries before the first Muslim Sultanate was established.