Hajjaj had put more care and planning into this campaign than the second campaign.[30] Al-Hajjaj gave Qasim command of the expedition between 708 and 711, when Qasim was only 15-17 years old, apparently because two previous Umayyad commanders had not been successful in punishing Sindh's ruler Raja Dahir for his failure to prevent pirates from disrupting Muslim shipping off the coast of Sindh.[11] Al-Hajjaj superintended this campaign from Kufa by maintaining close contact with Qasim in the form of regular reports for which purpose special messengers were deputed between Basra and Sindh.[30] The army which departed from Shiraz under Qasim consisted of 6,000 Syrian cavalry and detachments of mawali (sing. mawla; non-Arab, Muslim freedmen) from Iraq.[30] At the borders of Sindh he was joined by an advance guard and six thousand camel cavalry and later, reinforcements from the governor of Makran were transferred directly to Debal (Daybul), at the mouth of the Indus, by sea along with five manjaniks (catapults).[30] The army that eventually captured Sindh would later be swelled by the Jats and Meds as well as other irregulars who heard of the Arab successes in Sindh.[30] When Qasim passed through the Makran desert while raising his forces, he had to subdue the restive towns of Fannazbur and Arman Belah (Lasbela), both of which had previously been conquered by the Arabs
The first town assaulted in Qasim's Sindh campaign was Debal and upon the orders of al-Hajjaj, he exacted retribution on Debal by giving no quarter to its residents or priests and destroying its great temple. From Debal, the Arab army then marched northeast taking towns such as Nerun and Sadusan (Sehwan) without fighting.One-fifth of the war booty including slaves were remitted to al-Hajjaj and the Caliph.The conquest of these towns was accomplished with relative ease; however, Dahir's armies being prepared on the other side of the Indus[a] had not yet been confronted.[30] In preparation to meet them, Muhammad returned to Nerun to resupply and receive reinforcements sent by al-Hajjaj. Camped on the east bank of the Indus, Qasim sent emissaries and bargained with the river Jats and boatmen.[30] Upon securing the aid of Mokah Basayah, "the King of the island of Bet", Muhammad crossed over the river where he was joined by the forces of the Thakore of Bhatta and the western Jats.[30]
At Ar-rur (Rohri) Qasim was met by Dahir's forces and the eastern Jats in battle.[30] Dahir died in the battle, his forces were defeated and Qasim took control of Sindh.[30] In the wake of the battle enemy soldiers were executed -though artisans, merchants, and farmers were spared -and Dahir[clarification needed] and his chiefs, the "daughters of princes" and the usual fifth of the booty and slaves were sent to al-Hajjaj.[30] Soon the capitals of the other provinces, Brahmanabad, Alor (Battle of Aror) and Multan, were captured alongside other in-between towns with only light Muslim casualties.[30] Multan was a key site in the Hindu religion.[11] Usually after a siege of a few weeks or months the Arabs gained a city through the intervention of heads of mercantile houses with whom subsequent treaties and agreements would be settled.[30] After battles all fighting men were executed and their wives and children enslaved in considerable numbers and the usual fifth of the booty and slaves were sent to al-Hajjaj.The general populace was encouraged to carry on with their trades and taxes and tributes settled.
Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥakam ibn ʿAqīl al-Thaqafī (Arabic: أبو محمد الحجاج بن يوسف بن الحكم بن عقيل الثقفي; Ta'if 661 - Wasit, 714 (40-95 AH)), known simply as al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (Arabic: الحجاج بن يوسف, romanized: al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf), was probably the most notable governor who served the Umayyad Caliphate. He began his service with the Umayyads under Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705), who successively promoted him as the head of the caliph's shurta (security forces), the governor of the Hejaz (western Arabia) in 692-694, and the practical viceroy of a unified Iraqi province and the eastern parts of the Caliphate in 694.
As governor of Iraq and the east, al-Hajjaj instituted key reforms. Among these were the minting of silver dirhams with strictly Muslim religious formulas instead of the coins' traditional, pre-Islamic Sasanian design; changing the language of the dīwān (bureaucracy) of Iraq from Persian to Arabic; and the introduction of a uniform version of the Quran. To revive agricultural production and increase tax revenue, al-Hajjaj expelled non-Arab Muslim converts from the garrison cities of Kufa and Basra to their rural villages of origin and collected from them the jizya
In this series you will know all the details about his Origin early life career Relations with the caliphs & his Death and legacy.
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