Pakistan Artificially Cut Out of India?

In short – it’s not artificial, rather it is plausible to argue that the union of the lands of Pakistan and India was artificial under the British, and things have somewhat returned to their pre-colonial borders. Even before Islam, the land we now call Pakistan was known to be a distinct country, known as The Harappan Civilisation, The Kingdom of Sind, and to the Arabs, Bilad Al Sind, (not to be confused with the modern Pakistani province of Sindh which was part of Bilad Al Sind)

Geographical meaning of Bilad Al Sind and Hind in Medieval Nomenclature

Bilad Al Sind (بلاد السِّند)

In classical Arabic works, Al-Sind generally referred to the region starting at the Makran coast (modern-day Baluchistan coast), up through the Indus River basin, including today’s Sindh proper, Multan, and Punjab up to Kashmir. This is modern day Pakistan almost exactly.

• al-Balādhurī (Futūh al-Buldān) — describes Sind as the land conquered by Muhammad bin Qasim, including Daybul, Brahmanabad, Multan (South Punjab), and surrounding areas.

• al-Muqaddasī (Ahsan al-Taqāsīm, 985 CE) — places Sind as a distinct province of the Islamic world, separate from al-Hind (India), with its own towns, languages, and rulers.

Hind (هند)

Hind (Hindustan) usually meant the territories east of Sind, i.e., North and Central India, often specifically the Ganges basin. It did not even mean the whole of modern India in early Arabic usage — that broader meaning developed later.

• Ibn Khurradādhbih (9th c.) — divides Hind (India) into multiple kingdoms (al-Hind al-Kubra, al-Hind al-Sughra), all east of Al Sind.

• al-Idrīsī — describes al-Hind (India) beginning from Kanauj and the northern plains, separate from the Sind region.

Chinese, Korean and Japanese References (Tianzhu 天竺)

In medieval times and long before that, the Chinese referred to the region of Pakistan, by a few names. These include “Shendu 身毒,” “Tiandu 天篤,” and “Tianzhu 天竺,” with “Tianzhu” being a prominent term used to describe the area. The names used were in reference to the Sind (Indus) river valley as a distinct civilisation. The name “Tianzhu” (天竺) was also adopted in historical records of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam as “Tenjiku,” “Cheonchuk,” and “Thiên Trúc,” respectively, all derived from the Chinese term. These names were specifically associated with the Sind Valley and the broader region of ancient Pakistan, which had significant cultural and religious influence, particularly through the spread of Buddhism from the Gandhara region in present day North Punjab, and North Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In Hadith & Early Islamic Texts

In hadith-era Arabic, when narrations say “فتح الله على السند”, (Allah opened Al Sind) they mean what is now called Pakistan. There are multiple weak (daeef and mowdoo’) hadeeth, some attributed to Abu Hurayrah (RA), that mention Al-Sind, they may not be valid evidence for theology or fiqh but they do prove the point that very early on in Islamic history, when ahadith were being collected; Sind was understood as a distinct country. There is even the suggestion that Sindbad of the famous stories of ‘Sindbad The Sailor’ from ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ refers to his ancestry being from Sindabad – or ‘the place of Sind’ like Islamabad means the place of Islam. When the Islamic Caliphate liberated Al Sind it was enabled by the local buddhist population loyal to the previous buddhist Rai Dynasty. They suffered an occupation of foreign Hindu rulers who banned many buddhist traditions. After becoming Muslim, Sindi Muslims played an important part during the Islamic Golden Age; including Abu Mashar Al Sindi and Abu Raja Al Sindi, clear from their names where they came from.

Why this distinction matters

Some modern translations and popular accounts lump Sind and Hind(classical India) together as “India” — which is historically misleading. In medieval geography, Sind was the eastern wing of the Islamic Caliphate, not considered “India” — it was closely tied to Khorasan administratively, for the Ummayad, Abbasid caliphates and after. The famous battles of Jalaludin Khwarizmshah, the ruler of Khorasan, against Genghis Khan occurred in the Wadi Al Sind.

Moving on from medieval history, even If you look at maps of the Durrani Empire, you will see that before the Sikhs and British Empire, the border between India and what is now Pakistan was almost identical, Pakistan and Afghanistan were one country and India another. The confusion of Al Sind and Hind (India) originated in colonialism. The British conquered & merged historical Bilad Al Sind with Hind (India), as well as the most populous parts of Afghanistan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Nepal, all into the construct of “British India”. Never before had so many distinct peoples been categorized into a single description for “India”. The British then went about trying to merge the identities of these people, for administrative ease, and would even give misleading English names to the ‘Indus’ valley (Wadi e Sind) and the ‘Indus’ River (daraya e Sind), to confuse it with India further. This led to huge archeological discoveries (like those at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) that should have been attributed to Sind or modern day Pakistan, to be attributed to India and Indian civilization; “The Indus Valley civilization” rather than “the Sind Valley civilization”. To this day you will find most documentaries on the subject of this amazing civilization attributed to India, without a mention of Pakistan or Sind even though the major ruins are almost entirely in Pakistan. This is not a conspiracy, it is will documented that British run administrations, and their inheritors in modern India tried to ‘Indianise’ archeological discoveries, Daniel Michon in his 2015 book ‘Archaeology and Religion in Early Northwest India’ says

“…the archaeological work on the early historic period in India and Pakistan developed differently. In India, while the colonial administrative structure remained intact, the ASI made a concerted effort to ‘Indianise’ the field. The early historic period was understood as an important chapter in the long, unified history of the Indian subcontinent, and this understanding supported Indian goals of national unity. In Pakistan, however, the project of nation building was focused more on promoting the rich Islamic archaeological heritage within its borders, and most early historic sites, therefore, were left to the spades of foreign missions.” _{(We don’t support the neglect of pre-Islamic archeology in favour of Islamic archeology by Pakistan, spoken about in this quote, all of it is our history, be it the ‘Indus’ Valley civilisation, our mainly unitarian buddhist & Hindu past and our conversion to Islam and what came after.)}

Conclusion

انقسمت شبه القارة الهندية في القديم إلى قسمين جغرافيين كبيرين، هما: “بلاد السند والبنجاب” و”بلاد الهند”

“وبلاد السند هي البلاد المحيطة بنهر السند، الذي كان يسمى من قبل بـ “نهر مهران”، وينبع من عيون في أعالي السند وجبالها من أرض قشمير “

“In ancient times, the subcontinent was divided into two major geographic divisions: the “land of Sindh-Punjab” and the “land of India”... The country of Sind is the country surrounding the Sind {Indus} River, which was previously called the “Mahran River”, and it stems from springs in “upper Sindh”; the mountains of it’s land of Qashmir (Kashmir).” _{Ref: https://shamela.ws/book/9990/13}

(Note: Even “Qashmir” ق was part of “upper Sindh”)

Words and labels matter. If you whitewash the history of a people you wipe their collective heritage or lineage (nasl), unity, identity and their sense of belonging or place in the word which leaves them open to other false identities or vacuous nationalism. Identity is not the same as nationalism, it’s preservation or defence under ‘nasl’ was considered a ‘maqsad’ of the Shariah.