How did the Islam invasion into India change the country in intellectual, economic, and religious ways?

A S: How did the Islam invasion into India change the country in intellectual, economic, and religious ways?
I.E: art changes, literature changes, music, math, astronomy anything that is classified under ‘”the arts”.
I.E: trade, currency
I.E: hindu, buddhism, and Islam’s affect on the people. Who converted? Why?

Answers and Views:

Answer by dmaud56
The Islamic invasion of India did little to change the country on an intellectual and technological level, because most of the learning and academics that the Arabs and Persians learned, came from India. Furthermore India was not invaded by Muslims or Persians but I believe by one of the many Muslim kingdoms in one of the stans. I think it was Pakistan or Afghanistant, it was one of those.

As to how it changed it, the main thing it changed was the social order; whereas before northern India was governed strictly by a caste system, as Islam spread throughout the north, many from among the lower and Dalit castes converted to Islam. Intellectually, Muslims did little to nothing as far as contribution because the region was already “smart.” Economically now, there was significant change because it opened up Indian trade with other Muslim kingdoms. Religiously well its kinda obvious; a lot of northern India is Muslim now.

Most of what we see in the middle east from the Islamic period, the golden age of Islam, is either Persian or Indian, regarding the architecture, the science, etc. The main contribution the Arabs made was Algebra; while Indian and Persian maths were advanced for their time, they were unorganized and chaotic, the Arabs took what was basically a smashed pinata of mathematical knowledge, and organized it in a manner that was clear. Once the Indian and Persian maths were organized, it led to the birth of Algebra.

Algebra spread throughout the Islamic world, and when the Indian Muslims got a hold of it they went crazy; the moment Algebra set foot in India there was an algebra craze among scholars, it was all they ever talked about and put their efforts into, so fanatical were they that in time India saw the birth of Calculus. Calculus was not invented by Leibnitz; it was actually invented in India, when they improved upon the Algebra that the Arabs taught them.

That is no small feat; the Indians of the earlier Muslim dynasties achieved the creation of Calculus without the benefit of slide rulers or graphing calculators, all they had was the Abaccus. In fact the word “Calculus” comes from the word “stone,” reason being, to be able to do Calc, many Indian scholars were seen using the Abaccus and its counting stones. There is a reason many Indian people are good at math; the country has a centuries long tradition, and their teaching methods are among the best in the world. Everyone who goes to school there learns, its not like in the west where some people struggle and some do well.

Of course, who GETS to learn, who GETS to go to school is a different story….