Chapter 6
The Damage Quantified
Understanding the sheer scale of the 8th-century Umayyad invasion through historical data, execution counts, and economic plunder.
Understanding the sheer scale of the 8th-century Umayyad invasion through historical data, execution counts, and economic plunder.
The scale of destruction during the four-year campaign (711–715 CE) is often difficult to comprehend. The data below is extracted from primary Islamic chronicles, primarily the Chachnama and Al-Baladhuri’s Futuh al-Buldan, which proudly recorded these metrics as imperial achievements.
The invasion was an extraordinarily profitable venture for the Umayyad Caliphate. Hajjaj bin Yusuf had promised Caliph Al-Walid that the campaign would yield massive returns. To secure the invasion's funding, Hajjaj reportedly spent 60 million dirhams equipping Qasim's army.
Upon the conclusion of the campaign, Hajjaj infamously declared to the Umayyad court that he had recovered 120 million dirhams—a 100% return on investment. This vast wealth was stripped entirely from the temples (like Multan's Sun Temple), treasuries, and civilians of Sindh, permanently crippling the region's ancient indigenous economy.
Data regarding human casualties in antiquity is often imprecise, but the scale is unmistakable. The Chachnama records that one-fifth (khums) of the total slaves and booty was dispatched to Hajjaj. Given that the khums sent from Rawar alone included thousands of slaves, and considering similar quotas from Debal, Brahmanabad, and Multan, the total number of native citizens violently displaced and forced into foreign slavery easily exceeded 100,000.