In the Indian subcontinent, Islam was introduced into an already developed civilization defined by agriculture, urbanization, higher religions, and complex political regimes. India was defined by the caste system, by Brahmanic Hinduism and Buddhist religions, and by Rajput and other Hindu political elites. In the past, there had been great empires, but on the eve of the Muslim invasions India was divided into numerous small states. The Muslim conquests brought a new elite and a new level of political integration, beginning the process of generating a new culture blending universal Muslim concepts and symbols of statecraft, cosmopolitan artistic pursuits such as architecture and painting, and regional motifs. In India, Muslim religio-communal orientations encompassed all of the principal varieties of scholasticism, Sufi orthopraxy, shrine worship, and reformism. In India, as opposed to Iran or the Ottoman Empire, a pluralistic religious society escaped bureaucratization and state control. The special cultural qualities of Indian-Islamic civilization and the autonomy and plurality of religious tendencies made it a distinctive variant of Islamic societies.

Afghanistan

The history of Islamic societies in the subcontinent began with the Arab invasions of 711–13, when Muslim rule was established in Sind, but the definitive Muslim conquest came from the post-ʿAbbasid military regimes in Afghanistan.