ABSTRACT
The capture of Nadia in 1202 ushered in a period of Muslim rule in Bengal that would last formally until the transfer of the diwani, the right to collect taxes, to the English East India Company by the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II in 1765. Bengal would be ruled first by the governors of the Delhi sultanate, then by independent sultans who were from or based in Bengal, and finally by the Mughal empire. In the last few years of formal Mughal rule, however, the principal power in Bengal was British. Although there had been incursions by Muslims into Sindh in the early eighth century, the major attacks and ultimate conquest of much of the subcontinent came from Afghanistan, beginning with the raid in force of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001. Ghaznavid power in northwestern India was displaced by that of the Ghurids, and in 1193 the Ghurids conquered Delhi and began to push down the Ganges valley.
