ABSTRACT
According to the 2011 census, Islam was the second largest religion in India, with Muslims, numbering 172 million, making up 14.2 per cent of the population. The Muslim population of India is the third largest in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. There are around 180 million Muslims in Pakistan and another 149 million in Bangladesh. Thus, Muslims make up around 40 per cent of the population of this region. Islam came to South Asia (present-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal) in the seventh century through Arab traders who arrived in coastal Malabar and the Konkan-Gujarat. By 711 there was an Arab dynasty under Muhammad bin Qasim in what is now Sindh.
