ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the 9th to 11th-centuries-CE Perso-Arabic writers’ understanding of the territories and populations encapsulated by the term al-Hind. It begins with highlighting the conceptual distinction between the ways of naming India in Sanskrit and other languages. The chapter presents some aspects of the historical background of Indo-Islamic contacts, in order to delve further into Persian and Arabic literature from 9th to 11th centuries CE. It discusses the geographical, political and cultural conceptualisations of al-Hind in the light of different sources, with an emphasis on Birunis work on India. Al-Hind has been regarded as comprising many locales despite being conceived of as a territorial unity. The conceptualisation of al-Hind has been interpreted in political, geographical and cultural terms. The Muslim authors considered the people inhabiting the land of al-Hind as possessing a common culture, manifest, to their eyes, through common religious practices and beliefs.
