André Wink is an emeritus professor of history at University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is known for his studies on India and the Indian Ocean area, particularly over the medieval and early modern age (700 to 1800 CE).

Quotes

• The first conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing analysis is that ecology was a major factor determining the progress and character of the Islamic conquest of al-Hind. For one thing, the subcontinent was unsuitable for Mongol-style nomadism on account of the absence of sufficient good pasture land. With the Mongols failing to penetrate beyond its western periphery, the Indian subcontinent cannot really be said to have experienced a 'nomadic conquest' at all. In this respect the thirteenth-century situation in the north was unlike the Iranian plateau, where Mongol conquest was followed by extensive nomadization and destruction of agriculture.
  • Al-Hind-The-Making-of-the-Indo-Islamic-World-Vol-2-The-Slave-Kings-and-the-Islamic-Conquest-11th-13th-Centuries, 381 ff

• We have argued that, in contrast to Iran and China, in ai-Hind such a merger of the frontier world of nomadic mobility and long- distance trade on the one hand and settled agriculture on the other did occur in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Second- ly, that this merger brought about a new productive and mer- cantile dynamism (without any serious deleterious impact on pop- ulation density), the effects of which deepened and broadened in the subsequent centuries. This is not to deny that the Muslim- Turkish conquest of Hind was quite violent at times, and could be disruptive in some areas as well. It has not been our intention to 'sanitize' the narrative of Hindu-Muslim encounter in these centuries of invasion and extensive raiding. Nor has it been our intention to deny that in many respects the Muslim conquest was a major challenge to the integrity of Indian culture. But the Turk- ish-led Muslim armies that conquered North India in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were generally small compared to those of the Mongols operating elsewhere in Eurasia; nor did a vast influx of nomads follow in their wake, unlike in Iran or parts of China.
  • Al-Hind-The-Making-of-the-Indo-Islamic-World-Vol-2-The-Slave-Kings-and-the-Islamic-Conquest-11th-13th-Centuries, 381 ff

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