BanglaBhoot
RETIRED TTA
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- Apr 8, 2007
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"Mas'udis remark about Muslims residing in Pala domains is significant in the context of these commercially and politically expansive Buddhist states, for by the tenth century, when Bengal textiles were being absorbed into wider Indian Ocean commercial networks, two trade diasporas overlapped one another in the delta region. One, extending eastward from the Arabian Sea, was dominated by Muslim Arabs or Persians; the other, extending eastward from the Bay of Bengal, by Buddhist Bengalis. The earliest presence of Islamic civilization in Bengal resulted from the overlapping of these two diasporas." (Richard M. Eaton - The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204 - 1760 (Oxford - 1997)