[1] Some of the essays have been criticised by peer reviewers as being insufficiently objective about relations between Indian Muslims, Hindus and the British political classes.

Critique by Arthur Llewellyn Basham: Author of the first volume, Prof A. H. Dani is not only an expert archaeologist and prehistorian, but also an able Sanskrit scholar with a very important study of Indian palaeography to his credit.

The book has been praised by Basham as "a work which no sensible Pakistani or Indian could object to or accuse of undue prejudice"[1] Critique by Philip B. Calkins: This volume gives a survey of the history of the Sultanate period.

Despite the apparent image of "the official Pakistani point of view" intended to be used as textbook for undergraduate students, the volume should have been able to offer more for those who desire more rudimentary knowledge of sultanate period.

[2] Critique by Fritz Lehman: Given that this book is intended as a textbook for Pakistani undergraduates, Shaikh Ahmed Sarhindi predictably appears as the chief preserver of separate Islamic identity in India, yet only a very general and most inadequate description of his ideas and his influence is given.

[3] Lehman criticises the volume's implications that Muslims living under "Hindu rule" was "the worst disaster in the history of Islam in South Asia", a view he describes as 'consistent with the Two-Nation Theory', but one that he finds "disquieting".

[4] Ahmad criticises this volume as a "warped subjectivity", and the portrayal of British rule in the region as "merely the lesser weakness of Rahim's historical presentation.