[8] Med pirates shipping from their bases at Kutch, Debal and Kathiawar[8] during one of their raids had kidnapped Muslim women traveling from Sri Lanka to Arabia, thus providing a casus belli[8][9] against Sindhi King Dahir.

[10] Raja Dahir expressed his inability to help retrieve the hostages and after two expeditions was defeated in Sindh.

[11][12] Al Hajjaj equipped an army built around 6,000 Syrian cavalry and detachments of mawali from Iraq,[13] six thousand camelry, and a baggage train of 3,000 camels under his nephew Muhammad bin Qasim to Sindh.

[15] The majority of Sindh's population at the time of the Umayyad invasions was Hindu, but a significant minority adhered to Buddhism as well.

[16] Burjor Avari writes that it's likely that Buddhists collaborated and sided[17][18] with the Arabs before the invasion even began,[19][20] something that the primary sources describe as well.

[3] Having settled the question of the freedom of religion and the social status of the Brahmins, Muhammad bin al-Qasim turned his attention to the Jats and Lohanas.

Chronicles such as the Chach Nama, Zainul-Akhbar and Tarikh-i Bayhaqi have recorded battles between Hindu Jats and forces of Muhammad ibn Qasim.

[3] Following his success in Sindh, Muhammad bin Qasim wrote to "the kings of al-Hind (India)", calling upon them to surrender and accept the faith of Islam.

The frontier of Kashmir might be what is referred to as al-Kiraj in later records (Kira Kingdom in present-day Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh),[28] which was subdued.