[2]"They either offer gold, silver, and rare gems or present sheep, horses, and other domestic animals to the god in competition with each other to show their piety and sincerity.

As the Saffarid brothers Ya'qūb and 'Amr ibn al-Layth set out from Zaranj on their very successful plundering and conquering of the mostly Hindu and Buddhist regions east of Nimruz, local royal families were decimated to such a degree that holy places such as Zamindawar and Sakawand became exposed to Muslim onslaught.

Hearing of the fall of Sakawand, the Hindu Shahi Kallar of Kabul raised an army to retake the temple, though was ultimately unable to compete with the Saffarids greater numbers.

[3] With the defeat of the Bamiyan Sher as well as the expulsion of Abu Bakr Loyak from Ghazni by the Samanid slave-commander Alp Tegin in 962 CE, Sajawand fell under Ghaznavid control.

One of Sajawands then most notable members of the order, Mawlana Bekasi Sajawandi, is known to have frequented the Majlis of Mirza Muhammad Hakim,[9] who was governor of Kabul and a staunch adherent of the sect.

The mud-brick structure currently sitting on top of the original pre-Islamic platform further suggests that the temple was at some point again destroyed and rebuilt in the Islamic era.

[11] Various scholars have recorded the importance of Sakawand as a major centre of Hindu pilgrimage, where the deity Surya was honoured as believers from all over Hindustan gathered to worship him.