"The older generations of historians like Elphinstone felt surprised at the slow progress of the Islamic conquest of India, and sought to explain it by various hypotheses which have no foundation in fact. The real matter for surprise, however, is that the vestige of Arab authority continued in Sindh for three hundred years. Even according to the testimony of the Muslims, the Pratiharas could have easily conquered Multan that guarded the flank of every possible route which a future Muslim conqueror from the outside would have to follow. That they were deterred from doing this by the fear that the holy images at Multan might be broken by the Muslim ruler of the place, only shows a lack of foresight and states- manship and a deplorable want of rationality on the part of the Hindu leaders. If they had possessed even a general knowledge of the political condition of the lands immediately outside the borders of India on the west, they would have made serious efforts to defend India against the almost inevitable danger of Muslim invasion. The first steps in this direction should have been to drive away the Muslims from the petty principalities which they still held in Sindh and to establish a strong garrison in Multan and other strategic places in the Punjab. The Shahis and the Pratiharas were both powerful ruling dynasties who could have easily accomplished this task. But they did not do so. Either they were ignorant of the new political situation created by the rise of strong Muslim states on the frontiers of India, and of the consequent dangers threatening their country, or they were too parochially minded to take a broad view of the interests of India as a whole. This, however, can hardly apply to the Shahis, who were too near the danger to ignore it and whose own interest, in this case, coincided with that of India. The united stand made at a later date by the Indian chiefs on the invitation of the Shahi rulers proves that a real sense of patriotism was not al- together absent in them. We can, therefore, only conclude that the lack of knowledge of the outside world, or failure to grasp the real significance of contemporary events, was the principal cause of the indifference of the Hindu chiefs to the great danger that was destined to overwhelm them at no distant date."