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Islam reached Pakistan from both south and north. In 711, an Arab naval expedition under Muhammad bin Qasim arrived to suppress piracy on Arab shipping and ended up establishing control over the Indus Valley as far north as Multan. Most of the local rulers remained in power but now paid tribute to the caliph of Baghdad.
In the 11th century, the Turkish rulers of Afghanistan began the Islamic conquest of India from the northwest. Mahmud of Ghazni (979- 1030) led a series of raids against the Rajput kingdoms and wealthy Hindu temples. Gandhara, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan became integral parts of the Ghaznavid Empire, which had its capital at Ghazni in Afghanistan. The Ghaznavids developed Lahore as their centre of Islamic culture in Punjab, and mass conversions to Islam began at this time.
The Ghaznavid kingdom was destroyed near the end of the next century by the Ghorids, the Turkish Muslim rulers of Ghor in Afghanistan. Muhammad of Ghor swept down the Indus into India, defeated the Rajput confederacy there in 1192 and captured Delhi the following year. This marked the beginning of the Sultanate Period, which lasted for over 300 years, with five dynasties of Muslim sultans succeeding one another in Delhi. The Mongol, Genghiz Khan, harried the Delhi sultans during the 13th century, never succeeding in overthrowing them. Tamerlane, the great Turkish conqueror who had his capital at Samarkand, penetrated India soon after in 1398-9 and sacked Delhi.