It was formerly thought that the original inhabitants of the Indus Valley area were the present populations of South India who were displaced by Aryans invaders from the North West, however, recently the Aryan invasion theory has been largely discarded by most scholars. It is now generally accepted that the area of the Indus Valley Civilization has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years by the same general population stock as is presently found in the area of Punjab. The main site of the Indus Valley Civilization in Punjab was the city of Harrapa. The Indus Valley Civilization spanned much of what is today Pakistan and eventually evolved into Indo-Aryan civilization. The arrival of the Indo-Aryan led to the flourishing of the Vedic Civilization that extended from the ancient Sarasvati River to the Ganges river to the entire Indian Subcontinent around 1500 BCE. This civilization shaped subsequent cultures in South Asia. Due to its location, the Punjab region came under constant attack and influence from the west. Invaded by the Persians, Greeks , Kushans, Turks and Afghans, Punjab developed a unique culture that combined that of significant Persian and Central Asian influences, most notable today the influences of Islam.
The city of Taxila, reputed to house the oldest university in the world, Takshashila University, was established by the great Vedic thinker and politician Chanakya. Taxila was a great center of learning and intellectual discussion during the Hindu Maurya Empire. It is a UN World Heritage site, and revered for its archaeological and religious history.
Arrival of Islam
The Punjabis were predominantly Hindu with large minorities of Buddhists like the rest of South Asia, when Umayyad Muslim Arab army led by Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Punjab and Sind in 713. The predominant population of Punjab, and the rest of Pakistan, were converted to Islam but there were significant non-Muslim populations including Hindus and later Sikhs. During the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni, the province became an important centre and Lahore was made into a second capital of the Ghaznavid Empire.
The Mughals
The Mughals took control of the region from 1524 until 1739 and would also lavish the province with building projects such as the Shalimar Gardens and the Badshahi Mosque. The Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and Sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate in South Asia and many settled in the Punjab. Following the decline of the Mughals, Nadir Shah sacked the province in 1739 and then the Afghan conqueror Ahmad Shah Durrani annexed the province into his Durrani Empire from 1747 until 1762.
Reign of the Sikhs
During the Mughal period, the religion of Sikhism was born and emerged as a formidable military force, after fighting Ahmad Shah Durrani, Sikhs wrested control from his descendants and ruled in a confederacy, then later, led by Ranjit Singh. A denizen of the city of Gujranwala, city of Lahore was the capital and the Sikh made many Architectural contributions to the city and the Lahore Fort. The Maharaja's death in the summer of 1839 bought political chaos and the subsequent battles of succession and the bloody infighting between the factions at court weakened the state. This opportunity was used the British Empire to initiate the First Anglo-Sikh war, this lead to a British official being resident in Lahore and the annexation of territory south of the Beas to the British crown.
Post-Independence
In 1947 the Punjab province of British India was divided along religious lines as the western Punjabis voted to join the new state of Pakistan while the easterners joined India. This led to massive rioting as both sides committed atrocities against fleeing refugees. However, today there remains strong emotional affection by their Punjabi counterparts on the Indian side, for the Punjabis in Pakistan. The province has rapidly industrialized and is the breadbasket of the country as well as home to the largest ethnic group in Pakistan, the Punjabis.
