Pakistani actor Shaan Shahid is both right and wrong.  He is right that the Pakistan film industry should make its own historical dramas on Indian history such as that of the Mughal’s. It is an amazing history. In an era of the rise of Hindutva when there is an attempt to wipe out and rewrite Muslim history, it is even important that this is done.

However he is wrong to try and classify Turkic/Ottoman history as not part of Indian/Pakistani history.  As well as the relationship of Islam which we tend to know, our ancestors history is intimately linked to the past people/ethnicities and empires surrounding India.  Qutb al-Din Aibak of the Delhi Sultanate was a former Turkic Mamluk origin slave. Muhammad Bin Qasim was an Arab from the Umayyad dynasty.

The Mughal rulers were ethnic Turks/Mongols. The word Mughal is believed to be a Persian mispronunciation of the word Mongol.   Babar the Mughal ruler, was a Turko-Mongol descended from the Mongol Muslim ruler Timur. The official language of the Mughal empire was Persian.  A lot of our culture, customs, dress and language is derived from a complex mixture of Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Mongolian, indigenous people of the Indian region, and even British.  Persian culture, language, customs play an important part in all of these regions.  My own name is a Persian title of a Mughal emperor.

The story of Ertugrul Ghazi as portrayed in the drama, much of it may be fictitious, but the history, culture, religion it represents is our’s too.  History, People and cultures around the world have always tended to be global and inter-related, only the mindset of nationalism and racism tries to define them into a land or race.