pakistan history Peshawar

1.Gandharan Peshawar

The Kushan king Kanishka, who reigned from at least 127 AD, moved the capital from Pushkalavati (now called Charsadda in the Peshawar valley) to Purushapura (Peshawar) in the 2nd century AD,[10] Buddhist missionaries arrived to Zoroastrian and animist Peshawar counsel with the Zoroastrian Kushan rulers. Surprisingly,[according to whom?] rather than being repelled, their teachings were embraced by the Zoroastrian Kushans, who converted to Buddhism and gave the religion official status in the city. Following this move by the Kushans, Peshawar became a great center of Buddhist learning even though Zoroastrianism and animism seem to have survived in the majority population (particularly the rural areas). Kanishka however, who was now an ardent follower of Buddhism, built what may have been the tallest building in the world at the time, a giant stupa, to house the Buddha's relics, just outside the Ganj Gate of the old city of Peshawar. The Kanishka stupa was said to be an imposing structure as one travelled down from the mountains of Afghanistan onto the Gandharan plains. The earliest account of the famous building is by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk, Faxian, who visited it in 400 and described it as being over 40 chang in height (probably about 120 m or 394 ft) and adorned "with all precious substances". "Of all the stûpas and temples seen by the travellers, none can compare with this for beauty of form and strength." It was destroyed by lightning and repaired several times. It was still in existence at the time of Xuanzang's visit in 634. From the ruined base of this giant stupa, there existed a jewelled casket containing relics of the Buddha, and an inscription identifying Kanishka as the donor, and was excavated from a chamber under the very centre of the stupa's base, by a team under Dr. D.,B. Spooner in 1909.

2.Muslim invasions

The Pashtuns began to convert to Islam following early annexation by the Arab Empire from Khurasan  in what is today Afghanistan and northeastern Iran. In 1001 the Turkic ruler of the Ghaznavid Empire, Mahmud of Ghazni further expanded from Afghanistan into the Indian sub-continent. “ Sebuktagin dying in 997 was succeeded as governor of Khorasan by his son Mahmud, who throwing off all dependence on the Samani princes, assumed the title of Sultan in 999. In the early reign of this celebrated invader the plains of Peshawar were  the scene of some great battles, the first of which was fought on the maira between Nowshera and the Indus, in the year 1001. Mahmud was opposed by Hindu Shahi King Jayapala in the Battle of Peshawar1001, who had been constantly endeavouring to recover the country wrested from him by Sebuktagin. still aided by some Pathansalso known as Pashtuns or Afghans whose to the Muslim governor of Peshawar was not of long continuance. The battle took place on November 27. Jaipal himself being taken prisoner, who upon his subsequent release resigned the crown to his son Anandpal. On this occasion Mahmud punished the Pathans (also known as Pashtuns or Afghans) who had sided with the enemy, and as they were now converted entirely to the Islam, they stayed true to their new .