Arakan in the context of "Bengal Sultanate"

Bengal (/bɛnˈɡɔːl/ ben-GAWL) is a geographical, ethnolinguistic, historically geopolitical region in South Asia, located north of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is politically divided between the sovereign state of Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and Karimganj district in the Indian state of Assam.

The ancient Vanga Kingdom is widely regarded as the namesake of the Bengal region. The Bengali calendar dates back to the reign of Shashanka in the 7th century CE. The Pala Empire was founded in Bengal during the 8th century. The Sena dynasty and Deva dynasty ruled between the 11th and 13th centuries. By the 14th century, Bengal was absorbed by Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent. An independent Bengal Sultanate was formed and became the eastern frontier of the Islamic world. During this period, Bengal's rule and influence spread to Assam, Arakan, Tripura, Bihar, and Odisha (formerly- Orissa). Bengal Subah later emerged as a prosperous part of the Mughal Empire.

"Gunpowder empires", or "Islamic gunpowder empires", is a term coined by the American historians Marshall G. S. Hodgson and William H. McNeill to describe three early modern Muslim empires: the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Empire and the Mughal Empire, which flourished between the mid-16th and early 18th centuries.

McNeill focused on the history of gunpowder use across multiple civilizations in East Asia, Europe, and India in his 1993 work The Age of Gunpowder Empires. The gunpowder empires conquered vast amounts of territory with the use and deployment of newly invented firearms, especially cannon and small arms; together they stretched from Central Europe and North Africa in the west to Bengal and Arakan in the east. In the case of Europe, the introduction of gunpowder weapons also prompted changes such as the rise of centralised monarchical states. As a result, the three empires were among the most stable of the early modern period, leading to commercial expansion, cultural patronage, and the consolidation of political and legal institutions.

Chittagong (/ˈtʃɪtəɡɒŋ/ CHIT-ə-gong), officially Chattogram (Bengali: চট্টগ্রাম, romanized: Côṭṭôgrām, IPA: [ˈt͡ʃɔʈːoɡram] , traditionally Bengali: চাটগাঁও, romanized: Cāṭgão; Chittagonian: চিটাং/সিটাং, romanized: Sitang), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Home to the Port of Chittagong, it is the busiest port in Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The city is also the business capital of Bangladesh. It is the administrative seat of an eponymous division and district. The city is located on the banks of the Karnaphuli River between the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Bay of Bengal. In 2022, the Chittagong District had a population of approximately 9.2 million according to a census conducted by the government of Bangladesh. In 2022, the city area had a population of more than 5.6 million. The city is home to many large local businesses and plays an important role in the Bangladeshi economy.

One of the world's oldest ports with a functional natural harbor for centuries, Chittagong appeared on ancient Greek and Roman maps, including on Ptolemy's world map. It was located on the southern branch of the Silk Road. In the 9th century, merchants from the Abbasid Caliphate established a trading post in Chittagong. The port fell to the Muslim conquest of Bengal during the 14th century. It was the site of a royal mint under the Delhi Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Empire. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, Chittagong was also a centre of administrative, literary, commercial and maritime activities in Arakan, a narrow strip of land along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal which was under strong Bengali influence for 350 years. During the 16th century, the port became a Portuguese trading post and João de Barros described it as "the most famous and wealthy city of the Kingdom of Bengal". The Mughal Empire expelled the Portuguese and Arakanese in 1666.

The Rohingya people (/roʊˈhɪndʒə, -ɪŋjə/; Rohingya: 𐴌𐴗𐴥𐴝𐴙𐴚𐴒𐴙𐴝, romanized: ruáingga; IPA: [rʊˈɜi̯ɲ.ɟə]) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated of 1.4 million Rohingya lived in Myanmar. One of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. There are also restrictions on their freedom of movement, access to state education and civil service jobs. The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared to apartheid by some academics, analysts and political figures, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African anti-apartheid activist. The most recent mass displacement of Rohingya in 2017 prompted the International Criminal Court to investigate crimes against humanity, and the International Court of Justice to hear a case alleging genocide.

The Rohingya maintain they are indigenous to western Myanmar with a heritage of over a millennium and influence from the Arabs, Mughals, and Portuguese. The community claims descent from populations in both precolonial Arakan and colonial Arakan; historically, the region was an independent kingdom situated between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya as British colonial and postcolonial migrants from Chittagong in Bangladesh. It argues that a distinct precolonial Muslim population is recognised as Kaman, and that the Rohingya conflate their history with the history of Arakan Muslims in general to advance a separatist agenda. In addition, Myanmar's government does not recognise the term "Rohingya" and prefers to refer to the community as "Bengali". Rohingya campaign groups and human rights organisations demand the right to "self-determination within Myanmar".