The influx of Persian, Turkic, Arab and Mughal settlers contributed further diversity to the cultural development of the region.[1] However, historians including Richard Maxwell Eaton, Ahmed Sharif, Muhammad Mohar Ali and Jadunath Sarkar are in agreement that the bulk of Muslims are descended from Buddhists who were converted to Islam by missionaries.[18][2][3] Today, most Bengali Muslims live in the modern state of Bangladesh, the world's third largest Muslim-majority country, along with the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam.[4]