A Book of

Conquest
THE CHACHNAMA AND MUSLIM
ORIGINS IN SOUTH ASIA

Manan Ahmed Asif

the question or how Islam arrived
in India remains markedly contentious in
South Asian politics. Standard accounts cen­
ter on tl>e Umayyad caliphate’s incursions
into Sind and littoral western India in the
eighth century CE. In this idling. Muslims
were a foreign presence among native Hin­
dus, sowing the seeds of a mutual animosity
that presaged the subcontinent's partition
into Pakistan and India many centuries later.
But in a compelling reexamination of the
history of Islam In India. Manan Ahmed Asif
directs attention to a thirteenth-century text
that tells the story of Chach, the Brahmin
ruler of Sind, and his kingdom’s later con­
quest by the Muslim general Muhammad bin
Qasim in 711 CE. The Chachnama has long
been a touchstone of Indian history, yet it is
seldom studied in its entirety. Asif oilers a
close and complete analysis of this important
text, untangling its various registers and
genres in order to reconstruct the political vi­
sion at its heart.
Asif challenges the main tenets of the
Chachnnmo’s interpretation: that It is a transla­
tion of an earlier Arabic text and that it pres­
ents a history of conquest. Debunking both
Ideas, he demonstrates that the Chachnama
was originally Persian and. far from advancing
a narrative of imperial aggression, is a subtle
and sophisticated work of political theory, one
embedded in both the Indic and Islamic ethos.
This social and intellectual history of the
Chachiuinia is an Important corrective to the
divisions between Muslim and Hindu that so
often define Pakistani and Indian politics
today,
For Shaista Ahmed
 Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IX

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION XI

Introduction i

I. Frontier with the House of Gold 43

2. A Foundation for History 47

3- Dear Son, What Is the Matter with You’ 78

4- A Demon with Ruby Eyes 103

5- The Half Smile 128

6. A Conquest of Pasts ■ SO

Conclusion 180

NOTES I87

WORKS CITED 219

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2J5

INDEX 241
 Illustrations

Map of the regions of Sind, Gujarat, and Arabia io

List of sacral sites in Uch 24

Letter writer 79

Grave of Rai Tulsi Das 104

A Hindu grave 105

Purported graves of Arab soldiers who came to

Sind with Muhammad bin Qasim 116

The well of Baba Farid 121

Tomb of Bibi Jawindi 129

Graves of the Prophet’s Companions 151

ix
 Note on Transliteration and Translation

The primary textual sources under review in this book are

written in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and Sanskrit—with Arabic
words often appearing either in Persian texts or in Urdu texts. A further
complication to adopting a specific transliteration schema is the dif­
ferent vocal emphasis in pronouncing Persian and Arabic terms in
contemporary South Asia. To promote wider reception of this work, I
have removed all diacritical marks, indicating only the presence of the
letters hamza with an apostrophe (') and 'ayn with a reverse apos­
trophe ||. The Persian izafa is indicated as -i. The Arabic definite ar­
ticle is omitted from proper names |e.g., Baladhun and not al-Baladhuri).
However, when citing sources, I have left the text unaltered. Place
names are specific to the historical period and reflect usage in primary
sources—most importantly, Sind rather than Sindh, Uch rather than
Uchch or Uch Sharif. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are
mine. All dates are of the Common Era (CE| unless otherwise noted.

xi
 Introduction

Beginnings are a seductive necessity. The interest in beginnings

is not new—narratives of origins and genealogies frame much of the
recorded past. Yet, for the modern nation, the romance of origins and
the gravitas of a unique genealogy arc imperative. For the modern state,
such stories offer the pride of modernity and of linear progress (the per­
petual -ing to the First World). For the citizens of these modern states,
these stories, illustrated in textbooks, contain values, morals, and na­
tional character. In America, for example, the Founding Fathers repre­
sent the beginnings of this nation in myriad and ever-present ways.
The statues of Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson in front of
academic or state buildings, in public parks, at crossroads, gesture at
specific origins of the state. These statues act as personifications of
static moments of origins—a teleology and an ethic. In Germany, Ar-
minius; in France, Charlemagne; in England, King Arthur,- in India,
Asoka; and so on across the globe.1 Some of these origins perform af­
fective tasks (the committee of men who gave birth to the United
States are meant to invoke in its citizens feelings of filial love), while
others help constitute an always renewable past (the rediscovery of
Genghis Khan as a hero for leaders in former Soviet states is meant
to invoke a pre-communist past).

i
2 INTRODUCTION

A Question of Origins

The question of origins was significant for the European inquiry into
the pasts of the world in general and colonized people in particular.
In Enlightenment thought—from Descartes to Vico to Kant—the
study of Europe’s own origins necessitated equally an inquiry into
the origins of the New World or of India or China. These "scientific"
inquiries into origins of language (philology) and origins of human
society (history) created, by the later eighteenth century, a vast body
of philosophical and ethnographic material about the colonized
and Orientalized world. It is in this set of inquiries that my project
begins.
I am concerned here with a particular story of beginnings—that of
Muslims in India—and the ways in which it structures the reading of
Muslim pasts m South Asia. At its barest this narrative asserts that
Islam is fundamentally Arabian and hence, geographically foreign to
India. This outsider origin of the faith makes its adherents outsiders
as well. Muslims thus come from the outside to India: either as for­
eign conquerors or foreign traders or foreign proselytizers, all distinct
from the "indigenous." In this beginning, there are a number of points
of origins—one is in the eariy-eighth-century campaigns from Arabia
to Sind under Muhammad bin Qasim; another is in the eleventh­
century campaigns from Ghazni to Gujarat under Mahmud of Ghazni;
another, in the sixteenth-century campaign from Kabul to Delhi by
Zahiruddin Bahar. These multiple points of origins act as constant
renewals of foreignness in this beginning story, and, paradoxically,
these diverse renewals feed a monolithic, ahistorical, atemporal Islam
in India. Critically, the history of political states in India Itagged
Muslim) encompasses the social and cultural fives of all who claim any
variety of Islam as their faith.
In this book, I take aim at a particular origins narrative of a Muslim
political state in India—the 712 expedition of Muhammad bin Qasim
to Sind—to expose its historical specificity and the way it was em­
ployed in later reconstructions. What is at stake when we question this
origin and revisit the history that is outside of it! I submit that certain
"infallible" social and political frameworks fall apart and newness
emerges.
 INTRODUCTION 3

First, let me demonstrate the power and dominance of this origins

narrative in South Asia. This narrative positing the Muslim as always
distinctly an outsider is one of the primary ideological fulcra that re­
sulted in the 1947 Partition of colonial India. One articulation of this
idea was expressed in 1940 by Mohammad All Jinnah, leader of the All
India Muslim League and the first governor general of Pakistan:

The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philoso­

phies, social customs, and litcrature|s|. They neither intermarry nor
interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civili­
sations which arc based mainly on conflicting ideas and concep­
tions. Their aspects on life, and of life, arc different. It is quite clear
that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from dif­
ferent sources of history. They have different epics, their heroes
arc different, and they have different episodc|s|. Very often the hero
of one is a foe of the other, and likewise their victories and defeats
overlap.1

Jinnah's articulation of difference in regard to the past |an articula­

tion that mirrored early twentieth-century Muslim nationalism)
incongruently posits cultural practices as uniform across a vast geo­
graphy. That is, the Muslims do not marry or dine with non-Muslims
either in the present or in the past—the Muslims everywhere in India
constitute a unitary body. In support of this reading of the present,
linnah asserts a difference in history and in historiography—that these
two communities have different pasts, and they have different sources
for those pasts and must therefore interpret history differently. Hence
to someone who may say that the Mughal elite intermarried with
non-Muslims, Jinnah's answer would be that we must interpret their
acts in accordance with different civilizational standards or look for
their depictions in different archives.
Like Jinnah's nationalism, Hindu communalism also looked to the
past, also relied on historiography, and also argued numerically, but
with a radically different view of the past and the future. Hence in 1940,
the conservative and militant proponents of Hindu supremacy such
as V. D. Savarkar and M. S. Golwalkar would reinterpret the heroes and
the foes: "Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hin­
dustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been
4 INTRODUCTION

gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers."’ For the Hindu Right,
the "foreign" origins of Muslims in India demonstrated their "indig­
enous" struggle against conquest and domination: each new arrival
of the Muslims was another war of attrition. After Partition, the conse­
quences of this understanding of the past became evident in 1992. A
sixteenth-century mosque, the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, was taken apart
brick by brick by thousands who believed it to be birthplace of the God
Ram. In this destruction, the conflation of historical and mythic time
was not an accident or a divergence—it represented the culmination of a
decades-long utilization of this origins myth for the Hindu Right.
These two threads of understanding pasts—Jinnah's insistence
on separatism and the Hindu Right’s insistence on avenging past
wrongs—are distinct and produce vastly different trajectories for the
future. Yet they each begin with the idea of Muslims as outsiders, they
each narrate events across a thousand years of history that insist on
that difference, and they each rely on the other's contrary reading.4
This origins narrative has prompted contemporary violence, absolved
it, and argued for a recognition of an always-there difference. The hero
of one and the foe of another are at battle—"the civilization of conquest
is also the civilization of defeat"—the two modes are in syncopation?
The ledgers of victories and defeats arc kept separately, but the regime
of tabulation is same. For each, the "foreign" produces that which can
save or that from which one needs to be saved. For each, the difference
of the present stems from a difference in origins. In effect, how dif­
ferent groups of Muslims at a given point in time came to political
dominance in India is viewed solely through the lens of conquest by
outsiders—what I am here labeling as the origins narrative.
The critique of Indic pasts understood as a long teleology of violence
between communities has been the work of many historians. Several
generations of historians, of the ancient or medieval or modern periods,
have taken on the question of difference in Indic pasts. Romila Thapar,
Gyanendra Pandey, Uma Chakravarti, Richard Eaton, Cynthia Talbot,
and Shahid Amin arc some of the key figures in this historiography
whose efforts were to trace the emergence of categories of being Hindu
or Muslim—beyond the invention of such modes during colonial rule.6
One answer for contemporary turbulences, they offer, is to understand
the multiplicity of being Indian that history provides. While this
 INTRODUCTION s

marking of the colonial construction of the communalist past was a

critical intervention, what remained uncxamined was the centrality
of the origins narrative—the naturalness with which "Muslims" re­
mained outsiders—such that each historical epoch began anew (for ex­
ample, for the medieval historians there remains an assumption that
Mughal ideology and politics bore little relationship to that of their
Indic predecessors, or similarly the Delhi sultanate bore no relation­
ship to the Arab rule in Sind).’ That is, even though historians demon­
strated that the colonial state constructed the antagonistic forms in
which difference was naturalized between communities, they did not
push against the ways in which the origins narrative governed under­
standings of the past. The consequence was that arguments for an ano­
dyne syncretism kept in place the fundamental difference between the
communities.
Whether one looks for syncretism or antagonism, the impulse to
create a teleology of Muslim presence is remarkably persistent in the
origins narrative of the history and historiography of South Asia. His­
torians of Pakistan focused on specific moments: the conquests of the
eighth or the eleventh century, the late Mughal period, and north India
from the nineteenth century onward. Those Muslims, and Muslim
pasts, left in Indian territory were also left out of Pakistani historiog­
raphy. Historians of northern India left out from their inquiries the
Muslim history before the thirteenth century, for that geography was
now in Pakistani territory. The historians of southern India similarly
elided any discussion of communities of settlement, trading, and being
Muslim throughout the medieval and early modem periods." What
governs these complementary silences is the physical partition of po­
litical and social space in contemporary South Asia as well as the
intellectual partition of archival pasts. What motivates it is the begin­
nings narrative of Muslim origins. These are the unique challenges faced
by any intellectual history of premodem India—of time, space, and
beginnings.
This book is an argument against origins. It takes as an imperative
that "origin must itself be known historically, history must itself re­
solve the problem of history, knowledge must turn its sting against it­
self."9 In taking aim at the origins narrative, 1 pinpoint the text most
critically important for its construction—Cbachnama. I present the
6 NTRODUCTION

ways in which this thirteenth-century Persian text became, in colo­

nial understanding, a history of Muslim origins. 1 aim to locate in his­
torical time this history of thought about the origins of Islam in India.
However, I turn to the text, and the thirteenth century, to show other
modes of understanding difference that lie outside of this origins
narrative. This then is the crux of the book at hand. If modern politics
created India and Pakistan and Bangladesh out of political difference
enacted by colonialism, then modern historiography continues to take
these differences to be just as natural, as normative, and as entrenched.
My examination of a specific medieval past shows how the origins
narrative came to determine the limits of historical inquiry and the
paths it has foreclosed.

Chachnama as Origins

In 1981, V. S. Naipaul visited Karachi to report on postcolonial Muslim

states. There, he read Chachnama "in a paperback reprint of the En­
glish translation first published in 1900 in Karachi."10

The Chachnama is in many ways like The Conquest of New Spain

by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier who in his old age
wrote of his campaigns in Mexico with Cones in 1S19 and after. The
theme of both works is the same: the destruction, by an imperialist
power with a strong sense of a mission and a wide knowledge of the
world, of a remote culture that knows only itself and doesn't begin
to understand what it is fighting.'1

Naipaul read Chachnama as "an account of the Islamic beginning

of the state |of Pakistani." This beginning, Naipaul argued in his book,
was the primary way in which the hegemonic Muslims of Pakistan
imagined their separation from India—as conquerors and Chachnama
was the text that provided the history of their conquest. In Naipaul's
reading, there was a belligerence of colonial gaze in Pakistan's con­
ception of its historic past. Naipaul read violence in the figure of
Qasim, the young conqueror described in Chachnama as the leader of
the Arab army that conquered Sind, He narrated the atrocities com­
mitted by the Arab army—their destruction of temples or their killing
 INTRODUCTION 7

of civilians—and linked them to the atrocities of Pakistan's teeming

Muslims since 1971 War for Bangladesh.
Pakistan in 1981 was only a decade old. Previously, it was "West
Pakistan," the geographically separated other of "East Pakistan." In
1971, the country went through a civil war, and the bloodied eastern
half emerged as Bangladesh. With the violent birth of Bangladesh, the
Muslims of Pakistan, first partitioned along religious lines, had now
repartitioned along ethnic and linguistic lines. Naipaul correctly iden­
tified the resurgent origins narrative that the Pakistani state claimed
for itself: that Pakistan was founded not in 1947 but in 711 AD. Where
Naipaul saw colonial destruction, the Pakistani state saw righteous
domination of their faith over the unbelievers. The Class VI Social
Studies Textbook, first published in 1979 as part of General Zia ul-
Haq'S educational imperative, demonstrates this reading in the chapter
"First Citizen" and provides the officially sanctioned story:

Before the dawn of Islam, the trade relations had been setup |sic] be­
tween India and the Arabs. The Muslims invaded the subcontinent
in 712 A.D. Prior to this the Arabs used to visit this land for the sale
& |sic| purchase of their goods. The Arab traders were staunch Mus­
lims and therefore taught Islam to the people of India. A number of
Arab traders had also settled in Sri Lanka and due to trade had good
relations with the people. With the passage of time some of the traders
died. The Raia of Sri Lanka who was kind hearted, he sent the widows
and their children and belongings on eight ships along with gifts for
the Muslim caliph. When these ships reached near the port of Debal
the pirates plundered these ships. The Arab women and children were
made captives. Some of the Muslims managed to escape and made
aware of Hajjaj bin Yousaf of the entire incident. Conflict between
the Arabs and ruler of Sind started due to this incident. Haijaj bin
Yusuf sent Muhammad bin Qasim to conquer Sind. This was the
foundation of Pakistan.12
As I will detail in a subsequent chapter, this particular emphasis
on Islam's origins in South Asia, and the usage of the specific example
of assault on Muslim women, can be traced to the work of historians
who wrote these textbooks—I. H. Qureshi and S. M. Ikram—as part of
a select state-sanctioned group responsible for creating the constitutive
8 INTRODUCTION

texts and policies for Pakistan. Their work built on an earlier genera­
tion of Muslim historians and writers, such as Abdul Halim Sharar,
Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, and Nadvi's teacher Shiblt Nau'mani, who fo­
cused on the early history of Islam in South Asia. These figures had
focused on early Islam for a variety of reasons, but a primary concern
was to respond to colonial histories of India. The arrival of the Mus­
lims in the eighth century, as conquerors, and their subsequent colo­
nization of India had been a dominant framework for British colonial
histories such that Vincent A. Smith, M. Elphtnstone, H. M. Elliot, and
the early lames Mill saw a clear temporal divide between indigenous/
Hindu India and foreign/Muslim India.
The thread that runs through this genealogy of transmissions is
Chachnama. For two hundred years, it has been read as a book of con­
quest, providing a narrative of Islam's arrival in India. For hundreds
of years, it has been understood to be a work of translation into Per­
sian around 1126 CE, from an earlier eighth-century history written
in Arabic. Such interpretations of Chachnama underpin the special­
ized work done by generations of scholars—all of whom maintained
the primacy of Chachnama as a textual translation of an earlier his­
torical narrative. The consequence of this reading is that Chachnama
is understood to be the primary account of the origins of Muslims in
India which contains the history of their rise to dominance.
The idea of Chachnama as the key origins text continues to hold
wide sway, and the origins narrative continues to provide justifications
for violent corrections. On February 25, 2006, a young Pakistani pro­
fessional in Connecticut, Faisal Shahzad, sent an email message under
the subject "My Beloved and Peaceful Ummah." He wrote,

17 year old Mohammad bin Qasam (sic) attacked the Sub-continent

Pak-o-Hind and defeated infidel ruler Raja Dahir because there came
to him news of a Muslim woman who was raped!!! and today our
beloved Prophet (Katimum Nahieen Mohammad al-Ameen) PBUH
has been disrespected and disgraced in the whole world and we just
sit and watch with shame and sorrow and most of us don't even
care.1,1

This email message surfaced after Shahzad’s failed bombing in

Times Square in early 2010. It clearly communicates Shahzad's re­
 INTRODUCTION 9

action to the controversy that ensued after Danish newspapers pub­

lished cartoons of Muhammad. Another cause for invocations of vio­
lence against women as the originary moment for Islam in India was
the incarceration of Aafia Siddiqui—a professional chemist who was
eventually convicted of conspiring with al-Qaeda. "1 wish that this na­
tion had a Muhammad hin Qasim who could hear the screams of Aafia
Siddiqui, and help her. We need him and his army," wrote Javed
Chaudhry, a heavily syndicated Urdu columnist, in the Daily Jang in
December 1008.'* Another commentator raised the specter of a "Mu­
hammad hin Qasim of the pen" who is needed to mobilize support
for this "daughter of Islam."15 The event described (the rape of a
Muslim woman taken prisoner) is part of the origins narrative. It is
presented as a particular genesis for political action within a coherent
moral narrative taken from Chachnama.16 Clearly these many invo­
cations of a past glory are an attempt to address a present historical
trauma.1’ What interests me is the strength and tensile nature of this
particular event from all historical pasts available to Muslims in
South Asia.
Chachnama constituted as an origins narrative in British colonial
histories, was then examined by Indian nationalists, and was subse­
quently appropriated by the Pakistani nation-state to denote the true
account of Islam's arrival in India. It has widely been understood to
contain the story of the conquest of India and also to provide a ratio­
nale for a community or a state.

Rereading Chachnama

From colonial historians came the dominant framework for inter­

preting Chachnama: first, that its primary value was as a source for
the eighth-century accounts of Muhammad bin Qasim because it was
a translation of an earlier, no longer extant Arabic history; and second,
that anything that could not be mined for historical facts was romantic
gibberish clotting the text. These assumptions led the nationalist his­
torians to treat Chachnama as a carrier text (it carries within it an older,
more reliable text) which had to be carefully stripped bare and reassem­
bled into a "historically accurate” narrative. Such an approach removed
any need to read the text as a whole, examine the moral universe
10 INTRODUCTION

Map of the regions of medieval Sind, Guiarat, and Arabia. (Map © Manan
Ahmed Asif and J. C. Trinidad-Christensen.)

created, or even place it within the landscape of Uch. It became a uni­

versalized conquest narrative of early Islam. Such oversights found little
correction. This limited and misleading reading of Chachnama as pri­
marily a history of the eighth century became standard.
Hence, nationalist historians like Mohammad Habib (1895-1971)
dismissed in entirety the pre-Islamic section of the Chachnama and
enthusiastically embraced the rest as an authentic source for the
eighth-century Muslim conquest: "We may, therefore, confidently trust
the Chach Nama as the safest of guides of the invasion."18 Even those
with more skepticism were willing to parse out the historical truth
from the romantic. R. C. Maiumdar (1888-1980) declared Chachnama
to contain "a kernel of historical facts," though it needed fact
checking from archaeological and textual sources.1’ The portions of
 INTRODUCTION II

Chachnama that did not speak directly to Muhammad bin Qasim's

conquest were considered redundant and discardable, as Hodivala
commented:

The whole of the first part of the work is overgrown with legendary
matter and all but valueless as history,... It may have some basis in
the flotsam and ictsam of local tradition, but if so, the tradition has
been so grossly corrupted in the course of transmission by the fan­
tastic accretions of subsequent inventiveness, as to amount to a trav­
esty of the truth.10

Chachnama had already inherited from the colonial historians a

marked valence as a politically sensitive text unveiling the destruction
of the golden age of India (pre-Muslim classical period) by the invading
Muslims, and the subsequent ushering in of India's dark ages |thc me­
dieval period). In the backdrop of this historiographical debate—as the
discussion over the destruction of Somanath exemplified—Chachnama
had to be read as a history of the eighth century and not as a history of
the thirteenth century, during which it was produced. This view of the
hidden historical value of Chachnama crystallizes in the works of
postcolonial scholars such as H. T. Lambrick, Peter Hardy, and Yo-
hanan Friedmann?1
They chose to systematically and thoroughly separate the history
from the "flotsam and jetsam" thai surrounded it. Names of people
and places, dates of events, and actions of political, religious or so­
ciocultural significance were teased out and carefully compared
with biographical dictionaries, histories, and chronicles, where
available. The notion of Chachnama as a carrier text became the
overarching consensus of the field. The fact that the majority of
Chachnama cannot be corroborated from any other source—textual
or otherwise—is dealt with by relying on Ali Kufi's own testimony
that his text is a translation from an earlier Arabic text, as Fried­
mann notes:
Though numerous other persons who appear in the Chach Nama arc
not to be located easily in Arab historiography, one has the distinct
impression that Kufi had rhe Arab tradition at his disposal and used
it extensively. The Chach Nama thus seems to be the only extant
12 INTRODUCTION

book which contains the detailed Arab tradition regarding the con­
quest of Sind.22
From within this framework, the historian sifts through the ro­
mantic for the historical and builds a cohesive argument for what hap­
pened in India's Muslim past. The best of such scholarship, such as
Dcrryl N. Maclean’s Religion and Society in Arab Sind, goes beyond
Chachnama to add markedly important insights into the eighth­
century world, but the ill effects of unmooring Chachnama from the
Uch of the early thirteenth century remains. Irfan Habib, for example,
mined it for linguistic traces of Indic concepts—a method that requires
the understanding that it is indeed a carrier text.23
I will not detail here every postcolonial work that utilized the
historicity of Chachnama, but a recent, popular introductory history
textbook calls it the "the principal source of our information on the
Muslim conquest of Sind” and summarizes the consensus thus:

The Chachnama, the principal source of our information on the

Muslim conquest of Sind, elaborates a royal code which demands
sensitivity to the fluidity and shifting nature of the real world of
politics. This is in contrast to Kautilya's "classical'' and largely the­
oretical text Arthashastra which advises princes on ways to avoid
the dilution of absolute and centralized power.11

To sum up the verdict on Chachnama then: it is a political history

of the eighth century that allows us to trace some empirical or lin­
guistic or legal understanding of the eighth century. It is not a text of
political theory and not one to be read within its own site of produc­
tion as a particular act of agentive politics, with its own political and
social goals.

What Is Chachnama!

Chachnama is a Persian prose work. It was written by Ali Kufi in 1226

CE in the political capital of the region of Sind, the city of Uch.24 It
describes the history of the regions of Sind |in north India) from roughly
680 CE to 716 CE. It tells the story of the Hindu Brahmin King Cltach
(hence, Chach+nama, or The Rook of Chach} who ruled in Sind. It also
 INTRODUCTION >5

recounts the history of the Muslim commander Muhammad bin

Qasim, who established a Muslim polity in Sind. Uch currently lies
about 70 km north of the mega port-city of Karachi in Pakistan. Kufi ti­
tled his text The Book of Stories of the King Dahn bin Chach bin Sila'ij
and His Death al the Hands of Muhammad bin Qasim, but it became
known as Chachnama. Hie oldest extant manuscript of Chachnama is
dated 1651 CE and is currently in Punjab University's collection in
Lahore.26 There are copies of the manuscript in the Talpur collection in
Hyderabad Sind, in the Rampur collection, in Bankipur, and at the
British Library in London. The recensions mostly date from the eigh­
teenth and nineteenth centuries. The first translation of an entire man­
uscript of Chachnama into English was done by the Sindhi dramatist
and translator Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg [1853-1929) in I9oo.lr
This remains the only full English translation of the text—albeit
based on seven or eight manuscripts, not including the oldest, which
was discovered later. The first printing of the Persian text was done by
'Umar bin Muhammad Daudpota in 1939-28 The Persian critical edi­
tion that I have relied upon for this study was produced by Nabi Baksh
Khan Baloch in 1982 under the aegis of the Institute of Islamic His­
tory, Culture, and Civilization in Islamabad.2’
The narrative of Chachnama, broadly sketched, is as follows:
Chachnama begins in the city of Aror, in lower Sind, and concerns the
rise to power of a young and talented Brahmin, Chach bin Sila'ij. It pres­
ents the political and social conditions at Aror prior to Chach’s arrival
at the capital, his employment as a secretary for the king's chief min­
ister, and the young queen's infatuation with him. The queen orches­
trates Chach's capture of the throne after the death of the king. After
becoming the king, Chach embarks on a campaign to reconquer "the
four quarters" of Sind. Chachnama details the taking of forts, en­
acting of agreements, and treatment of Buddhist and Hindu sub­
jects. Chach establishes a successful polity in Sind. After a long
rule he dies, and there is a struggle between his two sons—Dahar
and Daharsia—for the throne. Dahar becomes the king of Aror after
manipulating the throne away from his brother. Dahar's polity wel­
comes Arab rebels, pirates, and roaming warlords, becoming a par­
ticular problem for the Muslim state in Iraq.
'4 INTRODUCTION

This account takes up the first third of Chachnama and has three
overarching themes: the basis of legitimacy for the ruler, the good
counsel of the advisor, and the need to create a justly governed polity.
Ali Kufi then introduces the second portion of his text under the
heading "A History from the Righteously Guided Caliphs to Walid." It
begins with the time of 'Umar (r. 634-644 CE| and describes the Muslim
campaigns to Hind and Sind. Short accounts of governors dispatched
to various fronts in Makran, Zabulistan, and Qandahar are followed
by descriptions of rebellious Muslim groups fleeing to the frontier.30
Kufi details the Alawi revolts and the amassing of troops in Sind who
were conspiring against the state in Damascus. To counter these groups
and to assert political control over the region, the governor of Iraq,
Haijaj bin Yusuf, dispatches the young commander Muhammad bin
Qasim to Sind in 711 CE. Qasim begins by capturing the fort of Arm-
abil in Makran and then lays siege to the port city of Daybul. After the
conquest of Daybul, he takes the forts of Nerun. The battle with Raj3
Dahar occurs by the banks of the river Indus. After Dahar’s defeat,
Qasim proceeds to Aror, Brahmanabad, and finally Multan. The nar­
rative concludes with the description of the death of Qasim, which
comes at the orders of the caliph in Baghdad after the daughters of
Dahar accuse Qasim of sexual violence against them. Chachnama ends
with a short dedication and a prayer from Kufi.
In this portion of Chachnama. Qasim’s campaign is a deliberate
shadowing of the campaigns that Chach undertook to the "four quar­
ters” of Sind. The major themes remain good counsel, good governance,
and the need for a coherent political theory for a polity. Hence, the text
contains speeches detailing policy and taxation, private conversations
between commanders, dreams and prophecies, more than forty epis­
tles between various protagonists, and statements on political theory
and governance that include descriptions of appointments of non­
Muslims to administrative and ceremonial positions. All of this is
interspersed in the methodical military march of Chach and Qasim
through the cities of medieval Sind.
This is Chachnama—a tale, a history, a romance, a lesson—set in
the late seventh and early eighth centuries. It is the tale of Chach and
Qasim, two young men who strive to establish an ethical polity in Sind
but whose work is undone by the greed and lust of others. Kufi tells us
 INTRODUCTION 1$

in the preface that he translated an older Arabic account of the Muslim

campaigns of the eighth century into Persian tn order to gain favor at
the court of Nasiruddin Qabacha (r. 1206-1226). Chachnama was
written in Uch, the then capital of Qabacha's polity in northern India.
Why did Ali Kufi imagine a distant past in the early thirteenth
century' What is the articulated and transformational life of this text’
How is this text to be understood as participating in the history of
thought in the thirteenth century’11 1 make two essential claims in
this book: that Chachnama. central to the origins myth of Islam in
South Asia, is not a work of translation, and it is not a book of conquest.
Rejecting the origins narrative allows me to also jettison the hegemonic
reading of this text, opening up the possibility to read it as a text of po­
litical theory.
The work of rereading Chachnama begins with the understanding
that Chachnama needs to be examined in its entirety, and its varied
genres and registers need to be untangled, to understand the political
vision of the text. The reading of the text as a whole is a necessary
methodological step because Chachnama entered the archive for
British Orientalists and historians miscatalogcd, mistaken, and
missing the full body of its text. Starting with Alexander Dow in 1782,
segments of the text mainly concerning its "Muslim" portions, were
translated and reproduced in antiquarian articles and broad histories.
These excerpts were labeled as "history" and were read at face value,
solely to answer the question of what happened in the early eighth
century. Such was the radical consequence of reading Chachnama
as a translation and a text foreign to India that an inquiry into Is­
lam’s origins could summarily disregard any "prc-Islamic" portion
of this text.
So it occurred that in the work of British Orientalists and the his­
torians who followed |specifically the nationalist and social schools),
Chachnama became the social, philological, and historical foundation
for a unitary understanding of Islam's origins. Scholars did the careful
work of Arabic philology to ascertain the urtext. They were guided
by the unerring belief that the historical truth is clearest when it is
closest to the historical time of the event. Modern scholarship scanned
sentences for "facts" that were then compiled in relation to other tex­
tual facts and were made to stand in for the truth of the origins. The
16 INTRODUCTION

actors in the text—no matter their textual or historical specificity—

became the heroes and villains of the present. However, I argue that
Chachnama is not a conquest narrative about Islam’s origins on the
Indian subcontinent. Rather, it is a prescriptive text advocating for a di­
alogical present for its thirteenth-century world and a political system
that encompasses diversity in that present. It does so by drawing upon
rich textual traditions from Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian that were
available to the learned audiences of the time.
To situate Chachnama means to read the text from the historical
site of production and to look at the landscape from the text's perspec­
tive. I advance an argument in the book that the study of the medieval
past of India ought to incorporate the perspective of the post-colonized
and post-partitioned subjects of contemporary South Asia. The histo­
rian of modern India, modern Pakistan, modern Bangladesh, and
modern Afghanistan keenly considers the ways in which the t947 or
1971 partitions affect their work—the splitting of languages, archives,
monuments, communities. The medieval historian, in contrast, has re­
mained sanguine in the face of these critical divisions of documen­
tary and lived evidence of the past.
The central concern animating the book is, how do we read a text
through space and read a space through a text. By space, 1 mean the
physical geography (landscape, town, routes, regionl as well as the con­
ceptual space—such as dar (region), bilad (state), desh (country), nmlk
(nationl. By text, 1 mean the manuscript, the printed paper as well as
the cultural memory, and the material remains of the past. Why did
the Chachnama persist in cultural and political memory through the
last eight centuries’ I answer that question by treating the Chachnama
as a living text—embedding it in the material and cultural history of
contemporary Uch and engaging with its cultural memory. This work
is spatial and textual, but it is augmented through my engagement with
the ethnographic and the archco-topographic (the built environment,
the living remains of the past, and the habitation of people). Over three
years (2009-2012), I spent months walking in Uch. My aim was to
reimagine the thirteenth century site of production of Chachnama—a
world in which the sites of power were neither Delhi nor Lahore, nei­
ther London nor Islamabad. To think with Uch as a political center of
a world in transition is to reimagine the conceptual geography of north
 INTRODUCTION 17

India. After all, it was from Uch that Qabacha sent governors to Diu
in Gujarat; and it was to Uch that trade and traffic came from Kabul,
Makran, and Muscat.
It was from reading very different texts written in medieval Uch—
sacral, poetic, historical—that I was able to see the world of Chachnama
as an Indian Ocean world constitutive of Muscat and of Gujarat. The
circulation of people, of ideas, and of artifacts in this region of the In­
dian Ocean ecuntene shaped the stories contained in Chachnama and
shaped the questions that I am asking of the text.'2 The presence of
sacral sites in Uch are indicative of a long history of arrivals—of reli­
gious, political, and trading communities. That their material and ar­
chaeological remains are still inhabited and cared for demonstrates
that this is a space where the past has remained a significant part of
self-identity. Yet the cultural memory of Uch and its current economic
and political life are at great odds. How do the material remains of a
forgotten capital shape the contours of research on medieval India? Our
presentist historiography occludes new modes of questioning the past
and creates spatial and temporal divisions that seem natural but actu­
ally hide past realities. The textual materials historians use to study
medieval pasts are distended from their sites of production. The ar­
chives now exist in London, Berlin, or Cambridge and manuscripts
are often studied without due attention to their spatial and textual his­
tory. Such inquiries create a false geography of the past. My field of
inquiry thus encompassed the text, the afterlife of the text, and the
method of the historian. I saw that an examination of Chachnama and
its afterlife puts into stark relief the limits of how we conceive of the
past. Understanding how an unreading of the origins narrative, and a
reading of its political purpose, opens up historical questions is the
main work of this book.
A methodology of medievalists walking in landscapes of ruins—and
extracting lessons for the present or future—is part and parcel of
the post-Rankian historical enterprise. Precisely when it comes to
re-creating past imperial hubris, we can recall the French encounter
with the Egyptian ruins, such as case of Constantin-Francois Volney's
Voyage en Egypte et en Syria (1787) followed by his influential Les Ru-
ines, ou Meditations sur les Revolutions des Empires (1791), which pos­
ited decline from the material ruins of his contemporary observances
18 INTRODUCTION

of cities in the Levant.-13 Or we can imagine Edward Gibbon walking

in Roman ruins in Italy and framing the question of "decline." Or we
can imagine Arnaldo Momigliano later walking among those same
ruins and launching a critique of historiography and the politics of
empire.34
Yet Uch is not a ruin and should not be understood as such.34 It is
certainly the case that topography—the slow rise and sharp jut of its
mounds, interspersed with pathways—is dotted with medieval and
early modern structures which attract a traffic of believers and sup­
plicants. It is certainly also true that large portions of its landscape act
as sarcophagi, with graveyards shaded by living trees and traversed by
the footpaths. Yet this is not the topography of ruins, frozen in time,
asking to be interpreted through the prism of presentist concerns. The
mounds of Uch break up the flat plains of southern rural Punjab and
offer striking views of distant horizons. The graves amassed next to
doorsteps make one feel closer to the earth. The shrines are social hubs
of great import that maintain lively traffic. The analytical gaze then
has to respond to this liveliness, this lived-in-ness, and this particular
presence of active pasts.
The analytical gaze needs to be structured differently than the gaze
offered by Gibbon or Momigliano.36 It was through my engagement
with Walter Benjamin—specifically the ideas of Beniamin in his writ­
ings on Paris and Berlin in the nineteenth century—that I formed a
methodological framework that would not reduce Uch to a picturesque
background for a study of Chachnama or see it as site of nostalgic re­
cuperation.1' In the two small texts on Paris and Berlin, Benjamin asks
us to think about the creation of social spaces as interpellations of sto­
ries, interior and observed, as informing the reading of the text.38 In
my encounters with the landscape of Uch, the presence of the past—
never the same past—impressed upon me the need to begin thinking
about Chachnama as a text produced with a distinct idea of a center
and to think about the spatial understanding of the past it encompasses
through its depictions of material and natural landscape. Hence, 1 came
to observe Uch as the political and spiritual center it was at the time
of the production of Chachnama. This allowed me to locate interpre­
tative footholds in the text itself.
 INTRODUCTION 19

These walks in Uch attuned me to stories connected to specific

sites, to nature, and to landscape in particular. The sacral, historical,
and political geographies of Uch constitute a symbiotic relationship.
Varied texts such as Chachnama from 1226, Sufi Makhdum Jahani-
yan's Safarnama from 1550, Mir Muhammad Masum Bhakkari's
Ta'rikhi Ma'sumi from 1600, and Mir Ali Shir-Qani'i's Tuhfat-ul
Kirani from 1788 are called upon to accentuate the historical past and
to provide explanations for the present. Events, personalities, descrip­
tions, and objects from these historical sources arc part of everyday
conversations. It is common to hear of Makhdum Jahaniyan's gift to
Firuz Shah "highluq of the handprint of the Prophet, which cemented
both his rule and that of his descendants in Delhi.-'1'
A series of forts built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
dot the adjoining Cholistan desert between Uch and Ahmadabad in
Gujarat. The forts—Derawar, Islamgarh, Mirgarh, lamgarh, Khangarh,
Khairgarh, and Ramgarh—are central to the imagined landscape of
Uch although the international border between India and Pakistan has
rendered that route impassable for seven decades. Though the forts
stretch into the Rajasthan desert, the stories in Uch arc linked to those
on the other side of the border. These memories of a route traveled via
camels by pilgrims, traders, merchants, and soldiers continue to inform
the rhythms of life in Uch. The invocations of these desert outposts
are integral to the sacral landscape of Uch and its relationship to the
political landscape of medieval India.

Organization of the Book

I began to organize this book with the frame within which the study
of Muslim pasts in India is undertaken—a frame that explores first the
question of spatial otherness and then political, linguistic, and social
otherness. This particular framework came into being in the nine­
teenth century via the colonial British inquiry into understanding
Indian past as a history of prior failed Muslim polities. The most well-
known and demonstrative figure of this historiography is Henry Myers
Elliot, whose The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians col­
lapsed the history of Islam and the history of Muslim polities within
20 INTRODUCTION

the same frame. Elliot relied on translated excerpts from Chachnama

as key evidence for the violence and depravity in the very origins of
Muslim political history in India.
I approach the construction of this narrative by arguing that the
text at the heart of Chachnama is misread, mischaracterized, and
misplaced. It is misread as a translation of an earlier Arabic text; in
fact it is an original Persian text from the early thirteenth century. It
is mischaracterized as a conquest narrative; in reality it is a work of
political theory. It is misplaced as a source of Muslim origins; indeed
it represents a politically heterogeneous world of thirteenth-century
Sind.
I aim to give a genealogical reading of Chachnama that provides a
"history of morals, ideals and metaphysical concepts ... as they stand
for emergence of different interpretations ... as events on the stage of
historical process."40 The book then reads the entirety of Chachnama
to reconstruct its historical identity and to locate how it made "con­
tributions to particular discourses, and thereby recognize the ways in
which (it] followed or challenged or subverted the conventional terms
of those discourses themselves."41 My book begins by situating the po­
litical and social history of the region of Sind in the Indian Ocean ec­
umene. It then situates Chachnama in a thirteenth-century political
and social world. The next three chapters constitute a close reading of
the text in relation to particular historiographic traditions. In the last
chapter, I trace of the afterlife of Chachnama and demonstrate how it
becomes the origins narrative for Islam's arrival in India.
In Chapter i, "Frontier with the House of Gold," I present the po­
litical and social history of translocal networks stretching across
the Indian Ocean. I trace a connected history for India and Arabia be­
fore the eighth century, a history of Muslim campaigns in India from
the earliest Arabic sources, and a political history of Muslim polities
in Sind from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries.
In Chapter 2, "A Foundation for History," I demonstrate that
Chachnama is not a translated history from Arabic into Persian, Rather
it is a work created in thirteenth-century Uch and reflects the political
and social concerns of Qabacha’s court in Sind. 1 do so by situating
Chachnama in Persian historiography and textual productions of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 1 then show that Chachnama docs
 INTRODUCTION II

not fit the genre of conquest narrative, by examining it against the ear­
liest Arabic conquest texts. Finally, I demonstrate the presence of a
diverse and intertwined political and cultural space in medieval Sind
by reading the Arabic and Persian archives from the ninth to the thir­
teenth centuries.
In Chapter j, "My Son, What Is the Matter with You?" I argue that
advice—dialogic, didactic, and demonstrative—is the mode for pre­
senting a theory of politics in Chachnama. Letters are the primary
template for the models of advice in the text. They provide the clearest
articulation of Chachnama's theory of politics. I argue that Chachnama
is a fully Indic text influenced by texts and genres from Persian as well
as Sanskrit, reflecting the intertwined world of thirteenth-century
Sind.
In Chapter 4, "A Demon with Ruby Eyes," I turn explicitly to the
question of difference in Chachnama's theory of the political. This
chapter explores the political theory of understanding difference as
presented in Chachnama to consider the question of religious differ­
ence, cohabitation, and political organization in the thirteenth
century. 1 show that Chachnama focuses on the recognition of diverse
sacrality, the quest for accommodation of different communities, and
the role of politics in governing difference.
Chapter 5, "The Half Smile," presents the broader social world of
Chachnama, which included powerful women in key political roles
such as queens and advisors. It shows how Chachnama utilizes narra­
tives of politically powerful women to articulate a theory of ethical
subjecthood by focusing on their political will, desire, intuition, and
critical acuity for political risks.
In Chapter 6, "A Conquest of Pasts," I show how the European trans­
lation project in the eighteenth century created the fundamental
question of origins for Islam in India and then posited Chachnama as
the key text. Hence, I look at the longue duree interest in Chachnama
from the fourteenth century to the present. I begin with the history of
the text through medieval and early modern periods. The transition for
Chachnama as a history of conquest occurs after the English transla­
tion of Alexander Dow {1735—1779)-1 trace Chachnama in the works of
British colonial historians, Indian nationalist historians, scholars of
Islam, and Indian Marxist historians.
22 INTRODUCTION

Origins are a seductive necessity for historians. We pay little heed

to Marc Bloch's admonishment in 1941 that "an origin is a beginning
which explains. Worse still, a beginning which is a complete explana­
tion. There lies the ambiguity, and there the danger!"42 This book
against origins is a contextual reading of a medieval text that fore­
grounds the burden of unreading the afterlife of that text.
 1
Frontier with the House of Gold

In March 2011, I went to Uch—a dusty, small town in southern

Punjab from which the river Indus changed its course many hundreds
of years ago. This was my third visit to the town; previously in 2004
and 2006 I had worked in the private collections of two local families,
examining a manuscript of the Chachnama. Each morning, 1 asked for
a list of sacral sites that I should visit that day, and each morning my
hosts, the Bukhari family, gave me a different list. My explorations in­
cluded the shrines of Safi al Din Gourzani |d. roo7l, Jalaluddin Jaha-
nian Jahangasht |d. 1383), and Jalaluddin Surkh Bukhari |d. 1291I; the
tombs of Baha'al-Halim (built 1378) and Bibi lavindi (built 1493), and
the mosque associated with Muhammad bin Qasim. Along with lists
came instructions to pay special attention to the trees—the one that
was planted by Muhammad bin Qasim and under which a senes of em­
inent Sufis had meditated; the one behind the tomb of Bibi Javindi to
which childless women could pray for a boon; the one which covered
the graves that lined the way to the shrine of Surkh Bukhari and whose
shade would help rid a person of sins.
It was suggested that 1 follow the contours of the wall that runs
along Uch Bukhari and Uch Gilani, dissecting the bazaar and the me­
dieval city. At Jahanian Jahangasht’s tomb, 1 was told to visit the wall on
which he had sat and traveled to different parts of the world, including
Egypt, Mecca, and Medina.1 From his travels, lahaniyan Jahan Gasht (the

15
24 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF COLD

List of sacral sites of Uch Sharif (Photo© Manan Ahmed Asif.)

honorific )ahangasht is "one who goes around the world"), brought

back sacral objects—the handprint of All, the footprint of the Prophet—
that are embedded in various locations in Uch. These were the sort of
details to which my hosts directed my attention. 1 gathered these lists,
along with hand-drawn maps of Uch, tracing out the pathways con­
necting the sites. I spent my days threading through the graves, the
mounds, and the shrines. At return each night, I would tick off the sites
I had visited.
The stories surrounding these sacral objects suggesi an intercon­
nected social world that stretched from this dusty town to metropo­
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 25

lises in Syria, Iraq, and Iran through nodes in the Indian Ocean and
the Red Sea, The personages who are now buried in Uch had them­
selves hailed from parts of Arabia, Iran, and Central Asia. These Sufi
saints left further legacies in India, as their sons, grandsons, and spiri­
tual heirs moved from Uch to Gujarat, to the Deccan, and to Bengal.
Even the briefest sketch of trade relations and maritime contact be­
tween India and Arabia should bring into stark relief the assumptions
that undergird histories of Muslim origins in India—that the commu­
nities of India first encountered Arabs only as conquerors in the eighth
century. As one approaches the age of Islam in Arabia, the issues of
trade, navigation, knowledge, and access to the Indian Ocean arc be­
come intimately tied to our understandings of the society and world­
view into which Muhammad was born and where he declared the first
Muslim state. The encounter of that state with the geography of western
India was twofold: it was a continuation of the Indian Ocean trade and
migration network as well as a response to the political aftermath of
the dissolution of the Sassanid Empire.
The presence of Arab communities in Sind and Gujarat far predates
the beginning of Muslim polities in Arabia. The Muslim politics in
Sind that emerged in the eighth century undoubtedly helped the growth
of trade and settlement networks between Arabia and India. Settle­
ments in Aden, Muscat, Diu, and Thana predate the Arabian Muslim
empires of Damascus and Baghdad. There are numerous mentions of
Arab families who settled in these regions in political exile or as traders.
These regions offer connected histories—the proof of their interactions
lies in the gift registries of various Arab courts, in translations of texts,
in the settlements of communities, and in built architecture.
One response to the origins narrative of conquest in historiography
is to separate the "peaceful" presence of Muslims in India from the
"conquest" presence. Not only does such an approach pose the problem
of apologia, there are no analytical reasons to offer such a separation.
The two are intricately intertwined. Instead of narratives of arrivals, we
need a consistent history of being Muslim in India. The origins narra­
tive forecloses any reading of the Muslim past in India as being inter­
connected or socially and culturally heterogeneous. Rather, it presents a
particular idea of "conquest"—one centered on Muslim violence against
Hindu rulers and subjects, prejudicial taxation, and temple destruction.
26 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE Of GOLD

This chapter reopens that history to see how historical records from
a variety of sources present political and mercantile interactions be­
tween Arabia and India. The formation of an Indian Ocean milieu and
the following discussion of Greek accounts of India in general and Al­
exander the Great's campaigns in particular are necessary for they
constitute the textual milieu for Chachnama's world: Chachnama
makes explicit references to Alexander and styles itself as conquest lit­
erature. Hence, in order to reread Chachnama. 1 must present the
ways in which pre-Muslim conceptions of Sind are present in the text
as well as take stock of the historiography of conquest prior to the text,
including the very genre of conquest literature. A most critical example
of pertinent conquest literature is the mid-ninth-century account pro­
vided by the historian Baladhuri in his book Futuh al-Buldan.
With that in mind, I turn first to the outermost frame of the Indian
Ocean and the Greek accounts of India that are quoted in Chachnama.
Next, I map the terms "Hind" and "Sind" in Arab historiography, and
I provide a political history that is articulated in those accounts. My
aim is not to recover earliest accounts of Muslim campaigns but to
demonstrate the inherently connected ways in which those sources
presented the world of medieval Sind.

Sind as an Indian Ocean Region

Geographer Martin Lewis once cautioned that "geographical termi­

nology before the nineteenth century was anything but precise. La­
bels for large expanses of water or land were often deployed in a casual
manner, imperfect synonyms abounded, and the transposition of place­
names was common."1 Early textual references to the Indian Ocean
are the perfect illustration of Lewis’s warning, not only in terms of la­
beling but also in definition. Consider that the Indian Ocean arc, geo­
graphically speaking, can extend from the Red Sea to the South China
Sea, Africa to Australia. It encompasses the East African coastlines
from Somalia down to Mozambique, the southern Arabian coasts of
Yemen, Oman, and the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the western
coasts of India, the Bay of Bengal, and around to the South China Sea.
Even as it connects all of these economies and societies, its "ocean-
ness," until recently, was highly debatable. Like the Mediterranean,
the Indian Ocean is situated at the center of numerous East-West
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 27

and North-South connections throughout the history of various civi­

lizations. It is precisely because of this rich history of contacts across
millennia that the term "Indian Ocean" obfuscates more than it re­
veals; it is imprecise in its usage and uncertain in its range of usage
across time.
The Indian Ocean arc, thus, needs further delineation. One can
single out some of the various seas that constitute the arc: the Red Sea,
the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bay of Bengal, and the South
China Sea. There are at least four distinct networks of maritime
contact and movement between coastal cities and communities:
between the Gulf and East Africa (Hadramawt to Somalia); the Gulf
and the western shores of India (Muscat to Daybul or Surat or Ca­
licut); the eastern coast of Bengal and the Andaman and Malay islands;
the southern China shore and Southeast Asian archipelago. These net­
works varied a great deal over time in terms of activity and exposure.
They were augmented by smaller maritime trade networks and supple­
mented by land routes such as the Red Sea routes up the Arabian penin­
sula or the Yemen, Sind, and Gujarat routes. Discussions of the "Indian
Ocean network" in the ancient or the medieval era, the early modern
era or, even the modern eras are really discussions of particular nodes
on particular networks, all with their own contingent histories. For ex­
ample, the two dominant foci of examination in existing scholarship
are the Harrapan and Mesopotamian trade connection and the ancient
Rome-to-India trade route. Both of these would constitute one arterial
network among the many Indian Ocean nodes.'
Nile Green has argued for carving up another monolithic category,
"Middle East," into a subcategory, "Indian Ocean Arena," by "placing
the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf, and parts of Iraq into an Indian Ocean
arena that positions these regions into contact with the Horn of Af­
rica, East Africa, India, and even Southeast Asia."1 This is a sensible
argument that also allows us to address temporal discontinuities in our
archival materials. There is no doubt that the complexity of source ma­
terial |from linguistic variation to major lacuna in scholarly coverage!,
the diversity of nodes, and the resultant fissures in historiography make
it impossible to paint a comprehensive picture of the "Indian Ocean-
Middle East arena" that makes sense from the fifth millennium BCE
to the modern era. The archaeological (as well as numismatic and epi­
graphic) evidence for premedieval periods is sketchy due both to the
18 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE Of GOLD

vastness of terrains that need coverage and to the political realities that
have made inquisitive activities such as digs quixotic, to say the least.
Our textual evidence is no better. The sources are limited and scat­
tered, and scholars arc prone to specializing in particular genres of
texts to the detriment of a comprehensive picture. As a result, there
are clusters of archaeological and epigraphic data that sometimes dove­
tail with anachronistic textual data but often do not, since scholars
are working with many silences. Still, taking up Green's suggestion,
an Indian Ocean-Middle East arena is precisely the arc of activity and
movement that constitute Sind as an Indian Ocean region, linking
Indus-vallcy coastal towns down to the Guiarat region as well as across
the Arabian Gulf to Muscat and Aden.
Such an understanding of this region has deep roots in antiquity.
Archaeological evidence for seafaring and exchange networks in the
Red Sea and Arabian Gulf begins as early as the fourth millennium
BCE. That network of trading vessels, relying on monsoon winds, sea
currents, and navigable straits, moved in nodes between the Harappan
and the Mesopotamian cities.' Those earliest contacts involved ex­
changes of orc, grains, and ceremonial artifacts.6 Into the Hellenistic
period, a substantial trade "crossed the waters between Roman Egypt,
the eastern coast of Africa, the western and southern coasts of Arabia,
and the western coast of India."’ This sea trade supplemented the land
routes via Petra to Palmyra in Syria, and it consisted mainly of "the
acquisition of elephants used by the Egyptian military and of gold to
facilitate Ptolemaic payment of mercenary troops and other related
military expenditures.'” On their return, the ships carried oil and wine,
glassware, drinking vessels, tools, precious stones, and copper." Roughly
stated, this pattern of merchandise originating in China, the Maldives,
East Africa, or Southern India and traveling via sea and land routes to
markets in Greater Syria, Egypt, and the Mediterranean world persisted
throughout the classical period.10
The majority of classical Greek accounts of maritime activity
throughout the Red Sea, Arabia, and the coastal cities of India survive
in later histories and geographies such as those by Strabo (ca. 64 BCE
to 11 CE), Pliny the Elder (ca. 77 CE|, and Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 146-
170 CE). The most notable source on the trade between Rome and India
from the first century is the Periplus Maris Erythraei. a document
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD »9

written by an unknown sailor between 40 and 70 CE that survives tn

a single manuscript from the early tenth century." In these accounts,
there are some explicit mentions of ports on the Indus River. These
early sources seem to suggest that the trade encompassed only luxury
items—gold, pearls, gemstones, silk, etc. However, recent research
shows that the earliest trade between Rome and India had a much
heavier emphasis on staple and bulk goods: salt, sugar, pepper, ordinary
cloth, coir, timber, copper, and iron.12
I should note that the conceptions of "India" tn these Greek or
Roman sources had affected later Arab historiography by constructing
fantastic visions of the wonders of India.13 It is largely the region of Sind
(tagged as India) which emerged as a land of marvels from these ear­
liest Greek sources. These sources in turn influenced the bulk of future
accounts. The fifth-century BCE treatise on India by Ctesias of Cnidus
and the fourth-century BCE Indica by Megasthenes both fall into this
category. Ctesias was reported to have been a physician with the court
of Artaxerxes Mneinon of Persia, while Megasthenes reportedly trav­
eled to India with Alexander the Great. These texts, compiled from
later accounts, provide geographical details peppered with fabulous
reports of a land populated with animals of great size (ants, scorpions,
and crabsl, of people without heads and with eyes on their shoulders,
of men who have faces like dogs, and of other men who have no nos­
trils and a single eye in the forehead.1* Megasthenes's marvels of India
were reproduced and augmented in Pliny's Historia Naturalis, finished
in 77 CE, and in Solinus's Collectanea Rerum Memorabilhun. written
in the third century. India, in these accounts, retained its preeminence
as a land of great wealth and wonder. These collections of extraordi­
nary and marvelous stories defined India as frontier at the edge of the
known world, overflowing with riches and the supernatural.15
The decline of the Roman presence in the Red Sea and beyond co­
incided with, or more likely was a result of, the rise of the Sassanian
and Chinese merchants and the development of multmodal trade
in the Indian Ocean world: Madagascar and Indonesia, Somalia and
Aden, Quanzhou and Kerala, and above all, Sarandip. The paucity of
textual archives regarding trade in these locales during late antiquity
remains a problem. Thus, these local networks, with their ebbs and
flows, are largely hidden from history. From archaeological evidence as
30 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

well as a few textual sources, it is clear that the Sassanitl Empire (r.
216-651 CE| took over much of the trade flowing in the Persian and
Arabian Gulfs from the fourth century onward. Excavations in cities
like Siraf, Rishahr, and Jazirat al-Ghanam have revealed substantial
evidence of Sassanian port activity and settlement.16 These port sites
acted as trading hubs, with merchants from various nodes trafficking
through Sarandip.1’
The sixth-century work by Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian To­
pography, contains a chapter on Sarandip in which he describes a world
of translocai trade flowing tn and out of its ports, all managed primarily
by Sassanian merchants. Cosmas states that the island of Sarandip was
frequented by ships from Persia, China, Ethiopia, and India. From
China, it imported silk, aloes, cloves, and sandalwood, which were
taken to places on the Malabar coast: Sind, Himyar, and Adule. From
Indian ports came ivory,- pepper from Malabar, musk, castor, and spike­
nard from Sind, and copper, sesame wood, and cloth from Khambat.1"
By the end of the sixth century, the Sassanians controlled the west­
ward flow of this trade by owning the port cities along the Arabian and
Persian Gulf as well as the city of Daybul in Sind, which was captured
during the reign of Bahram V (421-438). The Byzantine emperors Justin
(518-527) and Justinian (527-565) made repeated efforts to break the Sas­
sanian hold over trade at Sarandip, even convincing the Christian
Ethiopian kingdom of Axum to invade and occupy Yemen in 524/25.
The Sassanians retaliated by subduing Aden in 575 and taking over Bab
al-Mandab, the entrance to the Red Sea.”
The description of such nodal sea routes, with transactions hap­
pening in a number of coastal economies, is home out by accounts of
visits to Buddhist shrines in India and Ceylon by Chinese pilgrims
from the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries?" The Han ambassador
Zhang Qian, who travelled to Shen-tu (Sindl during the second century
BCE (138-125 BCE), is the earliest extant account on Kashmir. This
does attest to the region but contains no information on trading ac­
tivity. The two later reports, by the monk Faxtan (active ca. 399-417
CE) and the pilgrim Xuanzang (602-664 CE), provide firsthand and de­
tailed reports of cities, ports, and routes in the Sind region. Faxian
takes a merchant ship to reach Sarandip and comments that "mer­
chants of different countries resort here to trade."21 Taken collectively,
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 31

these reports clearly substantiate the nature of the trade (they mention
specific goods produced! as well as the existence of settlements across
the western coast and in Sarandip.
In Arab geographic accounts, India is referred co by the compound
al-Hind wa'l Sind (Hind and Sindl.Sind typically referred specifically
to the Indus River valley and north to Kashmir, while Hind referred
to Gujarat, Kerala, and beyond. Tracing the land attached to che word
al-Hind {Hind} through pre-Islamic and early Muslim sources is an
exercise in conjecture. However, Hind is usually understood in con­
temporary scholarship to denote "India." Andre Wink, for example,
states in the preface to his three-volume study al-Hind:

"India" or al-Hind. throughout the medieval period, was an Arab

or Muslim conception. The Arabs, like the Greeks, adopted a pre­
existing Persian term, but they were the first to extend its applica­
tion to the entire Indianized region from Sind and Makran to the
Indonesian Archipelago and mainland Southwest Asia. It therefore
appears to us as ii the Indians or Hindus acquired a collective iden­
tity in interaction with Islam.12

This assessment from Wink highlights one of the key issues in the
discussion of the idea of India—that India (or Hindu or Hinduism) is a
construction imposed from the outside.1’ Wink's twin claims—that
Arab geographers extended the meaning of Hind to cover the subcon­
tinent and that Hindus acquired a collective identity through their in­
teractions with Muslims—take as a given that al-Hind had a clear
and concrete meaning to Arab geographers and that it remained un­
changed from the sixth to the eleventh century. It fails to consider that
Hind and Sind were cognate categories and that Sind was often the geo­
graphic entity represented in mercantile sources concerned with Ara­
bian trade. Tracing the arrival of the word Hind itself into Arabic is
also conjectural.1* Scholars generally agree that Hind |as a geograph­
ical construct) most probably entered Arabic via Sassanid usage of
Sindu. Sindu in Sanskrit can refer to any stream, river, or ocean but is
often taken to mean as the "local name of Indus."25 A Babylonian list
includes a reference to "muslin—the Indian cloth—called iadin."u
Sindhu or Sinfti, referring, perhaps, to the the river Indus or to the sea
off the coast of Aden, is also found in Assyrian sources.27
3» FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

From the seventh century to the ninth, the activities of merchants

and pilgrims continue to shape this region as an Indian Ocean region,
with ships from China routinely sailing in the Red Sea, and Arab dhows
a common presence in the Malay islands?’ A typical description of this
sea trade, including routes, sites, and communities, survives in the
anonymous Akhbar wa’I-Hmd. dated in the mid-ninth century:

As for the places which they reach they relate that most of the Chi­
nese boats are loaded at Siraf and that the goods are carried to Siraf
from Basra, Oman and other ports.... Then from there the boats set
sail for al-Hind destined for Kulam Malay, and the journey from
Muscat to Kulam Malay IQuilon, Kcralal, with moderate winds, is
one month.1*

Sind as an Indian Ocean region was thus long connected with Arabia
land farther afield). It contained settlements, trading connections, and
ports that predated the birth of Islam, and these connections continued
after the rise of Muslim political power in the region.
The region of Sind, as an adjacent geography, faced military cam­
paigns from the Muslim polity based in Medina, and later those in
Damascus and Baghdad. The various military campaigns, expeditions,
and settlements must also be properly contextualized to provide a fuller
picture of the eighth-century history invoked by Chachnama. In in­
voking this history myself, I am cognizant of the danger of re-creating
Chachnama's understanding of Muslim past by simply producing my
own temporally bound history of conquest. Hence, when in the fol­
lowing section I turn toward the history of Arab political and military
efforts in the region of Sind as reconstructed from mid-ninth century
Arabic histories, I do so with the understanding that these texts are
in themselves documents asserting political and social power and
that they cannot be read at face value as empirical, factual history. I
revisit them to detail the historical and historiographic imagination
employed within Chachnama.

Writing Conquest

To trace this history of Muslim campaigns in Sind, 1 turn our focus to

the futuh ("opening," understood as conquest) narratives. This genre
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 33

emerged in the ninth century out of the the older sira texts, which de­
scribed the life of the Prophet. In sira texts, accounts of the Prophet's
military campaigns laid the foundation for the development of futuh.
However, futuh had both a historiographical and a political function
to play in early Islam, as Fred Donner argues:

The Umayyads, who from the time of Abd al-Malik (685-705) on seem
to have supervised an increasingly clear articulation of the Muslim
community as a distinct monotheist confession, began to encourage
the recounting and collection of reports about how the conquest had
been organized and how they had proceeded. Their purpose was to
establish what we might call a narrative weapon to bolster their
claims to hegemony over their vast non Muslim populations, by re­
lating the conquests’ apparently miraculous successes.”

The futuh narratives, which served the purpose of legitimizing

political authority or genealogical claims of supremacy and validation,
developed into a crucial source on a range of external issues: conver­
sion, taxation, administration, and—most importantly—Muslim en­
counters with diverse communities. The futuh narratives began as
testimony from participants in the military campaigns or from second­
hand narrators. These were accounts of personal or tribal bravery and
valor augmented by information about military appointments and de­
cisions into a narrativized history of the conquest of a specific region.
The genre held onto its internal motifs (letters between commanders,
instructional lists, etc.l even as it developed the usage of isnad (chains
of transmission) and a divinely inspired teleology. During their devel­
opment in the ninth and tenth centuries, the futub narratives also
emerged as key informants for the works of geographers, the universal
historians, and the compilers of biographical dictionaries. The ear­
liest extant futuh—such as the Ta'rikh Futuh al-Sham (conquest of
Syria) by Azdi Basri (d. 810)—illustrate the regional focus as well as
the narrative drive of Islam's preordained eminence.
Based on the citations offered by later historians, the earliest futuh
that dealt specifically with Hind and Sind were written by Mada'ini
(d. 843I?1 Baladhuri |d. 892), Ya’qubi (d. 905I, and Tabari (d. 923) were
three universal historians of the tenth century who all incorporated
Mada’ini’s books into their accounts on Hind and cited him as the
34 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

primary source. Mada'ini is reported to have written his futuh from

detailed firsthand accounts of the participants in the campaign. He is
the only one of the early historians to have dealt directly with the con­
quest of Sind. The greatest amount of his material (as well as direct
quotations! appears in the work of Baladhuri, who is the only one of the
three historians to have a section devoted to the conquest of Sind.
Since no other historian from the period—notably neither Tabari nor
Ya’qubi—offer greater detail on the account provided by Baladhuri, I
can conjecture that his text is the chief source on the campaigns in
Sind for Chachnama. and we can retrace the historiographical roots
of Chachnama's account by examining Baladhuri.

Baladhuri's Account of Sind

Baladhuri lived and died in Baghdad during the ninth century. The
probable date for his birth is in the 8tos. Persian by birth, he came from
a scribal family (his grandfather Jabir was also employed as a scribe and
a secretary). It is said that he traveled widely in Iraq and Khurasan. He
studied directly with Mada'ini. He found work as a translator from Per­
sian into Arabic in the courts of the Abbasid caliphs Wathik (d. 847)
and Mutawakkil |d. 861). He became a close confidant of the latter. He
authored two of the greatest surviving works in early Muslim histori­
ography: Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (Book of Conquest of Lands) and Ansab
al-Ashraf (Genealogy of the Noblest. The conquest of Sind is described
tn his Kitab Futuh al-Buldan. which also carries the title of Kitab al-
Buldan al-Kabir (Book of Great Lands). It begins with Muhammad's
migration to Medina and continues to describe battles and conquests
during the Prophet's lifetime. After Arabia, Baladhuri has chapters on
the conquest of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Spain, Persia, and at the very end, a
short section on the conquest of Sind. Baladhuri begins that section
with a direct transmission from Mada'ini as his primary source for the
entire section.32
Baladhuri’s history, produced for the 'Abbasid court, is removed
from the earliest historical events it narrates by more than two hun­
dred years and is thus itself an act of imagining the past. Yet it is not
the facticity or empirical truth of his account that concerns us here.
Rather, it is the way in which this historiography is repurposed by
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 35

Chachnamu, With that in mind, let us turn to his description of the

military campaigns of Muslims toward the region of Hind and Sind,
Baladhuri notes that the first campaign toward Hind did not happen
until the Muslim armies achieved control of a port. During the ca­
liphate of Umar |r. 6)4-644), the appointed governor of Bahrain,
■Uthman bin Abi'l Thaqafi dispatched three naval expeditions to port
cities in Hind in 636: under the command of Hakam Thaqafi to Thana
|near Bombay) and to Broach (in Gujarat); and under Mughira to Daybul
|near the delta of the Indus River)." Baladhuri does not note the size
of the expeditionary force or the intent of the expeditions. Presumably,
these were small sorties, attempting to trace trading networks and gain
a foothold in the ports. It is also probable that these expeditions were
not sanctioned by the caliphate: the governor of Bahram received a
sharp rebuke from Umar when he learned of the expedition: "O Brother
of Thaqif, you have put the worm on the wood. 1 swear, by Allah, that
if they had been smitten, I would have taken the equivalent (m men)
from your families."14 Baladhuri notes that this rebuke stopped further
sea approaches to Sind while the campaigns to subdue the Sassanian
forces in Iran continued eastward through the regions of Khurasan,
Kirman, Sistan, and Makran. Given that the late-ninth-century political
realities of the Ahhasid imperium prevented any military incursions
into Sind, this piece of rebuke served the function of giving historical
precedent for a policy that may be seen as too engrossed in the Ahbasid
eastern front.35
As Baladhuri narrates it, the Sassanid retreat from Iran lingered for
decades, continually driving the Muslim armies into pursuit. It was
at this time, Baladhuri recounts, during the reign of caliph Uthman
bin Affan (r. 644-655I, that another naval expedition was sent to the
frontier of Sind. Hakim bin Jabalah Abdi was dispatched and returned
to deliver a report, described by Baladhuri, on the condition of Sind:
" 'O Commander of the Believers, I examined it (Sind| and know it well.'
The caliph said, describe it. He said, ‘the water supply is sparse, the
dales are inferior, and the robbers are bold. A small army would be lost
there, and a large army would starve.' "•'6 This was enough to dissuade
'Uthman, states Baladhuri, from sending any further expeditions
to Sind, though there were continued efforts to subdue eastern
Afghanistan—Sistan was taken in 651.37 These reports narrated by
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

Baladhuri highlight the scarcity of resources in Sind and condemn

needless expeditions which ended at the frontier—again an indication
of Abbastd policies rather than Umayyad history. Baladhuri records
that the early Umayyad regime mounted a number of campaigns to
subdue rebellious contingents in Sind's neighboring region of Makran,
yet with no real benefit. The list of armies and commanders in the
seventh century given by Baladhuri illustrated the continual pressure
exerted on the eastern Iranian front with a paucity of attention toward
Sind.1' Baladhuri sums up the Umayyad attitude toward Sind in the
words of the poet Hamdani, who lamented:

You are setting off to Makran

how far is that, from you
I have no use for Makran
there lies neither battle nor trade
they asked me to go
I refused
I refuse to even hear its name
such is that place
if too many, they die of want
if too little, of waste?”

Baladhuri describes that it was during the reign of Abd al-Malik

(685—705) that Umayyad attention shifted to quelling the eastern fron­
tier, which had emerged as a safe haven for Kharajite and Alawi |a
proto-Shi’a group that advocated All's caliphate before Uthman) rebels
In 694, Abdal Malik appointed Hana) bin Yusuf Thaqafi to the gover­
norship of Iraq, which administratively included the entire eastern
frontier of the Umayyads. Hajjaj launched an effort to take out strong­
holds against the Muslim military in Makran (largely the Zunhil people
and the Alawi rebels) and push farther into the region. However, the
first commander he dispatched was almost immediately killed.40 In
696, Hajia) sent another commander, Numri, who managed to govern
Makran for a few years. Baladhuri narrated an event during his tenure
that emerged in later historiography as the casus belli of the Muslim
conquest of Sind:

Then Haiiai, after the death of Muiiah, made Muhammad bin Harun
Numri the governor. During his reign, the king of lazirat Yaqut (Sri
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OP GOLD 37

Lanka) sent some women, born in his realm as Muslims, to Haiiai.

Their fathers were traders and had died there. The intention was to
gain the favor of Hai)a|. The ship in which they were sailing was cap­
tured by the Mid people of Daybul, who sail on bawarii (pirate ships).
One of the women from Bani Yarbu cried Ya Haiiai! (Oh Haiiap) and
when he heard of this, he said Ya Labaik (I cornel. He sent a letter to
Dahar for the release of the women. He replied: "They were captured
by pirates, whom I do not control." Hajiaj sent Ubaidullah bin
Nabhan to Daybul, but he was killed. Then he wrote to Budail bin
Tahfah, who was in Oman, and told him to go against Daybul. But
when he faced the enemy, his horse bucked and he was killed by the
enemies. Some say he was killed by the lat people of the Buddhists.41

It is important to note here that Baladhuri places this account more

than a decade before the campaign of Muhammad bin Qasim and
during an already forty-year-old effort to placate the frontier of Makran.
Yet this account of the "abduction of Muslim women" dramatically
reverberates in historiography and popular imagination to this day. It
is an incredibly potent account: a helpless Muslim woman and her cry
for help galvanizing a distant empire into a rescue mission. To the nov­
elists, dramatists, and political commentators, it provides endless per­
mutations of history's silenced voices and the glory of Islam’s heroic
past. Even scholars have rather uncritically embraced this episode as
the rationale for invasion. Writes Wink, "During Hajjai's governorship
it was the ’Mids of Debal’ who kidnapped Muslim women who were
traveling from Sri Lanka to Arabia, providing the occasion for the
Arabs to declare the holy war on Sind and Hind."42 Yet we cannot take
at face value the historiographic significance attached to this account.
In chapter 6,1 will return to this account and show how it emerged in
historiography. It is enough at the moment to recognize that Balad­
huri placed it about a decade before the expedition of Muhammad bin
Qasim.
fudging from Baladhuri’s reconstruction of late-seventh-century
and early-eighth-century Muslim campaigns in Sind, we can conclude
that the Umayyad State was interested in the region for several reasons:
to secure a frontier region against rebels, to address the financial af­
fairs of the Marwanid branch of the Umayyad, and to consolidate mer­
cantile routes.
3« FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

The Expedition of 712

Now I want to turn to Baladhuri's account of Muhammad bin Qasim

to construct the political history that Chachnama drew upon for its
narration. The episode of the captured Muslim women is the totemic
origins narrative framing Muslim arrival in India. As already seen in
the historical record, the presence of Arabs and Muslims in India pre­
dates this particular episode, which itself predates the expedition of
Muhammad bin Qasim in 712. To write against the origins narrative,
one needs to grasp the political history of Qasim's campaign from the
earliest historical sources. In this section, I present the account of Mu­
hammad bin Qasim and the expedition of 712 provided by Baladhun.
The commander of the 712 campaign dispatched to Sind by Hajjai
is Muhammad bin Qasim bin Muhammad bin Hakam bin Abu Ukail.
Qasim was born in Ta'if, near Mecca. We do not know the year of his
birth, but Baladhuri quotes a poet who remarks that he was seventeen
when he conquered Sind, which would put his birth year around 694
CE. He belonged to the powerful and influential Thakif family and was
the nephew of Hajjaj, the most powerful man in the Umayyad empire
at that time. As such, it was at an early age—fifteen or sixteen—that
Hajjai asked him to lead expeditions in Iran.
Baladhuri narrates that Qasim was campaigning in Iran, near
Shiraz, in 710 when he was asked to proceed to Sind with six thousand
troops and auxiliary personnel. Another force was dispatched from
Oman to bring him supplies lincluding thread and needles). Hajjai took
great care to manage the expedition. He even worried about the plight
of dysentery for the armies: he "gathered cotton and soaked it in aged
vinegar and dried it in the shade." He said, "when you reach Sind,
vinegar is very scarce. Drench this cotton in water. Boil the water and
season with it.'"1'
Baladhun narrates Muhammad bin Qasim's successful capturing of
a series of forts, establishing governors there, and moving toward the
capital city of Raja Dahar:

Then Muhammad bin Qasim left Arma’il and with Juhm bin Zuhr
Ju'fi arrived at Daybul on a Friday. There he received ships with men
and weapons and supplies. After getting to Daybul, he constructed
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 39

trenches around the troops and set up lances around the trenches
with flags affixed to them. The armies were stationed under their
flags. He installed a catapult known as ?lrus. which took $oo men
to pull. In Daybul was a great temple |buddl with a tall mast, and on
that mast was a red flag, which covered the city when it blew in the
wind. And they report that the temple had a great minaret built in
the midst of the city, which housed their idols (sanam). The temple
was known by the name of the idols.... Every third day, Hajjaj's let­
ters reached Muhammad, and Muhammad's letters with news of what
he saw in front of him and his thoughts, reached Hanaj. In a letter,
Hajiaj ordered Muhammad, "Install the catapult Arils. Shorten the
east-facing support. Call the operators of Arus and ask them to aim for
the mast which you described to me." The mast was aimed at and
broken, and great distress spread through the Unbelievers. They
left the fort to attack Muhammad, and he drove them back. He or­
dered ladders, and men climbed them to the fort wall—the first being
a man from the Murad of the people of Kufa. The fight lasted for three
days, as Muhammad killed many soldiers there. The governor of
Dahar fled, and the custodian (suadm] of their house of gods was
killed. After the capture of the city, Muhammad measured the quar­
ters for Muslims and built a mosque and settled four thousand men.1*
From Baladhuri's account, Chacbnama and later Persian histories
of Qasim's expedition take up a number of themes: the exchange of let­
ters, the presence of a temple, and the settlement of Muslims. After
the capture of the port city of Daybul, Qasim proceeded to Nirun,
"whose inhabitants sent to Hajjaj |via Qasim| their priests’ plea for
peace. They gave Muhammad supplies and brought him into the city
and confirmed the treaty."45 Similarly, when Qasim "reached this side
of the Mehran River |Indus|, where monks from the Sarbiadas temple
came to him and offered peace. He assigned a governor and imposed a
tax (khara/l on them."16 The role of priestly mediators in the success
of Qasim's campaign is noted repeatedly by Baladhuri. Baladhuri also
emphasizes the negotiated settlements between the Muslim army and
the population: "The inhabitants asked for peace and a treaty, and the
priests worked as envoys to mediate between him and them. He gave
them peace and imposed taxes on them, and as insurance he took some
notables from them and returned to Muhammad with four thousand
of the Jat |Zutt| people. He appointed a governor over Sadusa.'*17
40 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

On the authority of Mada'ini, who was borrowing a war verse com­

posed by a warrior from Banti Kilab, Baladhun reports that Qasim
defeated Dahar in hattie. There is little reason for us to consider the
facticity of these verses, though we can note the continued glory of past
martial contests in Abbasid courtly accounts:

The horses and spears are witnesses

And so is Muhammad bin Qasim bin Muhammad
That I scattered their rows without fear
Until 1 came to their great king with my sword
and left him rolled in the dirt
without pillow for his cheek.*"

After the death of Dahar, Baladhun continues, Qasim's army pro­

ceeds along the river to Multan, making alliances along the way
with a number of communities:

Muhammad continued to Aror and Baghrur when the people of Sawa-

ndari asked him for peace. He gave them peace on the condition that
they feed the Muslims and give them guides. The people of Sawan-
dari arc Muslims today. Then he proceeded toward Samad and made
a treaty with them like the one with Sawandari. Finally, Muhammad
reached Aror. It is one of the cities of Sind and is on a mountain. He
besieged the city and conquered it by treaty with the condition that
he would neither kill them nor enter their temple. He said, "The budd
are like the churches of the Christians and the Jews and rhe fire
houses of the Magians." And he imposed tax (kherd/l on them and in
Aror he built a mosque.19
This description of Muslim armies making treaties and controlling
non-Muslim communities is critically important for the development
of ninth- and tenth-century Muslim polities in Sind. The campaign
reaches the outskirts of Multan, which surrenders after a fierce resis­
tance. Baladhuri recounts that Qasim

gathered great amounts of gold. This was collected in a building

which was io cubits by 8. At its roof, there was an opening into which
all was deposited. From this Multan was known as "Frontier with
the House of Cold" [Farr Bait Dhahab). Farj is thughtir (frontierl. The
temple of Multan was a great temple. Great gifts were brought for it,
offerings were given, and the people of Sind made pilgrimage here.
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 41

They circumambulated it and shaved their heads and beards. They

claim that the idol (sonaml inside is in the likeness of the prophet
lob, may Allah bless him.®

The description of a populous and lively sacral traffic to Multan is

significant, as are the clear equivalences drawn by Baladhuri: the pil­
grimage is explained with a ritual akin to the Muslim ritual of Hajj
Icircumamhulation). The notice that the idol bears the face of the
prophet Job makes another theological commingling. These small tex­
tual markers of translation across sacral regimes are important to
note, for they will be greatly enhanced in the thirteenth-century ac­
count in Chachnama.
Baladhuri narrates the death of Muhammad bin Qasim after the fall
of Multan and after the change in the Umayyad regime in Damascus.
As the campaign is proceeding, the caliph in Damascus, Walid bin
Abdal Malik dies, and his successor, Sulaiman bin Abd al-Malik, holds
no quarter for Hajjai and his family. So he orders that Qasim be ar­
rested, put in chains, and brought back to Syria, where he is impris­
oned and killed. Baladhuri quotes Qasim's lament and eulogizes him
as a great Muslim commander:

Muhammad recited this verse: "They wasted me, and a precious

thing they wasted/On the day of struggle and defense of the frontier,”
The people of Hind cried at his arrest and erected an idol of him in
Kiraj. Salih imprisoned him at Wasit, and Muhammad said, "Though
I am imprisoned in Wasit and its land/in irons, twisted/I fought many
youths of Pcrsia/And many a brave I slaughtered." And he said, "If I
had decided to stay/Many a horse was prepared for battles/and mares.
And the horsemen of Saksak would not have entered our land/And
no Aki would rule over mc/And I would not under an ordinary
slave/Curse you, O Time, who destroys the world of the nobility"
Along with the members of the family of Abu Akil, Salih tortured
and killed Muhammad. Haiiai had killed Salih's brother, Adam, who
shared the opinions of the Kharajites. Hamza bin Baiz Hanafi said,
"Gratitude, forgiveness, and gcnerosity/Were m Muhammad bin
Qasim bin Muhammad/Commanding armies at the age of seven-
teen/How close was his command to his birth." And he further said,
"He commanded at the age of seventeen/ When his contemporaries
were busy playing."51
42 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

This concludes Baladhuri's section on Qasim's campaign in Sind.

His narrative continues to explain that almost immediately after
Qasim’s dismissal, the Muslim armies lost much of the territory over
the southern areas, governing only land south and west of Multan. An­
other Umayyad rebel, Yazid bin Muhallab, seized Sind and was able to
hold it until 723, Hisham bin Abdal Malik dispatched another com­
mander, Junayd bin Abdar Rahman Murn, to Sind in 723. Junayd em­
barked on a significant reconquest of the region, expanding into Gu-
larat and Raiasthan. In 731, the Umayyad founded a city, Mahfuza, as
the Muslim base of operations. Baladhuri states that the city was named
Mahfuza (Sanctuaryl, because "by this time all inhabitants of Hind had
reverted hack to unbelief Irom Islam, and there were no cities safe for
Muslims." Near the end of his account, Baladhuri writes that the region
is torn between two Arab groups—the Hijazi and the Qahtani—who
arc further divided by sectarian differences. He concludes that the Arab
campaigns were followed by shaky political rule: "Governors were dis­
patched to Sind. They fought the enemies, collected the little tribute
available, and suppressed the people who rebelled.”'1
Five significant points from Baladhuri's account of the Muslim
campaigns in Sind bear highlighting. The first is the prominence given
to the Umayyad governor Hajjaj. Baladhuri, as an Abhasid court scribe
could be attempting to critically highlight the policies of the earlier
Umayyad regime. Second, we must consider the full import of the rea­
sons behind Muhammad bin Qasim’s campaign in Sind. It is clear
from Baladhuri that the nascent empire had an acute need to subdue a
frontier territory that provided safe harbor to Umayyad enemies and
rebels. Baladhuri's account is peppered with many names of Alawis
and Kharaiites, evidencing their numbers. Alongside the political con­
cern for subjugation of rebels, there are rare explicit references to the
cost of Muslim campaigns in Sind. Baladhuri notes that Hajjaj spent
60 million dirham on the campaign and recouped 120 million dirham
from the spoils of war. These almost totemic figures indicate the
Umayyad state's monetary crisis. The strained Umayyad military ex­
penditures during the reign of 'Abdal Malik, as detailed by Blankin­
ship, confirms such a reading.
The third point concerns Muslim encounters with polytheists.
Baladhuri is one of the earliest extant sources for our understanding
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 43

of the placement of other faiths in Islam's conception of the world. He

uses the term budd to denote the local religious structure in Sind, but
this term should be read more broadly as polytheism. It is an Arabiza­
tion of the Persian but. which can refer to both image as well as temple.
Baladhuri clearly slates, "Everything they worship is the budd. The
sanam (image) is also budd." The other term that appears in Baladhurt
is samani (from the Sanskrit sramana), which specifically refers to Bud­
dhists in other early Arabic accounts. Baladhuri thus confirms the
presence of Buddhists in Sind.54 Regarding this mixture of polytheists,
Baladhuri's account shows none of Islam's reputed anxieties about idols
and idolaters. Baladhuri uses the word tmishrikun (those who take
other gods) as a descriptor but without any extra gloss. Remarkably,
perhaps only for us, he repeatedly mentions but does not comment on
idols or statues of the Muslim campaigners, including one of Mu­
hammad bin Qasim and one of the man who killed Dahar.
The fourth point concerns the legal treatment of non-Muslim com­
munities in Sind. Baladhuri reports Muhammad bin Qasim to have
declared that "The budd are like the churches of the Christians and
the lews and the fire-houses of the Magians."55 What this comment re­
veals, at the very least for Baladhuri's text, is that the Muslim armies
recognized the sanctity of local sacred spaces. However, the exact legal
status of the local population remains unclear in Baladhuri's account.
Muhammad bin Qasim imposes a tax [kbaraj] on regions he takes by
treaty. From the context, this appears to be a tax based on land hold­
ings. Still, there is no mention of any punitive taxation for non-Muslims
or any other discriminatory legal regime for the local non-Muslim pop­
ulations. As we move into our examination of the thirteenth-century
account of the conquest of Sind, it will be fruitful to keep in mind this
report from the earliest Arabic sources. Further, in the narrative of Mu­
hammad bin Qasim's campaign, Baladhuri does not report any cases
of temple desecration.55
The final point concerns the small overlap between Baladhun and
sources from Sind. The later Muslim campaigns described by Balad­
huri are confirmed in a fleeting epigraphic reference in Gujarat inscrip­
tions from 736-739 CE. They refer to Muslims as Taiika—a generalized
opponent of either central Asian or Arab descent—alongside two other
terms Turuska and Parasika.57 The most detailed account emerges
44 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

from the city of Navasarika in southern Gujarat, where the Calukya

prince Pulakesiraja defeated the Muslim armies. A copper plate
grant records the Calukya king Vallabha bestowing great titles on Pu-
lakesiraja for this feat.58

Sind until the Thirteenth Century

As Baladhuri's narrative progresses through the Umayyad regimes and

into the 'Abbasid era, disruption and distress arc central themes: com­
manders or governors arc killed, cities are founded and abandoned, trea­
ties end in bloodshed. The frontier of Sind retains a markedly chaotic
flavor in these accounts, especially when Baladhuri discusses the Arab
governors who refuse to submit to Damascus or Baghdad. The names
of Kharajites and Ayyar who populate Baladhuri's narratives indicate
the real contestations over political power and revenue on the Indic
frontier between these groups and the 'Abbasid regime. Baladhuri notes
that by the time of the caliph Mu’tasim (r. 815-853), the 'Abbasid state
had sent a long list of governors to Sind. It also had a large influx of
hadith scholars and jurists who made their way to the port cities in
Sind. And though pottery and coins gathered from Samarra, Fustat,
Daybul, and Mansura show that a cross-regional trade existed, the po­
litical climate between Baghdad and Sind remained contentious.59
Baladhuri notes that the earliest city state was established during
the time of Ma’mun (809-815), when Fazal bin Mahan captured the
Gujarat port city of Sindan (near Bombay) and sent an elephant as a
gift to the caliph in Baghdad.6" Baladhuri reports on only two genera­
tions of the Mahaniya who ruled the city and carried out expeditions
against the coastal pirate colonies. The second polity to emerge was
the Habari polity at the city of Mansura. After the death of Mut-
awakkil in 847, Amr bin Abdulaziz Habari declared himself ruler of
Mansura and pledged allegiance to the new 'Abbasid caliph.61 He col­
lected taxes and organized the flow of trade through the channels of
the Indus. The third and final main principality emerged in the city of
Multan around 892.
In 915, when the geographer Mas’udi traveled to Mansura and
Multan, he noted that both cities were governed by descendants of Ali
bin Abu Talib, who were denominationally Shi'a, but that the Friday
 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD 45

sermon in both cities was read in the name of the 'Abbasid caliph.61
These cities had very limited influence outside of their fortifications.
The city states were in constant negotiations with other regional prin­
cipalities, as their revenues depended on travelers and pilgrims. The
little we know of these cities in the ninth and tenth centuries indi­
cates that they did not have many expansionist ambitions. Also of note
is that these were the only cities in the region that included some eth­
nically Arab populations—until the eleventh century- due largely to
consistent migration and settlement traffic from the coasts of Yemen
and Arabia.
In the late ninth century, a new Muslim state was established by
two brothers: Ya'qub and Amr hin Layth Saffari. They threatened
Baghdad itself in the 870s and were given a grant by the 'Abbasid ca­
liphs over Sind. The Saffands took over cities like Ghazna, Qusdar,
Kikan, Qandabil, and Multan, and they held them until 9O0.6-' They
were dethroned by the Samanid, rivals of the Saffarid from Khurasan,
who poured into Makran and took Multan during the second decade
of the tenth century. By this juncture, the fracturing of the Abbasid
polity at Baghdad had eroded even the nominal connection between
the frontier of Sind and the capital of Baghdad.
The lsma'ili ila'wa jsummons, invitation to convert) spread in Sind
from the Yemeni port cities during early tenth century and was fol­
lowed by the emergence of Isma’ih centers and closer relations with
the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt (r. 909-1171). By 965, the city of Multan
was a center of Isma'ili missionary activities across the region.'"' The
caliphate in Baghdad was now only a distant observer of the fringes of
their eastern realm.
The history of Baladhuri and the later geographers demonstrate that
in the early centuries of the second millennium, Sind was a connected
space of multiple small polities and courts with markedly diverse pop­
ulations. This Arabic historiography of Muslim campaigns in the region
of Sind further affirms the reading of Sind as an Indian Ocean region
interconnected with Arabia and Iran from the seventh century on­
ward. The presence of various mercantile and political communities
throughout the eighth and ninth centuries gives prima facie lie to an
originary encounter which posits conquest as the first contact. Yet the
Arab texts do detail a history of a political frontier where the Muslim
46 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

campaigns were directed to gain influence and quell challenges to 'Ab­

basid stability in the metropole.
The world of the thirteenth-century region of Sind is the focus of
the next chapter, which asks, Why was the Chachnama written in its
particular language and genre’To which political world was Chachnama
responding?
 1
A Foundation for History

I was in A car, driving into Uch from the neighboring town of

Ahmedpur Shirkia with S. A. Bukhari, who owns a small jewelry shop
and was my considerate host. As we exited the motorway and began
to drive through the farmland, I looked at the palm trees which flanked
the road. Turning to him, I said, "Palm trees! Why are they so far
inland? The coast is a good eight hours' drive away,”
"Well, they were planted here in Uch by Muhammad bin Qasim,"
replied Bukhari.
"And how do we know this?" I asked.
I was quite accustomed to hearing stories of Muhammad bin Qasim
told with pride (or with dismay in rural Sind and Punjab), but this time
I was surprised by an answer that explicitly mentioned a text. Bukhari
explained, "It is written in Chachnama. 1 assumed you would know,
since you are the historian."
There were other trees and clusters of trees which are said to be
planted by Qasim. He built a mosque in the town. His memory and
the material remains of the past Muslim nobility are scattered
throughout this landscape. The text of Chachnama is linked to the
natural and built environment of Uch. Such linkages prompt us to
think differently about the origins narrative of Islam in India because
that narrative focuses on hegemonic categories and undifferentiated
space. In Chapter 1,1 presented a spatial and political background that

47
46 FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD

campaigns were directed togain influence and quell challenges to'Ab-

basid stability in the metropole.
The world of the thirteenth-century region of Sind is the focus of
the next chapter, which asks, Why was the Chachnama written in its
particular language and genre? To which political world was Chachnama
responding?
 2
A Foundation for History

1 was in a car, driving into Uch from the neighboring town of

Ahmedpur Shirkia with S. A. Bukhari, who owns a small jewelry shop
and was my considerate host- As we exited the motorway and began
to drive through the farmland, I looked at the palm trees which flanked
the road. Turning to him, I said, "Palm trees! Why are they so far
inland! The coast is a good eight hours' drive away.”
"Well, they were planted here in Uch by Muhammad bin Qasim,"
replied Bukhari.
"And how do we know this?" I asked.
1 was quite accustomed to hearing stories of Muhammad bin Qasim
told with pride (or with dismay in rural Sind and Punjab), but this time
I was surprised by an answer that explicitly mentioned a text. Bukhari
explained, "It is written in Chachnama. 1 assumed you would know,
since you are the historian."
There were other trees and clusters of trees which are said to be
planted by Qasim. He built a mosque in the town. His memory and
the material remains of the past Muslim nobility are scattered
throughout this landscape. The text of Chachnama is linked to the
natural and built environment of Uch. Such linkages prompt us to
think differently about the origins narrative of Islam in India because
that narrative focuses on hegemonic categories and undifferentiated
space. In Chapter 1,1 presented a spatial and political background that

47
48 A FOUNDATION FOB HISTORY

is necessary to unread Chachnama from its perch in the origins

narrative.
Dismantling the origins narrative requires such a critical reading
of Ali Kufi's Chachnama that places it within its textual universe. It
puts the text into conversation with the particular political regimes at
the time of its production. That is, it places Kufi's Chachnama in the
world of the early thirteenth century, as described in Muhammad Aw-
fi's Lubabul albab (completed in 1 221I and lawami Hikayat wa Lawami
ul-Rivayat (completed in 1231), with Minhaj Suraj Juzjani's Tabaqat-i
Nasiri (completed ca. 1260). Awfi, Kufi, and Juzjani were all in Uch in
the early thirteenth century, and they were associated with the court of
Nasiruddin Qabacha (r. 1205-122SI. hi linking Chachnama with other
texts of the early thirteenth century, I expand also the analysis of how
space (the interconnected regions of Sind and Gujarat) influences these
texts. This allows me to begin the process of seeing Chachnama as an
Indic political theory of governance: it is fully immersed in its political,
spatial, and textual context. Put simply, by displacing Chachnama
from its understood language and genre assemblies, we can re place it
in a new geography and a new intellectual space.1
Chachnama claims to be a translation of an Arabic history and it
calls itself a book of conquest [fathnama], This claim was read by co­
lonial historians and archaeologists at face value. They chopped the
text into excerpts and then interpreted them as evidentiary blocks for
history. This chapter shows that, in fact, the claim of translation and
conquest narrative ought to be understood as interlinked claims for au­
thorial significance or the significance of particular literary cultures
within elite publics in Sind. The significance of the claim of transla­
tion lies in the interpretative space this move for historical antiquity
entails—that is, it is tied to questions of audience and prestige. A re­
buttal of Chachnama's claim of translation also opens up an exami­
nation of how Chachnama differs from the early Arabic conquest
literature, as a text of that genre, and why we need to understand (and
interpret) it as a political theory.

A Contested Geography

In any excavation of the Muslim past in India, geography gets to deter­

mine the status: the perpetual conqueror or the perpetual migrant.
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 49

Any of the descendants from Muhammad Sam Ghur in the twelfth

century to Zahiruddin Babar in the sixteenth to Khan-e Arzu in the
eighteenth have been rendered as outsiders. Thusly articulated, Muslim
foreignness is also ever-present in scholarly understandings, which is
predicated on the narratives of arrivals and origins across borders and
boundaries that took shape along contemporary geographies. This work
attempts to untangle such representations.
It is thus important to re-think geography for Muslim history in
India. It is important to underline the interconnected nature of the city
states in northwest and southwest India. They must be seen as dynamic
lived spaces connected to other city states in Afghanistan or Central
Asia and not merely as nodes in a military conquest. It is imperative
to resist a distillation of experience into military events, for it fore­
closes meaning in the texts that emerged from these lived spaces.
Through the prism of conquest, the histories of Muslim polities are
little more than collections of names and occurrences in the conquered
past of India.
Left unremarked are the social and cultural life during that time.
Most generically, the very words "Muslim" and "Islam” were unques­
tioned categories although the words were the grounds for theological
and political debate during the early periods of Muslim presence in
India. The result is that a medieval author’s identity is subsumed by
his place of birth or putative sect and racial identification, even though
those certainties arc generally not given and arc certainly not in the
archive. For instance, though Juzjani's family was based in Lahore for
two generations, yet he is considered as an outsider to Delhi.2
I want to situate the early thirteenth-century urban and political
centers of the northwest (Samarkand, Bukhara, Ghazna, Ghur, Kabul,
Lahore, Multanl and of the southwest (Multan, Uch, Diu, Muscat). The
farthest distance between these nodes of trade and power is roughly
300 miles, with multiple networks connecting one node to another.
Since the tenth century, these cities had constituted a remarkably vi­
brant political and mercantile life and were tied to hundreds of smaller
economies.
Within this cosmopolis, Uch and Multan (which lies 70 miles
northeast of Uchl need particular attention. Dating to the turn of the
millennium, the histories of these cities are generally narrated as his­
tories of conquest.1 Multan and Uch were settlements of considerable
50 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

merit and are attested in accounts from the fifth and sixth centuries.4
Multan was a known center for pilgrimage to the sun temple since the
third century.4 Uch. Mansura, Diu, Broach, Cambay were nodes which
connected to Aden and Muscat on the one end and to Lahore and Kabul
on the other. A sketch of these political regimes will help illustrate the
political dynamics of the thirteenth century and make the argument
for why a text such as Chachnama was written.
Sebuktigin was a "Hirk" general and governor of the Samanid polity
at Ghazna (presently Afghanistan,. In 962, he established himself as a
nominal Sultan—retaining the claims of the Samanid and the 'Abbasid
as overlords—and began military expansion into northern Punjab. By
his death in 997, he had acquired a number of forts from the Hindu Sahi
polity and extended his dominion over Ghur and Makran. His son,
Mahmud (d. 1030), continued to consolidate his power into northern
Punjab and Sind, wresting control of Multan and Mansura from their
Isma’ili rulers. Mahmud led more than twenty campaigns to Sind be­
tween root and 1027. These campaigns have achieved totemic signifi­
cance (popularly as "seventeen attacks") in contemporary historical
memory, and they are the reason why Mahmud is remembered as a
temple raider or destroyer. A significant motivation for his campaigns
was the desire to gain favor with the Abbasid court,- destroying the
Isma’ili political rule in Multan would have easily achieved that goal.6
Mahmud's empire, the Ghaznavid (r. 962-1186], was followed by the
reign of Mui'zzuddin Muhammad bin Sam Ghur (d. 1206), who
emerged from Herat and conquered Multan and Uch in 1175, Daybul
in 1182, and Lahore in ri86. Sam continued expansion toward Delhi
from Lahore and directly engaged the surrounding polities of the
Chauhan, the Chandella (based in the Bundelkhand region|, the Gaha-
davala |whose capital was at Vamasi), and the Chalukya. He suffered
some setbacks: in 1188 he was defeated by Prithviraja of the Chauhan
at Tara’in and was forced to retreat to Ghazna. Yet by 1192 he was
permanently established near Delhi, controlling a string of forts that
allowed him access over the northern Gangetic plain with a capital at
Lahore. Alongside his lieutenant Qutbuddin Aybeg (d. 1210-1211), he
launched expeditions into Rajasthan, Gujarat, and the Deccan.
After Sam's assassination in 1205, Aybeg went from Delhi to La­
hore and declared himself sovereign, setting up a new struggle among
Sam's warlords for the control of Lahore, Uch and Delhi. Aybeg’s death
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 51

in 1210-11 fractured the eastern frontier of Sam's realm even further

among his various lieutenants (ghulam meaning slave-lieutenant). One,
Shams al-din Iltutmish set himself up as a ruler in Delhi. Another, Taj
al-Din Yildiz in Ghazna. Another ghu/am. Ali-yi Mardan, became
Sultan Alauddin in Bengal. A third, Nasiruddin Qabacha, who had been
in stationed in Uch since 1204, declared his own rule and occupied
Lahore.
The scramble ensued among Yildiz, Qabacha, and Iltutmish to
claim the major city-forts of Delhi, Multan, Lahore, and Uch. As their
armies, consisting of Indic, Turkic, or Iranian troops, roamed from the
hills of Peshawar to the plains of Lahore, these sultans rallied Indic,
Turkic, or Iranian luminaries, intellectuals, and mystics to their
courts in an effort to build political bulwark for their claim of su­
preme rule. Yildiz was forced out of Ghazna in I2l$-m6, and he cap­
tured Lahore and marched on Delhi but was defeated and captured by
Iltutmish at Tara'in in 1216. The battle for northern India was now
between lltutmish in Delhi and Qabacha in Uch. All of this tran­
spired while the Mongol armies of Chinghiz Khan were assaulting Uch
and Multan.

Qabacha at Uch

During this intense tactical and military struggle to control key city
states in northern India, the western Asian Muslim polities were facing
the rising Mongol, After the Mongol conquests in Khurasan, the east­
ernmost frontier of the Muslim world—Sind and Punjab—became fron­
tiers of last refuge. The Khawarzam Shahi polity, based in Samarkand,
was defeated by Chingiz Khan in 1215-1218, pushing the ruler Ala'ddin
Muhammad into Sind. His son falaluddin sacked Uch in 1224 after
Qabacha refused to help him against Chingiz Khan, and jalaluddin
prepared to begin his march up to litutmish’s Delhi. However, the
pursuing Chingiz Khan reached him at Uch and defeated him. This
was the first of many Muslim polities ended by Chingiz Khan. On his
way back to Iran, Chingiz Khan besieged Multan in 1224, but Qa­
bacha was able to fend him off there. Qabacha, however, could not bear
the strikes of both Jalaluddin and the Mongols.
Tabaqat-i Nasiri, written by Minhaj Siraj Juzjani |ca. 1190-1260 CE),
is a contemporaneous account of political rule in Delhi. His short
SI A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

biography of Qabacha is worth citing in full, as it discusses Qabacha's

political and military maneuverings. According to Juzjani, Qabacha
had unparalleled "foresight, wisdom, manners, and work ethic," and
he served Sultan Mu’izzuddin Sam in many capacities. His bravery and
leadership caused the sultan to give two of his daughters to Qabacha
in marriage, Juzjani narrates how he reached Uch after Qabacha’s de­
feat at the hands of Jalaluddin:

When Chingiz Khan and Jalaluddin Khawarzam Shah fought near the
river Indus, Khawarzam Shah entered Sind. He went to Daybul and
Multan. After conquering Nanda. the Tartari commander Turbi
No'in came to Multan with a heavy army and surrounded it for forty
days. During the siege, Qabacha opened the gates of the treasury and
gave grants to all the people. His wisdom, foresightedness, and
bravery accomplished miracles that will be remembered until the
Day of Judgment. This happened in 621 AH I1224 CE| (... |
That same year, the writer of these words, Minhai Siraj, came
from Khurasan to Ghazna to Multan and via boat to Uch. It was the
twenty-sixth of Jamadi Awal of 624 AH (1227 CE|. In 625 AH I1228
CE|, control of the madrasa Firuzi in Uch was given to the writer of
these words. |Also granted to Juzjani| was an appointment to the army
of'Alauddin Bahram Shah. In 625 AH I1228 CE|, Sultan Syed Sham-
suddin laid siege to Uch, and Malik Nasiruddin |Qabacha| fled to
Bhakkar. The sultani army continued the siege for twenty-seven days
until the fort was occupied. When Malik Nasiruddin |Qabacha|
learned of the fall of Uch, he sent his son Alauddin Bahram Shah to
Sultan Shamsuddin. When he reached the |besieging] army, the news
of the conquest of Bhakkar also reached him (Bahram Shah). Malik
Nasiruddin (Qabacha) drowned in the river Indus. His life ended.
Over Sind, Uch, and Multan, he ruled for twenty-two years.’

After Qabacha's death, Muslim political power in north India

shifted its base to Delhi, but the world of the interconnected city
states continued despite the disruptions of military sieges and outright
destructions." Such continuities deserve attention, for they too arc
symptomatic of the political order of the period. While Juzjani's state­
ment about a "constant struggle" between lltutmish and Qabacha
can be read to emphasize only the political and military tussle be­
tween the two claimants, it also hints at the need to make cultural
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 53

claims. The gathering of luminaries at court, the grants, and the com­
mission of histories and poetic works were attempts to situate these
itinerant warlords within Muslim pasts. Along with the panegyrists
and historians, the warlords also tried to ally with the Sufi mystics.
Both lltutmish and Qabacha tried vigorously to gain favor with the
great Sufi Sheikh Bah'auddin Zakariya in Multan, Juzjani’s Tabaqal-i
Nasiti. a universal history that begins with the fall of Adam to earth,
is itself one key example of the work of cultural capital undertaken by
Muslim authors in the service of these warlords. Tabaqat-i Nasiri was
completed around iz6o, long after the claims of Yildiz and Qabacha
for Multan and Lahore.
For Juziani, Illtutmish completed the flow of Muslim history. He
was the one who unequivocally linked the frontier of Hind to Islam's
cosmology, to the sunna of the Prophet, and to Islam's dynastic histo­
ries. Other works also furthered the conception of Islam's past com­
fortably ensconced in the hands of the frontier kings. These works,
completed in the first half of the thirteenth century, include Hasan
Nizami’s To/ ul-Ma'athir, Fakhr-i Mudabbir’s Bahr ul-Ansab and A dab
Harb wa'l Shaja’a. Awfi's Jawami al-Hikayat, Ibn Athir's Kamil fi'l
Ta'rikh. Barani's Fatawa-yi lahandari. and isami’s Futuh as-Salatm.
Most importantly, these histories, biographies, and advice manuals
were all consistently rooted in the Indic soil, This tumultuous geog­
raphy of the early thirteenth century gave rise to a series of historical
and poetic texts that addressed Muslim past in Sind and in India. The
three authors attached to the court in Uch served through changes in
political regimes and represented continuities across the transitions of
political order.
Juzjani was a historian, poet, educator, and jurist who served in Uch
and then later in Delhi. His grandfather, father (bom in Lahore), and
other relatives had served courts in Ghazna, Ghur, and Lahore as ju­
rists, theologians, and diplomats. Juzjani came to Uch in 1227 and was
made the principal of the school Madrasa-i Firuzi by Qabacha. After
Qabacha's death, he was employed by lltutmish as a scholar at court,
lltutmish charged him with giving weekly addresses from the threshold
of the royal chambers before he returned to Delhi. Juzjani was there
when the robes of investiture arrived from Baghdad to congratulate the
new ruler, and he was there at the death of Iltutmish and the crowning
54 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

of his daughter Razia as the new sultan, Juzjani went on to a remark­

able thirty-year career with the sultans in Delhi. His life reflects the
intimacy between political power and knowledge in the Persianate
cosmopolis.’
Similarly, Muhammad Awfi came to be in Uch in the early 1120s.
He had earlier worked as a jurist in Samarkand, Bukhara, and then he
went to Cambay in Gujarat. For Qabacha he worked as a jurist as well,
and then he moved on to work for Iltutmish in Delhi. We do not know
Ali Kufi outside of what he wrote, and there is no indication of his
career after Qabacha. However, in the introduction to his text, he stated
that he spent the majority of his life in leisure and comfort but, due to
the "accidents of life and the passage of time," he migrated to Uch and
found favor with Ain-al Mulk Abu Bakr Ash’ari, the chief minister of
Qabacha, to whom he dedicated Chachnama. The availability of posi­
tions at courts for learned men attracted these intellectuals across the
Persianate Cosmopolis (to indicate a co-location with Sheldon Pollock’s
Sanskrit cosmopolis).10
The various polities centered at these city states mutated, ex­
panded, or disappeared, but the city states retained linguistic, sacral,
and cultural overlaps to the point that we can consider them a cohe­
sive cosmopolis. Those who lived, worked, and participated in the
social, political, or labor lives of these cities belonged to this Ajam-
o-Hind cosmopolis.11
The intellectuals of this cosmopolis navigated from city state to
city state, performing functions of governance (jurists, teachers, diplo­
mats, courtiers, and historians). They married into the royal households
they served, forming a deep social link between the intellectual class
and the monarchical families. Theirs was a polyglot world. Generally,
Persian was the language of state apparatus and of elite cultural output
while Arabic was the language of scripture, everyday religiosity, and
the sacral sciences. The intellectuals were participants as well as pro­
ducers in a bureaucratic and prestige-based economy of Muslim poli­
ties in northwest India. Their support and textual output was of prime
importance to the governing elite. Such close ties among the political,
sacral, and knowledge elite meant that power and prestige infused their
textual productions.
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY $5

Chachnama was a directly embedded in this Cosmopolis with its

fluid political future and its marked relationship to external con­
quest. It answers the tumultuous political and military present of
the early thirteenth century through a theory of politics and an ethics
of statecraft. It makes two claims—one of language and one of genre—
to present its theory. It claims that it is a translation of an earlier Ar­
abic text, and it claims that it is a text in the genre of conquest litera­
ture. In what follows, I take on these central claims of Chachnama
and address them by reading the text alongside a constellation of con­
temporaneous texts and by examining the demands of genre upon
this text.

The Claim of Translation

The leading argument and understanding regarding the role of language

in polities in medieval India remains that of Mughal historian Mu-
zaffar Alam. He has argued that Persian entered the Indian subconti­
nent's political and poetic domain via cities in Sind |Uch and Multan,
and Punjab |Lahore| from the ninth century onwards. As Ghazna and
Ghur, in central Asia, embraced Persian intellectuals and governors,
so did Lahore and Multan, such that by the eleventh century Persian
was the language of poetry, history, and certain monumental forms of
the political regimes.12 Significant institutionalization of Persian as a
courtly and political language happened first under the Ghaznavid,
then under the Delhi sultans, and finally under the Mughal regime in
the sixteenth century. Alam demonstrated that the presence of Persian
in northern India as well as the process of Persianization was a force
of assimilation for the elite of a post-Mongol Islamic world, accentu­
ating a more secular ethos over the sacral Arabic.
The political effort to utilize Persian as a language connecting
TUrkic elites in the city states of northwest India to Sassanian and
Persian pasts came at one particular cost. It meant that the Indic or
Hindavi context was deemphasized and, as a result, it made these elite
"antitolerant."13 In Alam's reading, the conquest of city states and the
adoption of Persian were intertwined processes of wrestling an ethics
(and a polity) away from the ethnic Arab or Arab Islam. Translation
56 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

from Arabic into Persian was thus a key part of the process of Persian-
ization. Alam notes a number of such texts leading up to the fourteenth
century period, including Bal’ami's (d. ca. 997I translation of Tabari's
universal history, Barani's (d. 1357) translation of the history of 'Abbasid
vizier Barmak, and Tusi's (d. 1274I translation of Ibn Miskawa’s book
on ethics.
Though these texts are commonly understood to be translations
Itariumal, 1 follow A. C. S. Peacock in approaching them as transcre­
ations or commentarial interpretations. Peacock has shown that
Bal’ami cannot be claimed as a translation, though it is widely read as
such. Peacock demonstrates that Bal'ami reimagined and rewrote
Tabari's work under a "substantially different" method of writing his­
tory.14 In contrast to the Arabic text, Bal’ami's work focused on the pre-
Islamic prophets, made extensive interjections into the text with
Qur'anic verses, and reimagined events from a theological perspective
derived from surah ‘Imran.1' Bal'ami also emphasized prophecy and
dreams as drivers of historical action, which Peacock reads as a ges­
ture towards Shi'ite sensibilities but I am more inclined to see a per­
formance of an ethical paradigm.16 Whatever the interpretation, it is
only after moving away from the fixity of "translation" that new ana­
lytics of the text emerge. For this reason, the text's claim as a transla­
tion requires parsing within the attendant social functions of this
robust discourse.
How docs Chachnama's claim of being a translated text fit into the
process described by Alam? The early thirteenth century in Uch is a
unique space to deepen this reading of Persianization because we can
colocate authors and texts through a transference of political power.
Broadly, three types of claims are evident in the network of Persian
texts surrounding the Chachnama: the Arab descent of the author, the
Arabic origins of the text, and the Arab descent of the patron of the
text. I argue that these claims are an assertion of the right to produce
texts, to interpret them, and to present them to an elite ruling class.
This elite class—itself diverse ethnically and linguistically—is also the
audience best endowed with skills to understand the moral and eth­
ical lessons in these textual productions.
The claim of Arab descent is frequent in the historical and poetic
writings from the thirteenth century. Numerous claims link a text or
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 57

a person to the Prophet’s family or to early Muslims. Seen within the

prestige economy of city states and courts, such a claim was often an
argument for the prestige of the author himself rather than any indi­
cation of actual biological or textual ties.
Let me present two examples which demonstrate the presence and
utilization of such claims in texts contemporaneous with Chachnama.
The claim of Arab biological descent is also in Fakhr-t Mudabbir's (d.
1228) Shuiara-i Ansab, which was written in 1206. The text is a gene­
alogy (tabaqatl of the Turkic rulers until the taking of Delhi by
Muhammad bin Sam Ghur. Mudabbir begins by presenting his cre­
dentials—a common trope in Persian historiography after Firdawsi.
Mudabbir recounts that the proicct grew from his attempt to locate his
own genealogy, which he thought was lost. It was only after Sam’s
taking of Lahore that Mudabbir "acquired documents of descent and
foundations" in which his genealogy was traced back to the second ca­
liph, Abu Bakr." From this beginning, Mudabbir wrote, he began to
think about how to expand the chart to include other caliphs, the rulers
down to his time period, and his employer—the Ghurid. Mudabbir's
tracing of personal prestige by biological descent from the Prophet's age
to political prestige of the Tiirkic rulers created an early precedent that
other authors of the thirteenth-century I’ersianate Cosmopolis followed.
Translating or marking the genealogy of a text from Arabic into
Persian was also a significant practice in the early thirteenth century.
Hence, in 1224, Muhammad Awfi began to translate sections from
Arabic of Tanukhi's |9,9-994 CE) Kitab Faraj ba’d Shidda, which he
dedicated to Qabacha.18 Tanukhi's text represented a popular example
of the adab [belles leftrest genre, which contained anecdotes of trav­
elers facing wild animals or robbers or officials facing execution or
penury because of a capricious ruler. In his preface to the text, Awfi
presents his humble offering to Qabacha, saying that "a beautiful bride
who was hiding behind the Arabic script" can now be revealed "to the
eyes of the learned Persianate betrothed."1’ The metaphor of the con­
jugal relationship was a common one with which to frame "transla­
tion" as an act of transcreation. Awfi saw his role as making a literary
heritage available to an appreciative and exclusive audience while also
claiming newness for his work. 'Awfi, however, abandoned this "trans­
lation" and instead wrote his own composition of the genre of traveler
58 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

accounts in lawami Hikayat. which incorporated stories from Guiarat,

Uch, and Multan alongside accounts from Baghdad, Mecca, Medina,
and Nishapur. In these two texts, Awfi links Arabic literary tradition
to the Persian one, noting the intimacy of this act for his audience.
Muhammad 'Awfi also dedicates a text to a patron of Arab descent
to mark his support of Persian arts and cultures. In Lubabul albab.
'Awfi genealogically canonizes the Persian-language poets in the Per­
sian cosmopolis. He asserts that poetry itself was created by Adam, in
Arabic letters, and later moved into the prose of different languages.20
This origin story of language dovetailed with 'Awfi’s assertion that he
wanted to compose a genealogy of Persian poets because such a text
existed only for poets of Arabic. This lineage has a parallel in Awfi's
recognition of the biological claims of his benefactors. He dedicates his
text to Qabacha's minister, Ain ul Mulk Husain ibn Abi-Bakr ibn Mu­
hammad Ash'ari, and provides a detailed summary of that noble's ge­
nealogy back to the Prophet. A text that documents the poetical works
of poets of Persian in India, dedicated to a noble claiming Arab lineage,
demonstrates clearly the multiple sites of cultural prestige and poly­
glot literary cultures.
Let me turn to a contemporaneous text that enjoys political status
similar to that of Cbachnama. Juzjani drew upon both Mudabbir and
Awfi to write his history of the period, Tabaqat-i Nasiti (completed
1160). In this work he also details his family's connection to the Pro­
phetic past. He mentions that along with biological descent from the
family of the Prophet, his grandfather was the recipient of several edicts
from the court of the Abbasid caliph Mustadi |r. 1170-1 t8o| and a robe
of honor when he visited Baghdad after performing the Hajj.21 Juzjani
presents short anecdotal summaries of all of the prophets, the Persian
kings, and the rulers in Central Asia, India, and Yemen until the reigns
of Ututmish and his descendants whom luzjani served. The earlier ta-
baqat (stages or generations) are cited from various historical sources,
while the later ones reflect his own testimony.
Throughout the text, Juzjani presents a paean to the elite and also
highlights the governance of the political realm in which he partici­
pated. Kazlak Khan, for instance, is the first noble Juzjani describes in
his section on nobility. After Uch’s surrender, iltutmish had appointed
Kazlak Khan as the ruler over Uch, and Juzjani describes how he
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 59

brought peace and prosperity to the city: "(Kazlak Khan| called back
all who had scattered from the worries of war, and he resettled them.
He provided sustenance for the elite and the common and gave them
all equal justice." Juzjani's honorific for Kazlak Khan, niulk |king|, is
apt because these appointments mandated an open and fluid hierarchy
of alliances.22
In his preface, Juzjani explains that during his duties as a jurist he
came across a book which had been collected "as exemplum for the
people: the lives of prophets, caliphs, and genealogies of past kings."23
That book ended with the career of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, and
fuzjani wishes to expand its "genealogy to include all the rulers and
kings of Islam, whether Arab or non-Arab, from the beginning to now,
so that the light of every ruling family would be lit in this gathering."21
This he accomplishes by consulting "commendable" histories, which
he rewrites in a language that is accessible to all who can reflect on it.
There is both a recognition of the consequences of wnting for the
present and an overwhelming concern for posterity's judgment in his
work.
In his preface, Juzjani states that he is a mere reporter and begs for­
giveness if he has made a mistake.25 At the end of his history, he in­
vokes the immortal prophet Khizr to pray for the immortality of his
work, and he consequently uses the name of his patron sultan.26 There
are two concerns visible in Juzjani's preface which overlap with Awfi's
concerns. First, he invokes Arabic textual precedent; his first citation
is in the description of Adam's third son, Sheeth, where he cites
Tabari.2’ Second, he traces genealogies of various members of the no­
bility and government.
Such insistence on biological or textual ancestors in Arabia should
be read as the author's claim for an intimacy with the moral and eth­
ical concerns that are in the text. There is a courtly discourse about
the contents of each of these Persian texts, in their prefatory comments.
Juzjani, Awfi, and Kufi also offer a textual genealogy in their preface,
and provide fodder for self-reflection and perspectives on political
expedients for the elite. It is a sort of public reflection. Yet these prac­
tices of public performance and reflection and their social function are
largely neglected by historians of the Delhi sultanate. In that histori­
ography, the emphasis remains on histoire evenementtelle™ Yet there
6o A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

is ample evidence that the historians of the early thirteenth century,

luzjani included, saw pedagogy and self-reflection as key functions for
their texts.
Thus we can place Chachnama in thirteenth-century citation prac­
tices that claim Arab descent for the sake of prestige. Chachnama's
dedication also fits it into a common courtly practice of narrating
regnal and regional histories in order to advise the political elite who
engaged in contemporary political struggles.
Let us now turn to Ali Kufi's Chachnama and examine its claim
of translation. We have already established that translation from Ar­
abic into Persian was common in early thirteenth-century Uch, as was
the invocation of Arab descent for nobility. In his preface, Kufi elabo­
rated on his decision to write a history as well as on how he acquired
the means to do it. In 1216, at the age of fifty-eight, Kufi explained that
he gave up all other concerns and decided to create "a book of excep­
tional beauty and grace" which would provide a guide so that the "slaves
of the Prophet's world" would remain on the "throne of the kingdom,
and their sultanate |would| remain strong." Kufi's aim for the text was
indeed pedagogical:

For every age. the wise leave a writing meant to inspire and educate
their peers and elders. Such are the verses and prose that writers have
left documenting the conquest of Khurasan, Iraq, Iran, Rome, and
Syria. The conquest of Hindustan happened at the hands of Mu­
hammad bin Qasim, and the Arab nobles of Syria and Islam were re­
vealed in this environ, and from the ocean to the limit of Kashmir
and Kanuaj they built mosques and removed Rai Dahar bin Chach bin
Sila'ij from the throne of Aror, and the great commander Muhammad
bin Qasim killed him (Dahar). I wished to write a history that would
detail the conditions of this region and its people and |Qasim’s) end.3’

Kufi began to look for sources to write this history of Sind. He re­
counted that he traveled to the city of Bhakkar (Sind), where he located
a history unknown to the Sindhi elite. This was in the possession of a
learned and pious descendant of Muhammad bin Qasim. In a section
titled "Tarjam-e Kitab" (Translation of the Book), he writes.

When this slave became acquainted with the book, he found it to be

full of lewcls of wisdom and pearls of advice in which many exam­
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 61

pies of the bravery and courage of Arabs and Syrians were in­
scribed, and their stature and intelligence was evident. With every
fortification that they conquered, they ended the night of unbelief
and ignorance. In every region they entered, they glorified Islam and
erected mosques with minarets and filled them with pious and as­
cetic believers. And to this day, the light of Islam, honesty, hard
work, and knowledge continue to shine in those regions. And in each
epoch that a slave owned by the Prophet ascends to the throne, once
again, he strips the rust of ignorance away from the mirror of Islam. '"

Ali Kufi is marking two explicit motifs in his preface: the linkage
between the history of Uch and the history of Arabs, and the "renewal’'
of central principles of Islam. He goes on:

When this fable of faith was taken from the veil of Taz'i |obscurity|
and the cover of Hiiazi |Arabic| into the house of Persian |language|
and put in the strictures of narrative and the fabric of honesty and
translated into the clothes of prose, I dove into thoughts of the great
leader to whom this new and strange letter of conquest can be
dedicated.’1

Kufi remarks that translating the text from one language to another
is an interpretative act—he can present the thoughts in the text to an
appreciative audience. This immediate linking of translation to patron,
places Kufi's project among earlier "translation" projects 1 detailed
above. Kufi uses the metaphors of marriage to reflect the intimacy be­
tween languages. Kufl does not provide the name of the original Ar­
abic text he claims to be using. Nor does he provide any indications as
to its provenance; there is no convention requiring him to do so. Kufi
has to only assert such descent, not to demonstrate it. Kufi returns to
the claim of translation in his closing remarks:

Even though this (Arabic] book contained great wisdom, a wealth of

advice, and methods for the running of the affairs of government,
even though this book had a great standing in the language of Arabs
and in the diction of Arabia, and the notables of Arabia read it with
great fervor and were proud of it, yet, it was behind the veil of Arabic
and devoid of the decoration and beauty of the Persian and, for this
reason, did not circulate outside of Arabia. For the Persian speakers
no one adorned this bride, a book of conquest [fct6noma|, or dressed
61 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

her with garments of exquisite language, justice, and wisdom. No

mighty rider took this horse into the grounds of clarity and the gar­
dens of loquaciousness. But when the hard accidents of the world
headed toward this weak one | Ali Kufi|, and the harshness of the
times anchored its sail in his chest, and all manner of difficulties as­
serted themselves, and everywhere he turned, he saw dangers and
treasons, then in that same condition, this man of incomplete intel­
lect chose to finish this book. Praise be to Allah, the God of All?2

Kufi explicitly details the social function of his text—reflection for

justice, and wisdom for a troubled elite. He also endows the text with
the gravitas of tradition by linking it to this previous and popular Ar­
abic text.
For Chachnama and the other texts under discussion here, the in­
vocation of Arab textual and biological past indicates continuities
with the past and a presentation of history for the purpose of political
theory. Removing Chachnama from the frame of translation allows
us to re-think the social function of the text. We can see that the
choice of the genre of the text, a conquest narrative, was a deliberate
choice by Kufi and that opens up a critical window into the early thir­
teenth century.

The Claim of Conquest

The early Muslim understanding of world qua frontier is primarily lo­
catable in the Arab conquest narratives—the genre being fathnama
fuluh: literally "opening" and colloquially translated as "Books of Con­
quest." This genre emerged from "Life of the Prophet" |siru) texts. The
accounts of the Prophet’s military campaigns laid the foundation for
the development of conquest literature during the late first and early
second century of Islam.1’ The genre of futuh had both a historiographic
and a political function in early Islam. It asserted the inevitability of
the domination of Islam, and it bolstered the claims over the conquered
populations.'4 Fred Donner has argued that the conquest narratives
served the purpose of legitimization of political authority or genealog­
ical claims of supremacy and came along with a strategy of construc­
tion of garrison towns and forts where nomadic tribes were settled.”
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 6J

As the genre grew, it developed into a crucial commentary land

source) on a range of issues, such as conversion, taxation, administra­
tion, and, more thematically, Islam's encounter with conquered popu­
lations. In their temporal range, texts in this genre begin with the
narrative of the campaign under the Prophet (or the first caliphs) and
lead up to the present of the writer, which extended from the mid­
seventh century to the mid-ninth century or beyond.
The conquest narratives maintained a specific structure. The report
would explain a chain of transmission from an eyewitness or near eye­
witness down to the author of the text. Next came an introduction
of the participants in the event (often with details of their tribal affili­
ations). Finally the author would provide the account of the event,
marked with poetic and Qur'anic quotes and highlights of piety,
bravery, and individual valor. The reports were divided broadly by
geography and chronology, telling about military appointments, ser­
mons, speeches, letters, and the moral aftermath of decisions. The ear­
liest extant narratives—such as the Ta'rikh Futuh Sham (Conquest of
Syria) by Azdi Basri (d. 810)—illustrate the regional focus. Conquest
narratives were repositories of biographical, historical, administrative,
and ethical data for early Islam and became key sources for the works
of geographers, universal historians, and compilers of biographical
dictionaries.
In All Kufi's text, there arc the roughly thirty broad, generic cita­
tions but no particular names. This practice does not follow literary
conventions of Arabic historiography, where specific names arc al­
ways used. Instead Chachnama reports begin with attributions like
"the wise of Sind say" or "some of the Brahmins of Aror report." Those
rare citations that do evoke authoritative transmission quote the ninth­
century Arab historian Mada'ini: "Farsighted wise men and well-
meaning elders report from Abu'l Hasan," "Abu'l Hasan heard it from
Hazli," and (in the only citation of a direct transmission), "Muhammad
bin Ali and Abu'l Hasan Mada'ini report." These arc not the conven­
tions of historical writing in Arabic conquest literature; there, reports
from the field arc presented with a full transmission history. Hence,
we can conclude that Ali Kufi relied on a scries of texts to compose an
original work in Uch, speaking to his contemporary audience by
64 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

means of a history anil advice manual, couching his own work in the
prestige economy of Arab descent.-’''
If we take Baladhuri's Futuh Buldan as typical conquest narrative,
divided into regions, then years, then participants, with each event nar­
rated through textual or oral citation, Chachnama's structure, by com­
parison, is markedly different. Chachnama begins in city states and
focuses entirely on personages |Chach bin Sila'ii, the queen, their son
Dahar). It highlights the condition of Aror prior to Chach’s arrival at
the capital; Chach’s employment as a scribe for the king’s chief min­
ister; the manner in which the young queen falls in love with him and
schemes to place him upon the throne after the death of the king;
Chach's reconquest of "the four quarters" of the kingdom, his treat­
ment of civilians and cities; Chach's two sons' tussle for the throne
after Chach's death; the treacherous way in which Dahar takes over
Aror, and finally the set piece: the marriage of Dahar to his own
sister. All of this, constituting the first third of Chachnama, has three
overarching themes: the ruler's basis of legitimacy, the good counsel
of the advisor, and the immorality of treachery. All Kufi attributes
information from this section to various sources: the tellers of tradi­
tion and authors of histories, the author of this romance and the
writer of this bouquet, writers of the story of this conquest, and so
forth. There is no attention to the citation precedence that was ob­
served by Baladhuri.
The next portion of the text dealing with the Muslim campaigns is
introduced under the heading "A History from the Righteously Guided
Caliphs to Walid." This chapter heading is quite similar to the chapter
headings of any annalistic history (such as Tabari's). Yet even the epi­
sodes in this section are attributed to the generic "tellers of traditions,"
with an odd mention of Mada’ini. Unlike Baladhuri's work, however,
Chachnama focuses on the inner turmoil, deliberations, doubts, and
planning of the campaigns. A typical conquest narrative would not
refer to earlier episodes in the text, but Chachnama deliberately mir­
rors the campaigns of the Muslim Qasim with those of the Brahmin
Chach. Qasim even plants a Muslim standard at the very spot where
Chach marked the extent of his kingdom with a tree. Chachnama's
Muslim kingdom of faith explicitly restrains itself within the previous
political boundaries of an Indic polity.
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 65

Chachnama's truncated history, beginning with the foundation of

a Brahmin polity that is later mirrored by the Muslim one, is at odds
with any text in the genre of conquest literature. Just as we cannot take
at face value Chachnama's insistence on being a translation, we must
reject the invocation of thefathnama as its historical perch. Chachnama
does not posit an expansive geography with a triumphant Islam; nor
docs it offer a clear case for the political authority of Islam. Its presen­
tation of the pre-Islamic period is in sharp contrast to the typical con­
quest narrative.” Here is Chachnama's opening, describing the city of
Aror and the polity of Sind:
Reporters of tradition iravian e hadis) and authors of histories |mu-
sani/ane tawarikh) describe thus the city of Aror, which was the
capital {dar ulmulk) of Hind and Sind. It was a grand and lively city,
ornamented with palaces of various kinds, wide and colorful roads,
streams, fountains, gardens, and orchards. It was founded by the shore
of the river Seliwan, which is called Mehran.
The king of this lively city was Rai Sihars bin Sahsi, whose trea­
sury was full and coffers plentiful. His justice and his generosity were
known around the world. The limits jhadudl of his polity {mamalik
o masalik] extended to the north until Kashmir, to the cast until
Makran, to the south until Daybul and the shore of the Great Sea
{lab-e ab dai'iae rmihit], to the west until the mountains of Kikanan.
To his four provinces he had assigned four governors (mulk ra).u
In Baladhuri, the land was devoid of sustenance, and the geography
evoked only trepidation. In Chachnama. the reader encounters a strik­
ingly different geography, focusing on urbanity as well as on civic and
political order. Baladhuri described the frontier as a volatile and tur­
bulent one: "Governors were dispatched to Sind, they fought the ene­
mies, collected the little tribute available, and suppressed the people
who rebelled."3’ As it progresses through the Umayyad regimes and
into the Abbasid era, Baladhuri's narrative sustains the constant theme
of disruption and distress.
In contrast, Chachnama begins with claims of stability and of limits
on political power, Chachnama describes the conquest of Sind after
Chach takes the throne of Aror with the help of Queen Rani Sohnan
Devi. He must embark on a campaign to conquer or ally with the four
provinces of his polity. The first city he approaches is the city of Uch
66 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

{Iskalanda}. In the city was one of Chach's confidants, to whom Chach

has promised the position of mayor of the city should he manage to kill
the governor. A man named Brave (Shufcl) does so, and Chach is able to
take over the fort without bloodshed. The nobles and elite of Uch wel­
come Chach as their lord and shower him with gifts. After Uch, Chach
proceeds to Sika, then to Multan, and finally toward Kashmir. When he
reaches the edges of his kingdom, he asks for two plants:

One "misr," meaning sapidar. and the second "deodar," meaning

sanobar. He planted them at the border Isarhadl of Kashmir at the
banks of the river Punj Mahiat, at the base of the mountains from
which this river flows. He stayed there until the branches of the two
trees were intertwined. Then he made a mark (daghl on the trees and
said, "This is the limit |hadd) of my kingship. Ahead of this is the
kingship of the raja of Kashmir, and 1 will not cross it."*0

The limit to conquest, or a political regime that is not interested

in constant expansion, is not a notion present in conquest literature.
Chachnama's radical presentation of it here is certainly new in the
Muslim historiography. Chach connects the limit to native poplar and
pine trees and demonstrates the patience required for the trees to grow
up and merge with one another. Chachnama is creating for its public
an idea of a limited kingship that insists on cooperation and negotia­
tion with rival powers.
I will add one more significant aspect: Chach does not enter into
any direct negotiations with the raja of Kashmir in this narration. In
effect, Chach is recognizing the limit of his kingdom without testing
it, and he is affirming the rule of the other over the adjacent space.
However, the intertwined trees—one representing Sind and one
Kashmir—also gestures toward the possibility of mutual comprehen­
sion of this limit to power. In other words, by declaring the limits of
his kingdom, Chach asserts that the Kashmiri polity will also under­
stand it. After satisfying the northern limit, Chach heads to the west.
After subduing the governor there, he plants date-palm trees (dara-
khtane khurmal to mark the limit between Makran and Kirman. By
the edge of the groves of palm trees, he installs a marker (dagh) that
states, "This is the limit of the polity of land of Sind, during the reign
of Chach bin Sila'ij, and to this day, that limit remains."*1
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 67

The recognition that the limit of Sind extends to the present of the
Chachnama directly connects the temporal regime of the Chachnama
to the thirteenth century. It connects the notion of a limited, dialogic
imperial formation as a possibility for the Muslim regimes of Qabacha.
It evokes the caution of Beyhaqi, as I discuss below, that needless con­
quest or warmongering does not benefit the polity. It also goes further
by making this limit an inheritance for the Muslim conquest. The Mu­
hammad bin Qasim narrative cycle in the Chachnama traces Chach's
conquest journey, with Qasim planting flags for Islam at the same lo­
cation where Chach planted trees.
The theme of restrained power is emphasized when Muhammad
bin Qasim marches his army to the "limit of Kashmir by the river
they call Panj Mah'iat, where Dahar’s father, Chach Sal'aij, had
planted the sapidar and sanobar trees and marked the limit of his
domain. Muhammad bin Qasim reached that mark, and he renewed
his commitment to the limit."41 It is now that Chachnama thoroughly
reconfigures the notion of the frontier as a spatial organization of po­
litical power or anxiety to one of antecedent and tradition. Where
Chach marked the limits of his polity and asserted his centrality within
those boundaries, Qasim renews that vision and appropriates it for
the Muslim polity that he is founding.
In form or in theory, Chachnama cannot be considered a text in
the genre of conquest literature. Instead, it is political theory that is
deeply ingrained in the physical geography and spatial constructs of
the thirteenth century.

What was Chachnama! Why was it written in the early thirteenth

century? What was particular about that moment that necessitated this
work of historical imagination? Before I turn toward the claims of the
text, I want to declare that Chachnama provides a clear understanding
of the social function of historical writing. This understanding was de­
rived from the history of Beyhaqi, written during the reign of the
Mas ud of Ghazna (r. 1030-1041). A closer look at Beyhaqi's Tari'kh re­
veals that its model informed Kufi's work |as well as that of Juzjani).
Beyhaqi's history is genealogical and chronological, drawing upon the
68 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

model of regional histories. In addition to accounts of rulers, governors,

and events, it includes theories of governance as well as moral and eth­
ical advice for the political ruler. 1 highlight a sermon Beyhaqi that he
reproduces in his discussion of the year 421 AH 11030 CE|. This pas­
sage contains a philosophy of history that illuminates the work of
Chachnama as well:

My aim |in writing hisioryl is not to explain to the people of this

present time the exploits of Sultan Mas ud, may God illuminate his
proof, because the people have themselves seen him and are well
aware of his greatness, his courage, and his uniqueness in all matters
of government and leadership. Rather, my aim is that I should write
a foundation ipoya) for history.4’

With this sense of a futurity, Beyhaqi explains that his text is

written to "monarchs and to others so that each class of persons may
derive profit from it according to the amount of their knowledge.""
That is, this is an ethical and moral lesson for his audience. Beyhaqi
opens with praise for the great kings of the past—the Greek Alexander
and Persian Ardashir—and instruction on what one could learn from
them. He criticizes Alexander for his lust for conquest: "But what is
the point of wandering around the world? A monarch must keep a tight
rein, for hy seizing some realm and region but failing to maintain his
grip, and then impetuously moving on to invade yet another land, and
repeating the same process and abandoning it, he would have given full
scope for all and sundry to call him weak and impotent."11’ Beyhaqi fol­
lows this admonition to govern rather than conquer with a long ex­
cursus on the role of prophets and kings as leaders and guides to the
people. He does this by glossing verses from the Qur’an and incorpo­
rating examples from the past. Finally, he concludes by writing another
section "describing the qualities of the wise and just man which en­
title him to be called meritorious, and what the defects of the tyran­
nical person are, such that he may inevitably be called ignorant and
uncouth, and it will become apparent that, whoever is stronger in
wisdom will attract more praise, and whoever has a smaller intellect
will be held in less esteem."4'' This is then both a philosophy of his­
tory and a political theory for the elite. Chachnama is a project in Bey-
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 69

haqi's tradition of presenting accounts of the past as political theory

for the present.
By unmooring Chachnama from the overdetermined claims of lan­
guage and genre in the text, we can consider alternative understand­
ings for the text. Having built a textual context for Chachnama, in the
following section, I want to pivot toward space, highlighting how ge­
ography informs Chachnama as a political theory.

The Claim of Empty Space

Henry Cousens’s work for the archaeological survey of India on "the
northern frontiers of Sind to the River Savitri" was done from 1891 to
1893." Out of this, he produced two significant reports: one on northern
Gujarat in 1903 and one on Sind in 1905. He begins his section on "Mu­
hammadan Buildings in Sind" thus: "Of Hindu remains in Sind, little
is to be found, owing to the havoc wrought by the Arab conquerors.
That such buildings did exist is plain from the great temple at Deval
|Daybul|, which they destroyed, and the fragments built into the tomb
of Nindo at Thatha."*“ Here is the cleanest distillation of the origins
narrative: the invocation of the conquest, the enumeration of the de­
struction in 7ix, and the condemnation of a foreign Muslim presence.
Before proceeding to his findings from the archaeological survey.
Cousens sets the ground with a textual history of this particular
past. "The most lucid account," he writes, "is to be found in the Chach
Namah which is a Persian translation of a work written by Ali son of
Muhammad Kufi in A.D. 1216" and which "was originally written
in Arabic very shortly after the events it records."4’ Cousens pro­
ceeds to present a detailed summary of Chachnama as a historical
account of the eighth century and as a preface to his discussion of
the excavations in the various sites in Sind |Bhanbhorc, Brahman-
abad, Daybul).50 His ten-page summary of the text details particu­
larly the section on Muhammad bin Qasim because it helps "iden­
tify some of the ancient sites of Sind, whose traces are now very few
or are in great part obliterated."51
Imperial archaeological excavations in Sind, tied to the Indus civi­
lization and to the Alexandrian conquest, were of primary importance
70 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

to the British mission after the annexation of Sind by the East India
Company in 1843. Almost every archaeological text, and nearly every
British colonial work dealing with Muslims or Sind, quotes the
Chachnama.
Why does Chachnama become the central evidence explaining the
origins of Islam in India! Cousens clearly articulates what he under­
stands Chachnama to be: a history of the early eighth-century Arab
conquest, written at the time of the events, that survived with the de­
scendants of the Arab commander Muhammad bin Qasim until it
was translated into Persian in 1216 CEby Alt Kufi and then circulated
until the present. It is, Cousens believes, a text closest to the histor­
ical events of 712 CE, with testimony from direct participants. Further,
it is a narrative of the conquest of an indigenous population by outsider
forces that shows the prejudices of the conqueror and the destruction
of the conquered. In Chapter 6,1 detail how the East India Company’s
colonial conquest of the princely state of Sind dovetailed with the
anointing of Chachnama as the central conquest narrative, and how
Chachnama was selectively excerpted to represent "Muslim despo­
tism" in colonial historical writings.
Identifying the text as an eighth-century document of the Arab con­
quest allowed Cousens and other colonial archaeologists, historians,
and agents to claim that "with regard to the Arab dominion in Sind, it
is impossible for the traveler to wander through the land, without
being struck with the absence of all record of their occupation."12 The
physical or territorial "absence" that Cousens noted is linked again
to Chachnama. which ended its narrative in 714 CE. The history
"missing" in the Chachnama became the corroboration of the seeming
absence of the Arabs in Sind. The text is displaced from the thirteenth
century, obscuring the lived histories of 500 years of Muslim political
and social life in Sind. For Cousens, the text's significance is in its
movement from one language to another (Arabic into Persian) and he
can excavate the geography which is described in that text to confirm
its facts. Yet. due to the material absence of any indicator of Arab con­
quest in Sind, Cousens concludes that the textual source, Chachnama,
is the only source for the eighth century. Cousens reports Sind as a land
empty of remains of Arab settlements and as one where Muslim fanat­
icism had destroyed all traces of pre-eighth-century Hindu past.
 A FOUNDATION FOB HISTORY 71

We have now seen the ways in which Chachnama describes geog­

raphy as lived in, with plantations, cities, and various peoples and
communities. How can we read Chachnama's description of Sind then!
Having shown that the text's claims of translation or genre cannot be
taken at face value, we can place Chachnama in a lived and fully ar­
ticulated geography that connects Sind to Gujarat and to Oman. There
is a social world that surrounds Chachnama and, contra Cousens, it is
not an empty landscape. This region—largely absent from con­
temporary scholarship that focuses on Delhi—is built on networks of
mobility, settlement, and trade. This social world extends from the
shores of Oman and Yemen to the port cities of Diu, Surat, Daybul,
and Uch to the desert forts that link Multan to Surat.
I want to turn, at the end, to another near-contemporary text from
the same locale as Chachnama: Abdur-Rahman's Samdesarasaka,
which was composed in Prakrit, near laislamer, sometime in the late
twelfth century.’3 The poem is written to emulate and subvert Kali­
dasa's Meghasandesa—the account of a journey of a cloud bearing a
message from a husband to his wife. Where Kalidasa's cloud travels
from Ramagiri in the south to Alaka in the Himalayas, Abdtir-
Rahman’s traveler is asked to take a message from Multan to Cambay.
Where Kalidasa gives the perspective of the male yaksha pining for his
female lover, Rahman highlights the female virahim left at home while
the husband makes a living far away. Where Kalidasa's text is imbued
with sacral geography, Rahman reveals mercantile geography along the
path anchored by Uch and the long strings of Cholistani forts. Rahman,
who claims descent from western mleccha lands, begins his poem with
a hamd (praise of God| that gestures to a Qur'anic verse:
He who has created all this: the oceans, earth, mountains, trees
and heavenly bodies—may He, O wise ones, bless you
Bow down, O men of culture, to that Creator to whom men, semi­
gods, and gods, as also the sun and the moon pay obeisance?4
To see Uch from the perspective of an inhabitant of this world, wc
need to read Rahman's description of Multan [Muhisthanal and its
environs:
If in the company of clever persons we take a stroll in the city, sweet
melodics of Prakrit songs greet our cars. At places the Vedas arc
71 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

expounded by experts; somewhere the Rasaka is staged by the ac­

tors. Somewhere the Sudayavasta story is narrated, in another place
the Nala episode; in yet another is recited the Bharta epic with
various diversions. In some quarters selfless Brahmans arc uttering
benedictions; in others the Ramayana is eulogised. Some hear flute,
lute, drums or tabors; some, the strains of melodics. Somewhere
attractive girls are performing rhythmic movements. Troops of ac­
tors arc giving wonderful dramatic performances and one who en­
ters the courtesan locality would simply swoon from fascination."

Rahman presents a world filled with stories, songs, and perfor­

mances. He details the forms and figures of the courtesans who entice
the traveler to the city—one with a forehead adorned with a turakki ti-
laka |Turkic ornamentl, perhaps a sign of mercantile presence. He then
guides the traveler outward:

And if one chances to wander beyond the precincts of the city, he secs
such a variety of gardens as to forget the mansions altogether. There
are Dhallas, Kundas, Satapatrikas and other countless trees. There are
other strange trees also. The combined shadow of these trees making
up a dense thicket stretching to the length of ten Yojanas.'*

Rahman's description evokes a connected geography stretching

between Multan and Cambay. The varieties of storytellers, performers,
and scholars that Rahman places in Multan suggests a heavily traf­
ficked area, and the description of built architecture and planned gar­
dens presupposes political support. Rahman, a poet writing m Prakrit,
achieves poetic excellence with a rare voice that describes the fluidity
of city spaces such as Uch before the eleventh century.
The presence of a "Muslim" such as Rahman in Multan or Jaislmcr
or Cambay was the result of both the military and the political expedi­
tions since the eighth century and the steady growth of mercantile ac­
tivities in the Indian Ocean world since the ninth century. While Arab
settlements between Aden, Muscat, Diu, and Thana predate the Muslim
empires of Damascus and Baghdad, those capital cities' clamor for goods
produced a flourishing of trade. These mercantile interests were com­
mingled across political boundaries—numerous epigraphic traces of
Muslim trading communities (often marked as tajika or turakki or
mleccha) in C.uiarat and Deccan survive from the ninth century on­
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 73

ward, such that by the thirteenth century the Muslim communities

contained "not only wealthy traders and particularly shippers and
sea-faring men but also indigenously employed groups like oil-men,
masons.''5’
The collective body of work by the Muslim geographers, produced
from the mid-ninth through the mid-eleventh centuries, supports Rah­
man's account of a connected and politically important region. These
geographies incorporated accounts from travelers, merchants, and other
first-person observers. They describe the commercial routes that con­
nected Sind and Gujarat and Yemen, and they detail the presence of
various intellectuals, dignitaries, and elite from Iraq and Syria in Sind.58
Considering these works together, we can see that this region intri­
cately linked Arabia to India and that political alliances and trade
networks flourished across the various principalities.
The earliest geographer of this region, Ibn Khurradadhbih (fl. 884),
presented this world as a connected space.5" His Kitab Masalik wa’l-
Mamalik (Book of Roads and Kingdoms) was written around 876 CE,
when lbn Khurradadhbih served as the director of post and intelligence
in the district of Jibal.60 To get a sense of how populated this geography
was, note how many settlements and cities Ibn Khurradadhbih listed
in Sind and Hind: "Qiqan (Kalatl, Banna (Bannu), Makran |Makran|,
Maid, Qandhar, Qusdar, Buqan, Qandabli, Fannazbur, Armabil (Las
Belal, Daybul, Qanbali, Kanbaya (Gujarat), Suhban (Schwan), Rask, Rur,
Sawndra, Multan, Sandan (Daman), Thana (near Bombay), Mandal, Bay-
laman, Surasht, Kayraj, Marmad, Qali, Dahnaj, and Baros iBarochl."61
As one can get a rough idea, this geography of Sind encompassed lands
from the far northwest mountain regions down to the plains of Punjab,
along the river Indus and then to coastal towns across the Gujarat.
There are two specific themes to note in Ibn Khurradadhbih, each
of which become reproduced in the works of subsequent geographers:
First is the account of Multan as "a city known as Faij bait dhahab
(Frontier with the House of Gold)" and second, is the laudatory descrip­
tion of the greatest king of Hind, Balhara, that is to say, "the king of
kings."61 Balhara wears a golden ring on which is inscribed, "He who
befriends you for a purpose will turn away after its completion."w
This could be the Arabization of the title vallabha-raja (the beloved
king), which, if Ibn Khurradadhbih is reporting from the emissary's
74 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

report, is conceivably the Rashtrakuta king of the Deccan, Govinda III

(c. 793-814I. More likely is that "Balhara" stands in for an Indic ruler
sympathetic to the Arab Muslim polities. This theme of closely allied
polities in Hind is dominant in the Arab geographies, including the
most influential work of Mas udi.M
Similarly, Abu'l-Hasan Masudi (d. 9571 claimed to have traveled
widely, reaching Hind in 915 CE. His Murui ad-Dahab wa Ma'adin
lawahar (Book of the Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems) devotes a
section to Multan, where there are "one hundred thousand villages and
estates" surrounding it.65 He reports that in the town is an idol made
of alocwood. To this, "the inhabitants of Sind and Hind perform pil­
grimages by thousands, from the most distant places; they carry money,
precious stones, aloes, and other sorts of perfumes."66 Mas ud) men­
tions two stratagems that connect the Muslim rulers of Multan to
their neighbors: one of negotiated existence and one of treaties and
agreements. He also calls Balhara "the greatest of the kings of Hind in
our time" and adds that the other kings of Hind "turn in their prayers
towards him" in his capital of Mankir. This great king, according to
Mas udi, is a great friend of Muslims, allows flourishing mosques, and
docs not require Muslims to pay taxes. Mas udi travels from Multan
to Mansura to Cambay, which he declares is well known in Baghdad
because of the sandals it produces.
Like Mas udi, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim lstakhii (d. 951) may also have vis­
ited Sind. In his Kitab Masahk wa’I-Mamalik (Book of Roads and
Kingdoms), Istakhri speaks of the idol located in the center of Multan.
The idol, Istakhri notes, is seated and wears a red garment that obscures
all but its ruby eyes. A crown of gold rests upon its head. He writes
that the Muslim realm adjoins the realm of the king Balhara, who per­
mitted the Friday sermon in his land. Istakhri's pupil Ibn Hawkal (d.
after 973) writes in his Kitab Masalik wa'1-Mamalik that he met Istakhri
in Sind. Ibn Hawkal's list of cities for Hind and Sind is completely
identical, though he claims that these are cities he knows personally.
He also mentions the adjoining king of Hind, Balhara, in whose
kingdom the Muslim Friday sermon is read. His account of Multan is
also identical to Istakhri's (including the idol that acts as a hostage for
the Muslim governor), though he adds two key details: first that the
pilgrims visiting Multan must pay a tribute to the governor, and
 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 75

second that the Muslim governor collects all of the offerings given to
the idol and redistributes a small amount back to the caretakers of the
temple.
In these recurrent descriptions of cities and settlements, we glimpse
the politically volatile but intertwined life at the frontier. The accounts
of battles, trades, and patronage of Muslim communities arc authenti­
cated with the epigraphic accounts such as the Chinchani charter from
926 CE that was found near Sinian in C.ujarat and that shows Krishna II
giving his support to an Arab polity.6’ Patronage stones in both tex­
tual and epigraphic records from the prethirteenth-century world helps
us imagine a diverse and interconnected frontier.
Was the world described by the Arab geographers and Rahman lost
by the eleventh century? From 'Awfi, we can see that the cultural
memory of this world, if not its political realities, continued in
thirteenth-century Uch. In the opening section of lawami Hikayat,
'Awfi narrates an anecdote from his time in Cambay: ''In Cambay were
a group of Muslims with pure faith" who lived alongside foreigners
under the rule of Jay Singh. He had given them permission to build a
mosque from which they could give public calls for prayers.6" Some un­
believers attacked the mosque, killed eighty Muslims, and burned the
mosque. The preacher of the mosque appealed to the ruler against the
atrocity, but he was unable to reach him. Eventually he managed to
meet Jay Singh during a hunt, submitting a petition written in "the dia­
lect of Hindi."’6’ Awfi describes how Jay Singh puts on a disguise—very
much in the spirit of the great 'Abbasid caliph Harun ur-Rashid—and
rides to Cambay to investigate this crime. Once he has asked around
and learned that the mosque was indeed burned, he fills a jug with
seawater and returns to his capital of Naharwala. There he fines all of
the leaders of the community for failing to protect peace in his do­
main and gives the preacher four gifts for the reconstruction of the
mosque and four canopies of intricate designs. These canopies, 'Awfi
claims, he saw with his own eyes.
Further evidence of a richly populated and vibrant world comes
from the thirteenth-century Persian geographer Zakariya ibn Mu­
hammad Qazwini (1203-1183). In his Asar al-Bilad wa Akhbar al
'/bad (Monuments of the Lands and Reports of God's Servants), Qaz­
wini praises the land of Sind:
76 A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY

On my life, this is the land where when rain falls, milk, pearls and
rubies grow
Musk, amber, 'ud, and all the perfumes flourish
The parrots are big as mountains
such that elephants, ligers, and lions appear as child before it
What fool can deny the richness of this land?70

The invocation of trade goods, of travel lodges, and of vibrant cities in

Sind and Hind during the time of Chachnama is a forceful corrective
to both the later British imagination of Sind and contemporary schol­
arship's focus on conquest and devastation (whether of Mongols or of
Delhi’s sultans) as the primary lens for seeing the thirteenth century.
What happens now in the task of unreading Chachnama! How
do we read it? In an early essay on Chachnama. Peter Hardy confronted
the question of thinking about this strange and influential text. He
asked,

Finally, one might at least put on the agenda for furiher inquiry the
possibility that the text of the Chach Nama was regarded by Kufi as
containing lessons for Muslim rulers of his own day.... Is the Chach
Nama then, in the text we have before us, one of the outward and
visible signs of a domestication of those new and Muslim rulers who,
successors to the Ghurids, were establishing their authority in the
northern part of the subcontinent at the beginning of the seventh/
thirteenth century |AH/CE|?n

Hardy's suggestive reading from 1981 left no imprint in historiog­

raphy. Though cast in functional language of political power, 1 find
Hardy's agenda to be fully congruent to mine: Chachnama is a text
containing advice, it is a text that creates a moral genealogy for rule,
it is a text that argues for a framework for understanding difference
(most critically, religious difference), and it is a text that demonstrates
five hundred years of interconnected lives in the Sind-Gujarat-Oman-
Yemen world.
In this chapter, I unmoored Chachnama from its traditional perch
as a translation and a conquest narrative, and asked that we situate it
instead as a text written in and speaking to a particular locality and a
particular political concern. In this reading, Chachnama emerges as
an Indic political theory. It is a text that imagines the creation of capi­
 A FOUNDATION FOB HISTORY 77

tals, forts, networks of roads, and houses of worship as political acts

with multiple agents—Muslim and Brahmin. It argues for the basis of a
polity to emerge from negotiation and dialog, and it situates itself
very consciously in an Indic milieu from which it gathers both cultural
and intellectual succor. It is a text that does the work of interpreta­
tion: It moves apparently foreign rituals into a language of recogniz­
able piety. But it does this not from a theological perspective, rather
from a perspective of governance and of justice.’1
The next three chapters offer close readings of Chachnama as po­
litical theory. These readings are informed by my encounters with the
people and landscape of contemporary Uch. 1 think through the text
via the ethnographic encounters I have had in Uch at the tree that
Muhammad bin Qasim planted next to the mosque he built and at the
jhund (cluster) of date-palm trees that Chach planted deep inside the
Cholistan desert. My reading of Chachnama and an excavation of
the imagined world of the thirteenth century would not be possible
without the questions which lingered after these encounters. In the
next three chapters, I offer a close reading of the Chachnama through
the lens of advice, of governance with difference, and of the calibra­
tion of gender and power.
 3
Dear Son, What Is the
Matter with You?

The morning chai routine involved listening to petitions. Out­

side the local court building, petitioners lined up early enough to
get the ears o( one of the scribes. These officers of the court were
responsible for selling the official court stationary on which legal
writs were required to be filed. They also wrote, in longhand, the
petition. Their annotations distinguished the "story" from the "facts”
of the case.
I had begun my day at the courtyard listening to Murad Sahib, who
was widely known as a historian of Uch. I had come to him to gather
information about the local families who had textual sources in their
archives. My query was open ended, and Murad Sahib had no concrete
information for me. The families of Uch, he explained, do not traffic
in manuscripts. I sat quietly, listening to him as he began to tell the
story of Uch: "Uch was Iskandria. When Iskander began to look for
Ab e Hayat |Watcr of Life), he began from here and was lost in the des­
erts of Cholistan. He was looking for Khizr (the immortal Prophet) at
the confluences of the rivers, and it was here that he founded this city
with his soldiers.”1 I said something about similar stories of Greek
bloodlines in the northwest regions of Kafirstan, but Murad Sahib gave
no indication of having heard me.

78
Letter writer. (Photo © Manan Ahmed Asif.1
Bo DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

After a short while, he turned to his work, and I sat quietly ob­
serving. He received many visitors early in the morning—men going
about their business who stopped to ask about his well-being and to
give him news of theirs. These meetings, often no more than a hand­
shake and a quick exchange, were conducted in Seraiki, in Punjabi, or
in Brohi. The status offered to Murad Sahib as a historian of the com­
munity was clear in each encounter that I witnessed that morning.
Many of the visitors engaged in long conversations about inheritances,
work, marriages, and business, asking Murad Sahib to correct their
account or give an account for their understanding.
That morning there were two men who had complaints lodged
against them for diverting water meant for other fields, and they were
at the courthouse to submit a statement in their defense. Murad Sahib
listened carefully to their story and asked them questions to clarify
their narrative. Once the account was settled, he took out a sheet of
300-rupee stationary and began to write the statement in his looping
script. As he wrote, he spoke about daily business to the other scribes,
to passersby, and to me (occasionally). His customers, the two men. sat
quietly. After he was done, he advised them on where to go to file the
paperwork as well as what to say, and he gave them specific names of
clerks inside the building. The business concluded, the two men re­
spectfully took their leave and departed with their letter.
Near the end of our conversation, Murad Sahib described how he
knew the stories and lessons of Chachnama from oral accounts, and
excerpted translations republished in cheap editions. When he was
visiting the district court in Hyderabad, he had visited the Bhambore
archeological site and thought about the distant history of this land.
"Chachnama is a wise book of this very soil," he exclaimed, "with
many lessons for us!" 1 began to understand through this conversation
that Chachnama was a living text in Uch, with resonances in daily
social life. This dimension of the history of a medieval text had not
been apparent to me earlier. Our business concluded, 1 walked away
from the courtyard, thinking about this question of "lessons." What
lessons are embedded in this text from this soil? What precisely is the
rubric for advice in Chachnama!1
Chachnama is a product of its time. It was written in the political
capital of Qabacha's court, Uch, in the thirteenth century, and it re­
flected the political concerns of that time and place. In Chapter 2, I
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 8l

demonstrated that Chachnama cannot be read as a translation of a con­

quest narrative from the eighth century, but rather it is one text,
among many others, of political theory from the early thirteenth
century. How is political theory applied in Chachnamal This chapter
argues that advice -dialogic, didactic, and demonstrative—is the mode
for presenting a theory of politics in Chachnama. Letters arc the pri­
mary means for communicating advice in the text; they are the clearest
articulation of Chachnama's theory of politics. Like Murad Sahib
and the people he represents, in Chachnama there is an affective re­
lationship between the advice giver and those who seek advice. This
relationship is based on affinity, friendship, and a shared ethical frame­
work. Chachnama should be read as a scries of relationships within
which advice is given, received, and contested.
What are these advice encounters like? What vision of politics
does the advice in Chachnama put forth- I suggest that the letters
represent a theory of governance and political theory that fore­
grounds accommodation and the building of alliances for ruling
diverse communities in the thirteenth century. The letters demon­
strate that a primary concern for Chachnama is differences between
religious communities, political actors, and social classes. The first
part of this chapter is a close reading of various letters in the text. In
the second part, I consider how treating Chachnama as advice liter­
ature may put it in conversation with other forms of advice litera­
ture. In situating Chachnama in the genre of advice literature—in
Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit—I suggest that there are multiple in­
tellectual genealogies that Chachnama draws upon to craft its po­
litical theory.

Advice for Divine Rule

Chachnama begins with a letter writer arriving at the court of Rai Si-
hasi in Aror, "the capital of Hind and Sind."' He introduces himself to
Chamberlain Ram and Minister Budhiman thus: "My name is Chach,
son of the temple priest Sala’ij. My father and brother live and serve at
the temple at the outskirts of Aror and pray for the benevolence and
extension of the rule of Rai Sihasi. I want to meet Minister Ram
because he is recognized far and wide due to his wisdom and his capa­
bility. 1 want to work under him."4
81 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

The archetypal names for the courtiers—Budhiman, meaning

"wise one," and Ram, the deity—highlight the normative power of
their characteristic noted in the text: power, wisdom, and political ac­
tion- Upon hearing Chach, the chamberlain praises his eloquent speech
and asks him to speak of his training in the "arts of right conduct"
and in the "arts of writing." Chach replies, "1 have at my tongue the
four books of Hind—Rg, Jj, Asam, Asrin."5 As they converse, letters
petitioning resolution arrive from the port city of Daybul. The cham­
berlain gives these letters to Chach, who reads them aloud in exqui­
site form and composes replies, demonstrating his vocabulary. The
chamberlain is impressed and appoints Chach as his assistant in the
epistolary office {daflar-e insha’}. This is how Chachnama narrates
the beginning of Chach's life at court: as a letter writer who advances
quickly because of his wisdom.
From this beginning, the significance of letters, of letter writing,
and of the utility of both to the art of governance is apparent in
Chachnama. The letters—sometimes referred to in the Arabic rasa'il
and sometimes in the Persian maklubat or nabishtah—are the most
consistent narrative device throughout the text. They explicate, inform,
propel, and shape the narrative and serve as the main demonstrative
space for the political theory of governance. At key points, Chachnama
quotes complete letters, such as that between Chach and his brother,
between Chach's son Dahar and his brother Daharsia, between Hajjai
bin Yusuf and the Caliph, between Muhammad bin Qasim and Dahar,
and most prolifically, between Hajjai bin Yusuf and Muhammad bin
Qasim. In all, Chachnama reproduces more than forty letters, often
including full salutations and dedications.
In the following sections, I discuss two sets of letters and the way
in which they lay out key features of the political theory of Chachnama:
the role of advisors, the role of divine will, the importance of human
agency, and the need to be just toward others. These letters need to be
read in pairs because they represent the working out of a dialogic rela­
tionship between actors in Chachnama. They are the conversation
through which one can see difference being narrated, asserted, and
negotiated.
The crisis of succession is the most vivid political crisis in
Chachnama. It is in this crisis that we see the clearest articulation of
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 83

a theory of kingship: a king must rise to power with a combination of

divine sanction and human will. This is perhaps unsurprising since it
is the crisis of succession that itself informed early-thirteenth-century
Uch—during this time, the military campaigns of Iltutmish, Yildiz,
and Qabacha were raging around Lahore, Delhi, and Uch. As such, con­
flict over succession is both the lived reality and the imagined world
of the text. To this political reality, Chachnama presents a theoretical
world where power must be claimed and cannot simply be inherited.
It must be asserted. The clearest invocation of this political theory is
tn the Chach cycle: during the campaign to conquer the four corners
of Sind and after Chach has conquered the east, he turns his attention
to the west and writes "with his pen," pressing the raia of Agham to
surrender:
You IRaia of Agham| consider yourself to be grand and of great birth
and stature, but 1 did not get this polity as inheritance from my father
or grandfather, and it is not mine to give in inheritance. It is God who
has arranged for this, not my army. It is by the prayers of Sala'ij that
the only God granted me this polity, and he will always stand with
me. I do not need the aid of any other. He is the one who will ease
my difficulties and make my movements easier and will grant me
victory (nusrrtt o fath) over my enemies. He grants me relief in both
worlds, and if you are confident in your strength, your prestige, and
your magnificence, know that it will all decline, and retributive jus­
tice will fall upon your head.6
Chach states forcefully that it was not birth that made his claim to
rule, but rather, good conduct yielded divine sanction. This is the
theory of a normative polity presented in Chachnama: rule comes with
divine sanction but with emphasis on the agency of the individual
ruler. The divine will is known by the actors through divine signs.
Prophecy and prognostication are an intimate part of Chachnama. and
the text invokes them for both Muslim and Hindu polities.7
After Chach's death, the question of succession between his two
sons is raised. Chach's polity could potentially be split between the two
brothers Dahar and Daharsia. Or it could be split three ways, for his
daughter Ma'in Bai was promised in marriage to a neighboring raja. It
is in working through this succession battle in Chachnama that the
relationship among rule, divine intervention, and political acumen is
»4 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

fully articulated. A noble in Dahar's court visits an astrologer and is

impressed by his prophetic power. He reports back to Dahar: "May you
live long, O Raja! In prosperity or decline the Raja should never break
from the company of wise ones, poets, writers, and the learned class
IBrahm/nl, because they are our leaders. One must visit them and give
them respect and praise. For the prophecy (fa/| that emerges from them
is the best,'”
Taking this advice, Dahar also visits the astrologer and asks about
"the conditions to benefit my state, the laws governing society, and
other ways to benefit the population such that my just reward is in the
afterlife.'"' The astrologer tells Dahar that his stars are aligned and that
he will live and prosper as a ruler. Then Dahar asks about his sister's
fate. Tlie astrologer answers that according to his calculations, she will
never leave the fort of Aror, and her marriage will be to the raja who
will rule all of Hindustan. This news shocks Dahar, for if the husband
of his sister is the ruler of Hindustan, his fate is sealed. He goes to his
father’s counselor, Minister Budhiman.
The minister hears the conundrum that while Dahar is guaranteed
prosperity and rule, his sister is meant to be married to someone who
will be the king of Hindustan. He speaks:
The work of maintaining a kingdom is delicate, O King, and there are
various claimants to it—the neighboring kings, the armies, the ser­
vants. The wise say that five things cannot survive if dislodged from
their natural settings: the king from his kingship, the minister
from his ministry, the wise from his knowledge, the hair and teeth
from the body, and the breast exposed. For the sake of kingship, the
king must take the lives of even his brothers and relatives, or at least
expel them from his kingdom. He does not allow anyone to meddle
in governance—even the nobility. If a king removes himself from
kingship, he is a mere commoner. Now that the astrologer has proph­
esied, you must make your sister Bai your wife and install yourself
as the king. If you avoid contact with her, she will still be your wife
in name, and your kingdom will be preserved.10
The minister lays out a hierarchical order of public good: the king
in his kingdom is of primary importance. And although incestuous
marriage may be publicly condemned, the consequences can be borne
if the interior reality is not incestuous. The minister's formulation is
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 85

akin to the formulations in the Pancatantra about the capacity of the

owl to be a king, as we will discuss below. This formulation of the body
politic is also present in the Arthasastra and later compilations such
as the Hitopadesa." The minister's advice, then, is that Dahar must
do whatever he must to get the kingdom and then to keep it—including
marrying his own sister.
But what about the perception of the public? Chachnama incorpo­
rates a fable here to showcase how a public charm or ruse |ta/sim) can
direct opinion. The minister takes a sheep and plants soil and seed in
its wool, watering it daily until grass begins to grow. Then he releases
the sheep in public, and all the urban and rural dwellers [shahri o rustai)
gaze in amazement. However, in three days, the novelty wears off, and
no one pays attention to the wandering sheep. The minister turns to
Dahar and says, "Whether good or bad, no talk remains on people's lips
for more than three days. Neither a good deed nor a bad is remem­
bered.’'12 Dahar is convinced, and he sets out to convince his brother
of this idea.
Dahar’s exchange of letters with his brother showcases that advice
is not simply asserted or accepted, it is the product of a contestation
and dialogue. The first letter Dahar sends to his brother is with great
humility and respect, informing him of the astrologer's prophecy and
Dahar's decision. It concludes that Dahar sees no salvation except fol­
lowing the advice of the minister. In reply, Daharsia declares that this
is an unpleasant prophecy and a foul act. "If you are undertaking this
act for maintaining kingship, there is no recourse. But if you have any
base desires then all treaties and agreements will be nullified, and you
will face dire consequences." 13 Dahar assures him that he has no ill
intentions, although he mentions that she is only a half sister and at
that she belongs to a lower caste—a birth that condemns her with the
lack of morals.
After receiving the letter, Daharsia decides to raise a small contin­
gent of soldiers and visit his brother in the capital. He is still concerned
that there is something foul in Dahar's intentions, even if the "letters
are full of praise and conciliation." Dahar seals himself inside the fort,
and the minister advises him to try to isolate his brother and kill
him. Dahar refuses that advice, for he wants to reconcile with his
brother. Conveniently, the brother soon dies from an illness. The divine
86 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!

will is thus fulfilled: Dahar marries his sister, and using his political
prowess, he becomes the ruler of Chach's kingdom.
The letters exchanged between Dahar and Daharsia operate within
the framework of divine will and political acumen. Chachnama em­
phasizes the eloquence and humility in Dahar's letters, harkening back
to the skill and acclaim that Chach had garnered during his rise to
power. The letters are set up in a dialogic confrontation: a diplomatic
and well-crafted letter is necessary in a king’s set of skills. However,
Daharsia’s skepticism of the sincerity of Dahar’s letters highlights the
capacity of beautifully rendered prose to obfuscate and distract. In
effect, the narrative outside of the letters—depicting the minister’s
advice and Dahar's machinations—puts into relief a tension between
narrative truth and moral truth within the letters. Chachnama asks
us to imagine within that exchange a play of politics whereby contesting
political powers can lie, cajole, plead, or assert their positions with false
promises. Chachnama further complicates the question of political
rule through the minister’s advice and attestation that the public has
a short memory, such that if necessary to retain power, a ruler can
make an immoral choice. The public—defined as both urban and rural
dwellers—will eventually forget or simply go along with the king's
dictum.

Advice for Conquest

A second set of letters involve an exchange between Hajjaj bin Yusuf
and Muhammad bin Qasim. It again demonstrates the work that episto­
lary exchange does in Chachnama—debating and resolving questions
of political alliances and of accommodation of different communities.1'
During the campaign to conquer the fort of Nerun, Qasim pauses next
to a lake of "water purer than the eyes of lovers and the garden more
pleasant than the garden of Aram," and he pens a letter to Hajjaj, re­
porting on the conditions of the army:
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Benevolent:
I send this to the magnificent court of the king of nobles, the
crown of faith, and the protector of Iran and Hind. I am your servant
Muhammad bin Qasim. With due humility and servitude, I report
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 87

that this dedicated servant and all the nobles, servants, warriors, and
groups of Muslims are well and safe. We are striving to institute order
and organization here. We bring to your luminous opinion the news
that after traveling across deserts and lethal jungles, we reached the
edge of the polity of Sind, and we have camped next to the river which
is known as Mehran.... At the moment we arc resting in the shade of
a fort which boasts that it was built by the Roman Alexander ilikandar
Rumi) himself. Yet I am confidant in the mercy of the Great God.u

The ornate phrasing of the letter is stylistically distinct from the

narrative voice of Chachnama, as is the replication of the salutations.
Qasim goes on to detail the forts that have been conquered so far and
to declare that they have "built mosques at the places of worship of
the unbelievers and introduced into those mosques caretakers who can
call people to prayer and proclaim the greatness of God."16 After this
strident note of hegemony over idolaters, Qasim lays out the possibili­
ties of an ally in the land of unbelievers who might be able to help the
Muslims in their campaign:

There is a noble who rules to the north of Mehran. near Cambay

liazira hahr-e kumbah ast), and his name is Rasami Rasal. His son is
one of the notables in Dahar's court, and many kings of Hind and
Sind have promised their fealty to him. He has approached us in
hopes that we will make a truce with him. We await your guidance
as we arc awaiting results of that negotiation. If it works, we will have
the means to cross this river.1’

The letter lays out a competing vision for Qasim's campaign,

asserting Muslim dominance but recognizing that the task is impos­
sible without assistance from non-Muslims. The letter ends with an­
other plea for God's mercy. Re-produced formally in Chachnama, this
letter is a model of the epistolary genre, applying the techniques of
narration, with honorifics, invocations from history, as well as direct
citation from the Qur'an. At the end of the epistle is the critical part
of the letter, where the possibility of an alliance is discussed and ad­
vice is requested.
Qasim's letter is immediately followed by Hajjaj’s reply, which is
the longest epistle in Chachnama. The first part of it reads as follows:
88 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUl

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Benevolent:

Dear son, Karim aI-Din|Benevolent with Faith| Muhammad bin
Qasim, may God keep you in esteem. 1 received your letter full of
salutations and decorated with many elaborate dedications, and I read
all the matter that you had inscribed within it. Dear son, what is the
matter with you! What has happened that you cannot use your in­
tellect faq/|, your reason Ifadbirl, and your counsel (rail? I wish that
in warfare you would defeat all the kings of the cast and destroy the
cities of the unbelievers! Why are you unable to finish this small
campaign! Why do you not surround the forts of the enemies and
overcome them! I hope their plans will fail.
He who hinders the cause of Islam's army, strengthen your heart,
and spend any capital that you want on |this enemy's| other enemies,
with riches and gifts raining on his opponents. If someone asks for
land, grant it to him. Make (this ally's] name prominent in your peace
treaties Ionian nanu) so that his heart is at ease. Because there are
four ways in which a kingship is acquired: first, through consulta­
tion, alliances and treaties, and relation; second, through expenditure
of wealth and grants; third, by knowing and understanding the ways
and means of one’s enemies; and fourth, by dominance, terror, mag­
nificence, bravery, power, and strength (r’ub o mahabai o shabamat
o quwat o sbaukat}.
Make all effort to dismiss small enemies. Make all attempts to
give grants to nobility and have their consent. Make true promises
to them. When they come to you and of their own volition appoint
a tax (khnraf), then take whatever cash or commodity they send to
the treasury. If you appoint one of them as your messenger, make
sure you have confidence in his intellect, foresight, and faith so that
he will not bring discord into peace....
Invite the nobles to accept the faith, and if they do, reward them
with wealth, governance, and land. If they reject Islam, caution them
to remain faithful to the regime. If they rebel, threaten them with
the righteous action against the rebellious.18

Where Qasim's letter expressed a hope to call all unbelievers to

Islam, Haiiaj's letter counters that the only person who needs to accept
Islam's supremacy is King Dahar. He suggests that other nobles, or the
broader public, could be supported in their own faiths, as long as they
agreed to obey the political power of the Muslims. The question of
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? »9

power in this exchange of advice is clear from the way in which Haijaj
begins his letter to the young Qasim—with intimacy and candor,
quickly showing his exasperation at the halting campaign. The rebuke,
"Dear son, what is the matter with you!" highlights the patriarchal
nature of his advice, and the informality makes clear the dynamic of
power at play.
In Haijaj's formulation of difference between religions, the politics
of the governed is paramount. Whereas Qasim narrates a dialectic of
difference that must be overcome (mosques where temples stood), Haijaj
at first seems to offer a similar sentiment (destroy the cities of the un­
believers), but critically this is expressed as a desire and not as a
strategy. The strategy offered by Hajiaj is instead to look toward accom­
modation as governance. The nobility's proposals of tax schema ought
to be accepted without debate because their alliance is crucial to the
establishment of a new governing regime, Hajiaj explains. Hence, the
first path of gainings kingdom is through peaceful alliancesand under­
standings. As he details the ways in which Qasim could incorporate
local nobility into his administration, Haijaj also comments that
Dahar should be given only one choice: accept the oneness of God or
prepare to fight. The letter continues with Hajiaj responding to the
strategy question that Qasim proposed about crossing the river Mehran
to engage the troops on the other shore. He advises that the Muslim
army must do this immediately so that Dahar is impressed by their con­
fidence. Hajiaj then gives specific tactical advice—how to tie the boats
together, how to position the army to assist in the crossing, how to
assemble on the battlefield on the other side. Finally, he impresses upon
Muhammad bin Qasim the need to follow his directions to the letter.
Chachnama then shows the divine sanction for Hajjaj’s advice. It
narrates how Dahar surrenders the fort after receiving a prophecy from
his astrologer that the "fort built by Alexander" was fated to "fall to
Muslims on 93 Hijri (711 CE|," Dahar dispatches the Buddhist care­
taker (sonMnil of the fort to surrender peacefully to the Muslims. The
Buddhist caretaker does so, and Qasim grants a robe of honor. Qasim
then implements a scheme of religious accommodation for the popu­
lation, enacting Hajjaj's advice.
The subsequent letters continue to develop the political and mili­
tary strategy for Chachnama, providing the framework within which
90 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

action can be understood. The two sets of letters I have chosen to high­
light here share the theme of how kings and polities intersect. Reading
them together reveals that Chachnama is advocating for a policy
binding the king and his elites through a common goal of governance
wherein retaining power is the supreme good. This good is sanctioned
by divinity that is, in both cases, legible in the stars. This mutual leg­
ibility, by extension, makes their truth-claims compatible or, at the
very least, comparative.
The letters demonstrate the necessity of dialogue in a political world
that is defined through difference. The debate continues in other letters,
with Qasim advocating more lenient policies and Hajjaj becoming
more strident. The effect of these positions is to underscore the ques­
tion of dialogue and strategy for the text. Each of these encounters is
meant to be understood as the working out of differing positions. The
moral weight of the text leans in one clear direction: accommodation.
In linking the Chach and Qasim cycles narratively, and by making
Chach the exemplar for Qasim, Chachnama creates an equivalence be­
tween the Muslim and non-Muslim histories, thus cementing its case
for accommodation.
A dear articulation of Chachnama asserting equivalence is in the
victory letter (specifically termed lathnama) that Qasim sends to Hajjaj
after the defeat of Dahar and his army. At this moment of triumph,
the letter begins on that strident note:

To the commander of Iraq and Hind, Hajjaj bin Yusuf, with thousands
of salutations from the servant Muhammad hm Qasim, who declares
that the grace of God pitted the brave and hearty warriors of both
sides against each other and gave victory to the army of Islam after
their swords were wet with blood and made supine and defeated
the army of Dahar, who possessed wild elephants. Their elephants,
horses, cattle, slaves are all in our possession, and a fifth of it is dis­
patched to the capital It is hoped by the grace of God that with this
auspicious beginning, all the politics of Hind and Sind will enter into
the domain of Islam.19

This victory ietter contains a very noteworthy exception to the

genre of victory letters in conquest narratives: the armies of both sides
are praised, even if the commander Dahar is not. Alongside this gen­
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 91

erosity is the understanding that this is only the first phase of a wider
campaign that is dependent on the blessing of God. This also recalls
Chach's declaration in his letter to the raja of Ahujam, Qasim's vic­
tory is thus an analogue to Chach's, as the Muslim polity is a successor
to Chach's. That God would sanction Chach's imperial formation just
as he would Qasim's works in an ontological register but also in a legal
register.
A dialogic form of letter exchange is used to address difference in
the thirteenth century. Using this mode, Chachnama articulates the
nitty-gritty modes through which one accommodates difference. A
number of letters in Chachnama—including Hajjaj’s brief to Qasim—
advocate for making alliances where possible. After the conquest of
Daybul, Hajjaj sends instructions on how to execute such alliances:

After the conquest of each fort, distribute all gains on the mainte­
nance of the army. Do not stop any one from eating or drinking the
needful, and make sure that the supply of foodstuff is maintained so
that the commodities for the army are cheap and accessible. What
you rescued in Daybul, do not confine to treasuries. Instead, dis­
tribute it among the people, because after the conquest of the polity
and the opening of the forts, one should strive to help the people
Ira'iya) and the dwellers lastamalat sakanan), because if the farmers
Izara'i), artisans |sanoi|, and traders (tu/iar) are at ease, the polity will
be green and prosperous, by the grace of God.

Written on the tenth of Rajab of the year 93.

In another letter soon after, Hajjaj advises Qasim to grant "sanc­

tuary to whomever request it, and when the elders and notables of the
town approach you, give them significant robes (khil'at) and put them
in your debt."21 In these sets of letters and commands, Haijaj consis­
tently emphasizes the difference between the king, his elite, and the
populace and that the Muslim army’s chief concern is the populace and
not the nobility. This is clearer when he chastises Qasim for granting
a governorship to one of Dahar's nobles as a bribe, without first making
sure that the noble was not taking advantage of Qasim's naiviti.22
1 suggest that the letters represent a thorough argument—with spe­
cific examples—for governance and a political theory that foregrounds
accommodation and alliance building. Chachnama. read as political
92 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

theory, reveals that cohabitation and cooperation have high strategic

value. The making of alliances requires a broader strategy than that of
domination. Chachnama provides examples and legal sanction for such
a political theory.

A Genealogy for Advice

Chachnama places its advice in letters and in pronouncements. Therein
the characters debate, resist, or adapt advice for their particular po­
litical context. What texts, intellectual traditions, or ethical frame­
works did Chachnama draw upon to present its political theory? The
arguments for building alliances, negotiating difference, and engaging
in dialogue is explicit in Chachnama. but no direct citations orient the
reader to sources that may have informed the nature of the advice that
appears in the text. One can recognize some Qur'anic quotes, but there
are other sources of traditions indicated in the text. Chachnama as a
text of policy or advice is eminently locatable within Persian advice
literature. In this last section, 1 show the ways in which Greek, Arabic,
and Persian advice literature informs it—from the Letter of Alexander
to Shahnama. To demonstrate the influence of a wider range of advice
literature on Chachnama. I also review other Indic texts: the Ar-
thasastra and Pancatantra.
Inserting Chachnama within such genealogical traces on advice lit­
erature helps us understand the production and consumption of this
text. In that sense, the question of advice literature must be opened up
more fully to articulate three temporally specific but overlapping ge­
nealogies for advice literature in India. These genealogies overlap in
language, in form, in relationship to power, and in impact of their
thoughts. In this discourse of advice, conceptual figures such as king,
minister, and philosopher travel in various texts and in languages as
diverse as Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. These figures enact and en­
trench political regimes.
1 begin with Alexander of Macedon (d. 323 BCE), who was known
in Persian as Iskander or Sikander. Alexander casts a long shadow over
Uch and, consequently, over Chachnama. The story of that young con­
queror who overcame odds is often tied to the story of the young Mu­
hammad bin Qasim, both within Chachnama and in stories outside
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 93

of it. Greek understandings of India—and by extension, early modern

Europe’s understandings of India—bear the imprint of the Alexandrian
conquests. Within this discursive terrain, India is a place of marvel and
wonder, where Alexander encounters supranatural and marvelous
sights.
The earlier histories—such as the fifth-century-BCE treatise on
India by Ctesias of Cnidus and Megasthenes's fourth-ccntury-BCE
Indica—emphasized the marvels of India. Ctesias was reported to have
been a physician with the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon of Persia, while
Megasthenes traveled to India with Alexander. Their texts, compiled
in later works, provide geographical details peppered with fabulous
reports of a land populated with animals of great size (ants, scorpions,
and crabs), of people without heads and with eyes on their shoulders,
of men who have faces like dogs, and of other men who have no nos­
trils and a single eye in their forehead.11 Megasthenes's marvels of India
were reproduced and augmented in Pliny's Histona Naturalis. finished
in 77 CE, and in Solinus's Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium (Collec­
tion of Remarkable Factsl, written in the third century. India, in these
accounts, has preeminence as a land of great wealth and wonder. In
Greek thought, these bizarre, extraordinary, and marvelous stories
characterized India as frontier at the edge of the known world. In spite
of the fact that some, like Strabo (b. 63 BCE), questioned the validity of
these tales, such stories continued to dominate the Roman imagina­
tion regarding India.24
Within that tradition is also a tradition of advice literature, in­
cluding letters exchanged between Alexander and Aristotle. These
letters circulated in Greek, Arabic, and Persian as the Epistola Alex­
andra ad Aristotlem, or the Rasa’ll. The Letter gives an account of
Alexander's travels and tribulations in India during his pursuit of Pu­
rus's army. It depicts an India that simultaneously holds great wealth
("the walls were also golden, sheathed with gold plates the thickness
of a finger") and great wisdom, challenging Alexander to possess both.25
The Letter, presented by the collective Pseudo-Callisthenes (ca. 200
CE), formed the bulk of the compilations such as Secretum Secretorum
and the Arabic Kitab Sirr al-Asrar (ca. 940). These are advice manuals
focused on Alexander's conquest of India and the Aristotle's role as his
philosopher-advisor.26
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?
94

The Letter influences two particular strands of Indo-Pcrsian histo­

riography which we can trace in Chachnama. First is the representa­
tion of Alexander as a young and doomed conqueror. We find this
specifically in De Mundo and the Pseudo-Callisthcnes, in the histo­
ries of Ya'qubi |d. ca. 905), Dinawari |d. 903), Tabari (d. 913I, Masudi (d.
956), and finally, Biruni |d. 1048I. Alexander's exploits are a model or
precedent for the Arab conquests of Iran and India?’ In Mas'udi parti­
cularly, Alexander's letter to Aristotle about the House of Gold (Bay!
ad-Dhahab) is quoted. Ma'sudi quotes Aristotle's admonishing the con­
queror for being blinded by avarice, and then explicates the matter?8 In
Tabari's account, Alexander's conquest of India foreshadowed the
struggle between Dara and Alexander for the conquest of Persia.” In
these histories, the epistolary emphasis of Alexander's conquest is
maintained, and the political theory is articulated through this dia­
logue between the advisor and the young conqueror.
The second strand of Persian historiography is the presence of
Alexander as a heroic figure in Firdawsi's Shahnama |ca roto) and the
Persianate romances that followed. Minoo Southgate traced various
storylines, motifs, and actions in the Fidrawsi, and forcefully argued
that the Syriac Pseudo-Caliisthenes is preserved in the Shahnama,m
In Firdawsi, Alexander is the descendant of the Iranian king Darab,
whose political and moral leadership is explicated via his dialogue with
his half-brother, Dara, whom Alexander has to kill in order to conquer
Persia. Firdawsi's Alexander narrative cycle contains critical aspects
for my reading of Chachnama, specifically Firdawsi's comparison of
Alexander to previous kings and the resonance in Alexander's ac­
tions with the deeds of others. This cyclical reading throughout the
Shahnama has been studied by scholars (such as Peter Hardy and
Julie Meisami) as a break from the Arabic historiography tradition?1
The Alexander narrative cycle in Firdawsi contains numerous let­
ters: between Alexander and Dara, from Alexander to the people of
Iran, between the Indian king Kayd and Alexander, between Alexander
and Foor, from Alexander to the Brahmins, from Alexander to the em­
peror of China, and from Alexander to his mother. Firdawsi notes that
some of these letters contain flattery and obfuscations, and some are
filled with moral advice.
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 9$

Firdawsi's Shahnama had a profound influence. It is from Shahna-

ma's Alexander narrative cycle that Nizami Ganjawi |d. ca. 1209) gives
birth to the Iskandarnama genre in one of his quintet of Khamsa.'1 It
is Nizami's desire for immortality (such as that granted to Firdawsi)
that makes hun seek out Khizr, who kisses Nizami in a dream and
gives him the idea to write about Alexander. In Nizami's Iskandar­
nama, there exists the new capacity of Alexander to grow as an indi­
vidual and to have a multifaceted character: a king, a conqueror, a
mystic, a prophet. In Nizami, the idea (first extrapolated by Firdawsi)
that there can be a pre-lslamic precedent to an Islamic ethos gains full
currency. In Nizami, Alexander is fully articulated as a prophet on a
righteous path, and his forays into governance or administration can
then be seen as divinely sanctioned—no matter that this divinity pre­
dates the Prophet Muhammad. This view of Alexander is reproduced in
Amir Khusraw Dehlavi's A'ina-ye Iskandari and later proliferations.
Chachnama's letters clearly offer political guidance akin to texts
in the "Mirror for Princes" genre. Led by Julie Meisami, Stefan Leder,
Dwight Reynolds, Brigette Griindler, and Dimitri Gutras, the schol­
arship on adab (right conduct, or advice) literature has focused on ex­
plicating the forms of genres and tracing the routes of transmission
across Sanskrit, Greek, Arabic, and Persian texts.33 The traced routes
of development from the Abbasid courts of the ninth through tenth
centuries and the emergence of Aristotelian thought and ethics in
India after Nasir ud Din TUsi are also well studied. The key advice
texts in this intellectual tradition are the Siyasalnama (Book of Poli­
tics) by Nizam Mulk 11018-1092), the Qabusnama IBook of Qabus) by
Qabus ibn Vushmgir (d. 1012I, and the Rasa'il lkhwan Safa' (ca. tenth
century).
What has received less scholarly attention is the configuration of
the particular texts in this genre itself—that is, the making of this
"canon" of political thought and the ways in which texts participated
in it or were moved in and out of it. For instance, Chachnama as an
example of fathnama or maghnzi (conquest literature) has never been
seen as relevant to the study of advice literature in India. This has pro­
found consequences for the ways in which we trace the development
of the "Mirror for Princes" or neo-Aristotelian thought in Muslim
96 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

communities between the eighth and fourteenth centuries in India.

While a constellation of advice texts such as Nasir Din Tiisi’s (1201-
1274) Akhlaq-i Nasiri and Zia Din Barani's (ca. 1285—1356) Fatawa-i la-
handari and Amir Khusrau's Tiighhiqnama written in 1320, are present
in any discussion on advice literature, scholarship is unclear on the
processes by which such a constellation came into being and how the
texts relate to each other.34
Scholarship on Persian texts focuses on these influences from ear­
lier historiography within the genre of advice. Yet as Indic text of po­
litical theory, Chachnama also draws upon literary traditions that are
normatively understood to be outside of particularly "Muslim" po­
litical theory. Those texts are the Arthasastra and the Pancatantra.1''
I offer a short reading of some motifs from Chachnama that invoke
these Sanskrit texts to demonstrate the rich traditions that it draws
upon. It is likely that the stories, motifs, and axioms from these second-
or third-century texts found their way into Chachnama through oral
traditions in Sind or through textual-commentary traditions. My ef­
fort to read Chachnama in light of these Sanskrit texts is not to argue
for direct lineages but to highlight the interdependencies of political
theory in the early thirteenth century across literary cultures.
Arthasastra is often understood as a text belonging to Kautilya, a
minister for KingChandragupta Maurya (340-293 BCE).16 In form and
content, Arthasastra exemplifies the genre of "Mirror for Princes,"
wherein the ruling elite find advice for statecraft and governance in the
form of political dicta. Chachnama invokes such dicta as well, linking
itself to Indic political theory. Hajiai’s letter to Qasim, discussed previ­
ously, narrates the tour ways in which a polity can be acquired: first
through consultation, alliances, and treaties, and relation; second
through expenditure of wealth and grants,- third by knowing and un­
derstanding the ways and means of one’s enemies; and fourth by dom­
inance, terror, magnificence, bravery, power, and strength. The four
ways in which a polity is acquired are referenced a number of times in
Chachnama and are similar to Arthasastra's repeated stress on the
four methods of acquiring territory: saman (adopting a conciliatory at­
titude and making alliances), dana (showering with rewards and gifts),
bheda (understanding and sowing dissension among enemies), and
danda (using forcc|. ’’ Hajjaj’s advice to make grants and coopt opposi­
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU! 97

tion mirrors that of Arthasastra, which renders the tasks in the same
order: first to spend resources and attract political opponents, and to
resort to violent conflict only if all else fails.
Chachnama also mirrors Arthasastra's definition of the relation­
ship between the king and his advisor: "a king can reign only with
the help of others; one wheel alone does not move a chariot. Therefore,
a king should appoint advisors and listen to their advice."3* Hence,
Chach with Budhiman, and Qasim with Hana) are presented as pairs
in governance.
The spatial imagination in Arthasaslra also resonates within
Chachnama. Arthasastra describes the state in a relationship with its
four borders and the kingdoms around it. It has an ideal variety of
mountains, valleys, plains, deserts. This is precisely how Chachnama
introduces Chach's kingdom. In both texts, the governed polity con­
tains natural landscapes, and both texts emphasize promoting reserves
for animals. They describe a built environment, with detailed descrip­
tions of the physical layout of the capital, the forts, and the public build­
ings and outposts. Along with the spatial imagination, Arthasastra
argues for political "stability’' as a conquering king's key effort. This
stability is operative in the territory of governance \chakravartik
shetram]. Hence, Arthasastra argues that political power should over­
come political difference. As we saw in the letters, the capacity of the
king to "visualize" the terrain is articulated and stressed throughout
Chachnama.
How does Chachnama argue for a coherent political theory out of
these various influences? Are its formulations moral edicts that can
be separated from the text? Or is the effort instead to work through
different perspectives with nested levels of comprehension throughout
the text? It is this last question that emerges from my reading of the
text. I am drawn to a similar reading advanced by Yigal Bronner in
his review of the ninth-century Sanskrit text, Kuttanimatam, which
was written in the court of the Kashmir kipg Jayapida.w Bronner ex­
plains that the text—a lecture by an older madam Vikarala to a young
woman named Malati. delivered via a series of intricate framing
stories—asks for deep meditation from the reader. There is often con­
flicting advice, or the sympathy of the text seems to be buried within
the framing narratives, to characters who seemingly contradict the
98 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

claims of genre and form. Imagined speakers provide a surface reading

as well as a contradictory deeper reading that is revealed only through
close attention to the text's acrobatics. I find Brunner's observations on
how to read this ninth-century text particularly useful for Chachnama
As I have argued above, a whole-text reading of Chachnama allows us
to see the ways in which the Chach narrative cycle and the Qasim nar­
rative cycle dialogue with each other—how they present subtle varia­
tions or provide a foundation for political thought. Drawing on Bronner,
I can make the further argument that one can conceive of Chachnama
as consisting of various interlocked framing narratives, akin to the
Pancatantra talcs.
Pancatantra, composed in approximately too CE, articulates an­
other example of the Indic advice genre, focusing on how to handle
political life. Pancalantra fables feature nonhumans. They arc animals
and birds whose conduct is rooted in natural difference, yet who gather
in conversation to govern, adjudicate, and seek redress. In form, Pan­
catantra addresses a far wider audience than Arthasastra, which re­
stricts itself to the ruling elite. Pancatantra's pedagogic effect relies
upon the affect and the emotional resonances created in the listeners,
and these tales went far afield as oral stories. The sources for some of
these tales arc the Buddhist Jataka talcs. Others come from various
dharmasastra texts such as Mahabharata and Vikramacarita. though
they sometimes use aphorisms from Arthasastra. Unlike the Ar­
thasastra, where the tone is factual, direct, and pragmatic, these tales
are broadly conversational, with little direct explication of meaning,
allowing for multiple interpretations in their readings. These short
talcs spread across Asia in as many guises and forms as any of us can
possibly imagine, with recensions available to us from Tibet to Indo­
nesia and in more than fifty languages.
1 want to briefly sketch out the framing story and give an example
of how Pancatantra invokes dialogue before 1 turn to ways in which
we can conceive of its relationship to Chachnama The brief framing
story in Pancatantra is the plight of King Amarasakti, who has three
foolish sons in need of training and education. He asks wise Brahmin
Visnusarman to make the sons suitable for kingship. Visnusarman
composes five books illustrating proper conduct (niti) or kingly con­
duct |ra/aniti|. The advice given in Pancatantra is multivocal and
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 99

highly aware of difference as a categorical classification system. An il­

lustration is an early and very popular tale, "Indigo Jackal" (story
t-nl, which recognizes that the capacity to harm is inimical to power:

There was a certain lackal, Candarava by name, who lived in a jungle.

Once, overcome by hunger, he entered a town and was attacked by
dogs. He took shelter in a vat of indigo solution. When at last he man­
aged to steal back to the jungle, he found that his body was colored a
deep blue. Because of this blue color, the lion, tiger, wolf, and other
denizens of the jungle did not recognize him as a jackal. They thought
that he was a strange animal, and—being afraid—wanted to run away.
For it is said, "The wise person who desires his own welfare docs not
trust someone whose behavior, family and prowess arc unknown."
But Candarava realized they were afraid of him and said: "O wild
animals! Why do you flee in terror? I have been created by Indra to
rule over the animals of the jungle, who have no ruler. Candarava is
my name and you can all live in happiness under my rule." Having
heard his words, the hosts of wild animals—lions, tigers, leopards,
monkeys, hares, deer, jackals and the rest—bowed down to him and
he made rhe lion his minister, the tiger his chamberlain, the leopard
the keeper of his betel-box, the elephant his doorkeeper and the
monkey his umbrella bearer. But those jackals who were his own
kind were all expelled from the kingdom. And while he was thus en­
joying the splendor of the kingdom, the lions and the rest, having
killed wild animals, laid them down before him. And he, in accor­
dance to dharma, distributed the flesh to them.
While time passed in this way, one day in the assembly hall,
having heard the chorus of voices of jackals howling in the vicinity,
the hairs on his body stood, and he leapt up and howled with them.
The lions and the rest, having heard this, realized that he was a jackal,
bowed their heads in shame: "We have been deceived by a jackal,
therefore let it be killed " Hearing that, he tried to lice, but was torn
to pieces by the tiger and died.'"
Two significant themes here arc prevalent throughout Pancatantra:
first the tension between the claim to kingship and the responsibility
to the subjects for a just rule, and second the danger posed to kingship
by treacherous and conniving forces. The latter make the former un­
tenable. Hence, even though the jackal is a "just" king, his duplicity
creates a fissure that cannot be overcome. This skeptical outlook on
1OO DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

royal power, and the capacity of the courtiers to strike back, perme­
ates the fables. Intertwined with that reading is the argument that the
jackal is not suited for kingship because he is a jackal. This argument
is developed in a series of other talcs.
For example, in the framing story of the third book (3-01), birds—
geese, cranes, cuckoos, peacocks, owls, pigeons, partridges, skylarks,
etc.—come together to elect a king because Garuda the bird king is
preoccupied and negligent in his duty to care for his subjects. The so­
ciety of birds debates and decides to elect the owl, who has convinced
them of his wisdom. However, just as they are about to crown him
king, a crow interrupts the procession. The crow points out that the
owl's nature is fierce, cruel, terrifying, and evil minded: he will be un­
able to protect his subjects. The collective of birds decides against
electing the owl.41 Similar to the story of the indigo jackal, the talc
of the owl addresses the ruler's character, foregrounding the capacity of
the ruled to counsel and to confederate to protect the greater good.
This recognition of mutual difference between the ruler and the ruled
and the incommensurability between the nature of one animal and
that of another is demonstrated throughout Pancatantra. Pancatan­
tra’s tales and its mode of advice may have entered Chachnama di­
rectly in Sind and Gujarat, or it could have come via translation from
Arabic. Awfl, for example, also translated Arabic advice literature
into Persian.
The route for Panctantra through Arabic is better known but bears
repetition here, for it solidifies our picture of a vibrant advice tradition.
These tales, with their divergent meanings and gentle assertions of
difference, first entered the Pahlavi Sassanian court of Khusru Anush-
irwan (d. 579) and then were transcreated into Arabic by Abdallah ibn
Muqaffa in 75° CE as Kalila wa Dimna lbn Muqaffa' |d. ca. 756), trans­
lated the framing story of King Amrasakti to King Khusr and his phi­
losopher physician Burzoy, who travels to India to acquire scientific
knowledge and wisdom about governance. The tales concern the jackal
Dimna, who is striving to acquire power by any means necessary, and
his brother Kalila, who tries to dissuade him through moral teachings.
The two are advisors to the king of the beasts—the lion—and they
eventually are tried and executed after Kalila's scheme to become king
fails. In Kalila wa Dimna, Muqaffa'—who wrote a series of other works
 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 101

on wisdom in Arabic, including Adab al-Kabir (The Comprehensive

Book of the Rules of Conductl and A in Nameh (The Book of Proper
Conductl—created one of the most powerful and influential examples
of advice literature in Arabic and Persian literary and political cultures.
It spread widely through Islamic courts and was commented upon, re-
inscribed, and rewritten numerous times.
A prominent example of the development of Kalila wa Dinina’s
stature as advice literature is in the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa' (Brethren
of Purityl. In this text that was compiled in the late tenth century, the
jinn, alongside animals and humans, enter into a ferocious debate about
morality, ethics, faith, and governance. Kalila wa Dinina also influ­
enced Persianate literary forms, from Firdawsi's Shahnamah, to Abu'l
M'ati Nasru'llah's Anvar-i Suhaili (composed in mil, and Fariduddin
Attar's Mantii/ at-Tair iSpcech of the Birdsl, completed in 1178. These
texts constituted a canon as foundational exegetical texts, addressing
governance and royal conduct for the Pcrsianatc rulers of northern In­
dian from the twelfth century to the eighteenth. In these texts, differ­
ence is overwhelmingly understood through dialogue and refracted
through pragmatic politics.
The Chachnama, and its audiences, would then be able to see reso­
nances and lessons in the text. For they would see the connective tis­
sues between this text and the fables, or the histories, or the advice litera­
tures which are present in numerous forms in the literary elite circles
of the thirteenth century. I conclude that there arc modes of adminis­
trative, strategic, and political advice in Chachnama that draw upon
diverse sources. The administrative mode is geared toward the under­
standing of political rule, the capacity to govern, and the ways in
which alliances can be built, all of which constitute the text's theory of
politics. The strategic mode is found in the explicit commands given
through the minister or through Hajjaj, calibrating the hierarchy of
how wisdom governs the polity. The political mode is the invocation
of accommodation between differing communities through a process
of dialogue and discussion.
Finally, there arc small hints that also make possible a reading of
Chachnama as an esoteric text that contains a batani (internal)
meaning as is normative for Sufi mystical texts. I deliberately want to
make a gesture toward such a reading, for there are clues provided of
102 DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU!

Muhammad bin Qasim's piety in the text, which incorporate totemic

usage of Qur'anic verses. The most heavily quoted verses of the Qur'an
in the Chachnama are from surah 'Imran. This surah provides a legal
basis for Muslim accommodation of other "People of the Book" [Ahl
al-Kitab)—usually understood as Christians and Jews. There are other
prayers, incantations, and recitations (wrizi/d| that can be read as either
totemic or meditative. An example is when, after laying siege to the
fort of Nirun, the Arab army cannot access water and is slowly running
out of solutions. In despair, Muhammad bin Qasim petitions God. "O
listener of woes and solver of hurdles, for the sake of Bismillah al-
Rahman ar-Rahim, help us." Immediately, it starts raining.42 Within
Sufi discourse, Bismillah al-Rahman ar-Rahim is a phrase endowed
with layers of spiritual meaning alongside its linguistic and textual ref­
erents. The presence of this and other recitations on the authority of
the Qur'an adds to Chachnama a dimension upon which readers can
meditate. The letters, filled as they are with stratagems and advice, are
meant to be an aid for meditation and contemplation.
I have shown here that Chachnama uses the epistolary format to
present advice for governance. That advice was curated from a variety
of Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit sources. Further, Chachnama's mode
of understanding is predicated on dialogical engagement. In the next
chapter, I want to demonstrate how Chachnama emphasizes the mu­
tual recognition of incommensurate difference as a basis of political
power.
 4
A Demon with Ruby Eyes

1 he landscape of Uch is a sacral geography, with peaks and val­

leys that orient the visitor and the inhabitant to a hierarchy of shrines,
graves, and mausoleums. In a city of graves, I thought best to commence
with the graves themselves. The first grave 1 encountered was right out
side the central shrine of the fourteenth-century Sufi Makhdum |ah-
aniyan Jahan Gasht, It belonged to Rana Rai Tulsi Das, a local noble who
converted to Islam through the efforts of this Sufi, hence, was buried
near him. This politically important medieval conversion is noted on
the grave: "Rana Rai Tiilsi Das. Islamic name Kahmuddin."
There were no flowers on his grave. Nor were any devotees praying
next to it, though it was visibly marked and was next to the shrine. I
asked a number of people if any stones were connected to the grave,
but no one knew any. They did recognize Rana Rai as having been
important, however. Can we take inscription of the Hindu and the
Muslim name on the grave as a demonstration of the Sufi's power to
convert!1 The logic of conversion would mean that his Hindu name had
no significance. So why inscribe it? I suggest that we read this inscrip­
tion as notating a social cohabitation of two religious communities in
fourteenth-century Uch and as recognition of the social power of
Hindus in the region.2
In the low, sandy terrain at the outer edges of Uch, 1 came across
several other graves of Hindus, less prominent and much closer to the

1°3
104 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

Grave of Rai Tulsi Das. (Photo © Manan Ahmed Asif.)

present.3 These were material homes for bodies belonging to Hindus

of the present Uch and surrounding villages. There are other such ma­
terial echoes of Hindu past and present in Uch, At the arch above the
old market, I saw the inscription "Koncha Temple Doorway” (Koncha
Manilar Darwaza). Walking under the arch and down the pathway, I
asked a number of shopkeepers if they knew about the temple. Everyone
claimed they had never heard of a temple—many were even incredu­
lous that 1 was asking about a temple. Yet as I kept walking into the
old neighborhood, I spotted in the fading light the telltale spire of a
temple rising above the walled gate.
Arriving at the temple structure, 1 knocked on the door. A twelve­
year-old boy answered and explained that this house belonged to his
father, who also had a home in Karachi. The father was at home, so I
was able to ask him about the arch. He said that yes, his home had been
the temple. In the years since the Partition of 1947, scores of Hindu
families had left Uch, driven out by fear or by fiat. The family who had
lived in the temple had been there since the early 1980s, when the father
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES ■OS

A Hindu grave. (Photo © Manan Ahmed Asif.|

annexed the caretaker's house. He had not, however, been able to get
legal ownership, and this is why he could not tear down the temple and
rebuild it. There were stories that demons haunted the temple, and any
attempt to discuss the demolition of it would result tn vehicular acci­
dents, broken businesses, and marital discord. Therefore, they had left
the temple architecture untouched—their silent roommate.
The material remains of Hindus in Uch must be sought out. To sec
them is to be willing to reexamine the colonial narrative that sees
io6 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

Uch as representative of a despotic Islam that conquered, forcibly con­

verted, and then systematically erased the Hindu past. The visible-
invisible graves and the visible-invisible temple represent the stark
reality of this erasure in Uch. My assertion to my hosts and friends in
this city that has hosted nonMuslims for the majority of its extended
history elicited neither disdain nor disbelief. They do not identify
Hindus as Pakistani. Hindus arc unseen even when their material re­
mains arc visible in the landscape, and their histories are forgotten
even though they form the past.’1
The grave of the convert Tulsi Das asks us to think about the his­
tory of religious and political difference in medieval Uch. Throughout
the medieval period, Uch and Multan were central pilgrimage sites
for Vishnavite and Surya devotees, and their admixture with Isma'ili
tradition created the Satpanth tradition. From the beginning of the
tenth century, the sacral geography of Uch consisted of the landscape
of Vedas intersected with Shi’a and Sunni polities. Built on the same
temple pilgrim network in Uch, the new Sufi networks linked Iraq,
Iran, and India from the twelfth century onward. Specific pilgrim
groups included the Suhrawardi (founded by Shaykh Najib al-Din
Suhrawardi, d. 1149) and the Qadiriya |foundcd by Shaykh Abd ul-Qadir
Jilani, d. 116$).
This chapter explores the political theory of understanding differ­
ence presented in Chachnama. Early-thirteenth-century Sind was not
only a world of acute claims to power and territory by multiple war­
lords, it was also a world of sacral difference among the elite as well
the populace. As a text of political theory, Chachnama sought to ad­
dress this central concern by considering the question of religious dif­
ference, cohabitation, and political organization in Sind. I show that
Chachnama focused on the recognition of diverse sacrality, the quest
for accommodation of different communities, and politics' role in gov­
erning difference.
In Chapter 3, we saw how Chachnama makes an argument for fore­
grounding the role of advisors and of advice, emphasizes the dialogic
process by framing it in epistolary exchanges, and asks the reader to
ruminate on multiple meanings in the text. In revisiting the question
of difference in the medieval Muslim past, I seek to counter argu-
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 107

menis that tie mass conversion to conquest. (These arguments have

shaped scholarship on medieval religious encounters in South Asia.‘I
I argue that Chachnama produces a rich understanding of religious
difference—a theory of recognition of the sacral power of the different
communities and the necessity for accommodation and alliance
among them. We know that the political world of Qabacha's Uch
was heterodox and polyglot. Chachnama informs us of some of the
political theory that made this possible.
In the first part of this chapter, 1 do a close reading of Chachnama
to demonstrate how it argues for the recognition and incorporation of
difference to create political order. I examine the motif of ruby eyes in
Chachnama and then provide a genealogy of this motif through Muslim
accounts of Sind to demonstrate the ways in which its appearance in
narratives denotes the contours of Hindu-Muslim encounters. In the
second part of the chapter, I turn toward the making of the Muslim
polity in Chachnama—the usage of law and existing social practices
as tools for governing a diverse polity.

Encounters with Difference

The first delineation of a political theory of difference and power is nar­
rated by ‘Ali Kufi in the section pertaining to Sind before the arrival of
Islam—during the reign of Chach. The Brahmin Chach is attempting
to conquer the various principalities in Sind and unite them under his
rule. He faces resistance at the fort city of Brahmanabad and lays siege
to it. But Chach faces an antagonistic population that is largely Bud­
dhist. The inhabitants have paid tribute to the central Buddhist temple
as well as a recalcitrant ruler, Agham. The priest of the temple reads
the stars and discovers that the fort will fall to Chach but that the
priest will remain safe from Chach’s wrath. So the priest encourages
the ruler Agham to resist Chach for a year. Chach hears that the head
priest of the Buddhist temple has magic and cunning (sahar o talbis o
Hidu o tadbir) that are strong enough to repel all invaders and that it is
due to his efforts that Chach's campaign to conquer the fort has taken
a year. Chach vows to "peel off the skin" of the priest and "give it to
the royal drummers so that they can stretch it across their drums and
108 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

beat it to shreds” to punish him for the resistance.6 Hearing of this,

the priest laughs and says, "Chach docs not have the power to hurt me."
After a violent struggle in which many are killed, the city surrenders
to Chach and begs him for amnesty. With the help of mediators who
"belonged to learned classes," Chach grants amnesty to all, entering
into marriage alliances and fixing taxation. After a year of settling
the affairs of the new state, he turns his attention to the priest who
defied him:

|Chach| asked, "Where is that magician Buddhist (somonil so that I

can sec him!" They said, "He is an ascetic (nasikl and will be with
the ascetics. He is one of the wise ones of al-Hind and a servant of
the temple |kdnohur). They praise his miracles and his spiritual gam.
He is so powerful that he has ensnared the whole world in his spell
and those that he supports succeed."’

Even though Chach has gained political control over Brahmanabad,

he is determined to counter the powerful claims of this priest and his
support for the previous king. Chach takes a large retinue and sets off
to find and kill the priest. He orders his troops to stop at a distance
from the temple, and he proceeds alone. He instructs them that after
he is done conversing with the priest, he will give them a signal, and
at that moment, they arc to descend upon the priest and cut off his
head. At the temple, Chach finds the priest sitting alone on the ground,
making little clay idols (usnnm) with his hands and marking them with
a seal. The priest ignores Chach for a while and then finally addresses
him: "So the son of Sila'ij the priest has arrived?”
Chach replies, "Yes, O Ascetic."
"Why have you come!"
"1 am your disciple, and 1 have come to pay my respects."*
The priest asks Chach to sit and inquires about him. Chach says
that he wants the priest to return to the court in Brahmanabad and re­
sume religious duties so that the people can continue their traditional
ways. The health of the polity, Chach says, depends on the continua­
tion of what has been, rather than on new regimes of power. The priest
listens carefully and replies that he feels no need to take part in po­
litical matters, and he is content to stay in his temple. This prompts
Chach to ask,
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 109

"So why did you resist me in taking Brahmanabad!" The priest

replied, "When the ruler Agham had passed away and the young
prince became the raja, I reluctantly took the task of giving him ad­
vice. Though in my view, all matters of this world are to be shunned.
Now that you are the ruler of the world, 1 am willing to obey you, but
I fear that you will take your revenge on the temple and destroy it.
Chach answered, "It is always better to be praising the Buddha and
to attain perfection in his path. If you need anything from me, you
simply ask.'”

Then Chach offers riches for the priest's temple, but his generosity
is repeatedly declined. In the end, the priest makes one request: "The
Buddhist temple of Kanohar is ancient and decrepit. If you repair it, you
will earn the gratitude of the believers."10 Chach quickly agrees to have
the temple rebuilt and leaves the priest. He returns to his troops and
orders them back to Brahmanabad. "Why did you not let us kill the
priest?" inquires Chach's minister, while leaving. Chach replies:

I saw something that was neither trickery nor magic. I examined it

carefully with my eyes. When 1 sat down next to him, 1 saw a demon,
ugly and fearful [makruh o sahamnak), who stood next to him.
His eyes were like embers glowing, or rubies; his lips were fat and
drooping; his teeth were sharp like spears. And he looked to strike
someone. I was frightened when I saw him, and I dared not speak to
the priest as I had indicated to you, because 1 knew he would kill me
So I made peace with him and left.11

This encounter between the Hindu King Chach and the Buddhist
temple priest is the first of numerous encounters between different re­
ligious communities in Chachnama. It offers three models for recog­
nizing and ordering difference: a hierarchical distinction between the
ruler and the ruled, a distinction that acknowledges the faith of the in­
dividual, and a distinction between serving the state and serving god-
The people of Brahmanabad resist their conquest but are pardoned
afterward through mediation. The faith and temple of the city are pro­
tected, and Chach proclaims that serving Buddha is a valuable pursuit.
Though there are different ways of sacrality (ascetic or institu­
tional!, they are presented as overlapping, which allows for alliances
of law, conduct, and marriage. The standoff between the political power
 10 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

of the ruler, as represented by Chach, and the sacral power of the priest,
as represented by the |invisible to othersl demon with ruby eyes, simi­
larly rests on mutually understanding religious difference within a
shared conceptual universe. Chach recognizes the spiritual and po­
litical power of the Buddhist priest. For Chach, the reason for compro­
mise is both an understanding of religious efficacy in political life as
well as a grasp of religious-political intersections of power. In recog­
nizing the Buddhist temple and fearing the Buddhist demon, the
Brahmin Chach agrees to a political understanding of difference. In rec­
ognizing the political power of Chach and asking him for material
aid, the Buddhist priest also agrees to this understanding of sacral
difference.
Within the political theory of Chachnama, this account is an ar­
gument for mutual comprehension of difference. The communities are
made commensurable through the way Chach recognizes the sacral
power of the demon with ruby eyes and allows the Buddhist priest to
maintain his social status. The priest, in turn, recognizes Chach's re­
cently acquired political power. The ruby eyes signify an agreement
between sacral and political power. They narratively mark a process
of translation across sacral and political regimes. Chachnama is
drawing upon a long genealogy of representations of Indic deities in
Muslim sources. Chachnama takes this potent symbolic representa­
tion of Hindu presence and deploys it narratively as a site of transla­
tion between Hindu and Muslim political and sacral powers.
Let us examine a textual genealogy of this archetype in Muslim
writings on India to demonstrate the concept in Chachnama. An idol
with ruby eyes first makes an appearance in Baladhuri's ninth-century
conquest text, marking a frontier and an encounter of difference. Balad-
huri narrates it in his description of the Muslim campaign in the re­
gion of Dawar (in Oruzgan province in central Afghanistan, north of
Kandaharl in 654-655 CE:
When | Abd Shams, reached the land oi Dawar. he surrounded (the
pcoplc| in the mountain of Zur. They appealed for peace. He had with
him 8,000 Muslims, and each of them received 4,000 dirhams (for
tribute|. Ibn Samrah entered the Zurand temple and saw an idol of
gold with ruby eyes I'ainah yaqutani He cut off the hand of the idol
and took out the rubies. Then he called out to the caretaker: "Keep
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES III

the gold and the rubies, 1 only wanted to show that it has no power
to help or harm," He then conquered Bust and Zabul hy covenant '*

This early account from Baladhuri presents three motifs that

come to dominate later Muslim accounts of Hindu-Muslim encounters
in the temple: the gold-filled house of the idol, the idol with human
form and ruby eyes, and the caretaker who acts as the mediator or inter­
locutor. Here, removing of the eyes shows the incapacity of the idol to
sec, and the Arab account notes that the caretaker recognizes the hi­
erarchy of power. For Baladhuri, the account asserts dominance, in line
with the concerns of the fathnama genre.
The idol with ruby eyes appears again in geographic narratives on
Sind. The location of the idol and the description of the temple and the
riches differ, and one further difference is striking: The idol is left un­
molested and is made to represent the political coexistence of Mus­
lims in India. In line with the concerns we saw in Chapter J, in the
early tenth century, Istakhri moves the motif of the ruby eyes to the
idol in Multan and highlights the marvel of wealth:

He has the form of a man, fourfold, and he sits on a throne of stucco

and bricks. He is covered with a skin which looks like red Saffiano
leather, so that nothing is visible of his body except for his two eyes.
Some people maintain that his body is made of wood, and others
reject that, but no part of his body is uncovered. His eyes are of pre­
cious rubies. On his head he wears a fourfold diadem of gold. In this
way he sits on the throne, holding his forearms stretched out over
his knees, spreading his fingers like someone indicating the number
four in counting.'3

Istakhri focuses on the richness of the temple and on the presence

of pilgrims and their material donations to the temple. Ibn Hawqal,
another Arab geographer who visited Multan, repeats this account. He
also includes the details that pilgrims pay tribute to the idol and that
Isma'ili rulers of Multan protect the temple and the idol The presence
of this account in the Arab geographical narratives, as discussed ear­
lier, proposes that the frontier of Sind was a negotiated space where
Islam was in political dialogue with neighboring Hindu polities.
A different treatment of the idol with ruby eyes is given by Abu
Rayhan Biruni |d. 1048), who visits Multan in the early eleventh
112 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

century. As part of Mahmud Ghazni's armed assault on the Isma'ili

city states, Biruni makes a point to showcase how the Isma'ili rulers
have disrespected and destroyed the powerful temple and its potent
idol:

A renowned idol is one of Surya (the sun] in Multan, and it was

named Adat. It was made of wood, and the red hide of goat was
wrapped around it. In its eyes were two rubies. The Hindus say that
it was made in the previous age (yug). If we suppose it was made at
the end of this age, it would be 216,452 years old. When Muhammad
bin Qasim conquered Multan and collected all the wealth of the
city and reflected on how it came to be amassed there, he decided
that the idol was the cause of it. Pilgrims came from everywhere to
visit it.
Muhammad bin Qasim did not disturb the idol but hung cow's
meat around the neck as a sign of disrespect and built a mosque there.
Then the Qaramita (Shi'a) took Multan, (alm ibn Shayban who con­
quered Multan, broke the idol and killed the caretakers and built his
own home where the Umayyad mosque stood. When Amir Mahmud
(Ghaznil relieved the city from the Qaramita, he reconstructed the
first mosque and closed the other one and let the henna plants grow
there.
Now if we subtract from 216.452 the period between the Qaramita
and us, that is around one hundred years, and if wc subtract the pe­
riod from the beginning of the Hijra, then there remain 216,000. How
this wood remained (unchanged! in the environment of this place for
so long, only God knows.14

The politics of domination are narrated through the idol. Biruni’s

main objective is to historicize the depravity of the Shi'a political re­
gime. Mahmud Ghazni, Biruni argues, is the one to correct the
mistakes of the past. In Biruni's narrative, Muhammad bin Qasim first
asserts the superiority of Islam over the polytheists by committing a
taboo (killing a cow) and publicly soiling the idol (giving the cow meat
as an offering). Yet Qasim recognizes the material land political) ben­
efits of polytheism and allows the temple to continue as a place of wor­
ship. This policy of limited accommodation mirrors how scholars
have begun to understand Mahmud's own policies toward Hindu sub­
jects and polities.15
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 115

Biruni's chief concern is to mark Qaramita transgression—they

are the ones who abandoned the policy of accommodation, they are
the ones who destroyed the ruby-eyed idol and the temple, and they
are the ones who built a palace on the temple's space, He is arguing
that the Qaramita Shi'a are the truest danger for Islam and that
Mahmud rescues the Muslim past and Indic present from them,
Mahmud "relieves" the city from that heresy, he rebuilds the mosque
of Muhammad bin Qasim, but he leaves the other temple as a ruin.
It is dear that the idol with ruby eyes is narratively important in
the representation of difference between Hindu and Muslim commu­
nities in Sind’s frontier. In Baladhuri, the motif was employed to show
the lack of power in Hindu faith. In the Arab geographer accounts, it
represented the wealth and prosperity of Indic polities and the political
alliances between Muslim rulers and Hindu subjects. In Birum, it dem­
onstrated Muslim sectarian conflict and its repercussions for Hindu
subjects.
In Chachnama, the first encounter with an idol occurs when Qasim
is attempting to take the fort of Aror and faces staunch resistance from
the people—echoing Chach's conquest of Brahmanabad. After a long
siege, the city surrenders and opens the gates to the fort only after
Qasim promises the people's safety. Chachnama narrates:
Then, as Muhammad bin Qasim entered the fort, he heard that all
the inhabitants were gathered at the temple of Nrubahar |nava-viharl,
praying. Muhammad bin Qasim asked, "Whose home is this, that
everyone is attending it and praying there?” They replied, "This is
the temple Naubahar." Then he entered it and saw a figure (suralil
sitting on a horse. On its hands were bracelets of gold and rubies. Mu­
hammad bin Qasim reached out and with his hand took the bracelet
from the idol, Then he called the caretaker priest and said, "Is this
your idol?" He replied, "Yes. But he had two bracelets and now has
only one." Muhammad bin Qasim said, "Why does your god not
know that his bracelet is gone?" The priest bowed his head, and Mu­
hammad bin Qasim smiled and returned the bracelet.16
The violence done to the idol in Baladhuri docs not recur in this
episode, yet the account of Qasim clearly recasts that narrative with
important emendations. Chachnama remarks on the significance of
the temple's sacrality, thus arguing for the relationship between sacral
114 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

and political spaces. Important for the argument here, the caretaker
recognizes Qasim’s pointed declaration against the Hindu deity. Qasim
does not molest the idol but smiles knowingly. The taking and return
of the bracelet asserts the dominance of Islam, and the speechless priest
bears witness of this dominance. Qasim returns the bracelet and leaves
without conflict.
However, Qasim's the next encounter with an idol elicits a different
emotional response from him. He is frightened when he enters the
temple in Multan:

Muhammad bin Qasim entered that temple with his advisors and his
nobles. He saw a gold idol with two bright ruby eyes, glowing red
Muhammad bin Qasim thought that this was a man. He unsheathed
his sword to strike the idol, but the Brahmin caretaker exclaimed,
"Oh just Commander! This is an idol |bui| that the king of Multan,
Juban, created and under which they sequestered riches and trea­
sures." Then Muhammad bin Qasim commanded to have the idol
lifted.'’

Qasim’s reaction of fear before the ruby eyes links this episode to
that of the frightening demon confronted by Chach. The Brahmin
Chach had been scared and changed his mind from killing the Buddhist
priest to rebuilding the temple. The Muslim Qasim is scared enough to
consider striking the idol but does not. Like Chach agreeing to rebuild
the Buddhist temple, Qasim, under the advisement of the caretaker,
commits to the public good by protecting the idol and the temple:
"Then he gathered the noble and the public of Multan and entered into
a pact with them, safeguarded the idol, built a central mosque, and
appointed as the city's commander Baud bin Nasr bin Walid Umani."1’
Key here is that the caretaker is an explainer of the past as well as the
source of the information about the wealth in the temple. It is he who
asks Qasim to be cautious and not act in fear. His translation of the
sacral power of the idol, as well as its political role, is what allows
Qasim to recognize the significance of the temple and to create a just
political order for the city that is based in the politics of accommoda­
tion. Just as there is a recognition of spiritual and political power within
the Buddhist-Brahmin encounter in the Chach cycle, so is there an
accommodation based on the effective role of the population in the
 t. DEMON WITH RUBY EYES US

Muslim-Brahmin encounter in the Qasim cycle. The red eyes put into
conceptual conversation the creedal and political powers inhabiting
the region in the thirteenth century. They serve as a motif for the work
of translation that the non-Muslims do for political power and the
crucial role of mediation for governance.
Chachnama is redeploying a reoccurring symbol from Muslim
texts to offer strategies for governance: first to recognize the incom­
mensurability of religions and make that recognition a tool for mutual
alliance, and second to incorporate the idea of a public good in the
managing of difference. While this allows a glimpse at the theoret­
ical apparatus underpinning the encounter between communities in
the thirteenth century, Chachnama further provides illustrations of
how alliance building and negotiation are needed for the essential
task of managing difference.
Such a reading of Chachnama has remained occluded by scholar­
ship's reading of the text as an account of the eighth century. As an
origins narrative, Chachnama functions in two synced ways: it details
the military conquest of space, and it shows the sacral conquest of the
inhabitants of Sind. In the next section, I read Chachnama for its un­
derstanding of sacral cohabitation and conversion.

The Question of Conversion

More than a thousand miles southwest of Uch, and nearly 150 miles
west of Karachi, at the coastline of Makran, lies Hingol National Park.
It is the largest federally protected natural reserve in Pakistan, and its
flat, barren space is littered with seemingly extraterrestrial rock for­
mations. Here still exist rock temples to Shiva and Durga Mata.1’ Here
are nine-feet-Iong graves of holy warriors who carved a stone forma­
tion for Kalka Devi. Here is a mosque founded by Muhammad bin
Qasim. Here arc also "Tombs of Soldiers of Muhammad bin Qasim,"
as the road sign proclaims.
The tombs are scattered throughout coastal Makran and Sind and
have little to do with Qasim's exploits. However, their unique struc­
ture, elaborate carvings, and unusual orientation does lend them a pe­
culiar aura. The inscriptions on the tombs are deteriorated, but studies
by Khurshid Hasan date them to the mid-eighteenth century.20 A
116 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

Purported graves of Arab soldiers who came to Sind with Muhammad

bin Qasim. IPhoto courtesy of Ahsan Shah, 2015.|

number of the tombs belong to prominent women from the region's

Baluchi political elite. Their funerary inscriptions point to their en­
slaved beginnings: "Bibi slave-girl was set free from this bondage so as
to benefit on the day of judgment," and "Baggo son of Sulyman Kai-
mati appeared on the day before the grave of Bafat Naghmah, the slave­
girl and other slaves, freed for the sake of Allah and the Prophet of
Allah."21 These inscriptions, orient us toward an circulation of con­
verted slaves who inhabited this landscape. Inscribed in stone are no­
tions of servitude (bandagi] intertwined with a historical memory of
prominent women.22
As a political theory of governance over a diverse polity in
thirteenth-century Uch, Chachnama can be read as a source for under­
standing the politics governing conversion to Islam in medieval
South Asia. It is important to examine the question of conversion
because the colonial origins narrative casts Islam's arrival as a mo­
ment of erasure of the prior political and sacral practices. In later
scholarship that understood Chachnama as an eighth-century text,
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 117

Chachnama largely became a source for issues concerning conversion

or legal treatment of non-Muslims. Citing Chachnama. S. A. A. Rizvi
noted that "conversion to Islam by political pressure began with the
conquest of Sind and Multan by Muhammad bin Qasim," who was
"successful in persuading the Sind chieftains to embrace Islam.1'13 In
contrast, in his maior study of conversion under early Islam based on
Chachnama, Derryl Maclean argued that the earliest Muslim conquest
did not pressure the Buddhists or Saivitc community in Sind to con­
vert.24 Such formulation remains the predominant understanding of
how to read Chachnama for the process of conversion in India after
Islam's arrival. However, 1 argue that we need to examine Chachnama
for the ways in which it, itself, understands this history of conversion,
of coexistence, and of political rule and accommodation in the thir­
teenth century. In fact, Chachnama offers only a single treatment of
conversion and is otherwise unconcerned with it.
It is significant that there is only one direct narrative of conversion
in Chachnama. It is a narrative of a single conversion, not a mass con­
version. In Chapter 3, I presented a debate between Muhammad bin
Qasim and his patron, Hajjaj, on the question of conversion. Hajjaj
guides Qasim to allow freedom for different sacral practices and to
focus only on the rival king and his submission to Qasim’s political
power. This makes a reading of the only conversion narrated in
Chachnama significant as an assertion of political power. In this epi­
sode of conversion, the emissaries sent by Qasim to Dahar include a
Syrian noble and a slave from Daybul (moulai Deball) who "had em­
braced Islam on the hands of Muhammad bin Qasim."1'’ When the
emissaries reach Dahar, the convert now written as "owned by Islam"
[mouMi /sfum), refuses to give Dahar the greeting customary for a slave
toward his master. Dahar chides him for not acting according to the
"law of the land,” to which he replies: "When I was a subject of your
law, I fulfilled the conditions of my slavery. Now that 1 am acquainted
with the fruits of Islam and my relationship is with the King of Islam,
1 am no longer liable for bowing my head to an unbeliever."26
The framing of this conversion as a question of political subject­
hood demonstrates the ethics of the Chachnama, where sacral prac­
tices are tied explicitly to the political and to a just order. At no other
point docs Chachnama narrate the making of new Muslims. What it
118 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

does focus heavily on is making subjects of non-Muslim populations

who remain non-Muslim. Notably in this episode of conversion,
Chachnama remarks on the law of the land and what that law allows
a subject to do. It does not remark on the sacral domination of a par­
ticular faith. Like its treatment of political accommodation of diverse
communities, Chachnama portrays conversion as a political transla­
tion between regimes of power.
The appointment of Hindu nobility and advisors to key positions
in the Muslim army demonstrates that for Chachnama's political
theory, the religion of individual subjects is of little or no importance.
When Qasim appoints Kiksa, the minister of the fallen Dahar, to the
position of the chief treasurer for the Muslim army, he gives him full
power to create pacts and alliances. Qasim recognizes Kiksa as "a wise
man of Hind" (hakim-i Hind) when he approaches Qasim with the cou­
plet, "advice should come only from the experienced, the intelligent, the
ones with foresight I those for whom there is a distinction between the
inner and the outer.''*7 Qasim calls him an "advisor who brings good
fortune" (mubarak mushir), There is no sign that Kiksa's advice is tied
to his conversion for this important post in the Muslim army—a clear
indication that the sectarian difference does not cause any particular
anxiety for the text and its milieu. Chachnama recognizes numerous
other Brahmin or Buddhist advisors and allies who are incorporated in
the task of conquest or governance. In essence then, Chachnama ar­
ticulates the importance of a political will that foregrounds an ethics
of difference where governance |the rulers' relationship with the mer­
cantile, agrarian, and artisanal communityl and public good (the main­
tenance of temples in the cityl are paramount.
Chachnama first uses Buddhist-Hindu religious difference and
political accommodation as the model for its political theory of differ­
ence. Chachnama presents a past in which the Brahmin Chach and the
Buddhist polities and priests are intertwined. Buddhist-Brahmin en­
counters in Chachnama provide a model for how a Muslim polity
should encounter other faiths. In the Chach cycle, there are three
models of conquest of Buddhist sites: when Chach captures the fort of
Sika, he kills the five thousand warriors in the city, enslaves the popu­
lation, and appoints a foreign governor over them, when Chach engages
the fort in Sistan, the king surrenders and asks for a treaty, so Chach
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES ‘■9

imposes a tax (maf) on the community, finally, when Chach takes

Brahmanabad, he grants amnesty to the inhahitants, protects them
with a treaty, and imposes no taxation.
These treatments involve the making of alliances and the capacity
of civilian populations to negotiate independently with the conqueror.
The populations' capacity to enter into new agreements with rulers
and their ethical claim on governors ate highlighted repeatedly in
Chachnama. In these cases, Chachnama makes explicit that the goal
of the king is always to protect the general population.2" In the Qasim
cycle, we see how the narrative repeats the model of Chach and how
Qasim implements a Muslim polity in the same fort of Brahmanahad:

The governor of the Summa Sandvi Amir Muhammad reports that

when Muhammad bin Qasim approached the environs of Brahman­
ahad, he camped at a site known as Manhal, which is lake of boun­
tiful vegetation and birds. The people who live there are Buddhist
merchants. They appealed to him for alliance, and he gave them all
peace and proclaimed, "Stay in your country |watanl in peace and
prosperity, and deliver your tax (mo/| to the treasury on time. Then
after deciding on their tax, he appointed two men from among them
as their administrators."2’

On approaching Brahmanabad, Qasim recognizes the social class

and occupation (merchants! of the people and grants them protection.
He also appoints their own elite as governors. When Qasim reports
Brahmanabad's resolution to his superior, Hajiai accepts it and issues
an official policy for broader Muslim governance over the region. Hajiaj
grants peace and "very light" taxation on "artisans and merchants,"
and he protects and releases from taxation those who work in the field
or who build. There is no call for mass conversion, but Hajjai limits
the tax collected from those who convert to Islam. Lastly, he orders
that those who are under an existing legal structure be accommodated:
"Whoever stays on his own law (bar kish-i khud], require from his
work the tax as designated for the administration,"30 Hajiaj gives the
highest regard to those who contribute to the prosperity of the land
through their work.
After the declaration by Qasim, the Buddhist subjects near Brah­
manabad begin celebrating with "dancing and singing with drums and
118 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

does focus heavily on is making subjects of non-Muslim populations

who remain non-Muslim. Notably in this episode of conversion,
Chachnanui remarks on the law of the land and what that law allows
a subject to do. It does not remark on the sacral domination of a par­
ticular faith. Like its treatment of political accommodation of diverse
communities, Cbachnama portrays conversion as a political transla­
tion between regimes of power.
The appointment of Hindu nobility and advisors to key positions
in the Muslim army demonstrates that for Chachnama's political
theory, the religion of individual subjects is of little or no importance.
When Qasim appoints Kiksa, the minister of the fallen Dahar, to the
position of the chief treasurer for the Muslim army, he gives him full
power to create pacts and alliances. Qasim recognizes Kiksa as "a wise
man of Hind" [hakim-i Hind) when he approaches Qasim with the cou­
plet, "advice should come only from the experienced, the intelligent, the
ones with foresight I those for whom there is a distinction between the
inner and the outer."27 Qasim calls him an "advisor who brings good
fortune" Imubarak mushir). There is no sign that Kiksa’s advice is tied
to his conversion for this important post in the Muslim army—a clear
indication that the sectarian difference docs not cause any particular
anxiety for the text and its milieu. Chachnama recognizes numerous
other Brahmin or Buddhist advisors and allies who are incorporated in
the task of conquest or governance. In essence then, Chachnama ar­
ticulates the importance of a political will that foregrounds an ethics
of difference where governance (the rulers' relationship with the mer­
cantile. agrarian, and artisanal community! 3nd public good (the main­
tenance of temples in the cityl are paramount.
Chachnama first uses Buddhist-Hindu religious difference and
political accommodation as the model for its political theory of differ­
ence. Chachnama presents a past in which the Brahmin Chach and the
Buddhist politics and priests are intertwined. Buddhist-Brahmin en­
counters in Chachnama provide a model for how a Muslim polity
should encounter other faiths. In the Chach cycle, there are three
models of conquest of Buddhist sites: when Chach captures the fort of
Sika, he kills the five thousand warriors in the city, enslaves the popu­
lation, and appoints a foreign governor over them; when Chach engages
the fort in Sistan, the king surrenders and asks for a treaty, so Chach
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 119

imposes a tax (mu/| on the community, finally, when Chach takes

Brahmanabad, he grants amnesty to the inhabitants, protects them
with a treaty, and imposes no taxation.
These treatments involve the making of alliances and the capacity
of civilian populations to negotiate independently with the conqueror.
The populations’ capacity to enter into new agreements with rulers
and their ethical claim on governors are highlighted repeatedly in
Chachnama. In these cases, Chachnama makes explicit that the goal
of the king is always to protect the general population.2" In the Qasim
cycle, we see how the narrative repeats the model of Chach and how
Qasim implements a Muslim polity in the same fort of Brahmanabad:

The governor of the Summa Sandvi Amir Muhammad reports that

when Muhammad bin Qasim approached the environs of Brahman­
abad, he camped at a site known as Manhal, which is lake of boun­
tiful vegetation and birds. The people who live there are Buddhist
merchants. They appealed to hint for alliance, and he gave them all
peace and proclaimed, "Stay in your country |war<ml in peace and
prosperity, and deliver your tax (ma/l to the treasury on time. Then
after deciding on their tax, he appointed two men from among them
as their administrators."2’

On approaching Brahmanabad, Qasim recognizes the social class

and occupation (merchants) of the people and grants them protection.
He also appoints their own elite as governors. When Qasim reports
Brahmanabad’s resolution to his superior, Hajjaj accepts it and issues
an official policy for broader Muslim governance over the region. Hajjaj
grants peace and "very light" taxation on "artisans and merchants,"
and he protects and releases from taxation those who work in the field
or who build. There is no call for mass conversion, but Haijai limits
the tax collected from those who convert to Islam. Lastly, he orders
that those who are under an existing legal structure be accommodated:
"Whoever stays on his own law (bar kish-i khud), require from his
work the tax as designated for the administration."'1' Haijaj gives the
highest regard to those who contribute to the prosperity of the land
through their work.
After the declaration by Qasim, the Buddhist subjects near Brah­
manabad begin celebrating with "dancing and singing with drums and
120 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

trumpet." Again, Qasim sanctions their cultural practice and orders

them to continue their livelihood as earlier."
By invoking the Buddhists, Chachnama provides policies for gov­
erning a class of people (merchants, farmers, artisansl, giving them
representation under political rule, and accepting their customary
practices as beneficial for governance. Similar encounters, with other
communities in Sind, occur at numerous junctures such that one can
generalize these edicts to all civilian populations. That non-Muslims
can be brought under Muslim rule without strife and with full accom­
modation under Islamic law.
Soon after Brahmanabad, Qasim lays siege to the fort of Aror, and
the merchants, artisans, and laborers send him a message: "We renege
on our treaty with Brahmin Dahar because he is dead and his son has
also abandoned us, ... so we appeal to your service, that if you treat
us with just and righteous conduct I'adal o insaf), we will accept your
command and trust you with the fort."'2 This is a declaration of po­
litical allegiance based on the mutually comprehensible idea of justice
and loyalty. The merchants, artisans, and laborers insist on the ruler
behaving ethically and accommodating the transfer of alliances. The
ruler is in a dialogic relationship with the subjects. In this political
theory, the ruler must enter the contract and keep its terms.
Chachnama argues that recognizing forms ol difference and trans­
lating them into politically viable structures allows for communities to
coexist. Chachnama's theory of making difference commensurable and
citing precedents is remarkable from a text that is understood as a con­
quest narrative. Scholarship continues to approach the medieval Indic
pasts through the lens of converted space -from Hindu to Muslim.
To avoid the risk that my reading of Chachnama might be consid­
ered exceptional in the broader history of northern India, 1 want to fur­
ther reflect on this question of conversion for Sind. This time I will
approach it through a reading of sacral space in Uch’s material land­
scape and a sixteenth-century Sufi text. There we will see modes of
accommodation and equivalence between sacral traditions, as we have
seen in Chachnama.
Active in contemporary cultural memory in Uch is the account
from Chachnama of Qasim digging a well and founding a mosque in
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES III

The well of Baba Farid (Photo © Manan Ahmed Asif.I

Uch. Both the mosque and the well are pilgrimage sites, whitewashed
and adorned with flowers and incense. The well is on the right, facing
the threshold of the prayer room in a small courtyard. On the left is
the tree that Qasim planted. The well is covered in glazed tiles and a
small fence. Often there is someone standing nearby, offering a prayer.
This, however, is named the Well of Baba Farid because the Sufi
Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakr |d. 126$)—remembered as Baba Farid—spent
forty days (or six months or ten years| suspended upside down in this
well in meditation.31 Baba Farid's meditation rcsacralizcd Uch’s im­
print on the landscape of contemporary Muslim imagination by con­
necting two histories of arrivals—that of Qasim's military campaign
and that of the spiritual campaigns of Chishti Sufis. 1 visited the well
to see for myself how the history of Islam’s arrival is tied to Uch's ma­
terial landscape. On the wall above the well, a green sign informs the
reader about the history of this location. In English prose |with Urdu
verse), it reads as follows:
122 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

There came a famous man from Arabia. He was seventeen years of

age at that time. He defeated Raja Dahar and conquered Daybul. After
conquering Sind, he departed to Uch. The young man came from
Arabia; his name was Muhammad Bin Qasim. He conquered Sind and
reached Uch. He built a mosque and dug up a well in Uch. The name
of this mosque is "Mosque of Wants.” This ancient mosque is also the
place of worship for the "four friends." This is due to kindness and
mercy of Qasim. This is not false but a true story. The water of this
well is likewise "Water of Life" because the saints meditated and
prayed here A gloomy fellow who drinks water from this well gets rid
of sadness.

The archives of cultural memory arc critical to unravel. I listened

to contemporary accounts of a thirteenth-century Sufi immersed in a
yogic practice crucial to his divination, at a location that is said to
connect him to the eighth century. The simultaneous imagining of
asynchronous pasts with synchronous practices is a regular feature
of stories in Uch, When I inquired how Baba Farid was able to feed
himself while in meditation, 1 was repeatedly told that he was fed by
Rai Bhag Mai, a Hindu merchant from the town. When Baba Farid
emerged from the well, he blessed the merchant and accepted him as
a disciple, without asking him to convert. It is for this reason, it was
explained to me, that Hindus of Sind and Gujarat continue to venerate
Baba Farid and visit his shrine in nearby Pakpattan.3'
For the people in Uch the placard and the memory of Qasim rep­
resent an encounter with difference and its resolution. The popular
accounts of Baba Farid relate that after leaving the well, he embarked
on a mission to convert the region of Pakpattan to Islam. His conver­
sion stories feature miracles, acts of kindness, and divine aid. These
stories are often heard at gatherings in Sufi shrines at Uch. At first
hearing, they sound triumphalist and evocative of Islam's victory over
the region. Yet like the story of the Rai Tulsi Das, there are nuances
embedded in the tellings. The stories are collected in various hagiogra­
phies, such as the Siyar al-Aqtab, compiled in 1646 by Shaykh Alhadiya
Chishti Usmani. An examination of the structure of an archetypal
encounter would help situate the mental mapping of difference in
medieval Uch. The following account is one I heard in Uch and it
 A DEMON WITH KUBY EYES 123

concerns Baba Farid moving from Uch ro Pakpattan |Aiodhan) and set­
tling there:

ft is narrated that when Baba Farid reached Ajodlian, he rested and

meditated under a tree along with his companions. One day, he
caught sight of a woman with a jug of milk on her head walking by.
He asked. "O Mother, what is in that |ug and where do you take it?"
When she heard him, she came to him and spoke, "O friend of God,
there is a yogi who has the people of this village under his magic
I'uhrl spell and demands milk from everyone every day. If anyone
fails to deliver, then his cow falls ill and dies, and all the milk turns
to blood. Do not delay me, or this calamity will he mine." The shaykh
consoled the woman and said, "Sit and let these ascetics |/<ikir| drink
from your jug." She sat and complied.
Shortly after, a disciple of the yogi walked by and, seeing the
woman sitting with the Sufi, began to curse at her. The shaykh said,
"Silence, O fool! Sit quietly!" And his tongue was stricken and his feet
were tied and he sat immobile. At last that magician yogi himself ap­
peared and when he saw that his disciple was bound, he grew enraged,
and tried to counter the shaykh with his magic. However, as soon as
he tried to utter the spell, his memory could not conjure it. Thus he
understood that in front of a mountain and a river, the stone and the
droplet have no agency and no will. Bereft, he begged the shaykh for
mercy for his disciple. The shaykh replied, "I will release your disciple
on the condition that you gather all your disciples and all of your pos­
sessions and vacate this village, even this region. Take your unpun­
ished sins along with you.” The yogi replied, "Can I retire to my house
with my disciples’" The shakyh said, "No. You must depart." Having
no choice the yogi left, and with his leaving, unbelief and tyranny
left, and the city was gripped with order. After a few days, the shaykh
left the tree and visited the yogi's house, and said, "only an ascetic can
live in the house of the ascetic," and he made it his abode.15

In many ways this is a prototypical conversion narrative in Sufi ha­

giography.’6 It depicts a Muslim saint demonstrating his dominance
of a Hindu saint through a public display of miracles. |This encounter
narrative is similar to the Biblical and Qur'anic story of Moses con­
fronting the pharaoh.' Such an encounter is either read as an example
of Muslim erasure of Hindu spaces or dismissed as fabulous.
124 A DEMON WITH KUBY EYES

I argue that read carefully, the encounter details a process of trans­

lation between two sacral regimes. The encounter explains the power
of the shaykh and of the yogi, as well as the social function of ascetics
tn medieval Sind. The language of the encounter is instructive: the yogi
compares his magic to that of the Sufi "as a stone is in front of the
mountains” or a "droplet in front of a river"—that is, the difference is
a matter of scale and not of kind. This equivalence is a technical one:
the same word |sn/ir| is used to refer to the supernatural powers of both
the Sufi and the yogi. Similarly, when Baba Farid occupies the house
of the yogi, he calls attention to the fact that he can do so because they
are both ascetics \fakir). What separates them is that the yogi was un­
just to the people of the village—he was extracting a tax from them,
and his presence was a burden to them. The encounter thus showcases a
political transition from one sacral power to another. Lastly, and perhaps
most suggestively, this encounter between the yogi and Baba Farid
is framed through descriptions of nature and the built environment—
the tree under which Farid sits, the imagery of the mountain and
stone, the river and droplet; and the built house (makan) of the yogi.
This language situates the encounter m the material world rather than
a supernatural one. The dual habitation of the well (belonging to both
Qasim and to Faridl and of the house (belonging to both the yogi and
the Sufi) reflects a politics of cohabitation in Sind's medieval land­
scape. At the very least, it suggests a framework within which one can
recognize different sacral traditions.

Disciplining Subjects
Thus we can see that Chachnania is a political theory concerned with
alliances, rule of law. justice, and good governance. Further we see that
Chachnama uses Hindu-Buddhist encounters as social and political
precedents for Muslim-Hindu encounters. While Chachnama presents
a politics of accommodation, it is not an exclusively egalitarian po­
litical vision, Indeed, the text presents social difference in the thirteen
century and may reflect the biases of its time. This is most apparent
in the treatment of nomadic Jat people, who in Chachnama arc seen
as a threat to all political regimes. Institutionalized through legal
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 125

structures in Chachnama is a social hierarchy where the Jats appear

to be subiugated. This subjugation begins with Chach and is main­
tained under Qasim.
Who were the Jats and why are they addressed in the history of
Chach! In the thirteenth century, Chachnama presents the |ats as a
nomadic people.37 For Chachnama nomadic populations are a political
problem. The Jats are described most often as the itinerant people who
resist even after the fall of the fort. They exist outside of fort cities,
and throughout Chachnama their movement is destabilizing. They are
a danger to the prosperity of the urban polity. To curtail their threat
requires specific legal structures. Chachnama addresses this challenge
cyclically, first with Chach and then with Qasim. After Chach con­
quers the city of Brahmanabad, he imposes a tax on the people and
makes a special arrangement for the Jats from Lohana who opposed
him. Chachnama narrates,
Then Chach stayed in the fort of Brahmanabad and, for the sake of
commerce and the safety of the people, he instituted a tax. Then he
called forth and humiliated the fats of Lohana and punished and im­
prisoned their leader. He prohibited them from carrying swords or
wearing clothes of silk or spun cotton. Their upper covering could
be sewn, but their lower covering could not be sewn and could be of
only black or red color. They could not put saddles on their horses.
They could never cover their headsortheir feet When they left their
houses, they had to be accompanied by a dog. They would supply the
administrator’s kitchen with cooking wood. They would be employed
as guides and spies. And they would cultivate such qualities so that
when an enemy approached the fort, they would be able to defend it
on their own honor.38
We can see this account as a demonstration of Chach's political
power. Chach dictates everything from clothing to movement of the Jats.
We can understand this account as making a case for the settlement of a
previously nomadic people in order to govern them and provide political
stability. The nomadic population is sanctioned—they are required to
report directly to the city’s administration and to be employed as spies
and guides. Thus Chach transitions them from nomadism to his own
subjects. To cement this political subjugation, he marries a Jat woman.3*
126 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES

The Jats are thus cast as a nomadic population that must be either
eradicated or policed under both Chach's reign and the polity of Qasim.
Jats arc invoked in the Qasim cycle when they continue to resist Qa­
sim's armies even after the fall of a fort or even after making political
alliances. In dealing with the nomadic |ats, Qasim asks his new advi­
sors about existing laws governing them in Sind: "What was the matter
of the Jats with Chach and Daharl" The ministers Siaker and Moka
reply with a legal history that goes back to Chach:

During the rule of Chach, the Jats of Lohana (that is, those who lived
in the area of Lakha and Sammal were prohibited from wearing soft
clothes, from covering their heads, and from wearing a rough, black
sheet on their torso When they exited their homes, they were accom­
panied by dogs. By this, they could be identified from afar.... They
are barbaric, prone to rebellion and thievery on the roads. They were
the same even in Daybul, raiding along with others. They are also
responsible for bringing cooking wood to the kitchens of the kings.
Said Muhammad bin Qasim: "How offensive Imrrkruhl arc these
people! They are like the iungle dwellers in the lands of Persia (Farsi
and Makran (Kuhpaia) who have the same ways." Hence, Muhammad
bin Qasim kept on them their existing laws, )ust as Amir al-Mominin
'Umar bin Khattab had insisted that the nomadic inhabitants of Syria
host any traveler and give them food for a night, and if the traveler
were sick, for three nights.*’1
The Jats are described as nomadic, undisciplined subjects who re­
fuse to submit to any political order. To address the Jat problem,
Chachnama layers three levels of history: the precedence of Chach's
laws, Muhammad bin Qasim's continued legal sanction of the Jats, and
finally the earliest Muslim political leaders' dealings with nomadic
peoples. In invoking the past of Chach. Qasim is assisted by the legal
knowledge of local ministers. When Qasim reaffirms this rule, he
makes comparisons to other political spaces that disciplined nomadic
peoples. Note, however, that never does Chachnarna suggest dealing
with a recalcitrant population through conversion.
The cases of political accommodation and the legal disciplining of
unruly subjects illustrate how Chachnama constitutes a robust theory
of managing difference. This theory is based on alliance and law. In
this theory, no community is under duress to convert to Islam. Their
 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES 117

treatment under new regimes is based on context and is enacted

through law and taxation. The first enactment of this theory is with a
community of merchants, artisans, and laborers who arc political
powerful because they arc essential to the local economy. They are to
be embraced, their customs supported, and their prosperity ensured
because with them comes the prosperity of the polity. In return for the
accommodation of their religious practices, they offer the Muslim
leader, Qasim, their loyalty. The other enactment of this theory is with
a nomadic tribal community that must be regulated and punitively cir­
cumscribed such that they cannot disrupt the political regime.
Both of these cases can be read as annotations of a translation act
in the Chachnama—they treat the polity's new subjects as legal and
moral agents. In both cases, Chachnama posits a legal or historical pre­
cedent from the Hindu polity of Chach and the early Muslim polities
of Syria. Chachnama as political theory engages difference from the
perspective of achieving an ordered city and demonstrating the con­
tours and limits of that exercise with examples, edicts, and declara­
tions. The political model for understanding difference in Chachnama
is not based on a mutually recognizable theology but on a political and
legal understanding of governance.
 5
The Half Smile

The sacral terrain of uch is dotted with shrines to prominent

daughters and wives of Sufis. The shrines are dedicated to Bibi Jawindi,
Bibi Ayesha, and Bibi Tigni. These women arc remembered as pious,
influential carriers of Sufi ethics who cemented the city's spiritual
claims. In contemporary memory, they are evoked as custodians of
the sacral power of the city. Jawindi's monument is perhaps the most
iconic representation of Uch to the outside world and is a UNESCO
World Heritage site. She was the granddaughter of the great Uch Sufi
Makhdum lahaniyan Jahan Gasht |d. 1384). Her shrine was built in
1499 by Khurasani prince Muhammad Dilshad and was partially
destroyed in the eighteenth century when the river Indus changed
its course. Yet despite this catastrophic event, it still stands as a
marvel to all visitors. Jawindi's memory is as iconic as the material
remains of her shrine, a living presence in the sacral space of Uch,
with supplicants and devotees approaching her for succor. The
presence of Bibi lawindi's shrine in the topography of Uch testifies
to her significance in the history of the region. Yet the scholarly
accounts which focus on the sacral history of Uch do not high­
light female saints? Even general histones of Sufism in India make
only very rare mention of female saints (such as Lal Ded from
Kashmir), making our understanding of Sufi Islam in India devoutly
masculine.

128
 THE HALF SMILE IJ9

Tomb of Bibi fawindi. (Photo © Manan Ahmed Asif J

The material history and practices surrounding Bibi fawindi and her
tomb highlight the erasure of women from histories in contemporary
Uch. What kind of histories could be written if we were to see women
as integral actors in the most powerful state in medieval northern
India? Within the conquest framework, Chachnama is only a story
about two male conquerors—Chach and Qasim. But there is another
radically different reading possible when we look at the role women
play in this political landscape. What happens to Chachnatna if we sec­
past its ostensible structure of male protagonists to other interpreta­
tive frames? Said differently, what if Chachnama is recast as a story
about political power that necessarily includes women! In the conquest
BO THE HALF SMILE

framework, the narrative is driven by the logic of expansion, and the

story moves forward as the conquest moves forward: spatially and po­
litically. Reframing Chachnama as political theory reveals that women
are chief drivers of the narrative. Their actions propel the narrative,
their gaze slows time in the text, their monologues summarize and
explain how to be a just ruler and a just subject. They arc, in effect,
ethical subjects pur excellence. My contention is that Chachnama en­
acts its ethics through the speech and gaze of the women protagonists
in the text. Their gaze, their conduct, their speech demonstrate how
an ethical person can inhabit the political world of Sind in the early
thirteenth century.
Throughout this book I have argued that reading Chachnama as po­
litical theory reveals a solution to ontological and political difference
via accommodation and alliance. What emerges in this chapter is that
ethics for Chachnama are defined by the conduct and speech of women.
That is, the women characters present an ethos that dictates how one
ought to behave in social and political relationships, how one listens
to the other, and how a ruler acts justly toward his subjects. When we
dislocate the text from its perch as a narrative of conquest, the struc­
ture of protagonists in the text also shifts remarkably. It is the female
gaze that allows us to enter the text and "see" the masculinity of
Chach, Qasim, and Dahar elaborated through depictions of their
valor in battle, their asceticism, and their capacity to listen and take
advice. It is crucial to follow the woman's gaze in Chachnama, for it
orients us toward possible audiences of the text in early-thirteenth-
century Uch.
The accounts of women in Chachnama have always been deemed
romantic and thus ignored. This was the verdict of colonial histo­
rians, and postcolonial readers have maintained this view of the
text.1 The women in Chachnama were seen as marginal to its his­
tory, reduced to their transgressive sexuality. Indeed, this depiction
parallels that of women in Persianate historiography more broadly.
There, women are read through moralist claims about the nature of
womanhood. Given that in the historical record women often appear
as dynamic and powerful, it is reductive when women are ignored
simply for their sexual transgression or capacity to lie, etc. By and large,
women are not read as ethical subjects, let alone politically signifi­
 THE HALF SMILE Bl

cant ones.3 To enact such a reading is not to simply highlight women's

roles. Rather it is to make a broader claim for revisiting our historical
records for the diverse social worlds occluded when we limit our
readings to kings and conquerors—or conversely, not see women as
kings and conquerors. What docs a political world look like that in­
cludes politically powerful women who exact ethical practice along­
side other actors, such as advisors, allies, and nobility of different
communities?
This chapter focuses on three episodes from the beginning, middle,
and end of Chachnama: Chach's ascension to the throne, Qasim's judg­
ment on civilian prisoners, and the death of Qasim in Baghdad. The
protagonists of these episodes are women, and the text speaks from
their perspective. The episodes are about the relationship between po­
litical power and just forms of rule. They focus on political will, on
desire, on trusting intuition, and on the need for acuity in under­
standing political risks. If we read Chach and Qasim as ideal and ar­
chetypal protagonists, then we must read the women—from Sohnan
Devi, to Queen Ladi, to the daughters who end Qasim's rule—also as
archetypal, ethical subjects who affirm the ideal Chach and reveal the
limits of Qasim. After an analysis of these episodes, 1 look at other
characters, who are similarly important ideal ethical subjects, to con­
sider the wider social world of the thirteenth century. Finally, 1 trace
how later historical accounts citing Chachnama reduce female sub­
jects to transgressive figures or figures of resistance.

Ethical Subjects
Let us begin with the beginning of Chachnama, after Chach has ar­
rived and the narrative first slows down to describe him. He comes
from a Brahmin ascetic family and is looking to be employed as a scribe.
Having attained employment in the court of the king of Aror, Rai
Sahasi, Chach quickly becomes a favorite and often visits the interior
of the palace. It is on one such visit that he is seen by the queen, Sohnan
Devi. Through her gaze the reader first sees Chach. She watches
him and finds him to be "beautiful, well-proportioned, with rosy
red cheeks."* She is immediately besotted, and "the plant of love blos­
somed to a tree in her heart." The king, Chachnuma narrates, although
I?2 THE HALF SMILE

a kind and just ruler, is old and incapable of fathering sons, and so
Sohnan Devi sends a message to Chach: "Oh Chach! The arrows of
your eyelashes have wounded my heart. Your separation is a noose
around my neck. 1 hope that you will cure my ills with your presence
and remove this noose from my neck with your hands and put instead
garlands of love and companionship. If you refuse me, I will kill my­
self."5 Chach refuses the entreaty and declares it to be foolhardy to
cheat one’s king and that this would lead to disrepair in this life and
discredit in the next:

Because we are Brahmin, my father and my brother arc ascetic and

sit in meditation. It is enough for me to serve at the king's pleasure,
where I spend my life between hope and fear. For it is true that a
servant of kings is always suspended between praise and condemna­
tion. There are four things that one should never trust: a king, fire, a
snake, and water. Hence, 1 cannot take more sins upon myself while
engaged in such worldly pursuits.6

Chach was from a family of ascetics, and he notes here that he has
already transgressed the dictates of his ascetic life. He insists that he
is attempting to be an ethical man while in the service of the king |"I
cannot take more sins upon myself"). He does not rebuke the queen or
call her immoral. Rather, he admits his own culpability. This is the
first instance of Chach making a choice to be an ethical subject. This
emphasis is reflected by Sohnan Devi, who accepts Chach’s decision.
Instead of becoming angry and vowing revenge, which is a more typical
reaction in adab stories of a woman in power and a young protagonist,
she "replied with great love and care," saying that "even if you refrain
from my love and company, at least let me see you from time to time
so that I can live with the hope of your company."’ On receiving this
reply, Chach is relieved. Over time he sometimes secs her, such that
their feelings toward each other strengthen. Yet Chach and Sohnan
Devi do not step outside of the bounds of ethical conduct, even though
rumors circulate. The declaration and restraint of desire critically sets
up their relationship as one concerning political power.
Chachnama then presents Sohnan Devi as the architect who brings
Chach to power. It is Sohnan Devi who first informs Chach that the
king has passed away. The king leaves no son. Sohnan asks Chach to
 THE HALF SMILE 135

come to her and tells him how to become the king of Aror: "My intel­
lect argues that if you act with courage at this point, this kingdom, by
God’s grace, will be yours."’ Chach quickly agrees to her plan, adding
only that he should also consult "devoted servants" about it. The
queen's scheme is to keep the news of the king's death secret for six
months, during which time they incite other claimants to the throne
to eliminate each other. Finally, with enough of their own supporters
in the court, the queen declares Chach as the caretaker prime minister
for a seriously ill king. In detailing this coup, Chachama emphasizes
that the wit and wisdom of Sohnan Devi are the catalyst for action,
with Chach as the willing apprentice.
After six months, they announce Sahasi's death. When Sahasi's
brother learns of his death, he assembles an army and descends on Aror
to challenge Chach for the throne. Chach is frightened and goes to
Sohnan Devi for advice: "This claimant to the throne is now here.
What do you advise?" Sohnan Devi smiles and responds, "I am a veiled
woman. If you need me to fight for you, then give me your clothes so I
can go out and fight while you sit inside here, wearing my clothes. Have
you not heard the wise men say that when one decides on a task, after
due consultations, he must fulfil it with determination’ This is your
kingdom now, and it is in your name. What advice is left? Go out like
a lion and defend your claim, for it is better to die with honor and re­
nown than to he perceived as weak by your peers."’
The queen declares that they have already made a plan and have
been acting on it. Note that the queen understands that political
strategy requires consultation and that political action requires bravery
and steadfastness. Her challenge to Chach’s masculinity and honor
propel him to face Rai Mahrit, whom he kills in battle. After this vic­
tory, the queen assembles the dignitaries of the court, and in public
she announces that there is no biological heir to the throne. She de­
clares that Chach has proven himself as someone of high intellect and
valor that therefore he is the rightful custodian of the polity. She con­
cludes that her hand should be given in marriage to Chach so that he
will become the new king. The court approves, and she is married to
Chach and has two sons.
The ascension of Chach, then, is only through the political acumen
of Sohnan Devi, who while declaring her desire for him respects the
 34 THE HALF SMILE

boundaries of his ethics as well as the social decorum of the court. In

Chachnama, Sohnan Devi epitomizes a political subjecthood that is
ethical and astute. She sets the tone for the rest of the text, where
women characters are key to political life. It is insufficient to read
Sohnan Devi as simply a king maker or an enabler for Chach. Her di­
rect pronouncements carry a political theory: a capable, moral person
can become a king without a blood claim; political will requires the
management of the opinions of both the public and elite courtiers; and
political will requires bravery, ruthlessness, and commitment. Indeed,
she is herself the ruler while Chach is still making his claim. Sohnan
Devi thus shows extraordinary political acumen and a clear sense of
what it means to be an ethical ruler.
The second episode comes in the middle of the narrative and con­
cerns Chach’s son Raja Dahar and his overthrow by Qasim. The Hindu
queen Ladi, the wife of Dahar, is now the protagonist who provides po­
litical acumen to the Muslim conqueror. Qasim has already killed
Dahar, and he is now besieging the fort of Aror. Ladi is captured by
the Muslim army and is asked to go to the ramparts and inform the
inhabitants that their king is dead and that they should surrender. She
goes to the fort, recounts Dahar's death, and asks the people to sur­
render. They yell back, "You are a liar. You have ioined these cow­
eating thieves. Our king is still alive, and he will come with a great
army of many horses and drunk elephants, and he will repel these en­
emies. You have soiled yourself with these Arabs and prefer them to
your own people. Upon hearing this, Muhammad bin Qasim said,
'Statehood has left the house of Salaij.’ "10
Ladi does not respond to the accusations of treason from her sub­
jects but rather shows great restraint. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of
the city go to another powerful woman, a priestess, and ask her to de­
termine whether Dahar is alive or whether Queen Ladi is lying. The
priestess meditates for a day and then says, "I traveled from the Cau­
casus to the Caucasus—around the world—but saw no sign of him in
Hind or in Sind, nor any word of him. If he was alive, he would not be
able to hide from me. To give you proof of my travels: here are still­
green shoots from the plants of Ceylon. I am convinced your king is
dead."11 Here is another powerful woman whose sacral claim over the
landscape is asserted and found convincing. Note that Chachnama pro­
 THE HALF SMILE '35

vides a range of women who hold political power ("he would not be
able to hide from me"). The people are convinced by this and surrender
to Qasim after declaring that they are now under his protection,
After Qasim enters Aror and encounters the idol in the temple, he
announces hastily that those who had fought the invasion—even if
now supplicant—will be killed. Upon hearing this, Queen Ladi inter­
jects that Qasim's command is unwise: "'The inhabitants of this city
are builders and traders. They keep this city alive and green. It is
through their labor that the treasury and the granary are full. If you
kill them, you will be killing your own wealth.’ Muhammad Qasim
answered, 'This is the order of Queen Ladi,' and he granted peace to
them all.''12
Thus Queen Ladi, who was abused and accused of disloyalty by the
people of Aror, is the instrument of their salvation. Qasim, who is the
conquering commander, does not hesitate to listen to the deposed
queen or to issue a command m her name. What Queen Ladi is em­
phasizing to Qasim is that the safety and continuing livelihood of the
people of Aror are the foundation of his political rule. To further ce­
ment this argument in Chachama. Qasim takes Queen Ladi as his own
wife. Like Chach's marriage to the wife of the previous king, Qasim’s
marriage to Ladi cements the bond of history to the political, showing
that new regimes build upon existing structures of power. Like Sohnan
Devi, Ladi speaks to and for the people of Sind and manages the tran­
sition of power without violence or bloodshed. Ladi provides Qasim
with the techniques of rule that he needs to found a polity in Sind.
It is after Qasim's marriage to Ladi that Chachnama describes the
legal status of nonMuslims in the new polity. Qasim takes Ladi’s ad­
vice to build the foundation for a diverse population, He enacts a poll
tax on non-Muslims: the purest weight of silver for the nobility, a lesser
weight for the lesser elite, and so on. He declares his subjects free to
practice the religion of their choice, and he makes appointments to
bureaucratic and administrative posts without any question of conver­
sion. He makes a register of the traders, artisans, and farmers and ap­
points them a relief fund because the war has hurt them the most. He
takes Dahar's nobles as his advisors and appoints Brahmins to key po­
sitions, telling them that he has full confidence in their abilities.
These basic acts of statecraft and integration of political regimes mirror
IJ6 THE HALF SMILE

Chach's appointment of Buddhist advisors. Chachnama's presentation

of ethics for a ruler and his diverse subjects is conveyed through the
political prowess and guidance of Sohnan Devi and Queen Ladi. Put
simply, Sohnan Devi charts the rise of power for Chach, and Ladi ce­
ments the rule of Qasim.
The third episode concerns the daughters of Dahar and brings us
to the end of Muhammad bin Qasim, and to the end of Chachnama
itself. In the last section of the text, this episode is inconspicuously
titled "Muhammad Qasim Receives a Message from the Capital.1' To
fully comprehend the argument behind the narrative of Qasim's death,
we have to step back and see the entirety of the portrait of Muhammad
bin Qasim as sketched in Chachnama. The clearest assessment of
Qasim occurs halfway through the narrative, after he has conquered the
fort of Aron "The people of the fort, noble and common, said, 'We had
heard of Muhammad Qasim's honesty, devotion, empathy, justice,
compassion, and forthrightness, and now we have seen it too.' "1! These
traits are highlighted in various episodes: in Qasim's dealings with sol­
diers, with fort governors, with Dahar and his family, with nobles, and
with religious notables. Qasim is just, he is ethical, he is moral, he is
kind, and he is brave. In these characteristics, Qasim is akin to the
ideal subjecthood of Chach. There is a critical difference, however: Qa­
sim's fealty to his political superiors, such as Haijaj or the caliph. Again
and again, Qasini surrenders his own feelings and fudgments to those
of his superiors. He is chastised by them for granting too many pardons,
for bestowing grants on local nobles and trusting their troops in his
armies, and for not inflicting higher taxes. Though he resists, he never
rebels, remaining steadfast in his deference to hierarchy. This is the
radical difference between Chach and Qasim, even though they are both
ideal archetypes in the text. Qasim is beholden to a corruptible center,
whereas Chach is driven by his own ethics. This is the radical differ­
ence explored at the end of the text, and the denouement lies in the
hands of two women who take revenge for their father's death.
When Qasim dethrones Dahar, his daughters are captured by the
army and are sent to the capital, Baghdad, in the hands of East African
slaves, Chachnama narrates that after the women are taken to the
court of the caliph, they arc placed in his harem. He asks that they be
brought to him after they have rested for a few days. They are then
 THE HALF SMILE »37

presented to the caliph, who through a translator inquires about the

eldest one so that he can take her to his bed while the younger one awaits
her turn. The translator first asks their names, and the eldest calls her­
self Suria Deo. The younger calls herself Pirmal Deo. The caliph
chooses Suria Deo to be taken to his chambers. When he secs her, he
is taken by her beauty and grace, and "his bleeding heart could no
longer remain patient." He grabs her hand and pulls her to him. Suria
pulls back and speaks: "May you live long, O King, but this delicate
slave is not worthy of a king's night, since the just commander Imad-
uddin Muhammad Qasim kept us in his company for three nights be­
fore sending us to serve you in the capital. Or is this your strange
custom? Such indignities are not for kings."14 The caliph, who is "al­
ready besotted and impatient from desire" is shocked. Devoid of his
senses, he docs not pause to question her or investigate the matter fur­
ther. Instead, he immediately calls for paper, and "with his own hand
wrote to Qasim," ordering that wherever he may be, when he receives
his order, "he should have himself sewn inside uncured leather, stuffed
in a box, and carried to the capital."14
The opening of this episode describes the caliph as a licentious
figure whose interest is in the sexual conquest of the prisoners. The
women, however, subvert the narrative of conquest when they strate­
gically claim that Muhammad bin Qasim has already "taken their
bodies" and thus "despoiled" them. They also claim a notion of proper
conduct for a king and reveal that the caliph is found lacking. This
claim causes the caliph to act hastily, and he orders the brutal death
of his commander, at Qasim's own hand.16
The order reaches Qasim when he is in Udaipur, and he asks to be
wrapped in wet sheepskin and placed in a box. He dies as a result of
his entombment in leather, en route to Baghdad. Chachnama notes
that the political appointments made by Qasim stand, and the polity
he created remained, although he was gone. When the box reaches the
caliph, he calls for the daughters to come from seclusion and observe
the dead body of the commander. When they arrive, they see the ca­
liph rubbing a stick on Qasim's exposed teeth and saying, "O daughters
of raja, gaze at one who obeys my commands. My rule extends to all
regions,- as soon as he heard from me in Kanauj, he did as I ordered and
gave up his life."1’
>5« THE HALF SMILE

On hearing the caliph, the eldest daughter gives a half-smile, un­

veils herself, and speaks. This is the longest monologue in Chachnama.
reflecting its significance for the text. She begins with a theory of rule
and then explains the necessity of her actions in pursuit of justice:

May God keep the king safe forever, and may his rule continue for
ages. It is necessary for the wise ruler of the time to weigh what he
hears from friend or foe on the scale of intellect and compare it to
his heart's intuition. Only once he is free from doubt should he pro­
claim according to the demands of justice, such that the wrath of Fate
may spare him and his people not fault him. Your command docs
hold sway, but your heart lacks all understanding. In the ways of our
honor, Muhammad bin Qasim was like a brother or son to us and
never extended a hand of desire toward us. Yet he had killed the king
of Hind and Sind, destroyed the rule of my forefathers, and made us
slaves. For this, we sought our revenge on him. To ruin him and to
seek appropriate revenge, we lied in front of the caliph. Our purpose
was successful, and we gathered our revenge as the caliph's orders
were fulfilled.1"

Here the daughters reveal their lie. They assert respect, admiration,
and even filial affection for Qasim, for he had respected their purity.
Yet he had to die, for it was their ethical duty to avenge their father.
They have lied in pursuit of justice. Further, they show that although
the caliph has power, he lacks understanding because he is corrupted
by desire:

If this caliph did not have desire clouding his mind, he would have
investigated the matter prior to issuing his command, and today he
would not be in this place of shame and dishonor. And if Muhammad
bin Qasim had used his intellect, he would have walked until one
day’s journey from the capital and only then had himself sewn in
leather, When investigated, he would have been set free and not
ruined.1’

He has acted in haste and has not investigated their false claim. The
daughters shame the caliph from their position as pure ethical subjects.
They also condemn Qasim for his adherence to the caliph's order which
caused his death. The caliph, faced with this indictment, now con­
fronts his own shameful haste. Lamenting that he has killed his
 THE HALF SMILE ■59

own commander and "awash in sorrow, he bit the back of his hand."
The caliph is left speechless. Dahar's daughter speaks the last words
of Chachnama:

For the sake of two slave girls, you killed a commander who impris­
oned a hundred thousand like us and defeated seventy kings of Hind
and Sind. He ordered the construction of mosques and minarets
where temples stood. Even if he had misbehaved or done something
to displease you, even then a selfish person would not have killed
Muhammad bin Qasim. The caliph ordered that the two daughters
be immured.10

There is no further gloss in the text, but it concludes with a decla­

ration: "And since that day to this, Islam's banner has flown higher and
prospered." The daughter's rebuke to the caliph that he should have
thought of his own self-interest (and by extension, the interest of the
polityl crystallizes that at the heart of the impenum, there must be a
focus on the entirety of the empire, including all of its inhabitants. The
women show that the caliph was instead ruled by his base desires. If
we read this last declaration in light of the opening of the daughter's
monologue ("Such indignities arc not for kings") we have an encapsu­
lation of how this episode demonstrates the moral certitude required
for statecraft. The caliph has no words; he never speaks again in the
text, but for their lie, he punishes them by having them immured in a
wall?1
Chachnama thus ends with a scathing critique of a corrupt Muslim
rule. It condemns the center of a Muslim empire as a corrupt and cor­
rupting world. It is a place where political rule does not follow the
guidelines for a just and ethical kingship as exemplified in the account
of the Brahmin Chach. The account's spatial movement from the fron­
tier to the center moves in tandem with the perspective shift from the
conqueror to the conquered. The book ends with an extensive first-
person critique of the Muslim state from the perspective of a female
Hindu slave.
The ethics in Chachnama are articulated at the end of the text
by the eldest daughter of Dahar as a series of imperatives to the ca­
liph: to think, to reflect, to consult, to listen to one’s heart, to be inde­
pendent of undue influence. The caliph, depicted as the corrupt, immoral
140 THE HALF SMILE

center of power, follows none of these imperatives. He appears in

Chachnama only in this episode, and he is a prisoner of his desires, an
egotistical ruler. This corruption at the center is juxtaposed with Qa­
sim’s obedience to the chain of command. As the daughter points out,
Qasim foolishly followed the order and gave up his life when he could
have easily delayed the implementation and be alive as a result. The
daughter marks these failures at both the center and the periphery, in
both the ruler and the commander.
Critically, Chachnama makes their resistance to the regime a key
ethics for these two women. From their perspective, the lie was an act
of vengeance against a foreign usurper, and Chachnama does not den­
igrate that act. Their ethics remains wholly congruent to the political
theory of Chachnama—it is the same as the resistance offered by the
Buddhist priest to Chach, or by Dahar’s nobles and ministers to Qasim,
or by the people of Brahmanabad or Aror to the Muslims. All of whom,
Chachnama demonstrates, are ultimately folded back into the new
regime. Yet again, this calls to attention the corruption of Baghdad's
caliph who mercilessly has the women immured for exercising their
right to resistance.
Why does Chachnama end with the self-sacrifice of its Muslim pro­
tagonist- There are a number of places where the noblewomen who
resist Muslim forces contemplate self-immolation rather than capture.
Yet even there, the emphasis is on individual acts of resistance against
the political order. Qasim, the ideal commander of the Muslim army,
is modeled after the ideal ruler Chach, but his deference to Hajjaj and
to the political hierarchy of the capital is repeatedly shown to be his
singular weakness. The end of Qasim is a demonstration of the very
ethics described by the daughter of Dahar at the end: the need for in­
dependent thought as well as the necessity to act according to one’s
own intuition and understanding.
Qasim’s death is the logical coda for a political theory that focuses
on the righteous, learned protagonist Chach. Chachnama valorizes his
faith, his dedication to his family, his capacity to be pure of desire,
his partnership with Sohnan Devi, his reliance on his minister’s ad­
vice. and his articulation of a limited polity that docs not impugn on
other states. Chach learns and grows into a just ruler, and he does so
under the political tutelage of Sohnan Devi. Qasim learns and grows
 THE HALE SMILE 141

as a commander, and he enacts his just rules under the guidance of

Ladi. The corruption at the center of Muslim empire is revealed by the
resistance of the two daughters. Chachnama, forever read as a depic­
tion of a masculine heroic ethos of Islam, is a markedly different text
when seen through the gaze of the noblewomen in the text.
Chachnama's political theory is consistent in its emphasis on
Brahmin women as ethical subjects, on the political expedience of al­
liances with Indic kings, and on the necessity of advisors and minis­
ters for just rule. The text demonstrates structures of power that cross
sectarian lines and provide a political theory that makes that world
possible. It is important to understand Kufi’s text as explicating the di­
verse world of thirteenth-century Sind—which is generally seen as
monopolitical and monotheistic. Chachnama betrays no anxiety over
the marriage of a Muslim Arab commander to a Sindhi Hindu queen.
Nor does it suggest anxiety in presenting a world where women hold
political powers.
It is not only women who are characterized by ethical power in the
text. Chachnama presents numerous other characters who embody
ethical subjecthood and are treated with similar terms of conviction
and praise. These character are prophets, seers, ministers, and advisors,
and their roles range from Brahmin nobility to neighboring kings
who are described through a language of translation. One key example
in Chachnama is of Dahar's son laisinha, who flees Aror ahead of Qa-
sim's army, hoping to raise troops from the realm of the raja of Kiraj.
In the text he is given a pedigreed name which highlights not only his
bravery but also that of his father, Dahar.

According to the Brahmins of Aror, Jaisinha son of Dahar was un­

paralleled m masculinity and cleverness. The account of his birth
is thus: One day, Raja Dahar took his contingent to the hunting
grounds. Once out of the city, they released the dogs, wolves, and
wildcats on the ground, and the eagles, kites, and hawks in the air.
A lion confronted the hunting party, and everyone scattered—
except for Dahar, who dismounted his horse to face the lion.
Dahar wrapped his hand in a sheet and plunged it into the lion's
mouth. Then he cut off the lion's front paws with his sword. He
then took his hand out and tore open the stomach of the lion. The
lion died from the wounds.
142 THE HALF SMILE

The people from his party, frightened, ran back to the queen and
informed her that Dahar was fighting a lion. She was pregnant at the
time. When she heard the report, she was overwhelmed by her love
and concern for his safety and she fainted. When Dahar returned, she
had died, but he saw that the child was kicking in her stomach. He
ordered her stomach to be opened. A living son was produced. Dahar
gave his son to the wet nurse and called him Jaisinha, meaning al-
Muzafar ha al-Asad (Victorious Lionl—in Persian, Share Firuz.a

This archetypal prince is given a name in three languages to sig­

nify the story of his birth. The story, in turn, explains his bravery, mod­
esty, and piety. The presentation of the prince as an ethical subject
builds alongside this translation of his persona within the linguistic
and ethnic registers. When Jaisinha arrives at the palace of the raia of
Kiraj, he is offered a seat in the inner palace. He averts his eyes from
the women, prompting the raja to exclaim, "These women are like your
mothers and sisters; do not be shy in front of them." Jaisinha responds,
"We are a family of ascetics and therefore cannot gaze upon marriage­
able (namahram) women. The raja then excused him from raising his
eyes and praised his piety and restraint."3-'
Though Jaisinha keeps his gaze averted, he is seen by the raja's
sister, who falls in love with him. She is smitten with his "complete
beauty, tall like a juniper tree fnr'ar), moon faced, with a divine char­
acter."34 This description of a man’s physical beauty parallels the de­
scriptions of Chach and Qasim earlier in the text. All of these are the
perspectives of a woman. In this case, as in others, the inner beauty of
their character matches their outer beauty; thus, Jaisinha rebuffs the
advances of the sister.
Like laisinha’s name, his ethics transcend those of an ascetic
Brahmin to incorporate values shared by Muslims. Chachnama insists
that virtue and beauty are linked, and the ethics governing them are
not explicitly Islamic. Hence the Brahmin prince exhibits all virtue
and moral uprightness that ought to be present in a Muslim warrior
such as Qasim. One is able to see this prince as an ethical subject when
one looks past the insistence that the text has only two protagonists:
Chach and Qasim. When these two are read as conquerors, their
personalities and actions dominate the text, but when they are read as
 THE HALF SMILE *43

embodiments of political theory, they are placed in a constellation of

characters such as the women and the princes.
How was this political theory of diverse social worlds, including
those of women and powerful Hindu nobility, reflected in contempo­
raneous accounts of the thirteenth century! Contemporary examples
of such worlds can be seen in Juzjani's Tabaqat-i Nasiri, which pro­
vides an eyewitness account of Razia, the eldest daughter of llltutmish,
who ascended to the throne of Delhi and ruled for three years and six
days. Juzjani describes Razia as "a great king, with intelligence and
wisdom, who enacted justice on the world, nurtured the people and the
army, and in all possessed every quality that a king possessed."25 She
governed during the lifetime of Iltutmish. When the oldest son, Na-
siruddin Mahmud, died from illness, lltutmish declared her as his heir
to the throne. Juzjani notes that when Iltutmish gave that order, some
of his advisors asked whether it was wise to appoint a woman when he
had another son. lltutmish replied, "My sons are busy with their youth
and luxury and do not possess the means to govern, and the state will
not function under them. When I am dead, you will realize that there
is no one more fit to rule than my daughter." Then Juzjani adds, "It
happened exactly as the wise king had predicted."16
Though Juzjani goes on to narrate the extreme political difficulties
faced by Razia- and her ouster—it is worth pausing and noting that
for Iltutmish and for Juzjani, there was no moral or ethical barrier to
Razia’s kingship. Juzjani gives ample evidence of elite women who
manage the rise and fall of kings, including Razia's own mother as well
as the mother of Ruknuddin Feroz Shah. In Juzjani's account, they
manage the ascension to throne of all of Iltutmish's successors and act
as governors as well as advisors. The mother was central to the ascen­
sion of even Nasiruddm Mahmud Shah (r. 1246-Z266I, under whose
rule Juziani completed the Tabaqat. These examples of Tlirkic and Arab
elite women demonstrate a thirteenth-century courtly culture where
women are full political agents, engaged in the struggle for political
control. What Cbacbnama demonstrates, however, is that as ethical
subjects women are key custodians of an ideal political theory that gov­
erns struggles of justice, alliances, accommodation, and recognition
of differential power.
U4 THE HALE SMILE

Juzjani also documents an ethics of virtue, righteousness, and jus­

tice in his depiction of deposed Hindu kings, Juzjani was appointed to
Laknauti and was an eyewitness of this transfer of political power. In
his description of the deposed raja of Lukhinina (Laknauti), Juzjani re­
counts the raja's birth and an eighty-year rule that was as just and
generous as the rule of the Muslims in Delhi.2’ Such virtuous readings
of non-Muslim elite are present as well in Amir Khusrau's Duval Ram
va Khizr Khan (commissioned by Prince Khizr Khan in 1314I, which
imagines a romance between the Muslim Prince Khizr and the Brahmin
princess Duval Rani as an exemplum of classical Arabic and Persian
romances.2"

Transgressive Subjects
The story of Qasim’s death, staged far from the capital of Uch, in the
global capital of Baghdad, is the ethical coda for Chachnama's political
theory. The act and speech of the daughters illuminate the central logic
of Chachnama: an assertion of an ethical and just actor against the po­
litical and moral instability inside the power structure. Chachnama
uses potent symbols of subversion and power, where a deceptively be­
nign half smile reveals the corruption and potential disruption of state
power.
As I have demonstrated, Dahar’s daughter is an ethical, politically
astute woman who makes a severe indictment of a corrupt regime. Yet
she enters the subsequent Persianate historiography simply as a trans­
gressive and corrupt woman who threatens the political order.29 Ibn
Batutta’s mid-fourteenth-century works similarly record the political
ascension of Razia Sultana, whose memory is tied to her transgressions
of dressing in male battle attire and consorting with an African slave.30
These fourteenth-century accounts focus on the transgression of the
women, erasing the naturalness of political power accorded to them
as theory or practice in Chachnama or in Juzjani's writings.
This story of Qasim's death in Chachnama is the earliest account
in any medieval Persian text. It is in Ayn ul-Mulk Abdullah Mahru’s
Insha’i Mahru, a collection of administrative letters written during the
reign of Firuz Shah Tughluq (1351-1388). In his letters, Mahru, a gov­
ernor in Lahore, admonishes a Sindhi noble for his failure to provide
 THE HALF SMILE >45

military support. He launches into a description of the character of the

people of Sind, and to explain the land, he turns to "a History of Dahar,
son of Chach" [Ta'rikh-i Dahar-i Chach), which is "well known to the
common people in the land of Sind."11 It is Chachnama. Mahru notes,
that is the "story of treachery and betrayal" of the Sindhi people. Mahru
then details the plot of the daughters of Dahar to take revenge on
Qasim. Mahru's account hues closely to the details in Chachnama but
with one telling change: he omits the monologue of the daughter and
instead concludes that the women represent the "trickery, betrayal, and
lies are the habits of the people of Sind."32 Mahru ignores the ethical
subjecthood of the daughters and reduces their act to one of a trans­
gression against the central authority. For Mahru, the women's lie is a
historical precedent for the character of the people of Uch; it allows
him to articulate a historical critique of noncompliance to his stately
authority.
Qasim's death is also repeated in the local chronicles of Sind's past
that were written in the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,
as well as in the late-eighteenth-century social history Tuhfat al-
Kiram. All of these texts cither reference or reproduce the Chachnama
account, with some minor changes. tQani' in Tuhfat al-Kiram. has the
women crushed under the feet of elephants.) These references do not
reproduce the moral condemnation of Mahru.
British colonial accounts of Sind’s history also include this story. In
1861, Thomas Hood penned a versification of the story in The Daughters
of King Daher, where "in the dark eyes of the Indian maids / A subtle
smile grew."11 Hood reduces the women to Oriental romantic sub­
jects with conniving half smiles, at the mercy of a despotic Muslim
king.
While medieval and colonial accounts reduced the women of
Chachnama to romantic and transgressive subjects, they were differ­
ently recuperated as resistors in Sindhi nationalist discourses in the
twentieth century. During my visits to Hyderabad and Thatta, 1 had
many chances to sip tea and speak about Sind's glorious pasts with
those who keep that cultural memory alive. Chachnama was often in­
voked, as were Muhammad bin Qasim and Raja Dahar. Yet three
women from Chachnama—Dakar's wife, Queen Ladi, and Dahar's
daughters Suria and Primal—carry equal weight in the cultural
146 THE HALF SMILE

memory of Sind’s past. Their stories are recited to explicate the nation­
hood of Sind and to argue against imperial aggressors (in most cases
the military regime of Pakistan). These women are seen as proud,
daring personifications of an ancient Sindhi nation that always resisted
conquerors. In the words of the Sindhi poet Shaikh Ayaz, this compar­
ison of their body with nationhood is stark:
Raia Dahar!
your daughters
beautiful, wise
who dragged them here
anxious, devastated
ropes around their waists
their braids dishevelled
the princesses
all naked
yes, but with heads held high
there is hatred on their face,
greatness, daring”
The Pakistani state, in contrast, built its narrative around the
Muslim woman abducted by pirates and who cried out to Haifa) for
rescue. Pakistani historiography insisted that Muhammad bin Qasim's
conquest of Sind was to avenge the defilement of that woman. The epi­
sode of "Ya Hajjaj" is pivotal and archetypal tor modern Pakistan. Hence,
when invoked by Faisal Shahzad, the failed bomber of Times Square, the
figure of the beleaguered Muslim woman transcends history and stands
for a challenge to Pakistan's masculinity and piety. This masculinity
is best encapsulated by the heroic figure of Qasim, who represents the
"first citizen of Pakistan." Yet, as we have seen, Chachnama offers a
stinging denouement for Muhammad bin Qasim and for the political
capital of Baghdad.
These women—whether the one who was saved by Qasim or the
ones who destroyed Qasim—mark the afterlife of this text. It is clear
that of the many accounts from Chachnama, the account of Qasim's
death has sparked the most attention, the most engagement. Mahru
read it for subversion, and others read it for resistance. The account,
which I read as the depiction of a political subfecthood, became in his­
toriography either an account of the destabilizing role of female sexu­
 THE HALF SMILE >47

ality or an account of resistance to the state. In these invocations, there

is always the mention of a gesture—the half smile glimpsed centuries
earlier. To follow this image of the half smile is to follow themes that
receive little attention in contemporary Persianate historiography. It
is limiting to focus exclusively on love and devotion in literary or his­
torical male-female relationships in Persian poetics.
Just as the material remains of Bibi Jawindi's tomb in Uch Sharif
testify that women have been powerful actors in history, Chachnama
is a historical indication of the participation of elite women in world
making. Yet there is no presence of women in our readings of that
textual past. This reading of Chachnama allows us to rethink other
readings of women and their occlusions in Indic pasts. Overdue is an
examination of the corpus of texts that constitute our primary sources
for the Persianate world to address questions of gendered power.
Let me cite just one example: the oldest Mughal building in Lahore
is a tomb which has no name engraved on it?5 The state of Punjab,
which maintains the tomb, calls it the Tomb of Anarkali. Anarkali was
a young slave girl in the Mughal emperor lalaludin Akbar's court who
falls in love with Prince Salim. When Akbar learns of this, he punishes
the girl by having her immured. When Prince Salim becomes Emperor
Jahangir, he has a tomb built in Lahore to memorialize his young
love. That is the story known to millions of Lahoris—either through
K. Asif's Bollywood classic Mughal-e Azam 11960) or through Imtiaz
Ali Taj's drama from 1922. Taj, who wrote the drama in Lahore, said
this about it: "My play has its basis in the stories. Since childhood, lis­
tening to the story of Anarkali created in my mind such a picture of
love and passion, of failure and heartbreak, set amidst the grandeur of
the Mughal harem."1'’ What were the stories that surrounded Taj! Here
is Syed Latif in 1892, narrating the account of Anarkali, in his book
on Lahore's monuments:
Anarkali |the pomegranate blossom), by which name the Civil Sta­
tion is called, was the title given to Nadira Begam, or Sharf un-Nisa,
one of the favorites of the harein of the Emperor Akbar. One day,
while the Emperor was seated tn an apartment lined with looking
glasses, with the youthful Anarkah attending him, he saw from her
reflection in the mirror that she returned Prince Salem lafterwards
Jahangir) a smile. Suspecting her of a criminal intrigue with his son,
 48 THE HALF SMILE

the Emperor ordered her to be buried alive. She was accordingly

placed in an upright position at the appointed place, and a wall was
built round with bricks. Salem felt intense remorse at her death, and,
on assuming sovereign authority, had an immense superstructure
raised over her sepulcher It is made of a block of pure marble of extra­
ordinary beauty and exquisite workmanship. On the side is the
Persian couplet composed by Jahangir, her royal paramour: Ah! Could
I behold the face of my beloved once more /1 would give thanks until
the day of judgement.
The inscription is signed Majnun Saleem Akbar The inscription
shows how passionately fond Salem had been of Anarkali, and how
deeply her death had grieved him. It is rhe spontaneous outcome of a
melancholic mind, the irrepressible outburst of an affectionate heart.
The building was until lately used as the Sikh administrative offices,
and later a Protestant Church.”

Like the memory of the two daughters of Dahar, the 1892 depiction
of Anarkali focuses on a transgression between a father and son, which
puts into crisis the succession to the throne. In the development of the
story, the woman's transgression becomes the act m focus, not the
contest between father and son. The smile links the two accounts.
Scholars have pointed out that there is no basis for this story of An­
arkali in Mughal chronicles. Shireen Moosavi disentangles the rumor
to offer the historian's take. Moosavi names many women who may
possibly be interred in the tomb.”1 Yet Moosavi's interest lies in deter­
mining the facticity of Anarkali’s existence.
But what if we historians shift the focus from the fact of Anarka-
li's existence to the political and social landscape of the time that she
represents" Returning to Moosavi then, we see a list of strong, politi­
cally powerful women who participated in the courts of Akbar and
Jahangir. These women—Akbar’s mother Hamida Bano, Salim's wife,
Danyal’s mother—who surround "Anarkali" are themselves absent as
historical actors. We have no histories of their presence or of partici­
pation in the politics of the Mughal court.w Our scholarly attention
remains on the male conqueror—whether Qasim or Firuz Shah or
Babur or Akbar-and what their individual talent produced or failed
to produce. The material history of Uch, like the material history of
Lahore, belies this historiography.
 THE HALF SMILE 149

In this chapter, I have shown that the putative conquest narrative,

read instead as political theory, can offer us a gendered ethical subject
who opens up the political world that surrounded the tales of con­
querors of Sind’s territories. In Chachnama, elite women exemplify
its political theory—they articulate how to be just. The Brahmin
women directly condemn the political corruption of the Muslim ca­
liph, and the text recognizes their ethics as appropriate. This dialogic
world of Chachnama was turned into an origins narrative by British
colonial scribes and historians. The richness of the text disappeared
under the weight of explaining the conquest of India by Islam, and the
ethics and political theory enacted by women became simply "ro­
mantic" bits that could be discarded. The making of the origins narra­
tive is the focus of the next chapter.
 6
A Conquest of Pasts

A short drive outside of Uch, at the edges of the Cholistan desert,

are seven extraordinarily long graves, inhabitants of Uch and its envi­
rons venerate these larger-than-life graves as the final resting place of
the earliest believers in Islam: the Companions of the Prophet. The
marble tiles at the head of the graves denote the name of the Com­
panion and the number of years he spent in the company of the Prophet.
The graves are covered in devotional green, and their peculiar length
suggests the scale of the bodies entombed.1 In some accounts, Proph­
et's legendary Companion Tamim Ansari led these Companions to
India (Kerala or Gujarati, and from there they came to Sind. In other
accounts, it was the Companion Malik bin Dinar who built a mosque
in Kerala, attracting the other Companions to India.2
Standing outside the shrine, I asked the caretakers and supplicants
about the arrival of these Companions: what brought the Companions
to Uch? What was their relationship to this land! I received different
explanations. Some tied to the Prophet, some to Adam, some to Alex­
ander the Great. Each story connected Uch to the circulations of people
between the Western seaboard of India and Arabia during the early
years of Islam. Some said the Companions came because Sind was the
land which Adam visited after he left heaven. Adam landed in Sarandip
(contemporary Sri Lanka) and then visited the Indus valley. The Com­
panions knew to come here because they followed Adam's footsteps.

ISO
 A CONQUEST OE PASTS 151

Graves of the Prophet's Companions. (Photo ©Manan Ahmed Asif.)

Other stories indicated that Muhammad had prophesized that Pakistan

was the future of Islam, so he dispatched his Companions to Sind. Yet
others said that Zhu'l Qamain (Alexander the Great) met the prophet
Khizr while seeking the nearby Fountain of Life, and so these Compan­
ions came to that same source of life, to lay down the spiritual founda­
tions of Uch.A The visitors gave proof of these stones with memories of
past rains that partially collapsed a particular grave to reveal a foot un­
molested by centuries underground—a miracle story. Some had had
visitations in dreams from the Companions after spending forty nights
in meditation and prayer near the graves. The stories of these Compan­
ions reflect the sacral beginnings in Uch’s material landscape.
All of these stories narrate a Muslim presence in Uch outside of the
language of conquest. So why is the only narrative of Muslim origins
in India a story of the conquest of Sind!
This chapter demonstrates how colonial epistemology framed
Chachnama as the story of the origins of Muslims in India. In this
hegemonic narrative, foreign Muslims entered India as conquerors
151 A CONQUEST OF FASTS

in 712 AD. Colonial officers and historians explicated Muslim ori­

gins as a narrative of conquest, positing a racialized Arab overlord
against a weak Hindu subject—a subject eventually liberated by British
rule.
In previous chapters, I presented the case for how and why
Chachnama can he read as political theory and as explication of how
to be an ethical subicct. I examined the role of women, of advisors, and
of the political and religious elite who populated the text as well as
the social world of thirteenth-century Sind. Chachnama is, in fact, a
prescription for just rule and governance in the thirteenth century. 1
have thus argued for an unreading of Chachnama from the colonial
and postcolonial lens that casts dark shadows on this text. My reading
of Chachnama foregrounds the worlds, both imagined and realized, of
the thirteenth century. Those worlds were diverse and complex and
built on political alliances and continuities.
Now I trace the afterlife of Chachnama. I present its invocation and
usage in early-modern Persian historiography. 1 mark a critical turning
point in the reinterpretation of Chachnama in modern colonial histo­
riography, beginning with Alexander Dow and continuing with other
Political Agents involved in the East India Company's conquest of Sind
in 1843. This longue duree examination thus reveals how the British
project to constitute radical difference in Indic pasts recast Chachnama
and how its logic of origins determined the framing of all subsequent
understandings of Muslims as foreign to India. At the end, 1 examine
the histories of anticolonial nationalist writers who responded to this
framework of Muslim origins as conquest from diverse perspectives.

Chachnama as Regional History

The life of Chachnama since the thirteenth century demonstrates
its circulation as a history of the region of Sind and as a source for
stories about the people of Sind. It is continuously invoked in other
histories written between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries in
Sind. In Chapter 2,1 placed Chachnama within the historiographical
tradition of the regional regnal history, such as Beyhaqi's history of
the Ghaznavid sultans. This model was in contrast to the model of the
universal history of empire, such as Tabari’s Tar'ikh. which invoked
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS ■51

the past by stages (genealogically and then yearly!, from the creation
of Adam to the present political ruler. The universal-history model
also carves out a geographic relationship to the arrival of Muslim po­
litical power—each history of a region begins with the arrival of the
Muslims. What distinguishes Chachnama from the universal-history
method of Arabic historiography is Chachnama's geographic and
temporal limitations on its imagination of the past. Like the history
of Beyhaqi, Chachnama resists the history of polity that can be ren­
dered on the world stage with universal time as a constant. Hence, it
telescopes onto two generations of rulers and a polity that is geo­
graphically circumscribed in the region of Sind, as defined by the text
itself.
It is precisely the regional focus of Chachnama that explains the
text’s absence from universal histories written in Delhi from the thir­
teenth century onward. We can be certain that the text was known and
read, from references in Mahru and in compilations of travel accounts
such as that of Ibn Batutta, who visited Uch in 1341. Outside of Sind,
Chachnama is not cited or excerpted because it was not understood to
be tied to the histories of other Muslim regnal constellations or of Islam
per se.
A stronger case that Chachnama was not seen as a text informing
the history of Islam in India is in Abu'l-Fazl's history of Mughal em­
peror Akbar, Akbarnama (the first part was completed in 1596). Hu-
mayun, unable to convince vast contingents of his elite to install him
on his father Zahiruddin Babar's throne, leaves Lahore for Sind. Hu-
mayun's hope is to convince the rulers in Sind, the Jam, to give him
support against Sher Shah Suri'sAfghan army in the north. Humayun
is not successful in his bid, and Abu'l Fazl describes with great em­
pathy the wanderings of Humayun's camp in the desert of Sind and
Gujarat. He recounts that it was in Umarkot, Sind, that the future em­
peror Akbar was born. Abu'l Fazl presents the birth of the great Akbar
with all the commendations that one would expect. The text opens
with Akbar’s birth and the heavenly portents and divine luminescence
that surrounded his mother and caretakers. Abu’l-Fazl makes refer­
ences to the Timurid descent of Akbar’s mother and other important
sacral and political leaders.4 Yet, the text makes no mention of Mu­
hammad bin Qasim or of Islam's history in that region.
154 A CONQUEST OF I’ASTS

Abu'1-Fazl had no reason to mention or utilize Chachnama because

his purpose was to narrate from the perspective of the Mughal capital.
Yet we know Chachnama was familiar to elite members of Akbar’s
court. Mir Muhammad Masum (t$37-1610I was born in Bhakkar and
served honorably under Akbar during Akbar’s campaigns in Sind in
1592. Akbar appointed him as governor of Sind, and in 1600, Mir Masum
wrote a history of Sind, now known as Tar'ikh-i Masumi. In this work
he sought to describe the people and politics of the region. He began
his history with a summary of Ali Kufi’s Chachnama, "which the
writer of these pages reproduces without the long and tedious passages
of the older texts."5 Masum's presentation, though condensed, is
true to the structure of Chachnama and retains the presentation of
Chach as a noble conqueror and just ruler. Many of the themes from
Chachnama are presented: Qasim's application of justice to conquered
people, the resistance against the Muslim army, and the treatment of
civilians. However, aspects of political theory such as the importance
of advice, consultation, and alliance building are not reproduced by
Masum.
As the Mughal governor of Sind, Mir Masum brought his own ad­
ministrative concerns to his interpretation of Chachnama. His motive
in writing was to present a history of the local elite, showing the status
of various communities and families in Sind. Masum used Chachnama
to establish a political hierarchy of loyal or suspect populations under
his governance. He cited Chachnama to assert that "the first tribe from
the nations of Sind who became Muslim was the chanah tribe.'"1 In
Masum’s telling, the people converted after observing Qasim leading
his army in prayer and then seeing him dine without any restrictions
of caste or rank. This episode, given on the authority of Chachnama,
was purely a construct of Masum and demonstrates the utility of
Chachnama in shaping local politics.
Masum goes on to trace the early history of the Santina people of
Sind and to place them in the role of the Jat of Chachnama—a lower
caste needing to be monitored. Masum, as a Mughal officer adminis­
tering a recalcitrant province, uses Chachnama to reorient claims of
genealogical importance and significance in Sind. There are other in­
triguing changes in Masum's interpretation: Muhammad bin Qasim
does demolish the temple at Daybul but does not build a mosque there,
 A CONQUEST Of TASTS 155

the caliph is not as licentious, and the two daughters of Dahar are not
immured but are dragged from the tails of horses around the four cor­
ners of the city and then thrown into the Euphrates. These modifica­
tions hint at other political concerns facing Akbar, with the emphasis
on being responsive to the Mughal center and on rewarding service to
the throne.
The next major citation for Chachnama is in Mir Ali Sher Qani's
11717—1788) Tuhfat ul-Kiram (Gifts of the Generousl—a social history
of Sind.' Qani' incorporates Chachnama in the beginning of his ac­
count, highlighting the social and moral aspects of the text. Qani' is
faithful to the narrative of Chachnama, providing detailed summaries
of episodes and their participants. His is a social history of eighteenth­
century Sind, and he remarks on contemporary social practices—
including the description of yogic poses for ascetics that he says were
introduced m Chachnama's description of Muhammad bin Qasim
praying. In Tuhlat ul-Kiram. Qani's Qasim marries Dahar's sister. He
permits the inhabitants of Brahmanabad to build a new temple, gives
orders to formalize their ascetic status, and forgives them the jizya tax
Qasim builds mosques alongside the temples. In his depiction of Qa­
sim's religiosity and piety, Qani' emphasizes Qasim’s deference to the
holy sites and his extended meditative prayers. Qani' declares that after
the conquest of Daybul, Qasim leads the Muslim army in three days
of prayer and recital of the Qur'an. These are acts of meditation quite
common among Sufi ascetics. Where Masum repurposes Chachnama
for political control, Qani' imbues it with sacral and cultural hues.
Where Masum focuses on local administration, Qani' focuses on the
question of accommodation and cohabitation in Chachnama. What is
remarkable that Qani's late-eighteenth-ccntury Persian interpretation
of Chachnama as political theory is contemporary with the markedly
different interpretation of the East India Company that I describe later.

From the Local to the Universal

The histories of Masum and Qani' incorporate Chachnama and reflect
the political and cultural demands of a localized history. As noted
with the case of Akbarnama, no universal histories prior to the seven­
teenth century incorporated or cited Chachnama. The first history of
156 A CONQUEST Of PASTS

India to cite Chachnama was Muhammad Qasim Astrabadi (Firishta)'s

Gulsham-i Ibrahimi/Tar’ikh, written between 1606 and 1616? As a
history of the regions of India commissioned by the sultan of Bijapur
in the Deccan (Ibrahim Adil Shah), Firishta's history would soon be­
come the most important text ever written on the Muslim past in
South Asia. Firishta prefaces his text with a summary of Mahabharata.
which he presents as a sacral and political history of India. He notes
the translation of years and places of birth but indicates that Muslim
accounts of the world had a different temporal regime.9 From a history
of non-Muslim India, he transitions to the political rise of Muslims,
which he locates in Lahore, not Sind. It is thus Lahore, as a seat of Gha-
zanvid power, to which Fitishta dedicates his first chapter. He only
notes that at some point in the tenth century, the descendants of Qa-
sim's campaign in Sind met the descendants of Arab campaigns in
Lahore.
The bulk of Firishta's history is divided first according to region and
then time, from the tenth century to his present He covers each
region—Gujarat, Delhi, Deccan, Bengal, Kashmir, and so on—with ac­
counts of elite politics, courtly intrigue, love, and justice or injustice for
each year. Firishta considers Sind to be a region of limited consequence,
and he notes that its historical sources arc scant.10 It is in the eighth of
his nine chapters that Firishta covers Chachnama as a history of Sind.
Firishta notes first that the region had. since the time of Adam, been
in contact with Arabia and that many Brahmins visited Mecca before
and after the birth of Islam.11 The close contact meant that a signifi­
cant Muslim community existed in Sind before Hajjaj bin Yusuf sent
troops to the region in 712 CE. The majority of Firishta's account is
taken from Baladhuri. His history docs not mention Chach but does
reproduce some of the stories from Chachnama. For example, Firishta
concludes with the account of Dahar's daughters and the death of
Qasim in a truncated form. However, he does not mention any detail
about their punishment for causing Qasim’s death. The history of
Sind, he concludes, is not contained in any reliable account after
Chachnama.
Firishta produces a series of genealogies for Muslims in India—
building from Mahabarata, to asserting trade and settlements from
 A CONQUEST Of PASTS 157

Arabia, to histories of campaigns from Persia. Firishta advances a claim

of the prehistory of India and links the history of Islam to that of Persia
rather than of Arabia. The early conquests arc not described in any
great detail but are simply noted as traditions of the past. For Firishta,
there is little reason to look closely at the history of Sind except to
mark the campaign of Qasim. Islam had, for him, multiple venues of
arrival in India, whether through conversions during the life of the
Prophet or through later campaigns from Iran and Afghanistan.
Firishta's history of the regions of India and of Muslim rule entered
Europe in the late eighteenth century. From it, Europeans excavated a
list of primary sources on Muslim political history, most significantly
Chachnama. Firishta's history of regions of India, in its translations
and transcreations, became the locus of nineteenth-century colonial
knowledge about Muslim history in India. The story of the movement
of Firishta from the Deccan to London, and the subsequent rearrange­
ment of its contents, is the story of the making of the Muslim origins
narrative.
Alexander Dow (1755-1779), «n employee of the East India Com­
pany, took Firishta's history to England and produced a summary as a
translation in 1768. In Dow's preface to his text, he states that a his­
tory of the entire Indian subcontinent and of the "Mahommedan em­
pire tn India” had been up to that moment "concealed in the obscurity
of the Persian."12 Dow's translation was thus an unveiling of a history
that was necessary for the East India Company's project of imperial and
colonial domination in India. In making his selections or summaries
of Firishta’s text, Dow categorically asserts that Muslim rule in India
was predicated on a politics of making Hindu subjects invisible. In his
preface, he dismisses Firishta's introduction with a summary from the
Mahabharata as "a performance of fancy": "The prejudices of the Ma-
hommedans against the followers of the Brahmin religion, seldom
permit them to speak with common candour of the Hindoos. It swayed
very much with Ferishta when he affirmed, that there is no history
among the Hindoos of better authority than the Mahabant. That work
is a poem and not a history."13 Put more clearly, Dow argued that if
the Muslim author had included a Hindu text, it was only to demon­
strate its weakness as history. This assertion of categorical difference
158 A CONQUEST Of TASTS

between the Hindu subjects and the Muslim rulers was put starkly by
Dow: Firishta's history provides "us with a striking picture of the
deplorable condition of a people subjected to arbitrary sway; and of the
instability of empire itself, when it is founded neither upon laws, nor
upon the opinions and attachments of mankind."1* Dow identifies a
clear distinction between the Muslims and Hindus. The latter, he
writes, "give themselves up to tyranny after tyranny," offering no
resistance.
In his second edition, produced in 1772, Dow added a "Dissertation
concerning the Origin and Nature of Despotism in Hindostan.” In this
edition Dow rearranges Firishta to chronologically place the Muslim
arrival in Sind at the forefront of Islam's origins in India. In his effort
to explain the figure of the Oriental Despot, Dow places the Mughal
rule in the tradition of an Islam which is uniquely suited to conquest,
for it is in the very nature of its believers to conquer and to kill: "The
faith of Mahomed is peculiarly calculated for despotism" and when en­
shrined in a state "leaves ample room for the cruelty."1' This cruelty
was faced by the Hindu Brahmins who were "mild, humane, obedient,
and most industrious, they are of all nations on earth the most easily
conquered and governed."16
The East India Company, looking to produce an empire in India,
was an ideal audience for such an assertion of difference between
Hindus and Muslims. Dow's History became one of Europe's most cel­
ebrated and widely circulated volumes on the Muslim history of India,
with French and German editions published in 1769 and 177?. This
story of Islam's despotism over the Hindus became the theoretical
framework for how the Indian past was written in the nineteenth
century. James Mill's 1817 History of British India drew upon Dow to
argue for a tripartite division of Indian pasts and established the arrival
of Islam as a fundamental rupture in that history. Mill posited a golden
age of ancient Hindu India, which was interrupted and arrested by the
dark age of medieval Muslim rule and followed by the enlightened, civ­
ilized. liberated rule of the British. This conception of the origins of
Islam in India became foundational for the East India Company's poli­
cies for knowledge gathering and territorial acquisition.
 A CONQUEST OF FASTS 159

A History of the Conquest of Sind

In 1843, the East India Company conquered Sind. The decisive battle
was fought in Uch. The campaign for the mapping of the Indus River
and for control over Sind took Dow's framework and excavated
Chachnama as the central text of Muslim conquest to understand Sind.
The Company's military and political conquest was first a conquest of
the history of Sind, it was built upon production of layers of colonial
narratives of difference and arguing for fundamental conflict between
Muslims and non-Muslims in Sind. Ultimately, this history was pack­
aged with an emancipatory message in which the British were puta­
tive liberators of the long-suffering Hindus of Sind. It is this moment
of the British conquest of Sind—politically and histonographically—
Chachnama becomes a conquest narrative. That is, it becomes a justi­
fication for the nineteenth-century British conquest.
The annexation of Sind, in itself, is a remarkable account of the
varied teleologies of colonialism in India. As one of the last military
acquisitions of the Company, the annexation preserves a documentary
history of the power and knowledge complex at the heart of the colo­
nialist project. Sind had a long gestation in the Company's imagina­
tion,- some of the Company's earliest concerns were with competition
from Sindhi as well as Portuguese and Dutch merchants. The Com­
pany had established a factory in Thatta in 1758 that was abandoned
in 1775- However, the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798 and the
posting of a French emissary in Persia in 1806, as well as the fear of
Russian aggression, forced the Company to turn its attention to Sind.1’
As Company officials awoke to the political importance of Sind, they
began to compile historical, anthropological, cartographic, and geolog­
ical data on the "people of Scinde."
Now let me narrate the political history of how Sind entered British
control and how the British colonial authorities created narratives
about Hindu enslavement and Muslim despotism to both justify and
explain their particular conquest. In 1800, Nathan Crow was sent from
Bombay to the court of the Talpur Mirs—rulers of Sind—to sign a
treaty that would exclude all Europeans and Americans from Sind.1" In
his correspondence, he notes that Sind would serve as an excellent bul­
wark not only against France and Russia but also against Afghanistan,
 6o A CONQUEST OF PASTS

the Marathas, and Ranjit Singh in Lahore. The Taipurs, wary of for­
eign troops on their land, signed the treaty to keep the Company at
bay for a while. In 1809, another treaty was negotiated to "prevent any
establishment of the tribe of French in Sind" and again, in 1820, to fur­
ther restrict the settlement of any "Europeans or Americans" in the
region.1’ The desire to chart the waters of the Indus brought Alexander
Burnes I1805-1841) to the port of Karachi in 1830- His ostensible mis­
sion was to deliver presents from the king of England to Raja Ranjit
Singh. After some hesitation, the Talpur gave him permission to navi­
gate the river to Lahore.
Burnes notes that as he ascended the river, a local elite ("Syud")
turned to his companion and said, "Sinde is now gone, since the En­
glish have seen the river, which is the road to its conquest." Hearing
that, Burnes commented, "If such an event do happen, 1 am certain that
the body of people will hail the happy day; but it will be an evil one
for the Syuds, the descendants of Mahomed, who are the only people,
besides the rulers that derive precedence and profit from the existing
order of things."20 Burnes's voyage ended up opening the channels of
the Indus to the Company. The British capitalized on this opening and
forced more commercial treaties. One in 1832, and another in 1834, al­
lowed British passage across Sind, taxation on commerce along the
Indus, and the use of Karachi's harbors. Sind, the frontier, became a
necessary shortcut to the wars in Afghanistan and Punjab. In addition
to such concerns, the East India Company was apprehensive that the
Indus was being used to supply Malwa opium to the Portuguese har­
bors of Daman and Diu in Guiarat, by way of the Karachi harbor. These
routes had to be stopped or, at the very least, taxed.
In 1839, more treaties followed. These increased the number of
British troops in Sind, abrogated all foreign affairs of the Talpur in favor
of the British, put an annual tax on the Talpur, and gave the British
the authority to mint coins (with the Queen’s visagel in Sind. In the
meantime, Admiral Maitland captured the port of Karachi on the pre­
tense that someone had fired a cannon shot at his frigate while it was
in the harbor. The capture of Karachi, a major port of commerce, was
a severe blow to the Talpur. They did not have many options left. The
failed British campaign in Afghanistan (the first Anglo-Afghan war) ne­
cessitated troop movements across the Talpur territory, and any mis­
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS 161

step could have easily made the Talpur a target. Although their pre­
vious alliances with the emir in Kabul had long since deteriorated, the
Company grew suspicious that the Talpur were now in secret commu­
nications with the Afghan king, Dost Muhammad.
The Anglo-Afghan war was a stinging defeat for the new governor
general of the Company, Lord Edward Law Ellenborough (1790-1871!.
Ellcnborough dramatically brought back the "gates of Somnath" from
Kabul to mark that Company rule in India was to counter Muslim tyr­
anny. His declaration of 184a to "all Princes and Chiefs and People of
India" announced that the return of the spoiled remains of the temple
of Somnath to India avenged "the insult of 800 years... . The gates of
the temple of Somanath, so long the memorial of your humiliation, are
become the proudest record of your national glory."21
Ellenborough expanded the efforts to capture Sind and in 1842 ap­
pointed a new commander of Company troops, Sir Charles Napier
(1782-1853). Neither of these men seemed comfortable with the status
quo in Sind. Ellenborough was eager to take over the commercial con­
cerns of the Indus delta and was unhappy with the Taipur’s lack of con­
trol over the activities of pirates and rogue traders (that is, Portuguese
traders) on the channels. Napier, a veteran military commander of im­
perial wars in Europe and self-described victim of fool-hardy politi­
cians, had arrived in India convinced that the Company had lost its
moorings in India, becoming beholden to commerce and shying away
from their Godly mission. A deeply religious man, Napier saw the lib­
eration of Sind from its despotic Muslim rulers as his Christian duty,
with the added benefit that achieving his goal would demonstrate his
brilliance as a tactical commander:

1 made up my mind that although war had not been declared (nor is
it necessary to declare it), I would at once march upon Imangurh and
prove to the whole Talpur family of both Khyrpor and Hyderabad that
neither their deserts, nor their negotiations can protect them from
the British troops. The Ameers will fly over the Indus, and we shall
become masters of the left bank of the river from Mitenkote to the
mouth; peace with civilization will then replace war and barbarism.
My conscience will be light, for I see no wrung in so regulating a set
of tyrants who are themselves invaders, and have in sixty years nearly
destroyed the country. The people hate them.'-’
162 A CONQUEST Of PASTS

Napier, who did not know a speck of Persian or Sindhi or Hindu­

stani, continuously cast aspersions on the truthfulness of treaties signed
by the Sindhi rulers, finding ways of dismissing them from official rec­
ords,13 He had already concluded that the Talpur were the "greatest ruf­
fians," "imbeciles," possessing "zenanas filled with young girls torn
from their friends, and treated when in the hareem with revolting bar­
barity," and even prone to enjoying the occasional "human sacrifice."
Honoring agreements with the Talpur was highly unnecessary.1*
On 17 February 1843, Napier defeated the assembled troops of the
Talpur at Miani and annexed Sind to the Company. Initially, the con­
quest was hailed as a heroic return of an East India Company long
floundering in bureaucratic miasma. Some even claimed that "since
Clive’s glorious victory at Plassey there has been nothing achieved by
native or European troops in India at all to compare to it."15 But soon
the annexation sparked intense debate in India and in England as re­
ports surfaced that Napier had behaved ignobly against the Talpur and
that Ellenborough had exaggerated the contribution of opium revenue
from its travel down the Indus.16 The political agents stationed in
Sind—Outram, Eastwick and Pottinger—publicly derided the unilat­
eral actions of Napier, arguing that his actions were against the best
interests of the Company. Inquiries were set in motion against Ellen­
borough and Napier Parliament called upon the General Court of
Directors of the East India Company to resolve the "uncalled-for, im­
politic and unjust" invasion of Sind. Ellenborough was recalled, and
while Napier remained as ruler of Sind for a short while, he had to fight
for his reputation in India and at home.1' Governed through the Bombay
Presidency, Sind remained an administrative challenge for the British
after the annexation.

Origins of Islam in India

The British conquest of Sind was not simply a political act. It was an
epistemological project based on the efforts of collection and transla­
tion by a group of young Orientalists, philologists, archeologists, and
ethnographers who followed Dow. They excavated Chachnama as tes­
tament to originary "Mohamedan conquest."18 The Company's own
conquest of Sind was cast as a corrective to the Muslim conquest—a
move to proclaim the emancipation of Hindus from the clutches of the
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS >63

foreign Muslims. This knowledge-making imperial project relied on the

discovery and utilization of Chachnama. Though Dow had indicated
Firishta's dependence on Chachnama. generation of Company officials
did the work of locating, translating, and annotating the text. The ear­
liest comment on Chachnama by a Company official is from Captain
James McMurdo, who traveled the Indus River in 1812. Later, Lieutenant
Thomas Postans and his colleague Richard F. Burton translated parts
of Chachnama in their respective travelogues and histories. This ma­
terial was then used by Company historian Mountstuart Elphinstone
in his 1841 History of India: The Hindu and Mohametan Periods.
Then Henry Miers Elliot, in his The History of India, as Told by Its
Own Historians, translated major portions of the text, which were
used by subsequent historians such as Vincent A. Smith and Stanley
Lane-Poole to compose universal histories of India by the early twen­
tieth century. In the colonial historiography, Chachnama appears
markedly different than the regional history that was interpreted by
Masum and Qani‘ in early-modern Sind. Chachnama goes from a text
about a political theory of rule or social coexistence to one selectively
interpreted to represent Muslim tyranny, temple destruction, and
forced conversions.
Captain James McMurdo I1785-1820I, a political agent for the Com­
pany, surveyed Sind and Uch in the 1810s and wrote the earliest history
of the region, utilizing the beginning of Qani's Tuhfat ul-Kiram. Mc­
Murdo argued that the Sindhi rulers had "treachery as a national vice"
and that the Taipurs had no zeal greater than "propagating the faith."2'’
The sketch of regional history that he provided his audience was
harsh, marking each period of Muslim rule (starting with Qasim) as
yet another dark age for Hindu subjects. He wrote of a natural schism
between Hindus and Muslims, hoping that the vanquished Hindus
would act as natural allies for the British. He portrayed the Muslims
as "the most bigoted, the most self-sufficient, and the most ignorant
people on record." These bigoted Muslims, McMurdo asserted, had so
long dominated the Hindus as to change their very character:

How different is the picture which Sindh presents! In the course of a

thousand years there is not an instance of a Hindu having attempted
to rescue himself or fellow-countrymen from a state of vilest slavery:
nor, since the fall of the Hindu dynasty, has any aboriginal native of
164 A CONQUEST Of PASTS

the province raised himself to independence. |... | The original

Hindu tribes who were lords of the soil are all now ranged under the
faith of Muhammed, or have become assimilated to his followers. "1

Although McMurdo died of cholera, his posthumous papers were

published in 1854 alongside the work of another young political agent,
Thomas Postans (1808-1846!, who continued writing on the original
conquest of Sind by the Muslims. His account, incorporating selections
from Chachnama, was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Bengal in 1838. He later expanded his translations of
Chachnama in his Personal Observations on Scinde. published in 1843.
He referred to Chachnama as the "principal Persian manuscript au­
thority consulted in the history of Sind." For him, Chachnama was a
record of centuries of Muslim barbarity:

Sind ... under its Hindu possessors was a rich, flourishing, and ex­
tensive monarchy, but that, subsequently becoming the prey of con­
querors, who, paid no attention to the improvement of the country
or maintenance of the imperial authority, this valuable territory
dwindled at length into waste.... All the peculiarities and unsullied
pride of caste, which distinguishes the Hindu under his own or British
government, has been completely lost in Sind. In India we have seen
the dormant spirit of an injured people rousing itself to retributive
vengeance, flinging off the yoke of Islam, regaining their monarchies,
and making the bigoted Moslem tremble at the Pagan’s power; but in
Sind oppression has rooted out all patriotism, and the broken spir­
ited Hindu becomes a helpless servant to his Moslem tyrant, and
willing inducer of his own extreme degradation.-’1

The portrait of Qasim that emerges in Postans's work focuses on

his habit of "converting the Pagan temples into mosques and places of
Mohammedan prayer." His destruction of the temple at Daybul "oc­
casioned a general despondency throughout the country."-’2 After the
killing of Dahir, "as usual, mosques were erected on the ruins of the
temples, or those places were transformed for purposes of Moham­
medan worship."”
Postans was not the only subordinate of Charles Napier traveling
across Sind. The hills of Thatta were also the training grounds for per­
haps the greatest Orientalist translator and explorer, Richard F. Burton
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS I65

(1811-1890). In 1842, a very young Burton was assigned to Sind as a regi­

mental interpreter, ending up as the personal attache of Charles Na­
pier. He produced three volumes on his time in Sind: Scinde, or the
Unhappy Valley |t8$ 1), Scinde, and the Races that Inhabit the Valley
of the Indus (1851), and Falconry in the Valley of Indus |i8sj). Burton
relied on Postans's descriptions from Chachnama, but it is likely that
he was in possession of a full manuscript. In his construction, again,
Sind was a paradise before the Muslim arrival:
It is related by the chronicles of antiquity, that in days gone by, and
ages that have long fled, Scinde was a most lovely land situated in a
delightful climate, with large, flourishing, and populous cities; or­
chards producing every kind of tree and fruit. It was governed by a
powerful monarch who had mighty horses and impregnable forts,
whose counsellors were renowned for craft, and whose commanders
celebrated for conduct. And the boundaries of his dominions and
provinces extended as far as Kano) and Cashmere, upon whose south­
western frontier one of the Rahis planted two towering cypresses.
During the caliphate of the Chief of True Believers, Umar son of
Khattab, it was resolved, with the permission of Allah, to subject the
sinners of Scinde to the scimitar of certain sturdy saints militant.'''
The project began by Alexander Dow would find no better exposi­
tion than Burton's depiction of this ill-fortuned land. Burton posited a
paradise of ancient Sind, destroyed by the fanaticism of the marauding
Muslims, resulting in the arrival of the long dark ages. The region
waited even longer than Bengal, for instance, for its emancipation. Bur­
ton's rewriting of Muslim history went further, emphasizing in tre­
mendous detail the ancient wartime atrocities allegedly committed by
Muslims against Hindus. In particular, Burton mixed various episodes
from Chachnama to give an account of the fall of the city of Daybul
to the Arab armies and to denote how Muslims dealt with the Hindus:
Thus was Dewal lost and won. For three days there was a general
massacre of the inhabitants. The victors then brought out the Moslem
prisoners, and captured immense property and treasures Before
throwing down the pagoda, and substituting the mosque and the
minaret in its stead. Mahommed bin Kasim, ordering the atten­
dance of the Brahmans, entered the temple and bade them show him
the deity they adored. A well-formed figure of a man on horseback
166 A CONQUEST OF PASTS

being pointed out to him, he drew his sabre to strike it, when one of
the priests cried, 'it is an idol and not a living being!' Then advancing
towards the statue, the Moslem removed his mailed gauntlet, and
placing it upon the hand of the image, said to the by-standcrs, 'See,
this idol hath but one glove, ask him what he hath done with the
other!' They replied, 'What should a stone know of these things!'
Whereupon Mahommed bin Kasim, rebuking them, rejoined,
'verily, yours is a curious object of worship, who knows nothing, even
about himself'. He then directed that the Brahmans, to distinguish
them from other Hindoos, should carry in their hands a small vessel
of grain, as mendicants, and should beg from door to door every
morning; after which he established a governor at Dewal, and, having
satisfactorily arranged affairs in that quarter, embarked his machines
of war in boats, sent them up the river to Nirunkot, and proceeded
with his army by land in the same direction.35

Muhammad bin Qasim in Burton’s narrative does not inhabit a his­

tory separate from the long histories of Muslim invaders. He is, if any­
thing, a distillation of the very essence of Muslim oppression. Burton
links Muhammad bin Qasim to the long line of Arab Muslim con­
querors in order to bring into sharp focus their outsider status and the
rupture they caused with Sind's native past. In this mode of transla­
tion, the most significant theme of the history of Qasim is the disrup­
tion of the distinct, proud, and independent nation of Sindhis. Pegged
against the violence of the fall of Daybul ("for three days there was a
general massacre of the inhabitants"), is the curious episode of flesh
meeting stone. In Burton's rendering, Muhammad bin Qasim's en­
counter with the idol has no equivalent; there is no understanding,
and the result is a particular policy of discrimination. Burton is thus
able to assert a long history of difference in Sind, illustrating the need
for colonial intervention. This is the most important turn in the his­
tory of these narratives. These reframings of Chachnama by the colo­
nial agents McMurdo, Postans, and Burton were put to political use by
the East India Company.
There can be no doubt that there is an explicit and immediate link
between the narratives of Sind's past in Postans and Burton, and Charles
Napier's casting of himself as the liberator of Sindhi people. Napier re­
peatedly used the argument of Muslim brutality in the pasts of Sind
 A CONQUEST Of PASTS 167

to paint the current Taipurs as usurpers, with "their stupid policy to

injure agriculture, to check commerce, to oppress the working man,
and to accumulate riches for their own sensual pleasures."16 The
oppression narrative of a Hindu majority seething under a Muslim
minority was so entrenched within the Company’s productions of
Sind's past that it flattened out the histories of this region, calcifying
Chachnama's diverse world representation under one overarching
symbol: temple destruction.
James Mill (1773—1836) finished his The History of British India in
1817, and it quickly became a hegemonic text on Indian pasts. As such,
it projected his radical utilitarianism onto a static ancient India.”
While it remained required reading at East India College at Haileybury,
it was augmented by works produced by former and current Company
officials who filled Mill's constructs with new and robust regional de­
tail. These writers included Mountstuart Elphinstonc, Vincent A.
Smith, and Stanley Lane-Poole.
Elphinstone (1779—1859) began his administrative career with the
Marathas in Poona and deliberately set out to offer a corrective to Mill's
History—one which was "under the guidance of impressions received
in India."16 His History of India: The Hindu and Mahometan Periods
was completed in 1841. Elphinstone situated the Muslim urge to con­
quer in the "fanaticism of the false prophet," and Chachnama was the
originary source that documented communal strife and warfare among
Hindus and Muslims. He found that "though loaded with tedious
speeches, and letters ascribed to the principal actors, it contains a
minute and consistent account of the transactions during Mohammed
Casim's invasion."19 For Elphinstonc, Qasim was "prudent and concili­
ating" but caught between the Muslim habits of "ferocity and moder­
ation.” For example, Elphinstone narrated Qasim's cruelty when taking
Daybul: “Casnn at first contented himself with circumcising all the
Brahmins; but, incensed at their rejection of this sort of conversion,
he ordered all above the age of seventeen to be put to death, and all
under it. with the women, to be reduced to slavery."1" Elphinstone high­
lighted contrasts to Muslim barbarity in the bravery of the local resis­
tance, starting with Dahar, who, "already wounded with an arrow,
mounted his horse and renewed the battle with unabated courage, he
was unable to restore the fortune of the day and fell fighting gallantly
168 A CONQUEST OF PASTS

in the midst of the Arabian cavalry.'"11 Of the fall of Brahmanabad, El-

phinstone narrated the "masculine spirit of his |Dahar's| widow," who
marshaled the defenses of the city and, when left with no hope of sur­
vival, perished in "flames of their (the women) own kindling,"41
Chachnama was for Elphinstone a particularly trenchant example
of the injustices of Muslim pasts in India. While within the greater
narrative of Muslim despots and temple destroyers, Muhammad bin
Qasim did not merit the same attention as the raiders of Somnath, he
importantly represented the earliest fissure in the history of India.
Against the backdrop of this history, Elphinstone could raise signifi­
cant questions about the nature of conquest and resistance. Why, El­
phinstone wondered, did the Arabs fail to take over India as they had
Iran, Syria, and Iraq1 His analysis hinged on the resistance to conver­
sion offered by the "complex” priestly classes of India,- a lack of such
a structure had doomed the rather simplistic theologies of Zoroas-
trian Iran.
While Elphinstone's text was offering a summary and judgment of
Chachnama. the ancient text was just making its debut in English
through Henry Miers Elliot I1808-1853I. Elliot, a Company official in
the Revenue Department land later Foreign Department) spent the ma­
jority of his posting in the environs of Delhi.43 In 1847, he began
working with Aloys Sprcnger, the principal of Mohammadan College
in Delhi, to compile a register of Persian histories of the Muslim past
for administrative as well as research purposes. He first began his com­
pendium as a bibliographic index, published in 1849. The first volume
of excerpted and translated Persian histones into English was Arabs
in Sind, which was published right after his death in 185}. Eventually,
these "raw materials" for a study of India, comprising translated ex­
cerpts from 231 Arabic and Persian histories of India, were published
by John Dowson in 1867-1877. These comprised the eight volumes of
History of India as Told by Its Own Historians. Elliot had fervent hope
that his massive manuscript collection and translation project would
result in a time "when the full light of European truth and discern­
ment begins to shed its beams upon the obscurity of the past, and to
relieve us from the necessity of appealing to the Native Chroniclers
of the time, who are, for the most part dull, prejudiced, ignorant and
superficial."44 However, Elliot's agenda was not only to bring to
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS 169

"light" the histories of Muslims and provide a much needed distance

from the native informant but also to give voice to hitherto silenced
populations—the native Hindus of India. It was his hope that the
Hindus could finally provide "the thoughts, emotions, and raptures
which a long oppressed race might be supposed to give vent to, when
freed from the tyranny of its former masters.45
In Elliot's presentation of Muslim pasts, Chachnama was the cen­
tral text which explicated the origins of Islam in India. Elliot's chosen
excerpts from Chachnama were the first history presented, and their
placement ensured their hegemonic status for the next iso years. He
remarks in his preface that "an air of truth pervades the whole" of
Chachnama. Elliot wrote a brief introduction to Chachnama in his
published translation. In this he commented only on the episode of Qa­
sim's death. He called it "novel, and not beyond the bounds of proba­
bility, when we consider the blind obedience which at that time was
paid to the mandates of the Prophet's successor, of which, at a later pe­
riod, we have so many instances in the history of the Assassins, all
inspired by the same feeling, and executed in the same hope."*6 He
reads the ethical critique offered in Chachnama as a historical indict­
ment of the perversion at the heart of the Muslim imperium. His views
have long remained out of examination, since his own writings were
not found or published until after his death, but it is imperative to ex­
amine Elliot's own take on Chachnama in his brief note titled "The
advances of Arabs towards Sind."
That note of Elliot, produced as an appendix, relied on Firishla and
Chachnama to illustrate the ignominy of the Muslim invaders: "Scarcely
had Muhammad expired, when his followers and disciples, issued from
their naked deserts... terror and devastation, murder and rapine, accom­
panied their progress, in fulfillment of the prophetic denunciation of
Daniel, that this descendant of Ishmael 'shall destroy wonderfully... .'"*’
Qasim, in Elliot’s estimation, was one of the "better" invaders who par­
took in "much less, wanton sacrifice of life than was freely indulged in
by most of the ruthless bigots who have propagated the same faith else-
where."** This "unwonted toleration" on Qasim's part may have "arisen
from the small number of the invading force, as well as from ignorance
of civil institutions," but it still resulted in the wanton destruction of
temples and massacres of civilians. Elliot reflected on the historical
•70 A CONQUEST Of PASTS

question that was quoted almost verbatim by Cousens forty years later:
"It is impossible for the traveler to wander through |Sind| without being
struck with the absence of all record of (Arab) occupation. In language,
architecture, arts, traditions, customs, and manners, they have left but
little impress upon the country or the people. We trace them, like the
savage Sikhs, only in the ruins of their predecessors."4’ The answer, for
Elliot, was that Arab memory and Arab material traces were destroyed
by their own internecine fighting; they "showed themselves as utterly
incapable as the shifting sands of their own desert, of coalescing into a
system of concord and subordination."50 The masses of Sindhi Hindus
were left to fend for themselves, for there never was any "sympathy be­
tween the conquerors and the conquered.” Elliot's hope was that "the
inhabitants of modem India, as well as our clamorous demagogues at
home" remember "the very depth of degradation from which the great
mass of the people have been raised, under the protection of British
supremacy."51
Elliot was widely successful in positing the conquest origins of
Islam in India and placing the fanatic Muslims and the feminized
Hindus as the two protagonists at the forefront of colonial and nation­
alist scholarship on the Indian past. The result of the translation project
was the incorporation of Chachnama as the epitome of Muslim for­
eignness into newer grand histories of India. It also turned the project
into a pedagogic one. Vincent A. Smith 11848-1920) and Stanley Lane-
Poole (1854-1951I wrote two major histories of India which were incor­
porated into curriculum m both India and Britain. These histories
were the foundation of civil service exams, providing the framework
for the nationalist critique of colonial historiography. In these histories,
712 AD became a totemic date for the rupture of the Indian past and
the framework of the foreign origins hegemony.55 Lane-Poole's Medi­
eval India under Muhammadan Rule, 712-1764 1190}) defined the me­
dieval period under his study thus: "It begins when the immemorial
systems, rule, and customs of Ancient India were invaded, subdued,
and modified by a succession of foreign conquerors who imposed a
new rule and introduced an exotic creed, strange languages and a for­
eign art."53 Lane-Poole recommends that the readers of his popular
history consult Elliot's translations of key texts, such as Chachnama.
to grow their own knowledge. Then he goes on to describe the "ad­
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS 171

ventures" of Mohammad Qasim as "one of the romances of history."54

Like Lane-Poole's book, Smith's The Oxford Student’s History of India
|t9o8| was designed for Calcutta University and Oxford University. To
answer the questions about "Hindu civilization on the eve of the Mo-
hamedan conquest," Smith offers the story of the Arab conquerors
who "invaded Sind, slew the reigning king, Dahir, son of Chach, and
established a Muslim state which endured for centuries."55 These
histories were foundational to a vast educational enterprise, lasting
for dozen of editions throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In critical
ways, their frameworks remains dominant.

TXvo-Nation History
Where Elliot's translation project fractured Persian histories into
chunks suitable for historical inquiry into one sectarian past alone, the
"connected" history protects of Smith and Lane-Poole reknit them into
an overwhelmingly powerful narrative. The Muslims, pegged as out­
siders and conquerors in the Indian past, were the fanatic outsiders of
the British colonial present as well. Chachnama and the designation
of 712 AD as the year of the conquest cemented the content and the
temporality of British history for India. In this historiography, two cen­
tral assumptions were made about the text: first, that its primary
value was as a source for Islam's eighth-century origins in India because
it was a translation of an earlier Arabic history, and second, that em­
pirical facts and dates were to be recovered from the romantic gibberish
clotting the text. Any and all colonial productions about the Muslim
past in India naturalized this hegemonic framework.
From the early twentieth century, Indian historians trained at
Calcutta University, at Aligarh University, at Baroda University, and at
Osmania University struggled to come to terms with this narrative.
Their effort to narrate a nationalist, anncolonial history was also the
struggle to engage with the narrative of Muslim despotism, temple
destruction, and the question of foreigners in India. In the records of
history journals like Calcutta Review, Muslim Review, Islamic Cul­
ture, and Indian Historical Review, they investigated the question of
the origins of Islam and its fate in India. R. C. Majumdar (1888-
1980I, U. M. Daudpota (1897-1958), Muhammad Habib 11895-1971).
171 A CONQUEST OE EASTS

Shibli Naumani (1857-1914), ladunath Sarkar (1870-1958), Sulaiman

Nadvi (1884-1953I, S. M. Ikram (1908-1973), and Nabi Baksh Khan
Baloch (1917-2011) were key figures in the nationalist responses to this
colonial historiography.
The framework of Chachnama as a conquest narrative and history
of the eighth century dominated their efforts, though their response
to the framework varied substantially. For people like Majumdar and
Sarkar, the colonial judgment of the despotic Muslim conqueror was
reinforced; for Habib and lkram, Chachnama had to be carefully read
to potentially recuperate this earliest conquest from the colonial ver­
dict of Muslim vilification; for Daudpota and Baloch, the entirety of
the text needed to be recovered, retranslated, and then situated as a re­
gional history of the origins of Islam in Sind,- for Naumani and Nadvi,
Muslims in Sind had to be placed nearer to the time of the Prophet to
make the question of origins a social one, not one based on conquest.
In the scholarship of nationalist historians such as ladunath Sarkar
and R. C. Majumdar.the figure of the outsider Muslim loomed large.
Sarkar's lectures on Indian pasts—as well as his histories of Mughal
India—took their cue from colonial historians and argued that the "for­
eign immigrant’1 Muslim conquest of India differed fundamentally
from all preceding invasions" because of Islam's "fiercely monotheistic
nature."56 Sarkar's study of the Muslim past incorporated Elliot's
framework, where the communities were historically, conceptually, so­
cially, and religiously separated. Similarly, R. C. Majumdar’s treat­
ment "Arab Conquest of Sind" presented Muslims as conquering Spain
and Hindus as resisting Europeans. Majumdar depicted Muslims as
natural conquerors who "inevitab|lyj" cast their covetous eyes on
India.’”7 Chachnama contained "a kernel of historical facts," which
Majumdar could augment via archaeological and textual sources to
present the account of the eighth-century invasion.’8
In contrast was a set of Muslim intellectuals who looked at the ori­
gins of Indian Muslims. This generation of scholars emphasized Islam’s
history in Arabia and the connections among Arabia and India and Sufi
genealogies of Indic thought. The Muslim historian and educationist
Shibli Naumani studied under T. W. Arnold at Aligarh Muslim Uni­
versity. He began to work on the history of early Islam as a response to
Orientalist historians such as David Samuel Margoliouth at Oxford.
 A CONQUEST OF l’ASTS 173

Naumani focused on the biography of the Prophet Muhammad and key

figures in early Islam. Between 1881 and 1898, he produced a wide va­
riety of historical essays on science, medicine, arts, and the Muslim
state in early-modern India. These essays were a sharp rebuke to both
British and Hindu historians, presenting a history of Muslims in India
not as foreigners and conquerors but as belonging to India. However, it
was Naumani's student Sulaiman Nadvi who turned his attention on
Sind and on Chachnama.
Alongside Naumani, Nadvi founded the Society to Correct Errors
in Histories [Anjuman Islah Aghlat Tar'ikhil at Aligarh in 1910. He
published a number of essays on the early history of Muslims in India-
most importantly Indo-Arab Relations (1929), which focused on mar­
itime and migratory contacts between Arab Muslims and India. In 1947,
his two-volume study Tarikh-i Sind was published. The work detailed
a social and political history of Muslims in Sind from the early eighth
century to the fourteenth. Nadvi consulted numismatic, epigraphic,
and textual evidence to present Sind as a landscape teeming with life
and culture. His preface addressed the British historians directly:

Rare arc the histories of India written by the English which arc free of
political bias. Their purpose is to spread distrust between the Hindus
and Muslims; to cause the Muslims to degrade their feelings about
their own past m this country; and to valorize the British state. In
these English histories, there is much confusion for Muslim readers,
and small details are made into paradigms of hate. These histories
have entered the school curriculum and shape the minds of children
such that even Indian historians arc reproducing these biases and
mistakes. It is true that no state is free from fault, nor any history free
from bias, but we still require a careful study of the Muslim past re­
veals the strengths and the weaknesses of Muslims in India.5"

Nadvi also employed Chachnama as a narrative of the eighth

century. He placed it within a constellation of numerous other bio­
graphical and travel narratives from Arabic and Persian sources. Nad-
vi’s efforts were to locate Arab settlers in India and to research the his­
tories of migrations. He, like other historians of his generation and
those that preceded him, wrestled with a historiography that saw Islam
solely through the lens of Muslim arrival to South Asia.
■74 A CONQUEST OF PASTS

The Marxist historian Mohammad Habib (1895-1971) opened his

1929 essay "Arab Conquest of Sind" with a broad differentiation be­
tween the ethics of a faith and the practitioners of that faith. Habib then
tied the conquest of Sind to a longer history of movement between Arabia
and India. When introducing Chachnama, he insisted that the text was
to be seen as a whole—though he too categorized it as an account of the
eighth century. In response to the colonial historiography that depicted
Qasim as a temple destroyer and a despot, Habib sought to rehabilitate
the figure of Muhammad Qasim as an ethical and brave commander:

In the course of three years he had advanced from Daybul to the Hi­
malayas. Could not another three years take him to the border of
China? He had carefully studied the religion and the customs of the
country and understood to perfection the policy that divided his en­
emies and increased his friends. His army, far from being weary of
its work, longed for more victories. Moreover, it was the Hindus who
had helped him to his greatest victories of peace and war, and so long
as he adhered to his policy of toleration, there was every reason to
expect their support.1”

Habib asserted that Muhammad bin Qasim "alone had a conscience,

the instincts and feelings of a gentleman."61 Habib's broader response
hinted at the historiographic way out of the bind that the descendants
of Dow placed upon the Muslims of India |that the Muslims would re­
main foreign to India and that their history was a history of domina­
tion and destruction). Habib's account was thus a rehabilitation of early
Muslims and a placement of Muslim history within a framework larger
than conquest—such as class, trade networks, migration, and settle­
ment. He argued that Muslim "rule" in India was a misnomer: Muslim
kingships were ecumenical, and Muslims received no special favors.
Habib excavated the past not to fuel sectarian difference in the present
but to assert a historically sound vision of the Indic Muslim past that
countered the British account.
While these historians changed the tenor of the debate about the
text, they did not shift the grounds: that Chachnama could be read
only as a text marking the eighth-century origins of Islam in India and
that it was filled with superfluous stones, tales, and romantic asides. It
was not read as a political theory of the thirteenth century, and it was
 A CONQUEST Of FASTS 175

not seen as a representation of a diverse, intermixed medieval society.

Some historians discarded the Chach portion of the text entirely, for the
account of the Hindu king contained nothing of note for the story of
Muslims. Others recuperated histories of the masses or Muslim settle­
ments. By the mid-nineteenth century, the readings of Islam's origins
reflected an overdetermined politics of antagonistic difference between
Hindus and Muslims in India. Chachnarna then emerged in the imme­
diate aftermath of 1947 as a foundational text for the state of Pakistan.
After 1947, thought about 711 AD fell to two sets of historians in
Pakistan. One set comprised the historians of Sind—specifically
U. M. Daudpota (1897-1958) and Nabi Baksh Khan Baloch (1917-2011).
The other set comprised the historians of Pakistan—specifically
I. H. Qureshi (1903-1981) and S. M. Ikram (1908-1973). The usage of
Chachnama as a source text for Pakistan's "earliest" history was due
to the scholarship of S. M. Ikram, whose Ab-e Kausar (1941) itself be­
came the source text for Pakistan's textbooks in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1953, Pakistan celebrated its fifth anniversary with the produc­
tion of a commemorative volume issued from Karachi: Five Years of
Pakistan: August 1947-August 1952. The second chapter, "Pakistan’s
Pasts,” was written by the staff at the Department of Archeology. It
begins by addressing sites in the Indus valley that connect the country
to ancient history but quickly moves toward more important time pe­
riods. Pakistan thus presents one of its earliest official pronouncements
of its origins:

The explorations in Baluchistan and the excavations at Mohcnjo-daro

tn 1950 had alike been concerned with the pre-historic period of the
country's history and with clarifying a picture of the past which as
already known in part. They represented the application of new
methods and more intensive study to old problems. The excavations
at Bhambhor, by contrast, were of pioneering importance. They were
carried out by the Department of Archaeology early in 195r, and they
represent the first attempt of a young Islamic State to understand her
own Islamic past. For Bhambhor is a site not of pre-historic times,
but of the Arabs' eastward expansion through Makran and Afghani­
stan into Sind and up to the border of 'Hind'. Its excavation is the first
of the kind on an Islamic site in Pakistan or, indeed, throughout the
Sub-Continent.
176 A CONQUEST Of EASTS

For if the identification of some scholars is accepted, Bhambhor

is none other than the famous port of Daibal. From this port, during
the last years of Buddhist rule in Sind, pirates set forth for the Ara­
bian Sea, to harass the flourishing trade between China and the
Middle East, until the Caliph, exasperated by the ravaging of his fleets
and by the refusal of the rulers of Sind to suppress the pirates, sent a
force by land and by sea against Daibal. The port had thrice repulsed
the Arabs, but now in 71a AD, it fell to a brilliant campaign led by
the young General Muhammad bin Qasim. Its fall led m turn to the
conquest of the whole of Sind, which thus became the first province
in the Sub-Continent to receive Islam.6’

The usage of the word "province" is the key which links the his­
torical region of Sind to Pakistan's administrative unit "province."
From the glorification of the 1950s to the establishment of a singular
origins history of Pakistan, the government consciously developed
a state in official narratives, in school textbooks, in monuments, in
museums, and in public memorials. This process intensified after
the second Partition of 1971, when the bloody creation of Bangladesh
rendered false the notion that Muslims of India were a unitary body
with a unitary, civilizational past.
The process of fixing such a notion of the origins of Pakistan began
under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, but it was General Zia ul-Haq who threw
the whole weight of the state apparatus behind it. On 5 October 1977,
he called for a national "New Education Policy" conference. One of
this policy’s goals was to "create an awareness of the Pakistani nation
as a part of the universal Muslim Ummah striving through successive
stages to spread the message of Islam throughout the world.'*'
In his inaugural address to the education policy conference, Zia
ul-Haq called attention to Islamic history's centrality to Pakistan's
ideology, mandated Arabic instruction from midlevel grades, and es­
tablished the mosque as the fundamental unit of public education.
His overall strategy had the explicit goal of "usc|ing| Islam and Paki­
stani nationalism to prevent ethnic groups from breaking away from
the center and to build a modern, cohesive nation out of different lin­
guistic and ethnic groups."64
The educational policies created after 1977 were put in effect across
the four educational boards in the country. The new textbooks intro-
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS >77

duced Muhammad bin Qasim from the fourth grade onward, progres­
sively adding historical detail and texture to the narrative. "Advent of
Islam in South Asia” is chapter 6 in the social studies textbook for the
sixth grade, and it is emblematic in that it hits all of the major narra­
tive points in the origmary tale. That narrative highlights Muhammad
bin Qasim's good treatment, which "overawed the people," and "Hindus
began to embrace Islam in great number due to the good and kind
treatment of Muslims."65 This first-contact model was replicated
throughout the school curriculum, contrasting the benevolence of
warrior Muslims with the horror of local rule. The civics textbook for
class ten builds on this idea: "For the first time the people of Sindh
were introduced to Islam, its political system and way of government.
The people here had seen only the atrocities of the Hindu rajas."66 The
result of this encounter is further detailed in a section titled "The Im­
pact of Islam in South Asia":

Islam spread rapidly after the conquest of Multan. The main cause
was the benign treatment of Muslims with the Hindus. Due to this
attitude Hindus began to love Muslims and they became nearer and
nearer to Muslims. Before the Arab conquest the people were fed up
with the teachings of Buddhists and Hindus. Muhamamd |sic| Bin
Qasim was kind both with Buddhist community and Hindus. The
Arabs treated the locals with generosity, good treatment and justice,
with the result that most of the Hindus embraced Islam along with
other Brahamans and Buddhists. They began to accept the customs
and manners of the Muslims and changes took place in their lives
and society.67

The emphasis, throughout these texts, is on how Muslim rule was be­
nevolent and how it provided the conquered populations "complete
freedom to follow their own religion irrcspcct |stc| of caste or creed."6*
Implicit in this history is a crucial lesson for the young citizen in
training: the purity of that first encounter was squandered by later gen­
erations of Muslim rulers, who fell away from the ideal established by
Muhammad bin Qasim. Furthermore, history as conceived in these
school textbooks is demarcated explicitly along borders. The Delhi sul­
tanate is excluded, the majority of Mughal rule is excluded (Shah
Jahan appears only because he constructed monuments and forts in
■ 78 A CONQUEST OF PASTS

Lahore),- and the British rule is introduced only after the 1840s, when
Punjab and Sind are colonized.
The official publications of the state of Pakistan and the textbooks
governing the rules of historical consciousness do not exhaust the ways
in which Pakistan's origins narrative permeated everyday lives of the
citizens. Working closely with the state, or taking its lead, were reli­
gious parties, community organizations, popular historians, novelists,
and playwrights.
After the destructive war on East Pakistan, lama’at-i Islami—an
early and frequent recipient of Saudi Arabian largesse—became the
chief organizer of Yaum Bab ul-lslam (Door of Islam Dayl in Karachi.
This was a public commemoration of Muhammad bin Qasim and his
conquest of Sind. Public expressions included rallies, poetic submis­
sions, and mass prayers. The /ama’at also sponsored journals and mag­
azines devoted to extolling the virtues of the Arab Muslims and the
direct linkages between Arabia and Pakistan. An example is the 2006
report that appeared in the Daily Dawn, Pakistan's premier English
daily newspaper:
Yaum Bab ul Islam was observed on Wednesday in various parts of
the city, and speakers in various meetings recalled the services ren­
dered by Mohammad bin Qasim for the people of this region who de­
feated the forces of tyranny, and established a rule of law here. They
said even today to save the humanity from the clutches of the evil
forces, a Mohammad bin Qasim is badly needed who should foil con­
spiracies against humanity and again make the world a cradle of
peace. They said after the carnage of innocent people in Iraq and Af­
ghanistan, the real face of the US had been unveiled. The Ummah
today needed a Muhammad bin Qasim who could save it from the
atrocities of the US."
In direct conversation with such sentiments is the vast corpus of
"Heroes of Islam’-styled narratives. These are the novels, histories,
and comic books which glorify the character and deeds of that earliest
generation of "Pakistanis"—the companions of Muhammad bin Qasim
who accompanied him to the shores of the Indus. Communal histories
trace genealogical descent from these soldiers and actively argue for
social mobilization along communal lines. Such works include Mu-
iahid-e Azam Hazrat Muhammad b. Qasim kay Rufka Shami Muia-
 A CONQUEST OF PASTS <79

hideen yani Pak o Hind ki Qaum Arain ki Dastan (The Story of the
Descendants of the Syrian Companion Mujahideens of the Greatest
Mujahid, Muhammad bin Qasim, That Is the Aram Community of
India and Pakistani:

The 'Arain gaum (community) is sharif (a refined class), hardworking

and of Arab descent. They arc the true mujahid of this nation. How­
ever, we arc not united or organized. Whether you write Mian,
Chaudhri, etc. before your name, please write Arain after it. So that
by seeing the word, from cast to west, from Peshawer to Karachi, we
can recognize ourselves,

Similar onginary myths were written and circulated in official his­

tories about other communities, such as the Awan, the Maliks, and
the Jats. In each case, these histories represented a direct engagement
with the state since they contained rosters of notable members in civil
service. (General Zia ul-Haq remains the most prominent member of
the ‘Arain community.)
The state of Pakistan's origmary narrative of Muhammad bin Qa­
sim's conquest of Sind remains largely uncontestcd in recent historiog­
raphy. Contemporary histories of South Asia consider Sind a "back­
water region" and call the nearly three hundred years of Sind's Muslim
principalities and their Muslim ecumene a "forgotten" age.'1 As a result,
the most notable silence in this narrative is the silence of contemporary
historiography The paucity of contemporary historical research on
the eighth through twelfth centuries has rendered any contestations
of Pakistan’s origins narrative either communal memory or polemical
scholarship.
 Conclusion

In 1989 A. K. Ramanujan asked, "Is there an Indian way of

thinking?" His own answer looked at a range of thought, starting from
the Vedic laws of Manu to the epic of Mahabharata via the philologists
William Jones and Max Miiller. In Ramanujan's survey of Indian
thought, present were ragas and akam. but he left un commented the
Persian theories of music or love as also "Indian."1 Is the "Indian" way
of thinking evident solely in one grammar, one religion, certain lo­
cales, certain specific genres? If there are Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu
ways of being Indian, is there no Indian way of being Muslim and no
Muslim way of being Indian? If the Mahabharata can elucidate Indian
thought, surely that thought can also belong to a Muslim?
Conceptually and programmatically, the study of pasts in South
Asia is cleanly divided between the "Indic" and the "Muslim” between
Indologists and historians; between the ancient, the medieval, and the
modern; between archives of Persian, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Tamil; and
between nations of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Granted that there
were different political regimes in the past. That difference created vio­
lence. Yet our scholarship cannot continue to insist on "Muslim pasts"
and "Hindu pasts" as hermetically sealed categories. We need new his­
tories of our collective pasts, for we continue to see all pasts through
creedal differences.

180
 CONCLUSION 181

In this book, 1 focused on the origins narrative that has governed,

implicitly and explicitly, the composition of the idea of "Muslim'’ in
India since the nineteenth century. The colonial study of the origins
of Islam in India was meant to demonstrate the violence of that origi-
nary moment in 712 AD when Muhammad bin Qasim campaigned in
Sind. What the idea developed into, however, was a framework for
asking any and all questions about Muslim pasts in India. The Arab
conquerors became the Turkish ones, who became the Afghan ones,
who became the Timurid ones, and so on. Each new wave of conquerors
renewed the sense of foreignness of Muslims. In the scholarly world,
the names, titles, writings, poetry, architectural styles, and social and
cultural ways of such Muslims were explained through their connec­
tion to their lands of origin: Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia.
Figures such as Akbar and Dara Shikoh were understood as exceptions
to the rule of despotic Muslim conquerors, for they had translated from
Sanskrit to Persian or entered into dialogue with religious others.
Scholarship has overwhelmingly sought to explain the political theory
of any Muslim polity in terms of Iranian and Central Asian ideals. In
the study of Muslim pasts in South Asia, scholars reach for texts from
perceived places of origin of these rulers—places necessarily outside
of India. It is considered natural to think of the relationship between
Arabic and Persian texts of different times and political regimes and
not to think of the relationship between contemporaneous Persian and
Sanskrit texts, even when they come from the same locale.
Against that idea, I treated Chachnama as an Indic text written
in Persian. I placed it within a rich local political landscape. I demon­
strated that it contained a theory of just rule, governance, accommoda­
tion, and alliance building for a thirteenth-century Muslim polity. I
demonstrated that it took as its subject the dialogic relationship be­
tween elite structures of power of Brahmin Hindus and of Muslims.
I then showed how this text was discovered by British colonial agents,
misread, misinterpreted, and used to cement a theory of despotic
Muslim rule in India.
Within the field of the history of Islam in South Asia, scholars focus
largely on histories of concepts or political histories, either ignoring
studies considering Persian texts as a whole or tracing the history and
181 CONCLUSION

afterlife of a given text. The result is that there is no clear understanding

of the life of the text and the political and social world that it inhabited
at any given moment. We remain constrained by histories that focus on
significant peoples and significant events and where political history
overpowers intellectual or cultural history. This study on Chachnama
demonstrates how such an approach has hindered our interpretation
and discovery of the political theory embedded in these texts.

The method of this book included my extensive walks in Uch. Those

walks and the material landscape shaped my questions and guided me
to think differently. The realities of post-Partition South Asia, in which
the historic region of Sind is split between India and Pakistan, have
made it impossible to see the whole space that is described in the
texts which I study. I could not without friction imagine the full net­
works of mobility that my medieval texts move through. Instead of
ignoring this political present, I declared its limitations to be my lim­
itations. If 1 could walk from Multan, across the Cholistan desert, to
Khambhat, I would know better the history I have sought to bring to
light here.
One of my last walks introduced me to another histonan who brings
Uch to light. He is the keeper of a small graveyard in Uch. People know
him as the mu'arrakh (historian). He is an elderly man with silver in
his eyes. I was introduced to him through a colleague and was told
that he knows the political history of Uch better than anyone else. I
found him at the top of a mound, tending to a shrine where the graves
were covered in bright red embroidered cloth. He listened to my request
for histories of Uch in silence and answered me only after a further ex­
ultation by my colleague. Thereupon he spoke freely and at length. He
spoke about the coming of Alexander, the rise of the Sammas, and the
Mughal state in Sind as episodes which marked history in Uch from
the outside. He gave references to the campaigns from the princely
states of Kalat or the Taipurs and the British. In concluding, he ges­
tured to an ontological difference in the pasts he was transcribing: the
history of Uch that is visible from the outside—Alexander, Mughals,
British—was distinct from that "internal" past that we saw in the trees
 CONCLUSION 18?

and shrines of Uch, These were signs embedded by Sufis and mys­
tics. The materiality of outside histories, he asserted, is devoid of an
inner truth and hence detracts, obfuscates, and confuses. These ma­
terial traces are read in error. The materiality of an internal past, on
the other hand, is held together by an inner jbafini) truth which can
be only known to the "true historian." The task of the historian, he
said, is to read the material objects and signs for their inner truth.
Hence, the Uch of Muhammad bin Qasim, of the Sufi saints, of trees,
of objects, or of walls takes precedence over the Uch which confounded
the British. In his rendering of the past, this was the history of Uch,
invisible to many, but nonetheless true.
He reached down and picked up a ball of coarse iron that was nestled
among the shards of baked clay and dyed pottery. "Look," he said to
me. "This is a gola (ball) from the cannon when the British laid siege
to Uch. They fired these up at us—and like rain they fell. They are still
here, embedded in the soil. The British were not able to conquer us. We
are still here, and they are gone." He handed me the cannonball, and
my arm fell with its weight. I examined it, trying to see it as a histor­
ical object. I had never held a cannonball before and had no clue as to
what one felt like in the hand. The old man began to walk, and I walked
with him, holding the gola.
He continued to talk as we walked: "The British conquered all of
Sind, but they did not conquer Uch, because Uch is protected by these
shrines." He gestured around the graveyard. "Their cannonballs
bounced off the shrines; not one shrine was damaged." 1 interjected
that Uch was actually taken by General Charles Napier with the loss
of only eighteen British soldiers and was then made the headquarters
of Napier's campaign to rid Sind of "dacoits and terrorists."2 He held
me in his stare and let the remark stand. I held out the cannonball to
him. "Where do you want me to put this?" I asked, "lust toss it. It fell
here." He gestured toward the side of a small bush. I did as told, gave
my regards, and walked away.
I have struggled to understand my conversation with this historian
of Uch. At first, my incredulity at his treatment of the cannonball
clouded my thinking. He had dismissed a material piece of history
that I would feel the necessity to put in a museum or to memorialize
with a note. In this man's narrative, Uch had constantly rebuffed
I«4 CONCLUSION

conquerors, and the British cannonhall was mere evidence—just an­

other artifact. The logic of his narrative did not require the presence
of the cannonball.
I had tried to correct him. I had told him that Uch had indeed been
conquered, not just by the British but also by Genghis Khan, by lltut-
mish, by Firuz Shah Tiighluq, by Humayun, and by Akbar. Uch was a
center to which most political powers of North India had gravitated.
So I had quickly asserted that he was telling the wrong story about Uch
to himself and to others.
I later became unsure of my own understanding of this place. These
many military "conquests" of Uch did not change the history which
he was remarking upon: the spiritual and cultural significance of Uch.
Indeed, from the perspective of the imperial and political centers of
Baghdad, Delhi, or London, many figures had overcome Uch and had
ravaged the landscape. However, from the perspective of Uch, one could
see the resilience of the structures and frames that connected medieval
shrines to practices, practices to texts, texts to markets, and markets
to networks that reached far and wide. This was the landscape that
gave birth to the Indic Chachnama and then preserved it and nurtured
it since the thirteenth century. The story of an always-conquered Uch
could not explain how this text came to be written in the first place
and why it survived.
What I have tried to do in this book is to give an answer to these
questions in a way that makes sense to the historian in Uch. I have tried
to take away the supremacy that the question of conquest held for me,
for the field of South Asian history, and for the political entities of
contemporary South Asia. I have taken away the cornerstone of the
origins narrative through a rereading of Chachnama, My hope is that
other anti-foundational histories that re-examine the origins narra­
tive would force a paradigmatic shift in how we conceive of Muslim
pasts in India. My hope is that the narrative I have presented—one in
which a political theory of rule is constituted across traditions and
placed in a landscape that mirrors the intertwined history—can prompt
us to open up our archives and ask new questions.
The stories we tell have consequences.
 Notes

Works Cited

Acknowledgments

Index
 Notes

INTRODUCTION
1. On these particular national myths, see Christopher B. Krebs, A Most Dan­
gerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich
|W. W. Norton: 201 il; Robert H. Morrissey, Charlemagne and France A
Thousand Years of Mythology {University of Notre Dame Press, 2003); Steph­
anie L. Barczcwski, Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century
Britain: The Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood (London: Oxford Uni­
versity Press, 1000I. Among others, I am indebted in my understandings of
origins and beginnings to Edward W Said's Beginnings: Intention and
Method (New York: Basic Books, 1975), pp. 27-43.1 also draw upon the works
of Friedrich Nietzsche, Marc Bloch, and Michel Foucault on the question of
origins, and upon R. G. Collingwood, Carolyn Stecdman, Joan W. Scott, and
Quentin Skinner on the issue of interpretation.
2. Mohammad All linnah, Some Recent Speeches and Writings of Mt. Jinnah.
vol 1. (Lahore: S. M Ashraf Publishers, 1947), PP 174-180.
3. M. S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined (Nagpur: P. V. Beiwalkar,
1938), P- >7 Though historically credited to M. S. Golwalkar, current schol­
arship registers the author of the pamphlet We or Our Nationhood Defined
as Ganesh Damodar Savarkar with Golwalkar’s name appended to the pam­
phlet. Sec Jyotirmaya Sharma, Terrifying Vision: M. S Golwalkar. the RSS,
and India (New Delhi. Viking, 2007I, p. xix.
4. 1 remind us here of Bruno Latour’s words on moderns and antimoderns
agreeing on the same narrative: "Look for the origins of the modem myths,
and you will almost always find them among those who claim to be coun­
tering modernism with the impenetrable barrier of the spirit, of emotion, the
subject, or the margins. In the effort to offer a supplement of soul to the
modern world, the one it has is taken away—the one it had, the one it was

l«7
188 NOTES TO PAGES 4-$

quite incapable of losing. That subtraction and that addition arc the two op­
erations that allow the moderns and the antimoderns to frighten each other
by agreeing on the essential point: we are absolutely different from the others,
and we have broken radically with our own past." Here, the two understand­
ings are similarly in agreement about their radical break from the past, while
relying on the myth of origins. See Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been
Modem (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 199J), p. 150.
5. V. S. Naipaul, India: A Wounded Civilization ILondon: Penguin Books, t977),
p. 17a.
6 Romila Thapar's Somanatha: the many voices of a history (New Delhi: Pen
guin Press, 2004I, Ramya Sreenivasan's The Many Lives of a Batput Queen:
Heroic Pasts in India c. 1500-1900 (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2007J. Shahid Amin s Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of
Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, lOisl. and Cyn­
thia Talbot's The l.ast Hindu Emperor: Prilhvirai Chaulian and the Indian
Past. 1200-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015! approach
binary categories of Hindu/Muslim by fracturing the historical certainty.
These excellent studies introduce multiple voices, provide ranges of histor­
ical depiction, and point out usages of historical past outside of dominant
historiography.
7. For example, A. Aclar Moin’s The Millennial Sovereign Sacred Kingship and
Sainthood in Islam |Ncw York Columbia University Press, 2014) recapitu­
lates the earlier scholarship of |ohn F. Richards to argue Mughal under­
standing of kingship to be entirely derived from Central Asian or Safavid
theories of kingship—without any connection to either earlier Muslim poli­
ties or contemporary Raipur or Vijayanagar politics. This prohibitively narrow
analytical lens makes sense only if one consistently argues that Mughal
polity is sui generis "outside" of a history of India. Another illustration of
this comes via Sudipta Kavirar’s 1995 influential essay "Religion, Politics and
Modernity," where he notes, repeatedly, "actual historical record" to assert
this difference back to the premodern world where Hindu and Muslim
communities understood better the "'inside' and ’outside’ realms” of interac­
tions. For Kavirai, even though he is critiquing both the nationalist and com-
munalist understanding of premodern India, the histoticity of Muslims as
’•outsiders" governs the ways in which ’’assimilation" failed. (He marks two
sets of "indigenous" in his essay—indigenous society and indigenous con­
verts—the first of which is insider and the second outsider.) See, Sudipta
KaviraJ, "Religion, Politics and Modernity," in Crisis and Change in Con­
temporary India, Upendra Bax and Bhikhu Parckh, eds. (New Delhi Sage
Publications, 1995I, p 170.
8. These broad statements arc meant to highlight the uniqueness of the extraor­
dinarily important work of scholars like Phillip Waggoner and Richard Eaton
on Vijayanagar—Power, Memory. Architecture Contested Sites on India's
Deccan Plateau. 1300-1600 |Ncw Delhi Oxford University Press, 2014—and
Finbarr Flood on C.haznavi nonh India—Objects of Translation: Matenal
Culture and Medieval -Hindu-Muslim" Encounter (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2009I—who directly inform the work I am doing here.
 NOTES TO PAGES $-11 I89

9. Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­

sity Press, 1997). P- 103.
to. V. S. Naipaul, Among the Believers: An Islamic lourney (New York: Vintage
Books, 1982I. p. 119.
it. Ibid., p. 131.
11. Social Studies for Class 6 |Lahorc: Punjab Textbook Board, 1003), p. 72.
13. Faisal Shahzad, "My Beloved and Peaceful Ummah," New York Times
(May is, zoiol. http://documcnts.nytimes.com/e-mail-from-faisal-shahzad
»text/pi.
14. laved Chaudhry, “Aafia Siddiqui, Qaum lumhatay Sath hai," Daily lang
(August 6, 2008).
IS- Nasnillah Bhatti, "American qaidi Simon Narwan aur Aafia Siddiqui," Daily
Waqt (August 26, 2008).
16. I want to label these invocations as exempla. following the definition from
Jacques Le Goff: "a short story intended as truthful to be used inside a dis­
course (generally as sermonl in order to persuade an audience through an edi­
fying lesson." See lacques Le Goff, "L' 'Excmplum' Medieval," in Claude
Bremond, Jacques Le Goff, and lean-Claude Schmitt, "L' Exemplum": Typol-
ogie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental ITiirnhout: Brepols, 1982I, pp
15-107. The events of Muhammad bin Qasim's campaigns echoes in its
circulation, doing the pedagogic work of the cxemplum and also, in its con­
textual malleability, the didactic work.
17. Another starkly violent reminder of historical memory's pernicious grip on
socially fractured presents was the terrorist attack of Dylann Roof in a
Charleston church on lune 17, 2015. As Eric Foncr noted, "Roof has a sense
of history, warped though it may be. He claims to have read 'hundreds' of
slave narratives, all demonstrating, to his satisfaction, how benevolently
slaves were treated—an idea long discredited by historians, but still en­
countered on white-supremacist websites and conservative talk-radio
shows." See Eric Foncr, "The Historical Roots of Dylann Roof's Racism,"
The Nation (July 20-27, 2015I. www.thenation.com/article/the-historical
-roots-of-dylann-roofs-racism.
r8. Muhammad Habib, "Arab Conquest of Sind," Islamic Culture 3 11929): 184
19. R. C. Majumdar, "The Arab Invasion of India," loumal of Indian History 10
I1931I: 11
20. S. H. Hodivala, Studies in Indo-Mushm History: A Critical Commentary on
Elliot and Dawson's History of India (Bombay:(s.n,]i939l. P- Bj-
21 Sec H. T. Lambnck, Sind, before the Muslim Conquest (Hyderabad. Sindh
Adahi Board, 1973I, Peter Hardy, "Is the Chach Nama Intelligible to the Histo­
rian as Political Theory?" ed., H. Khuhro, Sind through the Centuries (Karachi:
Oxford University Press, 1981I, pp. 111-117, and Yohanan Friedmann, "The
Origins and Significance of the Chach Naina" in ed., Yohanan Friedmann,
Ishim ill Asia, vol. 1: South Asia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984I, PP-13-37-
22. Friedmann, The Origins and Significance of the Chach Name. p. 28.
23. See Irfan Habib, "Linguistic Materials from Eighth-Century Sind: An Explo­
ration of the Chachnama," in Recording the Progress of Indian History:
Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress 1992-20/0. ed. S. Z. H lafri
190 NOTES TO PAGES I 2-I 8

(Delhi: Primus Books, 2012I. My thanks to the anonymous reviewer for

alerting mt to this essay.
24. S. Bose and A. Jalal. Modern South Asia History. Culture. Political Economy
(New York: Routledge, 2004b P 20.
25. 1 use "Uch" throughout the book, although "Uch Sharif" is the more common
designation for the modern city in Pakistan.
26. Chachnama. Azad Collection, Oriental Library, Punjab University. No. A:
Pe m/77.
27. Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg, The Chachnamah, An Ancient History of Sind
|Dclhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Dclli, 1900).
28. U. M. Daudpota, Fathnama-i Sind (Hyderabad Deccan: Majlis Maktutat-e
Farsia, 1939).
29 N. A. Baloch, Fathnama-i Sind (Islamabad: Institute of Islamic History, Cul­
ture, and Civilization, 1982I.
50. I use "Muslim" here as a broader category, understanding that it contains
heterogeneous groups—such as the various Shia denominations. 1 try,
throughout the text, to mark out the sectarian nomenclature where it is
important.
31. I draw here on Ronald Indcn and Daud All's extension of R. G. Collingwood
See Ronald Indcn, "Introduction: From Philological to Dialogical Text," in
Querying the Medieval: Texts and the History of Practices in South Asia,
cd. Ronald Inden, Jonathan Walters, and Daud All (New York: Oxford Uni­
versity Press, 2000I, pp. 3-28.
32. At the same time, I am acutely aware that while I could understand the ma­
terial world imagined in Chachnama. I was not able to experience that world.
As a post-partitioned historian, my facility to move and circulate in the
world is restricted by the regimes of access and passport control. My current
immobility creates a barrier to access material or textual artifacts of the
past. It was only by listening to stories of Gulf migrants and tracing the
stories of peripatetic tribes across Thar and Rajasthan deserts that I began
to see how to differently constitute the world of the text
33. Sec the opening woodcut showing a "native," Volney peering at a ruined city,
and the discussion in the chapter of C. F. Volncy in Volney’s Ruins.- or, Med
nation on the Revolutions of Empires (Boston: C. Gaylord, 183$).
34. I find it apropos that Momigliano, when discussing Gibbon's contribution
to the historical method, notes it with an ambulatory verb, "at this point
Gibbon stepped in." In the essay, Momigliano retraces Gibbon's travel
through Turin, Milan, Genoa, Lucca, and Florence to point out that his in­
terest in the geographical dimension of the Roman empire and its decline
were linked to Gibbon's own travels among the rums. Sec Arnaldo Momi­
gliano, "Gibbon’s Contribution to Historical Method," Historia: Zeitschnft
fur Alte Geschichte Bd. 2, H. 4 (1954). pp. 450-463. Momigliano’s own rela­
tionship to thinking through space is present in the beginning of his other
essay on Gibbon—"I happen to be writing my piece on Gibbon tn Spolcto."
See Arnaldo Momigliano, "Gibbon from an Italian Point of View," Daedalus
vol. 105, no. 3 (summer 1976), pp. 125-135.
 NOTES TO PACES I 8-2 J 191

35. I am specifically thinking here of Georg Simmcl's essay on ruin as an "ob­

ject infused with our nostalgia " See Georg Simmel, "Two Essays: 'The
Handle’ and The Ruin,'" The Hudson Review 11(3), 1958, pp. 371-85. It is
not the "imperial ruin" that forms the foreground of Ann Stoler’s interven­
tion in landscapes of imperial formations. Sec Ann Laura Stoler, "Imperial
Debris: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination," Cultural Anthropology vol. 23,
no. 2 (2008), pp. 191-2:9.
36. Another reason, outside of the question of ruins, is that unlike the work of
Gibbon or Momtgliano, my investigation of the medieval past is spatially
limited) I cannot easily access sites located in Raiasthan and Gujarat (India},
which were parts of the medieval world I am investigating. The historian of
Rome, whether during the interwar period or after World War II, could travel
to sites and archives from Italy to France to Germany to Greece to Spain,
unencumbered by passport regimes—restrictions or hindrances emanating
from the facts of their birth
37. Sec Walter Benjamin, "Paris, Hauptstadt des XIX lahrhunderts," Illumina-
tionen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1977), pp-170-184, and Herliner
Kindheit um neunzehnhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Vcrlag,
1987). I also draw upon Robert T. Tally's intervention in his discussions of
"geocriticism" by humanities scholars involved in the spatial sciences of tex­
tual hermeneutics. Sec Robert T. Tally )r. Spatiality (New York: Routledge,
2013).
38. As Beniamin inscribes and reinscribes a montage Idialektischen Tildes) in
his effort to see the city, he reads these insights back into Baudelaire’s text.
See Georges Didi-Huberman, "The Supposition of the Aura: The Now, the
Then, and Modernity," in Walter Beniamin and History, ed. Andrew Ben­
iamin (New York: Continuum, 2005), pp. 3-19.
39. On the relationship between Sufis from Uch and sultans, sec Simon Digby,
"Before Timur Came: Provincialization of the Delhi Sultanate through the
Fourteenth Century," lournal ot the Economic and Social History of the
Orient vol. 47, no. 3 12004I, pp. 298-356. On [ahanian, see Amina M. Stein-
fels. Knowledge before Action: Islamic Learning and Sufi Practice in the Life
of Sayyid lalal al-dln Bukhari Makhdum-i fahdniydn (Columbia, SC: Uni­
versity of South Carolina Press, aoi 2|.
40. Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," in Language.
Counter-Memory. Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Ithaca, NY: Cor­
nell University Press, 1977I, PP 139-165-
41. Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics: Regarding Method (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002I, p. 12s-
42. Marc Bloch. The Historian ’s Craft, trans. Peter Putman (Manchester Man­
chester University Press, 2008I, pp. 24-29.
I- FRONTIER WITH THE HOUSE OF GOLD
I. For an exposition of Sufi miracles, including flying on walls, see Simon
Digby, "To Ride a Tiger or a Wall! Strategics of Prestige in Indian Sufi
Legend," According to Tradition: Hagiographical Writing in India, cd.
192 NOTES TO PAGES 26-28

Winand Callewaert and Rupert Snell (Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag,

1994)> PP 99-l»9-
2. Martin W. Lewis, "Dividing the Ocean Sea." Geographical Review 89, no. 2
(April 19991:96.
3. "Rome" can mean anything from Hellenic Egypt to Byzantine Constanti­
nople. There is also confusion in sources as to whether “India" refers to the
subcontinent or to East Africa, Ceylon, or even China—notwithstanding
the occasional references to coastal towns of Malabar and Sindou (Sind).
Sec Philip Maycrson, “A Confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India
in the Byzantine Sources," lournal of the American Oriental Society 113,
no. 2 (April-June 1993I, PP 169-174 Conspicuously, neither the China/
Western India or China/Malay, nor the Arabia/India or Arabia/East Africa
arcs have garnered much scholarly attention. Moreover, the scholarship has
overwhelming situated the trade within a Rome/East or West/East frame­
work. It was not until K. N. Chaudhuri's Trade and Civilisation in the In­
dian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 2750 (Cam­
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985I and Janet Abu-Lughod's Before
European Hegemony: The World System A.D. riso-tjfo (New York: Ox­
ford University Press, 1989) that a corrective was offered to the Rome-centered
scholarship. Scholars such as the late Ashin Das Gupta, Andri Wink, and
Ranabir Chakravarti have since moved the conversation fotward. More prom­
isingly, the scope of inquiry is advancing from the movementsand networks
of trade and goods to ideas, peoples, and communities in the work of Li Guo,
Tanscn Sen, Gwyn Campbell, and Denys Lombard. Foran excellent example
of the cultural seascape of the Indian Ocean, see Engseng Ho, The Graves of
Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley: Univer­
sity of California Press, 2006).
4. Nile Green, "Re-Thinking the 'Middle East' after the Oceanic Turn." Com­
parative Studies of South Asia. Africa and the Middle East 34. 3 (2014).
5. The pattern of yearly monsoon winds, tides, and currents in the Indian Ocean
provides a ready framework for understanding the movement of goods and
people through the millennia. During the summer months ilune to No­
vember) the monsoon winds and the tide go down the eastern shore of the
Red Sea, hugging the coastline of the Gulf across to western India, around
the tip of the subcontinent into the Bay of Bengal, and from the Andaman
Islands into the South China Sea. During the winter months (December to
May), the winds retrace their path back.
6. See Elisabeth C. L During Caspers, “Sumer, Coastal Arabia and the Indus
Valley in Protolitcratc and Early Dynastic Eras: Supporting Evidence for a
Cultural Linkage," lournal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
22, no. 2 (May 1979I, pp. 121-135,
7- Lionel Casson, “South Arabia’s Maritime Trade in the First Century A.D.,"
LArahie Preislamique et son Environnement Historique et Culture!
(Leiden: E.). Brill, 1989), p. 187.
8. Steven E. Sidebotham, “Ports of the Red Sea and the Arabia-India Trade," in
Rome and India: The Ancient Sea Trade (Madison: The University of Wis­
consin Press, 1992), pp. 12-35.
 NOTES TO PAGES 28-30 '93

9 Monica L. Smith, "The Dynamic Realm of the Indian Ocean; A Review,"

Asian Perspectives vol. 36, no. 2 (fall 1997), pp. 245-259.
to. For the classical study, see E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the
Roman Empire and India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928I.
Also. Mortimer Wheeler, Rome beyond the imperial Frontiers (Harmonds-
worth, UK: Penguin, 1954I. And most recently, G. W. Bowersock, Roman
Arabia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).
11. Sec Lionel Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei Text with Introduction.
Translation, and Commentary (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1989I.
la. Sec Ranabir Chakravarti, Trade in Early India (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2001I for a fuller discussion of the historiographical issues surrounding
India and the Indian Ocean trade.
13. Sec Grant Parker, "Ex Ornate Luxuria: Indian Commodities and Roman Ex­
perience," lournal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 45, no. 1.
I2002), pp. 40-95.
14. See J. W, McCrindle, Ancient India as Described by Ktesias the Knidian
ILondon: Trdbner and Co,, 1882I and I. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as De­
scribed by Megasthenes and Arrian (London: Trubner and Co., 1877).
IS The logical extension of India as a site of immense wealth and immense
wisdom is the emergence, in medieval accounts, of descriptions that place
Paradise "in or beyond" India, "in the desert, impassable for people, in the
oriental zone.” For an excellent overview, see Rudolf Wittkower, "Marvels
of the East: A Study in the History of Monsters," lournal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), pp. 159-197. Such linkages prospered into
other supernatural geographies, as in the thirteenth-century long poem
L'image du Monde or the Hereford Mappa Mundi. They also contributed to
the development of the rich mythography of Prester John. India, established
thusly by Greek and Roman sources, remained ossified in the medieval Eu­
ropean mind as the "fantastic, realized beyond the horizons of the everyday
world." Sec Natalie Lozovsky, The Earth Is Our Book: Geographical Knowl­
edge in the Latin West ca. 400-1000 |Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2000I.
16. Sec Derek Kennet and Regina Krahl, Sasanian and Islamic Pottery from Ras
al-Khairnah (Oxford: Archacoprcss, 2004).
17. The historiographical and etymological links between Sarandip, the Ar­
abic Sarandib. Stnhala-dvipa, Ceylon, and current-day Sri Lanka are rather
convoluted. Sec lames E. Tennent, Ceylon: An Account of the Island.
Physical. Historical, and Topographical. with Notices of Its Natural His­
tory. Antiquities and Productions (London: Longman, Green. Longman,
and Roberts, t86o| and W J, van der Mculen, "Suvarnadvipa and the Chrysi
Chcrsonesos," Indonesia 18 (1974!. My thanks to Sonam Kachru for the
references.
18. J. W. McCrindle, The Christian Topography of Cosmas. an Egyptian Monk
(London: Hakluyt Society, 1898), p. 366.
19. See David Whitehouse, "Sasanian Maritime Activity," in The Indian Ocean
in Antiquity, cd- Julian Reade ILondon: Kegan Paul International, 1996I.
194 NOTES TO PAGES 30-31

10. See Richaid B Mather, "Chinese and Indian Perceptions of Each Other be­
tween the First and Seventh Centuries," lournal of the American Oriental
Society ill, no. 1 ||an.-Mar. 1992I, pp. t-8.
11. Samuel Beal, Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun Buddhist Pilgrims from
China to India <400 A.D. and fiS A.DI |New Delhi: Asian Educational Ser­
vices. 1996), p. 155.
22. Andri Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Muslim World, vol, 1 (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1990I, p. S-
13. This construction of the "Hindu" is usually credited to the British colonial
period, but some arguments have pointed toward Muslim rule in India as
well. Sec David Lorenzen, "Who Invented Hinduism?" Comparative Studies
in Society and History 41, no, 4 |Oct. 1999I, pp. 630-6S9 for a good discus­
sion of the historical as well as historiographical issues involved, Also, sec
Arvtnd Shanna, "On Hindu, Hindustan, Hinduism and Hindutva," Numen
49. no. 1 I2002I, pp. I—36.
24. In classical Arabic, there were two clear usages of al-Hind and related words
based on the h-n-d stem: miihind, muhinddh. hindi. hindiivani. The first is of
Hind as a proper, feminine name for prominent women. The most known ex­
ample is Hind bint 'Utbah, the wife of Abu Sufyan, mother of Mu'awiya |6oi-
680), who was the founder of the Umayyad dynasty. Another famous promi­
nent woman in early sources, is Queen Hind al Hunud (Hind of the Hinds),
who founded the fifth-century central Arabian kingdom of Kindah. See Nabia
Abbott, "Prc-lslamic Arab Queens," The American lournal of Semitic Lan­
guages and Literatures 58, no. 1 (Jan. 1941I, pp. 1-22. The second dominant
usage comes with products labeled as being "from al-Hind " They were mostly
swords [saif al-hindi, saif hindvani), but they also included metal, camphor,
sandalwood fud Hindi, musk, zaniabil, silk, and various spices. However, that
the products are termed "from al-Hind" provides no guarantee that they can
be shown to correspond as originating from the subcontinent. Merchandise
that could have origins elsewhere—silk IChina), camphor IMalay), metal |Ak-
sumitc Ethiopia) arc all tagged as "Hindi." Sec Nada Abd al-Rahman Yusuf
al-Shayl', Mu'jam Alfiiz al-hayah al-ljtimaTyah fi Dawdwin Shu'ara' al-
Mu'allaqdt al-’Ashr (Beirut: Maktab Lebanon, 1991I, pp. 313-314.
There exist raging debates on the identity of the mythic river Sarasvati land
whether or not it was the Indus) among the Hindutva supporters wishing a
particularly Indo-Aryan root to the Indus civilization. To get a sense of the
etymological debate, see Michael Witzel, "Substrate Languages in Old Indo-
Aryan IRgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic)," Electronic lournal of Vedic Studies
5, no. 1 |Aug. 1999I. PP I—67. On the historiographical and political debates,
sec the laudable Irfan Habib, "Imaging River Sarasvati: A Defence of Com­
monsense," Social Scientist 29, no, 1/2, |Jan.—Feb. 2001), pp. 46-74.
26. A. H. Sayce. Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated
by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians (Edinburgh: Williams and Nor­
gate, 1888), p. 138.
27. See W Muss-Arnolt, "On Semitic Words in Greek and Latin," Transactions
of the American Philological Associations tiSky-iSyf,) 23 (1892).
 NOTES TO PAGES 32-J6 195

18. See Michael Flecker, -'A Ninth-Century AD Arab or Indian Shipwreck in In­
donesia: First Evidence for Direct Trade with China." World Archaeology
Ji, no. 3 (Feb. loot), pp. 335-354.
19. S. Maqbul Ahmad, Arabic Classical Accounts of India and China (Shimla:
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1989I, pp. 58-40.
50. Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins The Beginnings of Islamic
Historical Writing (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1998I. p 181
51. This early Muslim historian is known to have written more than 200
works, including the following on al-Hind: Kitab Kirman (Book on the Re­
gion of Kirmanl, Kitab Futuh Makran IBook on the Conquest of the Region
of Makran), Kitab Thughur al-Hind IBook on the Frontier of Hindi, and
Kitab Atnal al-Hind (Book on the Governors of Hind). See Bayard Dodge,
The Fihrist of al-Naditn: A Tenth Century Survey of Muslim Culture (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 115,
31. Ahmad ibn Yahya Baladhuri, Futuh al-Bulddn (Beirut Maktaba al-Hilal,
1988), p. 416.
33. Sec N. A. Baloch, "The Probable Date of the First Arab Expeditions to India,"
Islamic Culture 2011946), pp. 250-266.
34. Baladhuri. Futuh al-Bulddn. p. 416.
35. See Matthew S. Gordon, The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of
the liitkish Military of Sumatra (AH, 200-27^/811-889 C.EJ (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2001I.
36. Futiih al-BuIdan, pp. 416-417,
37- Ibid., p. 417.
58. In 663-664, Abdallah bin Sawwar Abdi led two expeditions to Kikan, per­
ishing in the second. In 665, Sinan ibn Salamah reached Makran and estab­
lished a fort. Sinan's tenure, however, was short-lived, as Makran was soon
lost to the Muslims. Hence, the northernmost outpost of Muslims in the last
decades of the seventh century was at Bust in southern Afghanistan. From
here, raids to capture goods and slaves were carried into Makran or toward
Kabul but without much success. The local Zunbils of Zamindawar and Zab-
ulistan, and the Kabulshahs of Kabul were often persuaded to pay tribute but,
with the lack of a standing army, they often changed their mind and were a
ferocious opponent. Additionally, the impenetrable region provided ample
sanctuary to the Azariqa Kharaiitc—rebels against the Umayyad re­
gime—who used it as a base to launch attacks. Ibn Khurdadhbih cites a cou­
plet from Ihn Mufarrigh which laments the many graves that were filled with
Arab fighters at Kandhar. This may refer to another tradition about Qandhar
IKandahar, Afghanistan! that was often cited by nineteenth-century Orien­
talists like Augustus Le Messurier and Joseph Pierre Ferrier: "In the time of
al-Muqtadar |yi6), during the digging for the foundation of a tower in Kan­
dahar. a subterranean cave was discovered, in which were a thousand Arab
heads, all attached to the same chain, which had evidently remained in good
preservation since the year 70/698, for a paper with this date upon it was
found attached by a silken thread to the ears of the twenty-nine most impor­
tant skulls, with their proper names." Needless to say Qandhar did not have
■ 96 NOTBS TO PAGES 36-43

a good reputation for future conquerors. The episode in question may be

Ubaidallah bin Abi Bakra's attempted invasion of Afghanistan in 698
See C E. Bosworth. "' Ubaidullih b. Ahi Bakra and the Army of Destruction1
in Zabulistan," Der Islam so, 1973. pp. 268-283 and |. P. Ferrier, Caravan
loumey and Wanderings in Persia. Afghanistan, Turkman and Beloochistan
(London: |ohn Murray, 1856), p. 313.
39. Futuh al-Bulddn., p. 418.
40. That was the ill-fated Sa'id bin Aslam bin Zur'ah al-Kalbi. \Futuh al-Buldan.
P-419.I
41. Futuh al-Buldan, pp 419-420.
42. Andri- Wink, A! Hind The Making of the Indo lslamic World (Delhi: Ox­
ford University Press, 1990!, p. 164.
43. Futuh al-Bulddn, p. 420.
44. Ibid., pp. 420-424.
45. Ibid., p. 426.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., p. 427.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
S 3. For a thorough treatment of the financial demands upon the Umayyads, see
Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The End of the fihad State: The Reign of Hishdm
Ibn Abd Al-Mahk and the Collapse of the Umayyads lAlbany: State Uni­
versity of New York Press, 1994), pp. 47-73-
54. Samuel Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World: Translated from the
Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (London: Trubner and Co., 18S4), p. 272.
55. Futuh al-Buldan. p. 422.
56. There arc only two cases of temple destruction mentioned in Baladhuri's
chapter on Sind and Hind. The first is during the reign of Abbasid Mansur
|r. 730-754), when commander Hisham ibn ‘Amr Taghlahi demolishes a
temple and constructs a mosque in its place (hadm al-budd wa bani modha
masiidal in Kandahar. The second is during the caliphate of Mu’tasim (r. 813-
833), when a local king of Usaifan demolishes his own temple, destroys the
images contained therein, and kills the priests. He later converts to Islam
and builds a mosque.
57. Leonard W. I Van Dcr Kuijp brings to our attention the earliest mention
(outside of the Qur’anl of musulman, from a Sanskrit commentary by
Avalokitavrata, dated 700, which survives in a Tibetan translation. The
text, intriguingly, refers to the "traditions" of the "mu-sul-nian" and reads
familiarly as a "praise" or "eulogy" of a king {prashastil. See Leonard W. J.
Van Der Kuup, "The Earliest Indian Reference to Muslims in a Buddhist
Philosophical Text of circa 700," lournal of Indian Philosophy vol. 34 (2006I,
pp. 169-202. My thanks to Sonam Kachru for drawing my attention to this
reference. For the more common terms denoting Muslims in Sanskrit
sources, see Barjdulal Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Otherl: Sanskrit
 NOTES TO PAGES 44-45 197

Sources and the Muslims (Eighth to Fourteenth Century/ (New Delhi:

Manohar Publishers, 1998I.
58. See Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. vol IV, part 1: Inscriptions of the
Kalachuri-Chedi Era, no. 30, plate XX111, pp. 137-4*- My thanks to Blake T.
Wentworth for the translation:
His younger brother, absorbed in devotion to his lotus feet, is the eminent
King PulakeSin, Sustainer of the Peoples of the Earth. A devotee of
Maheivara, a sovereign, his ascendency increases with each passing day
Ever since childhood, he has borne every kind of virtue Rajalaksmi, the
goddess of royal fortune, has chosen to embrace his chest entirely of her
own will. With the spread of his pure white tame, he frees the entire earth
from stain. The eminent King Vallabha, who is enamored of heroism, gra­
ciously conterred on him four more titles—"Mainstay of the South,"
"Gem of the Calukya Lineage," “Earth's Beloved,’’ and "Evictor of Those
Who Do Not Withdraw”—when the Taiika forces were defeated. On the
battle front, headless bodies formed dancing circles, moving to the
piercing beat of war drums that pounded incessantly, their delight seem­
ingly caused by one thought; "Today at last, the debt of one lifetime that
we owe to our lord has been cleared with this payment of our own heads!”
The Tdiikas had torn apart such renowned kings as the Saindhava, Kac
chella, Saurastra, Cavotaka, Maurya, and Gurjara with their piercing,
brightly gleaming swords. Hurling arrows, lances, and clubs, they were
eager to enter the South and conquer. From the outset, they came to sub-
jugate the realm of Navasanka The tough, noisy hooves of their steeds
kicked up the ground to shroud the earth with dust in all directions.
Their bodies were hideous, their armor reddened with torrents of blood
from innards that had hurst out from the heavy bellies of gieat warriors
who had rushed them wildly and were mangled by the blades of their
spears. The best among hosts of kings had not defeated them before. Any
number of champions' bodies were armored with hair that bristled in the
fury of their battle spirit. These were men who attacked the Tankas head
on, giving their own heads in exchange for the extraordinary gifts and
honors they accepted from their lord They bit their pursed lips cruelly
with the tips of their teeth, their turbans and honed swords reddened by
a thick veil of blood that had poured from wounds in the trunks and
sloping cheeks of enemy elephants, who had only the nooks and crannies
of countless battlefields for a stable. Though they were mighty warriors,
who sliced enemy necks like lotus stalks with a hail of arrows tipped
with forged crescent blades, launched in a swift barrage to destroy their
foes, they did not establish their dominance
59. See S. Qudratullah Fatimi, “The Twin Ports of Daybul: A Study in the Early
Maritime History of Sind," in Sind through the Centuries (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 1981I, pp. 97-105; and F. A. Khan, "Debal and Mansura: The
Historical Cities of the Early Islamic Period,” Pakistan lournal of History
and Culture vol. 11, no. 1 |Jan. 1981), pp. 103-122.
60. Futuh al Bulddn, p. 438.
61. Ibid., 438.
62. Abu'l Hasan Ah bin Husayn Mas udi, Murui al-Dhahab wa-Maddin ai-
lawahir. vol. r, (Beirut: Daar al-Kutub ai-'llmiyya, 1985I, p. 99.
I9S NOTES TO PAGES 45-50

63. See C. E. Bosworth, "Rulers of Makran and Qusdar in the Early Islamic Pe­
riod,” Stadia Iramca, vol. 23, pp. 199-209; and M. S. Khan, "The Five Arab
States in South Asia," Hamdard Islamicus vol. 1$, no. 2I1992), pp. 5-28.
64. For a detailed analysis of early Isma'ili history in Sind, see Derryl N. Ma­
clean. Religion and Society in Arab Sind (Leiden: E. |. Brill, 1989b
2. A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY
1. Genre has lung determined the horizon of interpretation in South Asian his­
toriography. The classification of texts, based on both internal and external
evidence, orients the reader to its style, approach, audience, and influence.
Under the colonial gaze, the genres were imbued with power as well—both
in the sense that particular genres were collected, archived, and published,
and in the sense that particular genres were deemed "historical." A wider
discussion of British. German, French, and Dutch collections remains nec­
essary for a full conversation. It is to the credit of Narayana Rao, David
Shulman, and Saniay Subrahmanyan! that they tackled the second aspect
in their now-classic Textures of Time. My effort here is in conversation
with their work. Sec V. N. Rao, David Shulman, and Saniay Subrahmanyam,
7extures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600-1800 IDelhi: Per­
manent Black, aooi |.
2. Contrast this with the way in which contemporary scholarship reads as "cos­
mopolitan” the eleventh-century scholar and poet Bilhana, who was born m
Kashmir and moved more than a thousand miles south to the Chalukya
court in Kalyani. See Whitney Cox, "Saffron in the Rasam," South Asian
Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, edited by Yigal
Bronncr, Whitney Cox, and Lawrence McCrea. (Ann Arbor, Ml: Association
of Asian Studies, 2011I, pp. 177-201.
3. By the late tenth century, the city states of Multan, Uch, and Mansura were
governed by Oman-based Ismai'h rulers who looked toward the Fatimid ca­
liphate in Egypt. This world faced its fiercest challenge from the north—from
those seeking favor of the caliph in Baghdad. See Samuel M. Stern, "Isma'ili
Propaganda and Fatimid Rule in Sind," Islamic Culture 23 (1949b pp. 298-
307; and C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1963b and Peter Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Mili­
tary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
4. Such as the two travel accounts by Buddhist monks Faxian (active ca. 399-
417) and Xuanzang (602-664I, who provide firsthand and detailed reports of
cities, ports, and routes in India Sec Samuel Beal, Travels of Fah-Hian and
Sung Yun: Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India /400 A.D. and 51S A.D)
(London: Triibner and Co., 1869b
5. R. B. Whitehead, "Multan: The House of Gold," The Numismatic Chronicle
and lournal of the Royal Numismatic Society vol. 17, no. 65 (1937b pp. 60-
72; and Yohanan Friedmann, "The Temple of Multan: A Note on Early
Muslim Attitudes to Idolatry," Israel Oriental Studies I1972I, pp. 176-182.
6. See C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and
Eastern Iran 994-1040 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1963),
 NOTES TO PAGES $2-54 199

7. Juzjani, Minhaj Siraj, Tabaqal-i Ndsiri, ed. Abd Hayy Habibi (Quetta: Silsilah-
1 Asar-i Habibi. 1949, pp. 74J-744-
8. I am using the more generic ''Delhi" though the city has had several itera­
tions. What Juzjani calls Hazrat-i Dilli |Exalted Delhi) or Uch as Hazrat-e
Uch is taken to mean "capital city."
The clearest articulation of the stage of transition is outlined in Sunil
Kumar, "Courts, Capitals and Kingship: Delhi and Its Sultans in the Thir­
teenth and Fourteenth Centuries CE," in Court Cultures in the Muslim
World: Seventh to the Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Albrecht Fuess and Jan-Peter
Hartung (London: Routledge, ion), pp. 123-148.
Luther Obrock brought to my attention the Palam Baoli inscription (dated
1276), which situates itself between Uch (Sanskrit llccapuri) and Delhi |Yo-
gi'nipuu). Personal communication and unpublished draft "Reading the
Palam Baoli Inscription m the Mercantile Sultanate: Sanskrit in Circulation
in North India."
9. A telling account of this is in JuzjAni's description of his first meeting with
Iltutmish's army after their conquest of Uch in 1228. JUzjani met the com­
mander, Tajuddin Sanjr Kazlak Khan, Juzjani found him surrounded by sol­
diers and a steward with a severe disposition but a dignified look |ba nianzar
muhih o surat-e ba azmat). On seeing luziini, Kazlak Khan rose from his
seat, took Juzjani's hand, and led him to be seated at his own perch. After
honoring juzjani, Kazlak Khan presented a red apple to him, saying, "Mau-
lana, take this such that it makes a good omen, and may God's mercy shine
on us." There is undoubtedly a symbolic heft to the gift of the red apple—-a
gesture both to the apple groves of Ghazni and to the orchards planned for
Delhi—being presented to Juzjani in the alluvial plains of Sind. See Juzjani,
Tabaqdl-i Ndsirl. ed. Abd Hayy Habibi (Quetta: Silsilah-i Asar-i Habibi,
1949). P- 282.
10 See Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: San­
skrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India tBerkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2006), pp, 12-19.
11. Atam refers broadly to the noncthnically Arab world and more closely the
Persian-speaking world, while Hind is the earlier designation for Hindustan
or India. I do have concerns about hyphenated linkages between ethnicity
and geography (Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Greco-Roman, etc.) which
emerge in the nineteenth century An early example is in James B. Fraser's
The Persian Adventurer (1854), which offers this line set in Chandni Chowk
in Delhi: "I heard a voice at the door, inquiring in the Indo-Persian language
for Ismael Khan Bahadoor." lames B. Fraser, The Persian Adventurer (London:
Henry Colburn and Richard Betley, 1830I, p. 1911 and Charles E Trevelyan,
Charles E., James Prinsep, John Tytler, Alexander Duff, Henry Thoby
Prinscp, The Application of lhe Roman Alphabet to All the Oriental Lan­
guages (Calcutta: Serampore Press, 1834). Hence, I remain skeptical about
"Indo-Persian" as a contemporary category for scholarship—though colleagues
in literary studies have adopted it as a designation for Persian/Persianate in the
Indian peninsula. However, from the historian's perspective, and for the
200 NOTES TO PAGES S S—59

thirteenth century, to designate the space within which literary production

in Persian is occurring, I believe we should apply cither the Ajam-o-Hind or
simply the Persianate. " Ajam-o-Hind" being a geographic designation is pref­
erable but has limited or no purchase in secondary literature. Tile late Shahab
Ahmed makes a case for "Balkans-to-Bengal" and also notes that "Per­
sianate" detracts from the centrality of Arabic or Sanskrit discursive tradi­
tions as well as giving false witness to Iranian nationalism of more con­
temporary times. I am persuaded by the argument, but this conversation has
lust begun. For now, we should remember that the Persian Cosmopolis was
always intimately linked to Arabic and Sanskrit. In other words, literary cul­
tures linked to political worlds always overlapped their attendant geogra­
phies Finally, see Shahab Ahmed, What is Islaml The Importance of Being
Islamic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1016). pp. 8,-8$.
i a. Such as Firdawsi's Shahnama. composed at Ghazna, or the office of the nudlk
shu'ara. See Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam: India 1200-
1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004I, pp. 116-117.
13- Ibid., pp. 141-143,
14. Andrew C. S. Peacock, Medieval Islamic Historiography and Political Le­
gitimacy (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 76.
t>. Ibid., p. 84.
t6. Ibid., pp. too-roa.
17. Fie provides his full genealogy: "Speaking is the weakest of supplicants and
the lowest of servants the elderly Muhammad son of Mansur son of Sa’id son
of Abi l-Farah son of Jalil son of Ahmad son of Abi Nasr son of Khalaf son of
Ahmad son of Shu'ayb son of Talha son of Abdallah son of Abd Rahman Abi
Bakr Siddiq at-Taymi Qurashi |may God bless himl, entitled Mubarakshah
colloquially known as Fakhr-e Mudabbir." See Fakhr-i Mudabbir, Ta'rikh-i
Fakhru’d Din Mubdrakshah. cd. E. Denison Ross ILondon: Royal Asiatic So­
ciety, 1927I, pp. 61-63.
18. Nazir Ahmed, "The Earliest Persian Work Completed in Gujarat,” in The
Growth of Indo-Persian Literature in Guiarat, ed. M. H. Siddiqi (Baroda. M. S.
University of Baroda Press, 1983], pp. 1-10.
19. See Sadiduddin Muhammad Awfi, Lubabul albab. ed. Sa'id Nafisi (Tehran:
Chap-i Ittihad, 1914I, p. 19, p. 2.
10. Ibid., p. 19.
11. Tabaqati Nasiri. p. 135,
12. In the biographies, Juzianis signaling ol nobility, the core of justice, and fe­
alty arc key to interpreting his work. His history highlighted the role of com­
manders and governors in maintaining the kings in Delhi. For example, in
his profile of the second ruler ol Uch, Saifuddin Aybek Achh, luzjani noted
that after lltutmish died, he successfully defended the state against other
claimants, such as Malik Safluddin Hussain Karlugh. This was a critical and
important victory because it signaled that the late sovereign's key governors
had remained loyal to him. Sec Tabaqdl 1 Ndsiri. p. 583. On the relationship
between governor and rulers, sec Ali Anooshahr, "On the Imperial Discourse
of the Delhi Sultanate and Early Mughal India," lournal of Persianate Studies
7, no. 2 I2014), P- 161.
 NOTES TO PAGES 59-65 201

23. Tabaqdt-i Ndsiri, p, 9,

24. Ibid., p. 8.
25. Ibid., p. io.
26. Ibid., p. 278.
27. Ibid., p. 15.
28. However, two recent works by Nilanjan Sarkar and Blain Auer have opened
critical space for thinking about Delhi sultanate histories in affective and
literary ways Sec Nilaman Sarkar, Forbidden Privileges and History-Writing
in Medieval India," The Medieval History lournal 16:21 (2013), pp. 21-62, and
Blain H. Auer, Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam: History. Religion
and Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate (London: 1. B. Tauns, 2012).
29. Fathnama-i Sind, edited by Nabi Baksh Khan Baloch (Lahore: Izhar Sons,
'9831, P- 7-
30. Ibid., p. 14.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., p. 17.
33. The classic overview of early Arabic narratives remains Tarif Khalidi, Ar
abic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994I. More specifically on the futtih, see Jens Scheiner,
"Writing the History of Futiih The Futiih Works by Al-Azdi, ibn A’tham,
and al-Waqidf," in The Linaments of Islam: Studies in Honor of Fred
McGraw Donner [Leiden Brill, 2012), pp. 151-177.
34. Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins The Beginnings of Islamic
Historical Writing (Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, 1998I, p. 181.
3$. See Fred Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1981).
36. As in Miguel Cervantes's twin openings in Don Quixote, which claims to
be a translation from an Arab text by an unreliable narrator or translator,
the elaborate genealogies of translation make the text unstable, allowing
Cervantes to claim alternative authoritative voices. Within Persian histori­
ography, another common trope is for the author to claim that the text did
not originate with him but was placed at his pen via divine intercession—a
dream, or more commonly an encounter with the prophet Khizr. Firdawsi,
Nizami, and luzjani all invoke this trope. See P. Franke, Regegnung nut
Khidt: Quellenstudien rum Imagindren im Tradilionellen Islam (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000).
37. Baladhuri locales the campaigns to Hind and Sind in the early phases of Is­
lamic conquests, during the caliphate of Umar I634-644 CE). He reports on
naval expeditions that were launched toward Thana (in Maharashtra) in 636
CE, to Broach (in Gujarati, and to Daybul (in Sind). However, these early cam­
paigns are introduced with a caution: "When they return to Umar, he pro­
claims: Oh brother of Thaq'aif, you sent ants to aloeswood. If they had been
lost, I swear I would have exacted the same number of men from your people
Iqauml."
Aloeswood is the aromatic resin-filled wood of the Aquillaria agallocha
tree, which is native to India and Southeast Asia. It plays an important role
in various social and public rituals in Gulf Arab society to this day. The
202 NOTES TO PAGES 6$-72

invocation of a coveted object (the scent of iid was part of beauty regimcsl
and danger (the relief at not having lost men| sets the theme for Baladhuri’s
presentation of this frontier. S. Anya King, "The Importance of Imported
Aromatics in Arabic Culture: Illustrations from Pre-lslamic and Early Is­
lamic Poetry/' lournal of Near Eastern Studies vol. 67. no. 3 (July 2008),
pp. 175-189.
38. Fathnama. p. to.
59. Baladhuri. Futuh al-Buldan (Beirut: Maktaba al-Hilal, 1988,, p. 425.
40. Fathnama, p. 25.
41. Ibid., p. 35. Emphasis added
42. Ibid., p. 185.
43. C. E. Bosworth. The History of Beyhaqi. vol. 1 (Boston, MA: Ilex Founda­
tion, 2011I, p. 178.
44. Ibid., p. 183.
45. Ibid, p. 179.
46. Ibid, p. 183.
47. Henry Cousens, The Architectural Antiquities of Western India (London:
The India Society, 1926I, p. 2.
48. Ibid, p. 82.
49. Ibid, p. 13.
50. The earliest excavations in Sind were earned out in 1854 by A. F. Bcllasis
and C. M. Richardson, who also cited Chachnama in their report, though
they reported it as an original Arabic text. See A. F. Bcllasis, "An Account of
the Ancient and Ruined City of Brahminabad. in Sind," The lournal of the
Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society vol. $, no. 2011857I, p. 416-
51. Cousens, Antiquities of Sind, p. 19.
52. Ibid, p. 30.
53 1 thank Andrew Ollett for bringing this text to my attention and for sharing
his unpublished paper "The SaipdeAarasaka of Abd ur-Rahman" with me.
54. SamdeSarasaka of Abdala Rahamana, edited by H. C. Bhayani (Ahmedabad:
Prakrit Text Society, 1999I, P >4- This is easily read as praise in the rhythm
and structure evoked from the Qur'an's description of God in surah Haii:
"Hast thou not seen that unto Allah paycth adoration whosoever is in the
heavens and whosoever is in the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the
stars, and the hills, and the trees, and the beasts, and many of mankind,
while there are many unto whom the doom is justly due. He whom Allah
scorneth, there is none to give him honour. Lol Allah doeth what He will."
However, in a similar vein surah Nahl (16:49) reads, "And unto Allah ma-
keth prostration whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth
of living creatures, and the angels (also) and they are not proud." Also along
these lines is surah Fussilat 141:37): "And of His portents are the night and
the day and die sun and the moon. Do not prostrate to the sun or the moon;
but prostrate to Allah Who created them, if it is in truth Him Whom ye wor­
ship." See The Glorious Qur'an, trans. Muhammad M. Pickthall (New
York: Muslim World League, 1977), p. 340.
55. Samdesarasaka of Abdala Rahamana. ed. H C. Bhayani |Ahmcdabad:
Prakrit Text Society, 1999I, P- 16-17-
 NOTES TO PACES 72-75 2°5

$6. Ibid., p. 19. The distance unit, yotana, is five to eight miles.
57- Satish S. Misra, Muslim Communities in Gujarat iBaroda: University of
Baroda Press, 1964), p. 7. For more on the continuation of these communi­
ties after the thirteenth century, the best account is in Samira Sheikh,
Forging u Region Sultans. Traders and Pilgrims in Gujarat. 1100-1500
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010).
58. See V. A. lanaki, Gujarat as the Arabs Knew It <A Study in Historical Geog­
raphy) IBaroda: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Press, 1969b
S9- Sec the discussion in Travis Zadeh, Mopping Frontiers across Medieval
Islam: Geography. Translation and the Abbasid Empire ILondon: I. B. Tauns,
2011), pp. 22-2S. A useful correction to dominant historiographic readings
of Arab geographers is in I T. Olsson. "Tile World in Arab Eyes: A Reassess­
ment of the Climes in Medieval Islamic Scholarship," Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies 77, 5 (Oct. 2014), pp, 487-508.
60. Ibn Khurradadhbih noted that he relied on the report of an anonymous em­
issary of Yahya bin Khalid Barmaki id, 80s), who was sent to Hind to inves­
tigate religion in 800 CE. Though the report itself is not extant, its presence
is heavily felt in the Arab historiographic tradition centuries after it was
written. One can surmise that the consistent invocation of the report in sub­
sequent writings on India is due to the emphasis on chains of transmission
in Arab historical writings Sec Bruce B Lawrence, Shahrdstdnt on the In­
dian Religions |The Hague. Mouton, 1976!, p. at. In Ibn Khurradadhbih, we
see the rules of the geographical genre: the accounts arc framed in climes
and regions, and then they list each city or settlement, with a description of
its main trade and its people. In addition to this nodal alignment of space,
the geographies gave a lot more space to ethnographic descriptions of inhab­
itants and less space to the political conditions. There is no mention in Ibn
Khurradadhbih of the political climes in Hind. He does not mention that a
key polity was estabhshed by the Saffand brothers Ya'qub and Amr bin Layth,
who threatened Baghdad itself in the 870s and were given a grant by the
Ahbasid caliphs over Fars and Sind. These Saffarids took over many cities that
Ibn Khurradadhbih catalogs, such as Ghazna, Qusdar, Kikan, Qandabil, and
even Multan, holding them until 900 CE, See C, E. Bosworth, "Rulers of
Makran and Qusdar in the Early Islamic Period,” in Studio Iranica vol. 25
I1994), pp, 199-209; and M. S. Khan, "The Five Arab States in South Asia,"
Hamdard Islamicus vol. 15, no. 2I1992), pp 1-28.
Similarly, though Ibn Khurradadhbih catalogs the religions of Hind, he
does not mention the rebels and anti- Abbasid missionaries who populated
Sind. For Hind and Sind, there is also a special emphasis on capturing de­
scriptions of wonders and marvels. It is notable that in rhe prodigious schol­
arship on Ibn Khurradadhbih (and on the later geographers), there is little
thought given to how space on the Indic frontier is imagined and presented
or on what the temporal and empirical lags say about the political and cul­
tural constructions in 'Abbasid textual traditions. See, for instance, Zayde
Antrim, Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World
|New York: Oxford University Press, 2012b and fames E. Montgomery, "Ser­
endipity, Resistance, and Multivalency: Ibn Khurradadhbih and His Kitab
204 NOTES TO PAGES 73-80

Masalik wa-l-mamalik," in Philip F. Kennedy, cd. On Fiction and Adab

Medieval Arabic Literature (Weisbadcn: Harrossowitz Verlag, aoosl, pp.
177-233- .
6r. Abu'l Qasim Ubayd Allah bin Abd Allah lbn Khurradadhbih. Kitdb al
Masdlik wa-l-Mamdlik ed. M.). de Cocje. |Leiden: E.), Brill, 1967), p. 64
62. Ibid., p. 67.
63. Ibid.
64. Consider Inden's reading of Balhara and Rashtrakuta polity as an argument
against colonial depictions of medieval India as a dark and desolate political
space In Ronald B Inden, Imagining India (Bloomington: Indiana Univer­
sity Press, 1990I, pp 253-63.
65. Abu Hasan Ali bin Husayn Masudi, Murhi Dbahab wa-Maadin lawdhtr
(Beirut: Dar Kutub 'Ilmiyya, 1985), vol. 1, p. 99
66. Ibid., p. 99.
67. See Z. A. Desai, "Arabic Inscriptions of the Raiput period from Gujarat,"
Epigraphica Indica: Arabic and Persian Supplement. 1961, pp 1-24: and D. C.
Sircar. "Rashtrakuta Charters from Chinchani,” Epigraphia Indica. vol. 32.
pp. 56-37.
68. Sadiduddin Muhammad Awfi, lawami Hikayat wa Lawamt Ravayat. ed.
Muhammad Muin, vol. a ITehran. Ibn Sina Press, 1961I, p 9
69. Ibid., p. 10.
70. Zakariya ibn Muliammad Qazwini. Asar al Bilad wa Akhbar al- Ibdd
ITehran: Mu'assasah-i 'llmi Andishah-i lavan, 1087I, p. 85.
71. Peter Hardy, "Is the Chach Nama Intelligible to the Historian as Political
Theory!" in Sind through the Centuries, cd. Hamida Khuhro (Karachi: Ox­
ford University Press, 1981I, pp. tti-117.
72. See Cynthia Talbot, Precolonial India in Practice: Society. Region, and Iden­
tity in Medieval Andhra (New York, Oxford University Press, 2001I, p. 43;
and Yasmin Saikia, In the Meadows of Gold: Telling Tales of the Swargudem
al the Crossroads of Assam IGuwahati: Spectrum Publications, 1997), p. 173-
3, DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?
1. Personal communication, author notes, March 2011 As I listened to Murad
Sahib, I immediately thought that Awfi’s biographical dictionary of Persian
poets, Lubabul Albab, mentions immortality for a writer whose pen can find
the Ab e Hayat.
a. It is not enough for me to understand that Murad Sahib is an individual based
m a marketplace whose services are crucial to the functioning of the com­
munity in Uch His ability to draft petitions, letters, wills, and testimo­
nies and his social standing arc intricately linked in a political economy.
However, when 1 step away from that framework and wish to understand
the relationship between Murad Sahib and his community in the context of
the history of Uch, I must turn toward this dialogue between texts and
space. The question of "understanding" in the sense evoked by Gadamcr is
crucial to ray approach here—the material, the textual, the translated tex­
tual, and the oral. I11 Gadamcr's view, understanding requires a return to
the text for "what [the author) would have wanted to say to me if 1 had been
 NOTES TO PAGES 81-87 205

his original interlocutor.’’ Sec Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer,

eds., Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Cadamer Derrida Encounter
lAlbany: State University of New York Press, 1989I, p. 35.
3. Fathnama, p. 12.
4. Ibid., p. 13.
5. Ibid., presumably referring to Rg, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva.
6. Ibid., p, 29.
7. Precisely as the astrologer uses the four quadrants of the sky to predict the
rule of Dahar, so does Hajjaj bin Yusuf later in the text. Chachnama recounts
that Hajjai bin Yusuf had just received word that his campaign to conquer
Sind had failed and that his commander Budail had died in combat. At that
point another commander, Umar bin Abdallah, sends a message asking that
the campaign in Hind be given to him, but Haiiai bin Yusuf replies, " You are
full of greed 1 have asked the astrologers |rnunci;urminl to calculate, and I
have myself drawn lots from the Book (qur'irt andakhlah), and the polity
(vifayritl of Hind will be conquered at the hands of Amir Tmaduddin Mu­
hammad bin Qasim Thaqafi,” (Fathnama, p. 67k
Divination via the drawing of lots and geomancy are integral to advice
literature. Its presence in Chachnama helps orient the reader to its genre.
For a general survey on divination in medieval Islam, sec Toufic Fahd, La
Divination Arahe. Etudes Religieuses, Sociologiques et Folkloriques sur le
Milieu Natif de l'lslam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966)1 and Emilie Savage-Smith
and Marion B. Smith. Islamic Geomancy and a Thirteenth-Century DM-
natory Device |Malibu, CA: Undcna Publications, 1980). As with Dahar, for
Haiiai there is a matter of succession after the death of Budail, and this matter
is approached by locating divine will.
8. Fathnama. p. 39. The word used for leaders (imaman) is critical because al­
though it is normally reserved for spiritual leaders—for both Shi'a and Sunni
Muslims—here it applies to poets, writers, and Brahmins.
9 Ibid., p. 39,
10. Ibid., p. 40.
11. For example, the body is explicitly made social: "Knowing this, that teeth,
claws and men, removed from their place, appear not to advantage, a prudent
man should not quit his own station," (Ludwik Sternbach, "Capakya's Aph­
orisms in the HitopadeSa (1|,“ lournal of the American Oriental Society vol.
76, no. 2 (Apr,-Jun. 1956!, p 124).
12. Fathnama. p. 40.
13. Ibid., p. 42.
14. In various parts of Chachnama, we have some indications of the material
reality of these letters. For example, during the initial phase of Qasim's
campaign, a letter arrived from the capital every day and then every three
days, and finally one letter took nine days to reach the capital (Dar al-
Khilafah. which refers to Baghdadi. Also, the text indicates that the letters
between Dahar and Qasim were translated by a scribe (munsfrf),
15. Fathnama. p. 93.
16. Ibid., p. 93.
17 Ibid., p. 94-
206 NOTES TO PAGES 88-94

18. Ibid., p. 9S.

19. Ibid., p. 14'
jo. Ibid., p. 85.
21. Ibid., p. 88.
22. Hajfai is often harsh in his speech to Qasim, insisting on proving that Qasim
is merely a child who is ever in the danger of being taken advantage of. For
example: "I am repulsed by you. Your governance is strange to me. You seem
to really want to grant amnesty. Before being tested, the enemy who appeals
tor peace or declares intention to fight cannot be treated equally,- the good
and the bad do not deserve similar treatment. By treating them similarly,
you only prove your lack of intelligence, and the enemy will take advantage
of that. I swear on my head and my life that God has given you the ability to
think, but you do not utilize it, and your entire attention is geared toward
giving everyone amnesty without due consideration" [Fathnama. p. 114I
23. See I. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as Described by Ktesias the Kindlon
ILondon: Trubner and Co,, 18821; and |. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as De­
scribed by Megasthenes and Arrian (London: TrUbner and Co., 1877I.
24. For an excellent overview, see Rudolf Wittkower, "Marvels of the East: A
Study in the History of Monsters," lournal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes 3 (1942I, pp. 139-197. The logical extension of India as a site of im­
mense wealth and immense wisdom is the emergence, in medieval accounts,
of descriptions which place Paradise "in or beyond" India, "in the desert,
impassable for people, in the oriental zone."Sec Natalie Lozovsky, The Earth
Is Our Book: Geographical Knowledge tn the Latin Wear ca. 400-1000
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, aooo), p. 39. Such linkages pros­
pered into other supernatural geographies, as in the thirteenth-century long
poem L’lmage du Monde or the Hereford Mappa Mundi, as well as tn the
development of the rich mytliography of Prester |ohn.
25. Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf
Manuscript (Cambridge: D, S. Brewer, 1995I, p. 229-
26. The Pahlavi origins of the text, and its translation into Syriac and then Ar­
abic before being disseminated as Secretum Secretorum, is a topic with a
plethora of available scholarship. Most prominent is Mario Grignaschi's "La
Siydsiu-l-Ammiyya et I'lnflucncc Iranicnnc sur la Pcnsee Politique Is-
lamiquc," in Acta Iranica 6, Dcuxieme Serie, Monumcntum H. S. Nyberg.
III. Tehran-Liege: Bibliothequc Pahlavi |i97sl. pp. 33-287. For an overview, sec
Regula Forster, Das Gcheirnms der Gehctmnisse: Die Arabischen und
Deutschen Fassungen des Pseudo-Aristoteliscben Sirr al-Asrar, Secrctum
Sccretonim |Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006I. A recent examination by Miklds
Maroth lays out some of the themes present tn the Letter, which range from a
general introduction to moral and political philosophy, with an emphasis on
questions of governance (such as the treatment of Persian prisoners and taxa­
tion!. See Miklds Mardth, The Correspondence between Aristotle and Alex­
ander the Great: An Anonymous Greek Novel in Letters in Arabic Tiansla-
lion IPiliscsaba: The Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, 2006).
27. Sec Paul Wcinticld, "The Islamic Alexander: A Religious and Political Theme
in Arabic and Persian Literature," Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University,
 NOTES TO PAGES 94-96 107

2008; and Faustina Douflkar-Aerts, Alexander Magnus Arabicus: Survey of

the A lexander Tradition through Seven Centuries: From Pseudo- Callisthenes
to Suri (Paris-Leuven: Pecters, 2010).
18. See Samuel Miklos Stern, "The Arabic Translations of the Pscudo-
Asistotelian Treatise De Mundo," Le Muston. vol. 77, 1964, pp. 187-204.
29. See Abu Ja’farTabari, Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, vol. I (Misr: Dar al-
Ma’arif, 1960I. pp. 570-75; or Moshe Perlmann, The History of al-Tabari:
The Ancient Kingdoms |Albany: State University of New York Press,
1987I, pp. 87-95-
50. See Minoo Southgate, lskandarnamah: A Persian Medieval Alexander-
Romance |New York: Columbia University Press, 1978I.
31. See J. S. Meisami, "The Past in Service of the Present: Two Views of History
in Medieval Persia," Poetics Today 14:2 11993), PP 247-275.
32. See Ghulam Husayn Baygdili, Chihrah-i Iskandar dar Shahnamai Firdawsi
o Iskandarnama-i Nizami (Tehran: Mowalif ba Hamkari Intasharat
Afr’enish, 1990), p. 30.
33. An overview of the contours of scholarship is available in Louise Marlow,
"Advice and Advice Literature," Encyclopaedia of Islam, cd. Gudrun
Kramer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Sec specifically,
|. S. Mcisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999I1 and Dimitri Gutas, Creek
Thought. Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Roman Translation Movement in
Baghdad and Early Abbasld Society. znd-ath/Sth-ioth Century ILondon:
Routledge, 1999). Most recently, the work of Neguin Yavari is promising to
reopen the debate in fruitful ways. Sec Neguin Yavari, Advice for the
Sultan: Prophetic Voices and Secular Politics in Medieval Islam (London:
Hurst and Company, 2014). The Fdrstenspiegel. or "Mirror for Princes,"
genre in the Indian context suffers from collapsing the distinction between
the adab and akhlaq Imoral virtues), as Muzaffar Alam has noted. See Mu­
zaffar Alam. “Akhlaqi Norms and Mughal Governance," in The Making of
lndo-Persian Culture: Indian and French Studies, ed. Muzaffar Alam et al.
(New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2000), pp. 67-95.
34. Hence in the excellent recent works on Barani by Raziuddin Aquil, Nilanian
Sarkat, and Vasileios Syros, the question of how Barani's text converses with
earlier texts and how the earlier texts may be visible or available to the audi­
ence is not addressed. Sec Raziuddin Aquil, "On Islam and Kuir in the Delhi
Sultanate: Towards a Re interpretation of Ziya' al-Din Baram’s Fatawai la
handari," Rethinking a Millennium: Perspectives on Indian History from
the Eighth to Eighteenth Century: Essays for Harbans Mukhia. ed. Rajat
Data (Delhi: Aakar Books, 2008), pp. 168-198; Nilanian Sarkar, "The Voice
of Mahmud': The Hero in Ziya Barani's Patdwd-t fahdnddri," Medieval
History lournal 9 |aoo6|, pp. 327-356; and Vasilcios Syros, "Indian Emergen­
cies: Barani's Fatdwd-i fahdnddri, the Diseases of the Body Politic, and Ma­
chiavelli's accidentl." Philosophy East and West 62.4 (2012), pp. 545-573-
35. Though references to it and excerpts from it circulated widely in many San­
skrit commentaries and critiques across medieval India, there was no full
text for the Arthasastra until the twentieth century. In 1904 in Mysore, a
208 NOTBS TO PAGES 96-IO3

pandit gave Dr. R. Shamasastry the full text of Arthasastra. written on palm
leaves in the Grantha script. Shamasastry published the text in 1909, and an
English translation followed tn 191$. It was then that the text entered philo­
logical inquiry As well, the process of inquiry that established the text as
''native'' political theory and the establishment of its putative author
Canakya as an "Indian" political philosopher speaking to a Brahminical
Indian king. Arthasastra contains is books, comprising 150 chapters, with
roughly 6,000 verses in total. The first five hooks deal with the training of
the king and his daily routines, administrators, laws, crime, taxation, sala­
ries, etc. In other words, the hooks deal with the domestic affairs of the
bureaucracy. Books seven through thirteen focus on foreign policy, diplo­
macy, war, conquest, and governance over the conquered. The last books
deal with occult and philosophic practices. See L. N. Rangaraian, The Ar­
thashaslra (Delhi: Penguin Books, 1991!, pp. 114-111.
16. Prathama Bancrice's reading of Arthasastra as a colonial text which is in­
voked as political theory is apt and is important if we are to understand the
afterlife of this text. See Prathama Banerjee, "Chanakya/Kautilya: History,
Philosophy. Theater and the Twentieth-Century Political," History of the
Present, vol. 1, no. r (spring 2012I, pp. 24-51.
57. Rangaraian, The Arthashaslra, pp. 2, to, 47.
j8. Tlie king, Arthasastra states, is from noble birth, has intellect, is willing to
learn, is brave and resourceful, is eloquent and bold, is well trained in arts
and governance, is sweet in speech, and is without passion, anger, greed, and
fickleness. Most importantly, the king should follow the advice of his coun­
selor. The advisor should be of the highest rank, a native of the land, trained
in all arts and logics, and able to provide governance guidance 10 the king.
"Only a king who is wise, disciplined, devoted to a just governing of the sub­
lets and ever conscious of the welfare of all beings will enjoy the earth
unopposed." See Rangaraian, The Arthashaslra, p. 14}.
19 Yigal Bronner, “Review of The Bawd's Counsel: Being an Eighth-Century
Verse Novel in Sanskrit by Ddmodaragupla, ed. and transl., Csaha Dczsfi and
Dominic Goodall," Indo-lranian lournal 58, no. 1 I2015I, pp. 79-86,
40. A. Venkatasubbiah, "Pancatantra Studies," Annuls of the Bhandarkar Ori­
ental Research Institute, vol. 15, no. 1/2 I1913-34I. PP- J9-66.
41. See Patrick Olivclle, I'ancatantra: The Book of India's Folk Wisdom (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 120-122.
42. Pathname, p. 45.
4. A DEMON WITH KUBY BYES
1 For an overview of conversion accounts, sec Simon Digby, "Anecdotes of a
Provincial Sufi of the Delhi Sultanate, Khwaja Gurgof Kara," Iran }211994I,
pp. 99-109. Digby argues that narratives conversion are split in two broad
frameworks: the individual who converts after a personal encounter with the
divine, and the civic community in a particular space (village, neighborhood,
etc.) that converts after witnessing a display of his miraculous powers
Ikaramdtl, often in contention with a rival. Contemporary histories of con­
version to Islam focus on specific regions. They take textual data and aug-
 NOTES TO PAGES IO3-1I2 109

mcnt it with material and epigraphic data to arrive at an understanding ol

conversion of regions to Islam. The work of Richard M. Eaton on Bengal and
Deccan is foundational for a host of scholarship. See Richard M. Eaton, The
Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1104-1760 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993I. An excellent recent example is Ramya Sreenivasan,
"Faith and Allegiance in the Mughal Era: Perspectives from Rajasthan," in
Vasudha Dalmta and Munis Faruqui, cds.. Religious Interactions in Mughal
India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014I, pp. 159-195.
1. I am drawing here on scholarship on Christian sacral sites in early Chris­
tianity, summarized in Ora Limor, "Conversion of Space," in Ira Katznclson
and Miri Rubin, cds„ Religious Conversion: History, Experience and Meaning
IBurlington, VT: Ashgatc, >014), pp. 5l-6l; and Oded Irshat, "The Christian
Appropriation of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century: The Case of the Bor­
deaux Pilgrim," lewish Quarterly Review vol. 99. no. 4 (fall 2009I, pp
465-486.
5. The incongruity of Hindu “graves" as public cremation grounds are not
available—speaks as much to the mcmorialization ethos of intercultural
pasts in the landscape as it does to the inherent impossibility of ritual sites
dedicated to an invisible minority population.
4. There arc, however, any number of iirs or mela (carnivals) that celebrate
Hindu saints. An important one is the annual "Channan Pir" mela. which
is held in the Cholistan desert outside Derawar Fort. The story of Channan
Pir, as narrated in Hadaqah al-Auliya. goes that Surkh Posh was traveling
neat the Derawar Fort, whose ruler was a Hindu raja. The raw had no progeny,
and he asked the Sufi to pray (or him. Surkh Posh prayed that a Muslim wall
allah (Regent of God) would be bom in Dcrawar Fort. The raja was incensed,
and when the child was bom, it was abandoned in the desert. Yet days later,
local Hindus found the child healthy, having been nourished by a deer. The
child grew up and became a pir (Sufi) venerated by both Hindus and Mus­
lims. His annual mela is said to attract all faiths and sects. Such stories of a
composite (or relaicdl past are very common at all of the Sufi shrines. See
Ghulam Sarvar Lahori, Hadiqah al-Auliyd: Pamdb ke Akdbir S&flyah ka
Muslanad Tazkirah (Lahore: Islamic Book Foundation, 1976), p. 66.
5. For two such arguments, see K. A. Nizami, Some Aspects of Religion and
Politics in India during the Thirteenth Cenluty | Bombay: Asia Publishing
House, 1961); and Derryl Maclean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989),
6. Fathnama, p. 50.
7. Ibid., p. 31,
8. Ibid., p. 3a.
9. Ibid.
to. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 55.
12. Baladhuri, Fultih Bulddn, p. 38a.
15. Istakhri, Kitab al-Masaik wa l-Mamalik. M. I. de Goeje, ed. |Lcidcn: E. |.
Brill, 1967), p. >74-
14. Biruni, Tahqiqmd li'l Hind (Beirut: 'Alam al-Kitab, 1983), p. 312.
210 NOTES TO PAGES 112-123

>5. For a fuller exposition of Hindu subjects in Mahmud’s court and army, see
Finbarr B. Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval
“Hindu-Muslim" Encounter (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2009I.
16- Fathnama, p. 173.
17. Ibid., p. 184.
18. Ibid., p. r8s-
19. A beautifully photographed recent travel diary by Annie Ali Khan illumi­
nates this landscape. See Annie Ali Khan, "A Hindu Pilgrimage in Pakistan,"
accessed January 2016, on Roads o) Kingdoms http://roadsandkingdoms.com
/2016/a-hindu-pilgrimage-in-pakistan.
20. Shaikh Khurdhid Hasan, "Origin of Chaukhandi Tombs," lournal of Paki­
stan Historical Society |April 1976I, pp 98-107.
21. As cited in Shaikh Khurshid Hasan, "Inscriptions from Chaukhandi Tombs,"
loumal of the Pakistan Historical Society (Oct.-Dec. 2011|, pp. 121-113.
22. For a nuanced look at the role of captured men and women who were trained
for elite roles, see Sunil Kumar, "Bandagl and Naukari: Studying transitions
in Political Culture and Service under the North Indian Sultanates, t3-r6th
centuries," in Francesca Orsini and Samira Sheikh, eds., After Timur Came
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014I, pp. 60-108.
23. This essay by Rizvi is an often-cited and highly influential study. It was first
published in 1977, revised and enlarged in 1991, and republished again in
2010. S. A. A. Rizvi, "Islamic Prosclytization: Seventh to Sixteenth Century,"
in Raziuddm Aquil, cd., Sufism and Society in Medieval India |New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 52-70.
24. Sec Derryl N. Maclean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind |Lciden: E. J. Brill,
1989I. My chief disagreement with Maclean is on his understanding of
Chachnamm I find the remainder of his study to be exemplary.
25. Fathnama, p. 101.
26. Ibid., p. 102.
27. Ibid., p. 180.
28. Ibid., pp. 25-27-
29. Ibid., p. 166.
jo. Ibid., p. 168.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., p. 181.
33. Baba Farid’s ascetic practice of suspension [chilla-e makhus) is also reflected
in sirsasana, part of the Hatha yoga and Vaishnavite yogic practices. See
lames Mallinson, The Khecarividyd of Adimitha (London: Routledge, 2007I.
For a depiction of the practice by a Sufi, see the illustrated manuscript of
Jami's (1604I held at Museo Lazaro C.aldiano, viewable at http://giKi.gl/aLtIDt
See also Khaliq Ahmed Nizami, The Life and Times of Shaikh Fand-u’d Din
Ganl-i Shakur (Aligarh: Aligarh University Press, 19$$). p. 89.
34. Farid is one of the four friends (char yaarl, along with other Chishti saints
Bahauddin Zakariya of Multan (1170-1267), Lal Shahbaz Qalandaiof Sehwan
(1177-1274). and Jalaluddin Bukhari of Uch (ca. 1192-1294I.
35. Illahdiyeh ibn Abd al-Rahim Chishti Usmani, as recorded in Siyar al-Aqtab
ILucknow, India: Naval Kishur, r88t|, pp. 167-69.
 NOTES TO PAGES I23-I31 211

36. Sec the two seminal papers by Digby on such encounters. The papers locate
the question of natration, tropes, and prestige in these anecdotes. Simon
Digby, 'Encounters with |ogis in Indian Sufi Hagiography" llecturc at the
Seminar on Aspects of Religion in South Asia, University of London, Jan
1970I; and "To Ride a Tiger or a Wall- Strategies of Prestige in Indian Sufi
Legend," in According to Tradition: Hagiograplncal Writing in India. Wi
nand Callewaen and Rupert Snell, eds. IWicsbadcn, Germany: Harrastiwitz
Verlag, 1994I, pp 99-129.
17 Baladhuri provides a genealogy of Jat or Zui. who are considered rebellious.
Baladhuri reports that they are a people captured m the conquest of Sind
and Khurusan and relocated to Iraq lalong with their water buffalo), where
they establish themselves as highway robbers and brigands.
38. Pathname. p. ar.
39. The marriage is only alluded to in letters between Dahar and his brother,
where the case for Dahar's marriage is made. "Even though Bai is our father's
daughter, she is, in fact, the daughter of lats, and they arc a rebellious and
criminal people (mukhahf o muirami, especially their women. If you study
reality, you will see that they cannot be trusted, and they ate far from being
honest and devout. Consider the saying about the Jats: 'Whoever catches the
foot of a goat can milk her, and whoever catches the arm of a |at woman can
mount her.’ Hence, due to her forcignness by birth |mtzuf airiabii, this mar­
riage would be valid. Still, I swear to you that I will not let any pollution
come between us, and 1 will do all matters to your liking," IFalhnama.
P 44l-
40. Ibid., p. 163.
5- THE HALF SMILE
i There are no female saints in more than twenty biographies in Masood Hasan
Shahah’s study Khita Pak-e Uch (Bahawalpur: Urdu Academy, 1968!.
2. An example of such a dismissal is in N. A Baloch, “End of Imad-ud-din Mu­
hammad ibn Qasim, the Arab Conqueror of Sind," Islamic Culture vol.
19 no. 111945), pp. 54-66.
3. Such readings are not restricted to historians observing primary texts in the
tari'kh genre. They exist even in the adab genre, where the severest reading
was by Fcdwa Malti-Douglas in Womens' Body, Woman's Word: Gender and
Discourse in Arabo-lslamic Writing IPrinccton, N|: Princeton University
Press, 19911, which posited an exclusively male writer who used women as
marginal characters, highlighting their sexual licentiousness and cunning
in the social and political realm This reading was challenged by Julie Mei-
sami and later Marie Hammond, who both pointed toward a plethora of fe­
male authors as well as nuances in the depiction of women m literature that
complicated Malti-Douglas's reading. Sec Julie Mcisami, "Writing Medieval
Women," in Julia Brcy (cd.). Writing and Representation in Medieval Islam
(London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 47-87; Maile Hammond, Beyond Elegy: Clas­
sical Arabic Women's Poetry in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010I. I should make clear that I am not making the claim that Chachnama
presents a woman's voice. Nor am I making a claim toward any "voice."
212 NOTES TO PAGES I3I-I44

Rather, in its depiction of women characters, Chachnama does not gener­

ally follow the conventions of tari'kh or adab literature.
4. Fathnama, p. <4-
5- Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. is.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., p. 16.
9. Ibid., p. 19.
to. Ibid., p. 169.
11. Ibid., p. 170.
12. Ibid., p. 173.
13. Ibid., p. 171.
14. Ibid., p. 188.
i$. Ibid.
16. Uncured leather contracts as it dries and would crush anyone sewn inside it.
17. Fathnama. p. 188.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 190.
21. Accounts from medieval Europe also describe the punishment of immure­
ment. The early-thirteenth-century writer Der Stricker, writer of Roland's
song cycles, Arthurian legends, and the comic talcs known as the Marcn,
often featured women in clever and witty combative roles with their husbands
and their towns. One of Stricker's stories is "Die Eingcmauertc Frau" |The
Walled Womanl. Though immurement here is a punishment, the woman who
is constantly rebuking her husband has a religious conversion while entombed
and is released by the Holy Spirit. The immurement of women land children!
in walls is a common motif in other foundation legends, as explicated by
Alan Dundcs m The Walled-Up Wife: A Casebook (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1996).
22. Fathnama, p. 179,
23. Ibid., p. 175.
24. Ibid.
25. Tabaqat-t Nasiri, p. 53$.
26. Ibid., p. 556.
27 Ibid., p, 498. In fact, a reading of that account puts Mohammad Bakhtiyar
Khilji in a much more ethically dubious light than the raia. Bakhtiyar's
warfare is shown as unethical and devoid of respect for civilians—whether
Muslim or Hindu—while the raia always acts in the best interests of his
subtects.
28. The text shares much in form and content with Chachnama as it attempts
to create a political theory for an intertwined elite of the carly-fourteenth-
century Delhi sultanate See Michael Boris Bednar, "The Content and the
Form in Amir Khusraw's Duval Rani va Khizr Khan," lournal of the Royal
Asiatic Society 24,112014), pp. 17-35.
29. 1 am reading transgression here, following Michel Foucault, as "an action
which involves the limit, that narrow zone of a line where it displays the
 NOTES TO PAGES I44-14S 113

flash of its passage, perhaps also its entire trajectory, even its origin," Just as
Foucault reads transgression as a "flash of lightening," I read the account of
the daughters as an act that illuminates the morally bankrupt center via an
immoral action and that also illuminates the morality of that lust action.
See Michel Foucault, "Preface to Transgression," Language. Counter Memory.
Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and
Sherry Simon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 15. My thanks
to Durba Mitra for this reference and this line of thought,
30. For a full explication, see Peter Jackson, "Sultan Radiyya bint Iltutmish,"
in Women tn the Medieval Islamic World: Power. Patronage, and Piety.
cd. Gavin Hambly (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), pp. 181-197, and
Alyssa Gabbay, "In Reality a Man: Sultan Iltutmish, His Daughter, Raziya,
and Gender Ambiguity in Thirteenth Century Northern India," lournal of
Persianote Studies 4 (jot 1). pp. 45-63.
JI. Ain al-Malak Abdullah Mahrii, Inslid-i Mahru (Lahore: Intisharat-i
Taliqiqat-i Pakistan, 1965), p. 233.
32. Ibid.
33. Thomas Hood, The Daughters of King Daher A Story of the Mohammedan
Invasion of Scinde. and Other Poems (London: Saundeis, Otley, and Co.,
1861|, p, 30.
34 Ayaz's poem came at the height of anti Pakistan Sindhi nationalism in tile
late 1970s and early 1980s—the aftermath of the 1971 massacre in East Pak­
istan by the military regime in West Pakistan This was the reaction of most
minority driven political consciousness under Pakistan's totalitarian mili­
tary state after the creation of Bangladesh. Counter-nationalist claims began
immediately in Baluchistan and Sind, leading to civil and military crack­
downs in 1974-1976 and 1980-1982. Even in Uch a Serai’ki national claim
emerged in the mid-1980s, and it continues to this day. I have made some
changes to the translation. Compare with Fahmida Riaz, Pakistan: Litera­
ture and Society (New Delhi: Patriot Publishers, 1986I, p. 19.
33. In juxtaposing spatially and temporally separated episodes tn certain histori­
cally disjunctive moments, I draw upon the work of Reinhart Koselleck,
who read nonsimultaneous pasts simultaneously. This was his notion of
Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzcitigcn. Sec Reinhart Kosclleck, Futures Past
On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: Columbia University Press,
2004I, p. 95; and Reinhart Koselleck. "Einlcitung," in Zeilschiehien. Studien
ztir Historik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2000I, pp. 9-16.
36. Sec Imtiaz Ali Taj, Andrkalt (Lahore: Ferozesons Publishers, 1961I, p. 3.
37. Syed Muhammad Latif, Lahore: Its History, Architectural Remains, and An
tiquities (Lahore: New Imperial Press, 1892!, p. r86.
38. Shireen Moosavi provides a good overview of the legend and the possibility
of who Anarkali may have been "In 1396, Prince Salim is reported to have
fallen violently in love with the daughter of Zain Khan Koka, the foster
brother of Akbar and a high noble. For some reason, Akbar did not approve
of the match and a nft occurred between the father and the son Salim's in­
fatuation was, however, so intense that Akbar yielded to the persuasion of
his mother Hamida Bano, and the wedding look place in her apartments on
214 NOTES TO PAGES 148-155

8Tir*i R Y./AH 1004 (29 lune 1s96l.lt is, thus, probable that the rumor mill
got hold of Salim’s dispute with his father on a marital issue. Within four
months of Salim's marriage with Zain Khan Koka's daughter, in the evening
of 26 Mehr of the same year (19 October 1596), the mother of Prince Dany.il
died, the very next day an old’ concubine of Akbar passed away and a day
after, on 28 Mehr |2t October 1 $96), Prince Salim's wife, who was the daughter
of Raja 'All Khan, the ruler of Khandesh. died. She had been sent by her father,
in token of submission, at the end of April 1593, on the persuasion of Akbar’s
envoy, the poet Faizi, to marry Prince Salim, the heir apparent. It is possible
that the deaths of Danyal’s mother and Salim's wife with the difference of
two days caused their identities to be confused, DAnyAl’s mother being
confounded with lahingir's wife, for whom Jahangir's inscribed declara­
tions of love were really intended The confusion may have been aided by
the fact that Danyal's mother had been a concubine (khow-wds) of Akbar,
and there is, therefore, a possibility that she might have originally borne the
harem name of Anar-kalL" See Shireen Moosavi, "The Invention and Per­
sistence of a Legend—The Anarkali Story," in Studies in People's History 1,
1I2014I, pp. 63-68.
39. Among the rate works to pay attention to the political lives of Mughal women
is Ruby Lal’s Domesticity and Power in the Early Moghul World (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005I.
6. A CONQUEST OF PASTS
1. On the significance and history of long graves (non gaz) in West Asia, see
Brannon M. Wheeler, Mecca and Eden: Ritual. Relics, and Territory in Islam
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006I, pp. 100-22.
2. For al-Ansari, see David Shulman, "Muslim Popular Literature in Tamil: The
Tamirmancari Malai,"in Yohanan Friedmann, cd., Islam in Asia: South
Asia, vol. t (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980I. pp. 174-207.1 and David
Cook. "Tamim al-Dari," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London, 61, no. 1 (1998). pp. 20-28. For Dinar, see
G. S Kliwaia, "An Arabic Epigraph Pertaining to Early Islamic Mission to
Kerala," lournal of the Epigraphical Society of India vol. 2$, 1999. pp. 54-58.
3. For explication of some of these stories, see Masood Hasan Shahab, Khitd
Pak-e Uch (Bahawalpur: Urdu Academy, 1968I.
4. See Abu'l-Fazl. The History of Akbar, ed. and trans. Wheeler M. Thackston,
vol. 1, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), pp 47-70 and
559-571.
5. Muhammad Masum Bakkari, Ta'rikh i Sind Best Known as Ta'rikhi-
Ma'sumi (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1938I, p. 4.
6. Ibid., p. 22.
7. Qani‘ authored more than forty-two works, including numerous compendia
of his own poetry |he excelled in the mathnavi and qastdaj a dictionary of
Persian poets in Sind, Muti'allat-e Shur'a (1760)1 a history from the Abbasid
reign, Tar’ikh-i Abbasi I1761I, and a unique cultural history of Sind, incor­
porating everything from fashion to culinary skills and means of relaxation,
Nisab til-Bulgha I1783), Tuhfat ul-Kiram |t76tl comprises three volumes. The
 NOTES TO PAGES I56-I6O 11$

first volume deals with the history of the prophets down to the early caliphs.
The second volume is divided into seven sections, each section containing
histories of cities and towns in Sind, along with descriptions of the spiritual
and ruling elite. The third volume is dedicated to the history of Sind, from
Chach to the Sindhi Kalhora regime, contemporary to Qani'.
8. The best scholarly treatment of Firishta is in Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Courtly
Encounters: The Courtliness and Violences of Early Modern Eurasia (Cam­
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 34-103.
9, See Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Astarabadi Firishta, Ta'rlkh-i Firishlil
(Tehran: Aniuman-i Asar va Mafakhir-i Farhangi, 2009).
to. It is little discussed, but Firishta presents a complex theory of historiography,
providing criteria for how kings, cities, and regions should be assembled in
a broad universal history. Take, for example, his insistence that Qabacha not
be mentioned in the rise of the Delhi sultans but should rather be included
in the accounts of Sind. Firishta is here commenting directly on Juziani's Ta-
baqar and later universal histories.
11. It was Ham, son of Adam, Firishta writes, whose six sons—Hind, Sind, faish,
Afrani, Hormuz, and Buiya—laid the foundation of a city in Hindustan.
12. Alexander Dow, The History of Hindostan; from the Earliest Account of
Time, to the Death of Akbar; Translated from the Persian of Mahummud
Casim Ferishta of Delhi: Together with a Dissertation Concerning the Re­
ligion and Philosophy of the Brahmins; With an Appendix, Containing
the History of the Mogul Empire, from Its Decline in the Reign of Ma­
hummud Shaw, to the Present Times (London: T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt,
1768). p. ii.
13. Ibid, p. vi.
14. Ibid, p. xiii.
rs Alexander Dow, The History of Hindostan. from the Death of Akbar, to the
Complete Settlement of the Empire under Aurungrebe To Which Are Pre­
fixed, I. A Dissertation on the Origin and Nature of Despotism in Hind­
ostan II. An Enquiry into the State of Bengal; With a Plan for Restoring
That Kingdom to Its Former Prosperity and Splendor ILondon: T. Becket
and P. A. de Hondt in the Strand. >772), p. xv.
16. Ibid, p. xxxv.
17. See Adrian Duarte, The History of British Relations with Sind. 1613-1841
(Karachi: National Book Foundation, 1976).
18. Such treaty arrangements to exclude Americans and other Europeans were
standard clauses in East India Company’s dealings with the Princely States.
For Sind, see the treaties in 1809 and 1820 in Parliamentary Papers, Reports
and Committees: East India Company’s Affairs, vol, u (London: H.M, Sta­
tionary Office, 1831 1832I, p. 202. For Crow, see Mubarak Ali, ed. Crow's
Account of Sindh (Karachi: Fiction House, 2004).
19. C. U. Aitchison. A Collection of Treaties. Engagements, and Sanads Relating
to India and Neighboring Countries, vol, 7 (Calcutta: Office of the Superin­
tendent of Government Printing, 1892), pp. 308-309.
20. Alexander Burncs, Travels into Bokhara: Being the Account of a Journey
from India to Cabool. Tartary and Persia: also. Narrative of a Voyage on the
216 NOTES TO PAGES I61-I66

Indus, from the Sea to Lahore (Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1835I,
p. 36.
21. Edward Law Ellcnborough, "Proclamation from the Governor-General to All
the Princes and Chiefs and People of India," The Annual Register, or a View
of the History and Politics of the Year 1842. ed. Edmund Burke (London: J. G. F.
and I. Rivington, 1843!, pp. 252-256.
at William F. P Napier, The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles lames
Napier, vol. 2 ILondon: John Murray, 1857I, p. 275.
23. I11 his disavowal of native languages, Napier evoked a previous conqueror,
Lord Clive. Lewis Smith wrote in the introduction to his translation of Qissa
Chahar Dervish. “Clive never knew the languages of India. When asked why
he never learnt it, he replied ‘Why, if 1 had. 1 should not have conquered India;
the black knaves would have led me astray by their cunning advice; but as I
never understood them, I was never misled by them ’" Sec Lewis Ferdinand
Smith, The Tale of the Four Durwesh: Translated from the Urdu Tongue of
Meer Ummun Dhailee (Lucknow: Newul Kishore Press, 1895), p. lit.
24. See William F P. Napier. The Conquest of Scinde ILondon: T & W. Boone,
1845I. PP 327-369-
25. Thomas Postans, Personal Observations on Sindh; the Manners and Cus­
toms of Its Inhabitants; and Its Productive Capabilities: With a Sketch of
Its History, a Narrative of Recent Events, and an Account of the Connec­
tion of the British Government with That Country to the Present Period
(London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1843), p. 334.
26. For the role of the opium trade in Sind's annexation, see |. Y. Wong, "British
Annexation of Sind in 1843 An Economic Perspective," Modern Asian
Studies vol. 31, no. 2 (May 1997I, pp. 225-244.
27. The political resistance to Sind's annexation was led by the political agents
fames Outram and J.B. Eastwick. See William Joseph Eastwick, Speeches of
Captain Eastwick on the Sinde Question, the India Bill of 1838 (London:
Smith, Elder & Co., 1862), p. 1. A reaction to their critique was apparent from
the popularity of “Peccavil (I have Scinde/I have sinned}" the apocryphal pun
assigned to Napier (in reality, a London Punch cartoon}. It sums up the
popular reaction to Sind's annexation.
28. See Marianne Postans, "Daughters of King Dahir: A Romance of History,"
The Metropolitan Magazine 38 (London: Saunders and Outley, May to Au­
gust 1843), pp. 225-242.
29. lames McMurdo, "An Account of the Country of Sindh; with Remarks on
the State of Society, the Government, Manners, and Customs of the People,"
lournal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1
I1S34I, pp. 233-258.
30. Ibid., p. 251.
31. Thomas Postans, Personal Observations on Scinde. pp. 158-260.
32. Ibid., p. 149.
33 Ibid., p. 151.
34- Richard F. Burton, Scinde; or. The Unhappy Valley, vol. 1 ILondon: Richard
Bentley, 1851), p. 125.
35. Ibid., pp. 131-1.
 NOTES TO PAGES 167-177 117

36. The Conquest of Scinde. p. 37.

37. See Ronald B. Inden. Imagining India (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2001I, pp. 49-85.
38. Mountstuart Elphinstone, The History of India: The Hindu and Mahometan
Periods (London: John Murray, 1841I, p. ix.
39. Ibid., p. 300.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., p. 301.
41. Ibid., p. 309.
43- For a summary of his career and his position in historiography, see Tripta
Wahi, "Henry Miers Elliot: A Reappraisal," fournal of the Royal Asiatic So­
ciety of Great Britain and Ireland no. 1 (1990), pp. 64-90,
44. H. M. Elliot, The History of India, as Told hv Its Own Historians: The Mu­
hammadan Period, vol. 1 |London: Truhner and Co., 1867I, p. xvi,
45- Ibid., p. xxii.
46. Ibid., p. 136.
47. Ibid., p. 414.
48. Ibid., p. 433.
49. Ibid., p. 482.
50. Ibid., p. 479.
51. Ibid
52. for a full explication of Smith's text, sec Ronald B. Inden, Imagining India
$3. Stanley Lane-Poole, Medieval India under Mohammedan Rale. 712-1764
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1903I, p. iii.
54 Ibid, p. 7.
55. Vincent A Smith, The Oxford Student's History of India (London: Oxford
at the Clarendon Press, 1908I, p. 88.
56. J. N. Sarkar, India through the Ages (Calcutta M. C. Sarkar & Sons, 1928I,
pp. 68-70.
57. R. C. Majumdar, The Arab Invasion of India IMadras: Diocesan Press, 1931I,
p. 167.
58. Ibid, p. 168.
59. Sulaiman Nadvi, Tarikhi Sind (Aligarh: Dar al Musanafin, 1970I, p. 13.
60. Mohammad Habib, "Arab Conquest of Sind," in Politics and Society duting
the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Muhammad Habib.
vol. 2, K. A. Nizami, ed. (Aligarh: People's Publishing House, 1981), pp 1-35
61. Ibid, p. 23.
62. Five Years of Pakistan fAugust 1947-Augusi 1952) IKarachi: Pakistan Pub­
lications, 1953I, p. 29.
63. Tariq Rahman, "Education in Pakistan: A Survey," in Pakistan on the Brink.
Politics, Economics, and Society. Craig Baxter, cd. (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2004I, p. 173-
64. An excellent overview of this debate is in Ayesha Jalal, "Conjuring Pakistan:
History as Official Imaging." International lournal of Middle East Studies
27(1), Feb. 1995, PP 73-89
65. Social Studies for Class 6 (Lahore: Puniab Textbook Board, 2003I, p. 71
66. Civics for Class IX and X (Lahore: Punjab Textbook Board, aootl, pp 19-20.
2l8 NOTES TO PACES I77-I83

67. Social Studies for Class 6, p. 97.

68. Ibid., p. 97.
69. Daily Dawn (Karachi), Oct. 4, 2006, p. Ay.
70. Ali Asghar Chaudhri, Muiahid-e Azam Hazrat Muhammad b Qasim kay
Rufka Sbami Muiahideen yam Pak o Hind ki Qaum Arain ki Dastan (La­
hore: Ilrnt Kulh Khana, 1963), p. 418.
71. Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006I, p. 18.
CONCLUSION
1. A. K. Ramanujan. "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking- An Informal Essay,"
in Contributions to Indian Sociology 23, 1 (1989!, pp. 41-58.
2 William Napier Bruce, Life of General Charles Napier |London: John Murray,
1885), p. 300.
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 Acknowledgments

In the summer of 199s, 1 was an undocumented fast food worker who

walked off the street and into the offices of Matthew S. Gordon and
Linnea S. Dietrich (1945-2014) at Miami University tn Oxford, Ohio,
and asked for their help in becoming a historian. This book represents
my deep gratitude for their kindness and the intellectual care they
demonstrated for a young student. In 1998,1 came to the University of
Chicago and was able to learn from the most extraordinary scholars of
the Middle East, of South Asia, and of Islam. Foremost among them
were my advisors Fred M. Donner, Ronald B. Inden, and Muzaffar
Alam, who taught and shaped me as a humanist. Their scholarship is
monumental, but just as substantive is the ethical care with which
they conduct themselves as teachers. I learned also from the brilliant
exactitude and kindness of C. M. Naim and Wendy Doniger; the his­
torical and philological mastery of John Woods, Heshmat Moayyad, and
John Perry; and the insights of Dipesh Chakrabarty, Sheldon Pollock,
Rashid Khalidi, Arjun Appadurai, and Shahid Amin. It remains my
privilege to have them as teachers.
Two early conversations in Berlin were critical for the formation of
the scope and method of this book: I thank Farina Mir and Sarnia
Khatun for them. Over the years, I have conversed about this project
with Finbarr Flood, Sunil Sharma, Richard M. Eaton, the late Chris
Bayly, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Daud Ali, Yasmin Saikia, Sugata Bose,

135
1}6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

David Lleyveld, Mums Faruqui, Jorge Flores, Kamran Asdar Ali, the
late Kumkum Chatterjee, Ramya Srinivasan, Iftikhar Dadi, Prachi
Deshpande, Avinoam Shalom, and Bodhisattava Kar. They each have
contributed to this book in their own way, and they each continue to
enlighten me. Thank you.
My gratitude to Farina Mir and Will Glover at Michigan, Michael
Weiss at Princeton, and Kris Manjapara and Ayesha Jalal at Tufts, who
invited me to their seminars and helped me clarify my ideas. I pre­
sented parts of this work at Columbia at the Literary Theory Univer­
sity Seminar and at the Faculty Seminar at MESA AS. I want to thank
Tim Mitchell and Bruce Robbins for their generosity and the audiences
lor their engagement. I also presented portions of the book at the Zu-
kunftsphilologie workshop at Freie Universitat Berlin, at American
University at Cairo, and for conference panels at the Annual South
Asia Conference at Madison, the Association for Asian Studies Con­
ference, and the American Historical Association. Sunil Kumar pub­
lished my first article on Chachnama and has solidified my personal
standard for exacting research and clarity of ideas. I am indebted to
him for his encouragement and support. Ideas in Chapters 1 and 4
were explored in Indian Economic and Social History Review and
Medieval History lournal. I thank the editors, the readers, and the
interlocutors.
Allison Busch, Partha Chatterjee, Elizabeth Blackmar, Marwa El
Shakry, Adam Kosto, Elisheva Carlebach, and Carol Gluck read the
draft manuscript and gave extensive feedback and corrections. Cynthia
Talbot's careful reading and comments were critical to both the man­
uscript and to me. I am thankful for her generosity in person and in
her scholarship. Kavita Datla, Karuna Mantena, Teena Purohit, Dennis
Tenen, Eleanor Johnson, Mark Mazower, and Tamer El Leithy read
parts of the manuscript and engaged deeply with the work. Durba Mitra
thought and molded this hook through countless conversations. She
read every line and this book bears the marks of that intellectual labor.
I owe her the same thought and care for her book. Her astute questions
pushed me to articulate my arguments clearly and forcefully. 1 am ex­
tremely grateful for their labor and attention.
Islam Dayeh, George Khalil, Schirin Amir-Moazzami, Regula For­
ster, Gudrun Kramer, Bettina Graf, Ingeborg Baldauf, Ulrike Freitag,
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 137

Birgit Krawietz, Kai Kresse, Hermann Kreutzmann, Nadja-Christina

Schneider, Angela Ballaschk, and Sonja Eising were my cherished col­
leagues and friends in Berlin. With Islam and George, our dream project
of Zukunftsphilologie is now fully realized and making strides in the
world. They made possible a tumultuous intellectual lourney during
the three years 1 taught at Freie Universitat Berlin's Islamwissenschaft.
I want to thank Nicholas Dirks and Janaki Bakhlc for welcoming me
to Columbia as one does a family member. Their support has meant
everything. Anupama Rao, Rashid Khalidi, Mark Mazower, Matthew
Connelly, Marc Van De Mieroop, Karl Jacoby, Pamela Smith, Adam
Kosto, Sheldon Pollock, Sudipta Kaviraj, Mahmood Mamdani, and
Brinkley Messick became colleagues, mentors, and friends. The De­
partment of History, the dean of social sciences, and the Graduate
School for Arts and Sciences at Columbia all gave immense material
and intellectual support for my scholarship and research—including
the Junior Research Fellowship, the Manuscript Workshop, and the
Lenfest Junior Faculty Grant. My amazing colleagues at Fayerweather
Hall helped me through hundreds of matters. These include Patrick
McMorrow, Andrew Leung, Najila Naderi, Sharee Nash, Patrice Turner,
Sia Mensah, and Patricia Morel. I thank them for their kindness and
their professionalism.
In Uch, Syed Shahbaz Ali Bukhari and his brother, the late Waiid
Ali Bukhari, were my hosts and guides. This work is indebted to
them, as am I. My gratitude to Professor Mushtaq Husain, Dr. Gh-
ulam Lakho, and Professor Shamsad Soomro of Sind University Jams-
horo, who spoke with me and helped me through various questions
regarding Sind's history. My thanks to Mohammad Moosa Bhutto,
Mohammad Ali Diplai, Syed Ali Mir Shah. Zameer Raja, and Humayun
Naseer for helping and guiding me during my fieldwork in Karachi,
Thatta, and Hyderabad. The staff at Punjab University Library (Oriental
Section), Quaid e Azam Library, Dayal Singh Library in Lahore, and
the National Archives in Islamabad were extraordinary professionals.
The staff at British Library and Stadt Bibliothek Berlin were exemplary.
I thank them for their help and support.
Sharmila Sen glimpsed the book in a few conversations, asked
me to push myself out of my comfort zone, and provided her support
for this project. Her professional and personal care has left an indelible
138 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

mark on this book. I thank her and Heather Hughes at Harvard Uni­
versity Press for their good cheer and support. I am also grateful to the
two anonymous readers whose critically astute feedback strengthened
this manuscript. Thanks also to David Emanuel, Deborah Grahame-
Smith, and Derek Gottlieb for their editorial and indexical work—and
immense professionalism.
The generous intellectual gifts of all of these individuals go along
with gifts of love, friendship, and companionship that I received over
the course of the last two decades from Rajeev K. Kinra, Prithvi Datta
Chandra Shobhi, Blake T. Wentworth, Whitney M. Cox, Daisy Rock­
well, Sarah Neilson, Bulbul Tiwan, Doowan Lee, Kouslaa Kessler-Mata,
Edward Yazijian, Lisa Knight, Sonam Kachru, lane Mikkleson, Katar-
zyna Pazucha, Alicia Czaplewski, Gerard Siarny, Antje Postema, Megan
Heffernan, David "Raver" Emanuel, Saud al-Zaid, A. Sean Pue, Salman
Hussain, Rachel Dwyer, Michael Dwyer, Madhuri Deshmukh, Nikhil
Rao, Veronika Fuechtner, Rajkamal Kahlon, Sergei Spetchinsky, Bani
Abdi, Mantra Schleyer, Daniel Pineu, Andrea Flcschenberg, Sarnath
Banerjee, Oily Akkerman, Saskia Schiifer, Anubhuti Maurya, Sarover
Zaidi, Ananya Vajpeyi, Ali Raza, Bilal Tanweer, Afzal Khan, Aijaz
Ahmed, Sumayya Kassamali, Rebecca Goetz, Gaiutra Bahadur, Mana
Kia, Eric Beverley, Madiha Tahir, Aamir Naveed, Durba Mitra, Abeer
Hoque, Azeen Khan, Annie Ali Khan, Anand Vivek Taneja, Elizabeth
Angell, Abhishek Kaicker, Jonathan Shamin, Amitava Kumar, Shahnaz
Rouse, Kaiama Glover, Kelly Josephs, and Alex Gil. My gratitude to
Kitty for her support over the years. Thank you to all, and to any.
My friend and colleague Dennis Tenen helped me begin and end
the writing of this book. We were joined by many writers between
December 2014 and December 2015. My thanks to Roj3s, Young To­
bias, and Durba Mitra |DB), among others. The collective lunches at
Brownie’s and the evening PST at Taqueria y Fonda la Mcxicana were
instrumental on the hard days. Thanks to the many friends there.
This book is dedicated to my mother, Shaista Ahmed, in Lahore. She
sent her eightcen-ycar-old son to the United States for education and
has watched his life from a great distance. It is a testament to her love,
strength, and ethics. When 1 was turning seventeen, I had dearly wanted
denim jeans made by the American brand Jordache. She was unmoved
by my pleas to be as stylish as my friends at Punjab University. A few
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2J9

days before my birthday, when I threw a petulant fit, she spoke in all
seriousness of Muhammad bin Qasim’s accomplishments and how he
had conquered India by the age of seventeen, highlighting my ignomin­
ious whining about buying jeans. I doubt she remembers it, but that
conversation started generating questions for me about history, memory,
and nationalisms. Those questions led me to study under Matthew
Gordon in 1995.1 cannot say, even in retrospect, that I had much hope
of finishing a B.A., let alone a Ph.D. or even this book. But 1 still had a
desire and a drive, and they too were given to me by my mother. My
2008 dissertation, "The Many Lives of Muhammad bin Qasim," was
my answer for her, and 1 hope she takes this book as an extended
discursion on the subject of history and provenance of accomplished
seventeen-year-oids. My father, Sultan Ahmed Asif, was a Gastarbeiter
(guest worker) in Doha, Qatar, for more than thirty years. He spent
almost twenty of those years away from his family. He passed away in
2012, and 1 am sorry that I cannot see him hold this book in his hands.
His sons, scattered in the world, reflect their parents’ ethos and love.
My brothers and our families are always together in group chats filled
with pictures and sounds of familial love. Finally, all possible words
of thanks are inadequate for my Maha and my Kavi. May they flower
and make beautiful their own new words and worlds.
 Index

Abbasids, 34-37, 40, 42, 44 -46, 50, $8. Aligarh University, 171-72
75, 95. «96n$6 alliance-building, 86-92, 181-182,
Abdalluh, Umar bin, 20507 2IOO22
Abd al-Malik, 36, 41 All India Muslim League, 3
Abdulaziz Habari. Amr bin, 44 Amarasakti (king), 98
Ab e Kausar llkraml, 175 Amin, Shahid, 4
Abi'IThaqaH, Uthman bin, 35 Anarkah, 147-148, 2iifn38
Abu Bakr Ash'ari, Ain-al Mulk, 54, $7 Andaman Islands, 27
Abu'l-Faz'l, 153-154 Anglo-Afghan War, 160-162
Achh, Saifuddin Aybek, aooniz Ansab al Ashra/(Baladhuri), 34
adab, 57, 95-132, 21103 Anushirwan, Khusru, too
Adah ul Kabir IMuqatfa), toi Anvar > Suhatlt |Na$ru‘llahl, 101
Adab Harb wa'I Shaja'a |Mudabbir|, 53 Aquil, Raziuddin, 207034
Aden, 28-29, 3« "Arab Conquest of Sind" (Maiumdar),
Adulc, 30 172, 174
advice genres, 21, Si, 84-102, 109-110, Arabia, 157) India’s contacts with. 23-26
2O6ni2 Arabian Sea, 26-27
Agham, 107-109 Arabic language and literature), 8-21.
A'inaye Iskandari (Dehlavil, 95 43-48. 54-70,92-102, 144. «53. 180.
Am Nameh (Muqaffa), 101 See also translation; specific authors
Akbar, Jalaludin, 147-148, 153-155/ and works
18!, 184 Arabs in Sind |Sprcnger), 168
Akbarnama |Abu'l-Faz'l|, 153, 155-156 Aram community, 179
Akhbar al-Sin wa'I-Hind lanonymousl, archaeology, 26-32, 69-77, 202050
3> Aristotle, 93-95
Akhlaq-i Nasin (Din Thsi), 96 Arminius, t
Alam, Muzaffar, $5, 207033 Arnold, T. W, 172
Alawis, 14, 36, 42 Aror, 13, 40, 65, 120, 131-133 See also
Alexander the Great, 26, 29, 68-70, 87. Dahar; Qasim, Muhammad bin
92-95, 182 Artaxerxes Mnemon of Persia, 29. 93

241
242 INDEX

Arthashastra (Kautilyal, 12, 8s. 9*. Bibi Ayesha, 128

96-97. 207035, *08036 Bihi fawindi, 128, 129. >47
Arzu, Khan e, 49 BibiTigni, 128
A sur al-Bilad wa Akhbar al ‘Ibad Bijapur, 156
(Qazwinil, 7$ Bilhana, 19802
Asif, K-, 147 Birum, Abu Rayhao, 94, 111-113
Asoka, 1 Bloch, Marc, 22, 187m
Astrabadi, Muhammad Qasim, 156-158, Brahmanabad, 14, 107-109, 119-120, 125
163, 169, 215010 Britain. See colonialism; India
astrology, 84-85, 89, 20507 Broach. 3$, 50
Attar. Fariduddin, 101 Bronner, Yigal, 97-98
Auer, Blain, 201028 Buddhism, 13, 30, 37. 43. #9, 98, 107-110,
Awfi, Muhammad. 48, >3-54, >7-59. 7$ 114, 117-1*0, 1*4-127. 135-136, 180.
Axum, 30 See also conquest narratives;
Ayaz (Shaikh), 146, 2131134 politics; religion
Aybeg, Qutbuddin, $0-51 Budhiman, 97
Azfar Mom, A., i88n? Bukhara, 49
Bukhari, S. A., 47-48
Baba Farid, 121-125. 21OR33 Burncs, Alexander, 160
Bab al-Mandab, 30 Burton, Richard R., 163-166
Babar, Zahiruddin, 2, 49. *53 Byzantium, 30, 19*03
Babri Masjid, 4
Baghdad, 14, 25, 32, 44. 72, 136, 139-140. Calcutta Review. 171
144-149, 184 Calcutta University, 171
Baghrur, 40 Cambay, 50, 71-72, 75
Bahrain, 3s Campbell, Gwyn, 19*03
Bahr ul Ansab |Mudahbir|, 53 caretakers (of sacral sitesl, 113-114,
Baladhuri, 16, 34-46. 63-64. 110-113. 150-152, 182-184
196056, 2Oin37 Cervantes, Miguel de, 201 n36
Bal'ami, 55-56 Ceylon, 30, 134. 19*03. I93ni7
Balhara, 73-74 Chach bin Sila'ij, 12-13, 64-66, 81-86,
Baloch, Nabi Baksh Khan. 13, 172, 175 91. 107, 118-119, 125, 131-132, 140
Banerjee, Prathama, 2O8n36 Chachnama: advice genre and, 81-102,
Bangladesh, 6-7, 176, r8o 109-110, 2o6n22; citations of,
Bano, Hamida, 148 156-158, *o*n5O; colonial readings
Barani, Zia Din, 56, 96, 207034 of, 5-21, 69, 140-141, 161-171,
Barmak, $6 174-175. 181-184. 190n3*; as
Barmaki, Yahya bin Khalid, 203060 conquest narrative, 15—16, 19-20,
Baroda University, 171 32-34. 62-67, 83. 95-96, 151-152, 172;
Basri, Azdi, 33, 63 letter-writing tropes of, 21, 81-86,
Bay of Bengal, 26-27 106-107, 2o6n22; local understand­
Bcgam, Nadira, 147 ings of, 47- 48; methodology for
Bcllasis, A. F., 202050 reading of, 17-19, 182,- nationalist
Bengal, 26, 156 understandings of, 175; oral accounts
Benjamin, Walter, 18, 191038 of, 8o-8r; political theory in, 15,
Bcyhaqi, 67-69, 152 19-21, 48, 68-69, 81-86, 101-102,
Bhag Mai, Rai, 122 116, 124-127. 138-139. *491 as
Bhakkari. Mir Muhammad Masum. regional history, 152-155, 163, 172,
See Masum, Mir Muhammad i8i-i8i/ religious diversity and,
Bhambhor, 175 66-67, 106-115, 1*4-127; romantic
Bhutto, Zulfiqar All, 176 gibberish trope and, 9-«2, »30, 145,
 INDEX 143

149. 170-171, 174; textual traditions 38-44, 120-121, 134, 146, 174-176,
embedded in, 16, 21,15-26, 32-44, 181; religious differences and,
$4-69. 92-102, 110-111, 114 115, 86 102, 105-106, 110-115, 135-136;
<53-154; as translation of Arabic temple destruction and, 25, 163,
text, 9, 11, 15, 19-20, $5-62, 64-65, 167-168, 171, 174. 196056; women's
Mt, 171; Uch's depiction in, 9-12, erasure from, 144-149, See also
20-21, 71, 80-8i; women in. 65-66, specific cities and regions
128-144 The Conquest of New Spain (Diaz
Chakravarti, Ranabir, 192113 del Castillo), 6
Chakravarti, Uma, 4 conversions |religious|, 115-124,
Chalukya, 50 163, 177
Chandella, 50 Corpus Insertpt ionum Indicarum.
Channan Pir, 20904 1971158
Charlemagne, r Cosmas Indicoplcustes, to
Chaudhry, laved, 9 courtesans, 72
Chaudhun, K. N,, 192113 "Courts, Capitals, and Kingships"
Chauhan. 50 (Kumarl, 199ns
China, 29-30, 32 Cousens, Henry, 69-71, 170
Chinghiz Khan, 1, 51-52 Crow, Nathan, 159
Chishti Usmatii, Alhadiya, 122 Ctesias of Cnidus, 29, 93
Cholistan desert, 19, 182
Christian Topography (Cosmasl, jo Dahar: advice genre and, 82, 84-85,
Claudius Ptolemy, 28 87-9«; Chach’s succession and, 13,
Collectanea Rerum Memorabihum 64, 82-83, 85-86; colonial under­
(Solinus), 29, 93 standings of, 167-168; in conquest
colonialism: anticolonialism and, narratives, 37-44. 87, 134; death of,
170-179; British depictions of 120, 136) Ladi’s relationship to, 134;
Muslims and, 69-70, 75-77, 160-171; marriage of, 2iinj9; religious
Chachnama's misreading and, conversion and, 117
151-152, 181-184; education and. 7-8, Daharsena, 13, 82-86
171, 176-177; essentialism and, Daily Dawn, 178
157-158, 163-64, 171-179, 1941123, Daily fang. 9
21 sn 18; historiography and, 1-6, Damascus, 14, 25, 32, 41. 44. 72
19-21, 150-152, >71-179; Indian Daudpota, Umar bin Muhammad, 13,
nationalism and, 170-171; origin 171-173. 175
stories and, 15-16, 162-179; post- Daughters of King Daher (Hood), 145
colonialism and, 6, 180-184; Sind's Dawar, 110
British conquest and, 159-1711 Daybul: conquest narrativesand, 35, 39,
translation issues and, 157, <7»-«79. 50, 52, 91, 154-155. 164-165, 174;
2161123 trade and, 30, 44. 71
conquest narratives: advice genre and, Deccan, 50, 72-74. >56
2i, 81, 84-102, 109-110; alliance­ Dehlavi, Amir Khusraw, 95
building and, 86-92, 181-182, Delhi, 50-52, 54.57. 7 b 76, 83, 153.
2ion22; British colonialism and, 156, 184
1S9-I7I; Chach's exploits and, demons, 109-111
107—109, 125, 133-134, 142-143; De Mundo, 94
conversionsand, 115-124, 163, 177; dharmasastra texts, 98
Muslims in, 32-44. 62-67, 86-92, Diaz del Castillo, Bernal, 6
110-113, 162-171, 181, 2Oin37; Dilshad, Muhammad, 128
political acumen and, 33-34. 86-92, Dinar, Malik bin, 150
2ion22,- Qasim's exploits and, 2, Dinawari, 94
244 INDEX

Dm Tusi, Nasir ud, 95-96 futuh narratives, 32-34. See also

disciplining (of subjects), 124-127 conquest narratives; India; Muslims
Diu, 50, 71
divine will, Rj-86, 88-90, 95 Gadamcr, Hans Georg, 204m
Donner, Fred M., 35 Ganjawi, Nizami, 95
Don Quixote (Cervantes), 20x036 Genghis Khan. See Chinghiz Khan
Dost Muhammad, 161 geocentrism, 191037
Dow, Alexander, 15, 21, 152, 157-163. geography (of Muslim "homelands"),
165, 174 48-51, 2O3nn6o-6i
Dowson, lames, 168 Germany, 1
Ghazna, 45, 49-52, 55
East India Company, 152, 155, 157—158, Ghazni, Mahmud See Mahmud of
r6o, 162, 166-167, 2i5nx8 Ghazna
Eastwick, J. B., 2i6n2? Ghur, 49-50. 53. 55
Eaton, Richard, 4, r88n8 Ghur, Muhammad Sam, 49
education, 7, 171. 176-177 Gibbon, Edward, 18, 190034. 191036
Egypt. 28, 34, 45, 159, 19203 Golwalkcr, M. S., 3
Ellcnborough, Edward Law, 162 Gourzam, Safi al Din, 23
Elliot, Henry Miers, 8, 19-20, 163, Govinda 111, 74
168-171 graves, 103-107, 116, 147. 150-151, >51.
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 8, 163, 182-183, 20903
167-168 Greeks, 28-29. 31
epistemology (colonial), 162-171. See Green, Nile, 27-28
also colonialism,- modernity; origins Grundler, Bngette, 95
Epistola Alexandri ad Anstotlem. 93 Guiarat region, 26-32, 38-46, so, 72-73.
ethical frameworks: advice dynamic 156. See also India; specific cities
and, 81-86, 92-102) religious and subregions
diversity and, 101-102, 124-127; state Gulsham-i Ibrahimt/Tar'ikb
power and, 118-t 19; women's role in, (Astrabadi), 156
21, 65-66, 128-149. See also conquest Gupta, Ashin Das, 19203
narratives; politics; religion Gutras, Dimitri, 95
Ethiopia, 30
Habib, Irfan, 11, 172
Falconry in the Valley of the Indus Habib. Muhammad, 171. 174
(Burtonl, 165 Hanai bin Yusuf Thaqafi, 36-42, 82,
Fatawa-yi Jahandari (Baraml, 53, 96 86-92, 96, 117. 137-140, 146, 20507,
Faxian, 30, lyBna 2O6n22
Fazal bin Mahan, 44 Hamdani, 36
Feroz Shah, Ruknuddin, 143 Hamilton, Alexander, 1
Firdawsi, $7, 94-9$. 101 Hammond, Mark, 21 m3
Firishta (Muhammad Qasim Astrabadi), Hardy, Peter, 11, 76, 94
156-158, 163, 169, 2i5nio Harrapa, 27
Flood, Finharr, i88n8 Harun ur-Rashid, 75
Foner, Erie, 189m 7 Hasan, Khurshid, 115-116
Foucault, Michel. 187m, 2i2n29 Himyar, 30
Fraser, James B., 199011 Hind, 14. 26-42, 53-54. 65, 73-76, 81-92,
Fredunbeg, Mirza Kalichbcg, 13 *34. 138-139. 17$. See also Sind
Friedmann, Yohanan, 11-12 a/-Hind (Wink), 31
Futuh al-Buldan (Baladhuri), 26, Hind al Hunud, 1941124
34-46, 63 Hinduism: colonial csscntialism and,
Futuh as-Salatm flsami), 53 157-166, 170-171; Muslim politics
 NDEX MS

and, no-in, 118-119,124-137, India: Arab geographical texts and,

142-144, nationalism and, 31-32; British colonialism in,
3-4, 7-8, 103-104, 177-181, 2O9n4i 157-158, 162-171, 194023, 2ISni8;
Partition of 1947 and, 104-105; sacral conquest narrativesand, 32-34;
sitesand, 23-26, 163, 167-168, 171, cultural contacts in, 4-5, 23-26;
174. 196056 definitions of, 192113, 199ml;
Hingol National Park, 1 is Hinduism and, 7-8, 151-152, 156,
Hisham bin Abda) Malik, 42 170-171; marvels and wonders ot,
Historia Natutalis iPliny the Elder), 92-93, 110-111, 193m $<• modernity's
19, 93 definition and, 4; Muslim origins in,
historiography: colonialism and, 1-20, 2. 38-44. 100-101, 152-155, 162-180;
150-152, 162-179, 190032; conquest nationalism and, 170-179, 213034,-
narratives and, 32-37; cultural Partition of (1947), 3-4. 104. 175-176,
memory and, 16-18, 47-48, 78-81, i8of postcolonialism and, 180-184;
79. 182-184; gender and, 128-131, religious diversity in, 180-184. See
genre and, 82-102, 198m; Indo­ also Gujarat region; origins; Sind
Persian, 67-68, 92-96, 147, 152-158; Indian Historical Review, 171
materiality and, 17-18, 26-32, 69-77, Indian Ocean (as region), 26-32, 69-77.
103-107, 147. 150-151, 182-183, I9in3
2O2n$0, 2O$ni4, 209m; Muslim Indica (Megasthenes), 93
origins and, 1-6, 22, 69-70, 152-158; "Indigo Jackal" tale, 99-100
nationhood and, t, 5-6, 175-176; Indo-Arab Relations (Nadvi), 173
regional, 152-155, 163, 172, 181-182; Indonesia, 29
spatiality and, 16-19,48-51. Indus River, 29, 31, 39, 160, 163, 165
203nn6o-6i; translations and, 9-12, Insha'i Mahru (Mahru), 144
15, 41, 48, 157, 162-163, J68-179, Islamic Culture. 171
2i6ni3. See also colonialism; Isma'ili tradition, 45, 50, 106, 111-112,
conquest narratives,- epistemology 198113
(colonial); modernity; trade; Istakhri, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, 74. m
translation
History (Dow), 157-158 Jabalah Abdi, Hakim bin, 3$
The History of British India (Mill), 167 Jahamyan Jahan Gasht, Makhdum. 19,
History of India (Elphmstone), 163, 23-24, 103, 128
167-168 Jains, 180
The History of India as Told by Its Jaisinha, 141-142
Own Historians (Elliot), 19-20, lama'at-i Islami. 178
163, 168 Jataka tales, 98
Hitopadesa, 85 |at people, 37, 124-127, 154. 179
Hood, Thomas, 145 lawami Hikayat wa Lawami ul Rivayat
Humayun, 184 ( Awfi), 48, 53, 57-58, 75
Jazirat al-Ghanam, 30
Ibn Amr Taghlabi, Hisham, ty6ns6 Jefferson, Thomas, 1
Ibn Hawkal, Abu'l-Qasim b. Jinnuh, Mohammad All, 3
Ali Nasibi, 74 lones, William, 180
Ibn Khurradadhbih. 73, 2O3nn6o-6i lournal of the Royal Asiatic Society of
Ihn Miskawa, 56 Bengal. 164
Ibn Salmah, Sinan, 195038 Junayd bin Abdar Rahman Murri, 42
Ikram, S. M , 7, 172. 17$ lustin (emperor), 30
lltutmish, Shams al din, 51, 53. 58-59, lustinian (emperor), 50
83, 143. 184. 19909. 2OOn22 Juzjani, Minhai Suraj, 48-54. 58-60,
immurement, 139-140, 155, *12021 67-68, I43-U4. i99nn8-9. 20On22
246 INDEX

Kabul, 49, 161 Les Ruincs (Volncy), 17

Kabulshahs, 1951158 Letter of Alexander. 92-94. io6ni6
Kalat, 182 letter-writing, 21, 79. 81-102, io6-tO7,
Kalila wa Dtmna. 101 2O6n22
Kamil fi’l Ta'rikh (lbn Athirl, Lewis, Martin, 26
Karlugh, Malik Safiuddin, 200022 Li Guo, 192ns
Kashmir, 30-51,66, 156 Lombard, Denys, 19203
Kavirai, Sudipta, 18807 Lubabul a/bab I'Awfil, 48, 58
Kazlak Khan, Taiuddin Sanjr. $8-59.
>99n9 Maclean. Dcrryl N., 12, 117
Kerala, 29 Madagascar, 29
Khambhat. 182 Mada’ini, 33~J4. 40, 63-64
Khamsa (Ganjawil, 95 Mahabharata. 98, 156-157, 180
Kharajitcs, 42, 44. I9$n38 Mahfuza, 42
Khattab, Amir al-Mominin Mahmud of Ghazna, 2, 59, 112-113
'Umar bin, 126 Mahru, Ayn ul-Mulk Abdullah,
Khawarzam Shahi, 51-52 144-14$, i$3
Khilji, Mohammad Bakhtiyar, 212027 Majumdar, R. C., 10-11, 171-172
Khita Pak-e Uch |Shahab), 211m Makran, 35-36, 50
Khizr (prophet), 59, 78, 95. >44. 15b maktubat. See letter-writing
2011136 Malay islands, 27, 32
Khurasan, 3$, 4$. Malti-Douglas, Fcdwa, 21 m3
Khusrau, Amir, 96 Ma’mun, 44
Kirkan, 4$ Mansura, 44. 50, 19803
Kirman, 35 Mantiq at-Tair (Attar), 101
Kitab Parai ba d Shidda (Tanukhi), 57 Marathas, 167
Kitab Putuh al-Buldan (Baladhuril, 34 Mardan, 'Ali-yi, 51
Kitab Masalik wa'l Mamahk Margoliuuth, David Samuel, 172-173
|Ibn Hawkail, 74 Marbth, Mikkte, 2o6nz6
Kitab Masalik wa'l Mamalik marriage alliances, 108, 211039
|Ibn Khurradadhbih), 73 Mas udi, Abu’l-Hasan, 44, 74, 94
Kitab Masalik wa'l Mamahk Mas ud of Ghazna, 67-68
llstakhn), 74 Masum, Mir Muhammad (Bhakkari),
Kitab Sin al-Asrar. 93 19, 154, 163
Kosellcck, Reinhart, 213035 Maurya, Chandragupta, 96
Kufi, All, 11-1$, 54. $9-61, 67-68, 154 McMurdo, James, 163-164, 166
Sec also Chachnama Medieval India under Muhammadan
Kumar, Sunil. 199ns Rule iLane-Poolc), 170
Medina, 32, 34
Ladi (Queen), 131. 134-B6, 140-141 Mcgasthenes, 29, 93
Lahore, 49, $1, S3, $7, 83, 144-14$. >47, Menhasundcsa (Kahdasal, 71
156, t6o Meisami, lube, 94-95. 21 m3
Lal Ded, 128 Mesopotamia, 27-28
Lambrick, H. T., 11 Mill, James, 8, 167
Lane-Poole, Stanley, 163, 167, 170-171 The Millennial Sovereign (Azfar Moinl,
The Last Hindu Emperor (Talbot), i88n6 i88n7
Latif, Syed, 147 "Mirror for Princes" genre, 95-96
Latour, Bruno, 18704 Mitra, Durba, 2i3n29
Layth Saffari, Ya'qub and Amr, 45 modernity, 1, 7-8, 18704. See also
Leder, Stefan, 95 colonialism; epistemology |coloniai);
Le Goff, lacques, 189016 nationhood,- origins
 INDEX 247

Momigliano, Arnaldo, 18, 190^4, Nasru'llah, Abu'l M'ati, 101

191036 nationhood: anticolonialism and, 1 -6,
Mongols, 51-52, 55, 76 170-171; education and, 7; historio­
Moosavi, Shirecn, 148, 213038 graphy and, i, 5-6, 175-176) moder­
Mozambique, 26 nity and, 1, i87n4j origin stones and,
Mudabbir, Fakhr-i, 53, 57-58 i-6; religion and, 3-4, 7-8, 104-106,
Mughal e Azam |Asif I, 147 145-147, 151. 171-182; religion and, 3,
Mughals, j-5, 55, 147-148, 1B-B5, 158, 145-147, 151- See also colonialism;
172, 177, 181, i88n7 India; Pakistan; religion
Muhallah, Yazid bin, 41 Naubahar, 113
Muhammad, Ala ddin, 51 Naumani, Shibli, 8, 172-173
Muhammad Ash'an, Ain ui Mulk Navasanka, 43-44
Husain ibn Abi-Bakr ibn, 58 New Education Policy (Pakistani, 176
Muller, Max, 180 Nirun, 39, 102
Multan, 14, 4>, 45, 49-50. 52-53, 71-71, Nizami, Hasan, 53
106, 111, 114, 117, 181, 19803 Nizam ul Mulk, 9$
Muqaffa, Abdallah ibn, roo-roi No'in Turbi, 52
Murui ad-Dahab wa Ma adm lawahar Numn, 36
(Mas udi), 74
Muscat, 18 Objects of Translation (Floodl, rB8n8
Muslim Review, 171 Ollett, Andrew, 202053
Muslims: Aristotelian thought and, Oman, 26, 71
95-96; Bangladesh and, 6-7, 176, i8o> Orientalism, 15, 145. 158,164-165,
colonial depictions of, 2, 4, 69-70, 172-173
151-152, 160-171, 194m); conquest origins, 1-6, 15-16, 22-26, 151-152,
narratives and, 4-6, 20, 25-26, 180-184, i«7n4- See also colo­
32-44. 62-67, 86-92, 105-106, nialism; epistemology (colonialI;
110-113, 181, 201037; conversion and. historiography; modernity;
115-124, 163, 177) divine will and, Muslims
82-90, 95,- ethical frameworks of, Osmania University, 171
92-102, 138-139; geography of, 69-7* Outram, James, 2i6n27
internecine conflicts within, 44-45; The Oxford Student's History of India
masculine challenges and, 145-147, (Smith), 171
169-170) nationalism and, 3-4, 151,
• 75-I79; as others, 2-4, 19-20, 48-51, Pakistan, 3-8, 104, 106, 115-116, 146,
62-67, 122-115, 151-155, 162-180; 151, 175-176, 180. See also colo­
religious diversity and, 3, 13-14, 21, nialism; India) Muslims; nation­
38-44, 69-77, 86-102, 106-107, hood; Partition (1947); Qasim,
153-162, 165-166, 170-171; sects Muhammad bin
within, 53, 101-103, 106-107, Pakpattan, 122-123
112-113, 121-122; trade contacts and, Palmyra, 28
23 26. See also colonialism, Pancatantra, 85. 92, 98-99
conquest narratives; historiography; Pandcy, Gyanendra, 4
politics Partition 11947). 3-5, 7, 104. 182
Mustadi, 58 Peacock, C. S-, 56
Mutawakkil, 34, 44 Periplus Maris Erythraei. 28-29
Persian (language and literature), 54-62,
nabishtah. See letter-writing 92, 9S-96, 100-101, 144, >52, 171,
Nadvi, Syed Sulaiman, 8, 172-173 180-182
Naipaul, V. S., 6-7 Persian Adventurer (Fraser), 199011
Napier, Charles, 161-166, 183, 216023 Persian Gulf, 26-27, 30
248 INDEX

Personal Observations on Scinde and, 112-117,119-122, 124-127

(PostansJ, 164 135-136, 154; trees of, 47-48; women
Petra, 18 as ethical subjectsand, 134-13$
philology, 1,15 Qazwini, Zakanya tbn Muhammad,
Pi rmal Deo, 157 75-76
Pliny the Elder, 18-29/ 93 Qi&sa Cbaha Dervish. 2i6ni3
politics: advice genre and, 81-86, Qur'an, 56, 71, 102
91-102, 1S4—I55i advisors' roles and, Qureshi, I. H., 175
82, 84-8$, 117-118, B5-B6| Qusdar, 45
Chachnama’s textual universe and.
47-48/ 55-61, 81, 107-11$, 138-139. Rahman (Abdur ), 71-72
149; conquest narratives and, 33-34. Rai Mahrit, 133
86-92, aioniij divine will and, Rajasthan, 50
82-86, 89-90, 95; public perception Ram (god), 4, 82
and, 85; religious difference and, ir, Ramanujan, A. K., 180
62-67, 75-77, 86-115, 117-117 Rao, Narayana, 198m
144.
142- 157-161, 180-184, i88n7, rasa'il. See letter-writing
i96n>6; taxation and, 14, 25, 33, 39, Rasa’il ikhwan Safa', 95, 101
43-44, 63, 74, 88-89, 108, 119, 127, Rasal, Basami, 87
136, 160, io6ni6; women and, Razia, Sultan, 54, 143-U4
128-44, 194024. 2itn3 Red Sea, 26, 28, 30, 32
Pollock, Sheldon, 54 religion: colonial epistemology and,
Postans, Thomas, 163-164, 166 162-171; conquest narratives and,
postcolonialism, 180-184, 190032 109-115, 156; conversions and,
Power, Memory, Architecture 115-124, 163, 177; divine will and,
(Waggoner and Eaton), i88n8 82, 88-90, 95; esscntialism and,
presentism, 17 157-163, 165-166, 171-179. J94A23;
prophecy, 14, 56, 83-85, 89, 169 nationalisms and, 104-106, 151,
Pseudo-Calltsthenes, 9.3-94 171 -1821 political accommodation
Pulakcsiraja, 44 and, 21, 86-92, 103-115, 117-127,
Pumab, 47-48, 50-52, 147, 178 135-136, 142-144. 154, 180-184;
sacral sites and. 10, 23-26, 69,
Qabacha, Nasiruddin 15-17, 20-21, 103-107, 112-113, 115-116, 120-125,
51-55, 58, 80-81, 83, 107 128-131, 182-183, I96ns6; women's
Qabusnama (Vushmgirl, 95 roles in, 128-132, 147. See also
Qadiriya, 106 Hinduism; lams, Muslims; Sikhism
Qandabil, 45 "Religion, Politics, and Modernity"
Qani’, Mir Ali Shir, 19, 155, 163, nan? (Kavirajj, i88n7
Qaramita Shia, 112-113 Rehgion and Society tn Arab Sind
Qasim, Muhammad bin: Alexander the (Maclean), 12
Great and, 92-931 m Chachnama. Reynolds, Dwight, 95
10-13, 64-65, 67; colonial under­ Richards, John F., i88n7
standings of, 164-165, 168-171; Richardson, C M., 2021150
conquest narrativesol, 2, 38-44, Rishahr, 30
21,
120- 134, 146, 174-176, i8i; death Rizvi, S. A. A., 117
of, 14/151. 137-139, U4-1491 romantic elements (of Chachnamaj.
letter-writing and, 82, 86-92, 96, 98, 9-12, 130, 145, 149. 170-171. 174
2o6ni2; mosque of, 23; Pakistani Rome, 27-19. »9iny
nationalism and, 145-147 175-179; Roof, Dylann, 189m 7
piety of, 101—io2; religious diversity ruby eyes, 109-114
 INDEX 249

Sadusa, 39 55-62, 173. I98n2; definitions of, 31,

Safarnama (fahaniyan), 19 Greek understandings of, 92-93;
Sahib, Murad, 78-81, 79, 204IU Muslim otherness and, 48-52, 69-77.
Sahisi, 133 107, rz6. 156-158, 162-171; religious
Saivites, 117 diversity in, 103-107. 117-125,
Samanids, $0 157-158; sacral sites in, 10, 17, 23-26,
Samarkand, 49, 51 69, 71, 103-107, 120-125, 182-183.
Samdesarasaka (Abdur-Rahman), 71-72 See also colonialism; conquest
Sam Ghur, Muhammad bin, 50-5:, 37 narratives; India* Muslims
Samma people, 154, 182 Singh, Jay, 75
Sanskrit {language and literature), 16, Singh, Rannt, 160
31, 54. 97. 180, ro6ns7 Sinjan, 75
Sarandip, 29 Siraf, 30
Sarkar, Jadunath, 172 sira texts, 33
Sarkar, Nilanjan, aoinxB, 2071134 Sistan, 35-36
Sassanid Empire, 25, 29-31. 3$ Styasatnama |Nizam Mulkl, 95
Saudi Arabia, 178 Smith, Lewis, 2i6n23
Savarkar, V D., 3 Smith, Vincent A., 8, 163, 167, 170-171
Sawandari, 40 Society to Correct Errors in History, 173
Sawwar Abdi, Abdallah bin, 195038 Sohnan Devi, Rani, 65-66, 131-136, 140
Scinde. and the Races that Inhabit the Solinus, 29, 93
Valley of the Indus (BurtonI, 16$ Somalia, 26, 29
Scinde. or the Unhappy Valley Somanatha (Thapar), i88n6
(Burton), 165 South China Sea, 26
Scbuktigin, 50 Spam, 34
Secretum Secretorum (Pseudo* spatiality (in historiography!, 16-19
Callisthenes), 93-94. 206026 Sprenger, Aloys, 168
Sen, Tanscn, 19203 Sri Lanka, 36-37, 150-151, I93ni7
Shahab, Masood Hasan, 2irni Strabo, 28
Shahnama (Firdawsi), 92, 94-95, lot Subrahmanyam, Sanjav. 198m
Shahzad, Faisal, 8-9, 146 Sufi Islam, 53, 102-103, 106-107,
Shakr, Fanduddin Ganj-i, 121 I2I-H2, 128-131, 155
Shamasastry, R., 2O7n3$ Suhrawardi (order|, 106
Sharar, Abdul Halim, 8 Suhrawardi, Najib al-Din, 106
Shayban, Jalm bin, 112 Surat, 71
Shikoh, Dara, 181 Suri, Sher Shah, 153
Shutara-i Ansab |Mudabbir), 57 Suria Deo, 137
Shulman, David, 198m Surkh Bukhan, Jalaluddin, 23
Siddiqui, Aafia, 9 Syria. 28, 34, 41
Sikhism, 148, 170 Syros, Vasileios, 207034
Sila’ij, Chach bin. See Chach bin Sila'ij
Simmcl, Georg, 191035 Tabaqati Nasiri (Juzjani), 48, 51-53, 58,
Sind: archaeology in, 69-77, aoanso; 144
143-
British colonial accounts of, 145-146. Tabari, 33, 55-56. 59. 64, 94. i$a-iS3
160-171, 178, 183-284; in Taj, Imtiaz All, 147
Chachnama. 13-14. 86, 69-77; Tai ul-Ma athir (Ntzami), 53
Chachnama’s composition and, 2Oj Talbot, Cynthia, 4, iB8n6
conquest narratives and, 2, 11-12, Tally, Robert, I9in37
34-44, 47-48; cosmopolitanism of, Taipurs, 159-160, 163. 167. 182
20-21, 24-34. 40. 44-46, 48-51, Tamil, 180
250 INDEX

Tanukhi, 57 69,71, 103-107, 120-125, 182-183,

Tar'ikh (Tabaril, 151-155 walls in, 23, 104, 183
Ta'rikh Futuh al-Sham (Basri), 55, 65 ul-Haq. Zia, 7, 176, 179
Tankh-i S/nJ|Nadvi|, 175 ul-Qadir |ilani, 'Abd, 106
Tnr'ikh Afusumi |Masum|, 19, 154 Umayyads, 33, 36-37, 41-41, I94m4,
taxation, 14. >5. 51. 19. 45-44. 61. 74, I95n38
88-89, 108, 118-119, 125-117, United States, 1
!35-I56, t6o un-Nisa, Sharf, 147
temples (destruction of), 25, 163, Uthman bin Affan, 35
167-168, 171, 174, 196056. See a/so
religion; Uch Vallabha, 44
temporality |in historiography), 16, Van Der Kutjp, Leonard W. J, 1961157
150-152 Varnasi, 50
Textures of Time (Rao, Shulman, and Vikramacanta. 98
Subrahmanyam), 198m Visnusarman, 98
Thana, 5$ Volncy, Constantin-Francois, 17
Thapar, Romila, 4, i88n6 Voyage en Bgypte et en Syria
Thaqafi Hakam, 35 (Volneyl, 17
Thatta, 159 Vushmgir, Qabus ibn, 95
trade, 23-52, 19ms
Trade and Civilization in the Indian Waggoner, Phillip, i88n8
Ocean (Chaudhuri), 19203 Walid bin Abdal Malik, 36, 41
translation: Chachnama as, 9-12, 15, Walid Umani, Daud bin Nasr bin, 114
48, 55-62, 65, 81; colonial scholar walking, 31-34, no, 183
ship and, 13, 157, 162-163, 168, Wathik, 54
170-179, n6ni3; generic require­ Well of Baba Farid, m-nj
ments and. 201 n?6; religious Wentworth, Blake T., 197058
differences and, 41. 109-110, 124-127 Wink, Andrf, 31, 57, 192113
trees, 23, 47-48, 66, 77, 183 women: Chach's ascent and, 13; in
Tughluq, Firm Shah, 19, 144. <84 colonial accounts. 145-146; as
Tiighluqnama (Khursau), 96 ethical subjects, 21, 128-149.'
TYihfat-ul Kiram (Qani ), 19, 145, immurement and, 212nil,- marriage
155, 163 alliances and, 108, 2110391 political
Tulsi Das, Rana Rai, 105, 106 power of, 65-66, 194024, 2iin3;
Tusi, 56 Qasim's accusers and, 14, 136-137,
144-
149; temporality and, 130;
Uch: Chachnama's depiction of, 9-12, tombs of, 116. See also politics;
15, 63-64, 71-72, 80-81, 97; Cho­ religion; specific women
listan desert and, 19, 182; in
contemporary geography, 12-13; Xuanzang, 30, 19804
cultural memory in, 16-18; local
interviews in, 47-48, 77-81, 79. Ya'qubi, 33, 94
123,
122- 150-152, 182-183; natural Yemen, 16-17, 30, 4S. 71. 71
and built environment of, 47-48, 97, Yildii, Tai al-Din, ?r, S3, 8j
150-152; as political center, 16-17,
20, 24-26, 48 -55, 58-59, 83, I44-U5, Zakariya, Bah'auddin, S3
184, !98n3; religious diversity and, Zhang Qian, 30
103-107) sacral sites in, io. 17. 23-26, Zunbils, 195038
MANAN AHMED ASIF is Assistant
Professor in the Department of History
11 Columbia University.
“This is an innovative, refreshing, and provocative
intellectual history that makes a major intervention
in debates surrounding the question of Islams
advent' ill the South Asian subcontinent- In A Boo*
of Conquest, Manan Ahmed Asif aims at dismantling
the dominant origins myth that portrays Islams
encounter with India as a conquest."
— avssha iaiat. Tufts University

"A Book of Conquest is an important study that )oins

a growing conversation about precolonial India,
moving beyond both colonial and nationalist tropes
concerning the place and origins of Muslims In Indian
society. Manan Ahmed Asif's radical re-reading of the
Chachnama aims to correct portrayals of the Muslims
of India as descendants of foreign conquerors."
— aicHASD tarow. UnlveniHyol ArUnna