A Book of Conquest The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia

A Book of Conquest ...

A Book of Conquest THE CI1ACHNAMA AND MUSLIM ORIGINS IN SOUTH ASIA Manan Ahmed Asif Ill Ill Harvard University Press Cambridge, ...

,,. • ,, I , I Copyright © 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States ...

For Shaista Ahmed ...

Contents LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix - Introduction NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION xi I. Frontier with the House of Gol ...

Illustrations Map of the regions of Sind, Gujarat, and Arabia 10 List of sacral sites in Uch 24 Letter writer 79 Grave of Rai Tu ...

Note on Transliteration and Translation THE PRIMARY TEXTUAL SOURCES under review in this book are written in Arabic, Persian, Ur ...

Introduction BEGINNINGS are a seductive necessity. The interest in beginnings is not new-narratives of origins and genealogies f ...

2 INTRODUCTION A Question of Origins The question of origins was significant for the European inquiry into the pasts of the worl ...

INTRODUCTION 3 First, let me demonstrate the power and dominance of this origins narrative in South Asia. This narrative positin ...

4 INTRODUCTION gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers."^3 For the Hindu Right, the "foreign" origins of Muslims in In ...

INTRODUCTION 5 marking of the colonial construction of the communalist past was a critical intervention, what remained unexamine ...

6 INTRODUCTION ways in which this thirteenth-century Persian text became, in colo- nial understanding, a history of Muslim origi ...

INTRODUCTION 7 of civilians-and linked them to the atrocities of Pakistan's teeming Muslims since 1971 War for Bangladesh. Pakis ...

8 INTRODUCTION texts and policies for Pakistan. Their work built on an earlier genera- tion of Muslim historians and writers, su ...

INTRODUCTION 9 action to the controversy that ensued after Danish newspapers pub- lished cartoons of Muhammad. Another cause for ...

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

INTRODUCTION II Chachnama that did not speak directly to Muhammad bin Qasim's conquest were considered redundant and discardable ...

I2 INTRODUCTION book which contains the detailed Arab tradition regarding the con- quest of Sind.^22 From within·this framework, ...

INTRODUCTION 13 recounts the history of the Muslim commander Muhammad bin Qasim, who established a Muslim polity in Sind. Uch cu ...