II2 A DEMON WITH RUBY EYEScentury. 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 216,432 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. Jalm 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
[Ghazni) 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 216,432 the period between the Qaramita
and us, that is around one hundred years, and if we subtract the pe-
riod from tl;te 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 (and 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