II4 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 unsheat~ed
his sword to strike the idol, but the Brahmin caretaker exclaimed,
"Oh just Commander! This is an idol (but) 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.17Qasim'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 Daud bin Nasr bin Walid 'Umani."^18
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