A DEMON WITH RUBY EYES II5
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.^19 Here
are nine-feet-long graves of holy warriors who carved a stone forma-
tion for Kalka Devi. Here is a mosque founded by Muhammad bin
Qasim. Here are 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