A CONQUEST OF PASTS r5rGraves 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.^3 The visitors gave proof of these stories 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 o~ 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