A CONQUEST OF PASTS 155the caliph is not as licentious, and the two daughters of Dahar are not
immured but are dragged from the tails of horses around the four cor-
ners of the city and then thrown into the Euphrates. These modifica-
tions hint at other political concerns facing.Akbar, with the emphasis
on being responsive to the Mughal center and on rewarding service to
the throne.
The next major citation for Chachnama is in Mir Ali Sher Qani's
(n27-I788) Tuhfat ul-Kiram (Gifts of the Generous)-a social history
of Sind.7 Qanic incorporates Chachnama in the beginning of his ac-
count, highlighting the social and moral aspects of the text. Qanic is
faithful to the narrative of Chachnama, providing detailed summaries
of episodes and their participants. His is a social history of eighteenth-
century Sind, and he remarks on contemporary social practices-
including the description of yogic poses for ascetics that he says were
introduced in Chachnama's description of Muhammad bin Qasim
praying. In Tuhfat ul-Kiram, Qani's Qasim marries Dahar's sister. He
permits the inhabitants of Brahmanabad to build a new temple, gives
orders to formalize their ascetic status, and forgives them the jizya tax.
Qasim builds mosques alongside the temples. In his depiction of Qa-
sim's religiosity and piety, Qanic emphasizes Qasim's deference to the
holy sites and his extended meditative prayers. Qanic declares that after
the conquest of Daybul, Qasim leads the Muslim army in three days
of prayer and recital of the Qur'an. These are acts of meditation quite
common among Sufi ascetics. Where Masum repurposes Chachnama
for political control, Qanic imbues it with sacral and cultural hues.
Where Masum focuses on local administration, Qanic focuses on the
question of accommodation and cohabitation in Chachnama. What is
remarkable that Qani's late-eighteenth-century Persian interpretation
of Chachnama as political theory is contemporary with the markedly
different interpretation of the East India Company that I describe later.
From the Local to the Universal
The histories of Masum and Qani' incorporate Chachnama and reflect
the political and cultural demands of a localized history. As noted
with the case of Akbarnama, no universal histories prior to the seven-
teenth century incorporated or cited Chachnama. The first history of