A Book of Conquest The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia

IO INTRODUCTION

Map of the regions of medieval Sind, Gujarat, and Arabia. (Map © Manan

Ahmed Asif and J. C. Trinidad-Christensen.)

created, or even place it within the landscape of Uch. It became a uni-
versalized conquest narrative of early Islam. Such oversights found little
correction. This limited and misleading reading of Chachnama as pri-
marily a history of the eighth century became standard.
Hence, nationalist historians like Mohammad Habib (r895-r97r)
dismissed in entirety the pre-Islamic section of the Chachnama and
enthusiastically embraced the rest as an authentic source for the
eighth-century Muslim conquest: "We may, therefore, confidently trust
the Chach Nama as the safest of guides of the invasion."^18 Even those
with more skepticism were willing to parse out the historical truth
from the romantic. R. C. Majumdar (r888-r980) declared Chachnama
to contain "a kernel of historical facts," though it needed fact
checking from archaeological and textual sources.^19 The portions of