A Book of Conquest The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia
NOTES TO PAGES 32-36 195
- See Michael Flecker, "A Ninth-Century AD Arab or Indian Shipwreck in In-
donesia: First Evidence for Direct Trade with China," World Archaeology
32, no. 3 (Feb. 2001), pp. 335-354.
- S. Maqbul Ahmad, Arabic Classical Accounts of India and China (Shimla:
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1989), pp. 38-40.
- Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic
Historical Writing (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1998) 1 p. r8r.
- This early Muslim historian is known to have written more than 200
works, including the following on al-Hind: Kitab Kirman (Book on the Re-
gion of Kirman), Ki tab Futuh Makran (Book on the Conquest of the Region
of Makran), Kitab Tl;mghur al-Hind (Book on the Frontier of Hind), and
Kitab Amal al-Hind (Book on the Governors of Hind). See Bayard Dodge,
The Fihrist of al-Nadim: A Tenth Century Survey of Muslim Culture (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 225.
- Ahmad ibn Yahya BaladhurI, Futuh al-Buldiin (Beirut: Maktaba al-Hilal,
1988), p. 416.
- See N. A. Baloch, "The Probable Date of the First Arab Expeditions to India,"
Islamic Culture 20 (1946), pp. 250-266.
- Baladhuri, Futuh al-Buldiin, p. 416.
- See Matthew S. Gordon, The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of
the Turkish Military of Samarra (A.H. 200-275/8r5-889 C.E.) (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2001).
- Futuh al-Buldiin, pp. 416-417.
- Ibid., p. 417.
- In 663-664 1 '.Abdallah bin Sawwar Abdi led two expeditions to Kikan, per-
ishing in the second. In 665 1 Sinan ibn Salamah reached Makran and estab-
lished a fort. Sinan's tenure, however, was short-lived, as Makran was soon
lost to the Muslims. Hence, the northernmost outpost of Muslims in the last
decades of the seventh century was at Bust in southern Afghanistan. From
here, raids to capture goods and slaves were carried into Makran or toward
Kabul but without much success. The local Zunbils of Zamindawar and Zab-
ulistan, and the Kabulshahs of Kabul were often persuaded to pay tribute but,
with the lack of a standing army, they often changed their mind and were a
ferocious opponent. Additionally, the impenetrable region provided ample
sanctuary to the Azariqa Kharajite-rebels against the Umayyad re-
gime-who used it as a base to launch attacks. Ibn Khurdadhbih cites a cou-
plet from Ibn Mufarrigh which laments the many graves that were filled with
Arab fighters at Kandhar. This may refer to another tradition about Qandhar
(Kandahar, Afghanistan) that was often cited by nineteenth-century Orien-
talists like Augustus Le Messurier and Joseph Pierre Ferrier: "In the time of
al-Muqt\dar (916), during the digging for the foundation of a tower in Kan-
dahar, a subterranean cave was discovered, in which were a thousand Arab
heads, all attached to the same chain, which had evidently remained in good
preservation since the year 70/698 4 for a paper with this date upon it was
found attached by a silken thread to the ears of the twenty-nine most impor-
tant skulls, with their proper names." Needless to say Qandhar did not have
