INTRODUCTION 19These walks in Uch attuned me to stories connected to specific
sites, to nature, and to landscape in particular. The sacral, historical,
and political geographies of Uch constitute a symbiotic relationship.
Varied texts such as Chachnama from 1226, Sufi Makhdum Jahani-
yan's Safarnama from 1350, Mir Muhammad Masum Bhakkari's
Ta'rikh-i Ma'sumi from 1600, and Mir 'Ali Shir-Qani'i's Tuhfat-ul
Kiram from 1788 are called upon to accentuate the historical past and
to provide explanations for the present. Events, personalities, descrip-
tions, and objects from these historical sources are part of everyday
conversations. It is common to hear of Maklidum Jahaniyan's gift to
Firuz Shah Tughluq of the handprint of the Prophet, which cemented
both his rule and that of his descendants in Delhi. 39
A series of forts built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
dot the adjoining Cholistan desert between Uch and Ahmadabad in
Gujarat. The forts-Derawar, Islamgarh, Mirgarh, Jamgarh, Khangarh,
Khairgarh, and Ramgarh-are central to the imagined landscape of
Uch although the international border between India and Pakistan has
rendered that route impassable for seven decades. Though the forts
stretch into the Rajasthan desert, the stories in Uch are linked to those
on the other side of the border. These memories of a route traveled via
camels by pilgrims, traders, merchants, and soldiers continue to inform
the rhythms of life in Uch. The invocations of these desert outposts
are integral to the sacral landscape of Uch and its relationship to the
political landscape of medieval India.
Organization of the Book
I began to organize this book with the frame within which the study
of Muslim pasts in India is undertaken-a frame that explores first the
question of spatial otherness and then political, linguistic, and social
otherness. This particular framework came into being in the nine-
teenth century via the colonial British inquiry into understanding
Indian past'xas a history of prior failed Muslim polities. The most well-
known and demonstrative figure of this historiography is Henry Myers
Elliot, whose The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians col-
lapsed the history of Islam and the history of Muslim polities within