A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORYThe recognition that the limit of Sind extends to the present of the
Chachnama directly connects the temporal regime of the Chachnama
to the thirteenth century. It connects the notion of a limited, dialogic
imperial formation as a possibility for the Muslim regimes of Qabacha.
It evokes the caution of Beyhaqi, as I tliscuss below, that needless con-
quest or warmongering does not benefit the polity. It also goes further
by making this limit an inheritance for the Muslim conquest. The Mu-
hammad bin Qasim narrative cycle in the Chachnama traces Chach's
conquest journey, with Qasim planting flags for Islam at the same lo-
cation where Chach planted trees.
The theme of restrained power is emphasized when Muhammad
bin Qasim marches his army to the "limit of Kashmir by ,t,he river
they call Panj Mah'iat, where Dahar's father, Chach Sal'aij, had
planted the sapidar and sanobar trees and marked the limit of his
domain. Muhammad bin Qasim reached that mark, and he renewed
his commitment to the limit."^42 It is now that Chachnama thoroughly
reconfigures the notion of the frontier as a spatial organization of po-
litical power or anxiety to one of antecedent and tradition. Where
Chach marked the limits of his polity and asserted his centrality within
those boundaries, Qasim renews that vision and appropriates it for
the Muslim polity that he is founding.
In form or in theory, Chachnama cannot be considered a text in
the genre of conquest literature. Instead, it is political theory that is
deeply ingrained in the physical geography and spatial constructS" of
the thirteenth century.
- What was Chachnamat Why was it written in the early thirteenth
century? What was particular about that moment that necessitated this
work of historical imagination? Before I turn toward the claims of the
text, I want to declare that Chachnama provides a cleat understanding
of the soci~ function of historical writing. This understanding was de-
rived from the history of Beyhaqi, written during the reign 0£ the
Mas'ud of Ghazna (r. 1030-1041). A closer look at Beyhaqi's Tari'kh re-
veals that its model informed Kufi's work (as well as that of Juzjani).
Beyhaqi's history is genealogical and chronological, drawing upon the