A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY 73
ward, such that by the thirteenth century the Muslim communities
contained "not only wealthy traders and particularly shippers and
sea-faring men but also indigenously employed groups like oil-men,
masons."^57
The collective body of work by the Muslim geographers, produced
from the mid-ninth through the mid-eleventh centuries, supports Rah-
man's account of a connected and politically important region. These
geographies incorporated accounts from travelers, merchants, and other
first-person observers. They describe the commercial routes that con-
nected Sind and Gujarat and Yemen, and ·they detail the presence of
various intellectuals, dignitaries, and elite from Iraq and Syria in Sind.^58
Considering these works together, we can see that this region intri-
cately linked Arabia to India and that political alliances and trade
networks flourished across the various principalities.
The earliest geographer of this region, Ibn Khurradadhbih (fl. 884),
presented this world as a connected space.^59 His Kitab Masalik wa'l-
Mamalik (Book of Roads and Kingdoms) was written around 876 CE,
when Ibn Khurradadhbih served as the director of post and intelligence
in the district of Jibal.^60 To get a sense of how populated this geography
was, note how many settlements and cities Ibn Khurradadhbih listed
in Sind and Hind: "Qiqan (Kalat), Banna (Bannu), Makran (Makran),
Maid, Qandhar, Qusdar, Buqan, Qandabli, Fannazbur, Armabil (Las
Bela), Daybul, Qanbali, Kanbaya (Gujarat), Suhban (Sehwan), Rask, Rur,
Sawndra, Multan, Sandan (Daman), Thana (near Bombay), Manda!, Bay-
laman, Surasl;tt, Kayraj, Marmad, Qali, Dahnaj, and Baros (Baroch)."^61
As one can get a rough idea, this geography of Sind encompassed lands
from the far northwest mountain regions down to the plains of Punjab,
along the river Indus and then to coastal towns across the Gujarat.
There are two specific themes to note in Ibn Khurradadhbih, each
of which become reproduced in the works of subsequent geographers:
First is the account of Multan as "a city known as Farj bait dhahab
(Frontier with the House of Gold)" and second, is the laudatory descrip-
tion of the ,greatest king of Hind, Balhara, that is to say, "the king of
kings."^62 Balhara wears a golden ring on which is inscribed, "He who
befriends you for a purpose will turn away after its completion."^63
This could be the Arabization of the title vallabha-raja (the beloved
king), which; if Ibn Khurradadhbih is reporting from the emissary's