6. A Conquest of Pasts
A SHORT DRIVE outside of Uch, at the edges of the Cholistan desert,
are seven extraordinarily long graves. Inhabitants of Uch and its envi-
rons venerate these larger-than-life graves as the final resting place of
the earliest believers in Islam: the Companions of the Prophet. The
marble tiles at the head of the graves denote the name of the Com-
panion and the number of years he spent in the company of the Prophet.
The graves are covered in devotional green, and their peculiar length
suggests the scale of the bodies entombed.1 In some accounts, Proph-
et's legendary Companion Tamim Ansari led these Companions to
India (Kerala or Gujarat), and from there they came to Sind. In other
accounts, it was the Companion Malik bin Dinar who built a mosque
in Kerala, attracting the other Companions to India.^2
Standing outside the shrine, I asked the caretakers and supplicants
about the arrival of these Companions: what brought the Companions
to Uch? What was their relationship to this land? I received different
explanations. Some tied to the Prophet, some to Adam, some to Alex-
ander the Great. Each story connected Uch to the circulations of people
between the Western seaboard of India and Arabia during the early
years of Islam. Some said the Companions came because Sind was the
land which Adam visited after he left heaven. Adam landed in Sarandip
(contemporary Sri Lanka) and then visited the Indus valley. The Com-
panions knew to come here because they followed Adam's footsteps.