A CONQUEST OF PASTS 153
the past by stages [genealogically and then yearly), from the creation
of Adam to the present political ruler. The universal-history model
also carves out a geographic relationship to the arrival of Muslim po-
litical power-each history of a region begins with the arrival of the
Muslims. What distinguishes Chachnama from the universal-history
method of Arabic historiography is Chachnama's geographic and
temporal limitations on its imagination of the past. Like the history
of Beyhaqi, Chachnama resists the history of polity that can be ren-
dered on the world stage with universal time as a constant. Hence, it
telescopes onto two generations of rulers and a polity that is geo-
graphically circumscribed in the region of Sind, as defined by the text
itself.
It is precisely the regional focus of Chachnama that explains the
text's absence from universal histories written in Delhi from the thir-
teenth century onward. We can be certain that the text was known and
read, from references in Mahru and in compilations of travel accounts
such as that of Ibn Batutta, who visited Uch in 1341. Outside of ~ind,
Chachnama is not cited or excerpted because it was not understood td
be tied to the histories of other Muslim regnal constellations or of Islam
per se.
A stronger case that Chachnama was not seen as a text informing
the history of Islam in India is in Abu'l-Fazl's history of Mughal em~
peror Akbar, Akbarnama [the first part was completed in 1596). Hu-
mayun, unable to convince vast contingents of his elite to install him
on his father Zahiruddin Babar's throne, leaves Lahore for Sind. Hu-
mayun's hope is to convince the rulers in Sind, the Jam, to give him
support against Sher Shah Suri'sAfghan army in the north. Humayun
is not successful in his bid, and Abu'l Fazl describes with great em-
pathy the wanderings of Humayun's camp in the desert of Sind and
Gujarat. He recounts that it was in Umarkot, Sind, that the future em-
peror Akbar was born. Abu'l Fazl presents the birth of the great Akbar
with all the commendations that one would expect. The text opens
with Akbar's birth and the heavenly portents and divine luminescence
that surrounded his mother and caretakers. Abu'l-Fazl makes refer-
ences to the Timurid descent of Akbar's mother and other important
sacral and political leaders.^4 Yet, the text makes no mention,,of Mu-
hammad bin Qasim or of Islam's history in that region.