A Book of Conquest The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia
NOTES TO PAGES 45-50
- See C. E. Bosworth, "Rulers of Makriin and Qu(ldiir in the Early Islamic Pe-
riod," Studia Iranica, vol. 23, pp. 199-209; and M. S. Khan, "The Five Arab
States in South Asia," Hamdard Islamicus vol. 15, no. 2 (1992), pp. 5-28.
- For a detailed analysis of early Isma'ili history in Sind, see Derryl N. Ma-
clean, Religion and Society in Arab Sind (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989).^1
2. A FOUNDATION FOR HISTORY
r. Genre has long determined the horizon of interpretation in South Asian his-
toriography. The classification of texts, based on both internal and external
evidence, orients the reader to its style, approach, audience, and influence.
Under the colonial gaze, the genres were imbued with power as well-both
in the sense that particular genres were collected, archived, and published,
and in the sense that particular genres were deemed "historical." A wider
discussion of British, German, French, and Dutch collections remains nec-
essary for a full conversation. It is to the credit of Narayana Rao, David
Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam that they tackled the second aspect
in their now-classic Textures of Time. My effort here is in conversation
with their work. See V. N. Rao, David Shulman, and San jay Subrahmanyam,
Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, r6oo-r8oo (Delhi: Per-
manent Black, 2001).
- Contrast this with the way in which contemporary scholarship reads as "cos-
mopolitan" the eleventh-century scholar and poet Bilhana, who was born in
Kashmir and moved more than a thousand miles south to the Chalukya
court in Kalyani. See Whitney Cox, "Saffron in the Rasam," South Asian
Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, edited by Yigal
Bronner, Whitney Cox, and Lawrence McCrea. (Ann Arbor, MI: Association
of Asian Studies, 20n), pp. 177-201.
- By the late tenth century, the city states of Multan, Uch, and Mansura were
governed by Oman-based Ismai'li rulers who looked toward the Fatimid ca-
liphate in Egypt. This world faced its fiercest challenge from the north-from
those seeking favor of the caliph in Baghdad. See Samuel M. Stern, "Isma'ili
Propaganda and Fatimid Rule in Sind," Islamic, Culture 23 (1949), pp. 298-
307; and C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1963); and Peter Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Mili-
tary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
- Such as the two travel accounts by Buddhist monks Faxian (active ca. 399-
4!7) and Xuanzang (602-664), who provide firsthand and detailed reports of
cities, ports, and routes in India. See Samuel Beal, Travels of Fah-Hian and
Sung-Yun: Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India (400 A.D. and 5r8 A.DJ
(London: Triibner and Co., 1869).
- R. B. Whitehead, "Multan: The House of Gold," The Numismatic Chronicle
and f ournal of the Royal Numismatic Society vol. I?, no. 65 (1937), pp. 60-
72; and Yohanan Friedmann, "The Temple of Multan: A Note on Early
Muslim Attitudes to Idolatry," Israel Oriental Studies (1972), pp. 176-182.
- See C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and
Eastern Iran 994-ro40 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1963).
