A Book of Conquest The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia
NOTES TO PAGES 52-54 199
- Jiizjani, Minhaj Siraj, Tabaqat-i Nasiri, ed. 'Abd Hayy Habibi (Quetta: Silsilah-
i Asar-i Habibi, 1949, pp. 743-744.
- I am using the more generic "Delhi" though the city has had several itera-
tions. What Juzjani calls Hazrat-i Dilli (Exalted Delhi) or Uch as Hazrat-e
Uch is taken to mean "capital city."
The clearest articulation of the stage of transition is outlined in Sunil
Kumar, "Courts, Capitals and Kingship: Delhi and Its Sultans in the Thir-
teenth and Fourteenth Centuries CE," in Court Cultures in the Muslim
World: Seventh to the Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Albrecht Fuess and Jan-Peter
Hartung {London: Routledge, 20n), pp. 123-148.
Luther Obrock brought to my attention the Palam Baoli inscription {dated
1276), which situates itself between Uch (Sanskrit Uccapuri) and Delhi (Yo-
ginipura). Personal communication and unpublished draft "Reading the
Palam Baoli Inscription in the Mercantile Sultanate: Sanskrit in Circulation
in North India."
- A telling account of this is in Jiizjani's description of his first meeting with
Iltutmish's army after their conquest of Uch in 1228. Jiizjani met the com-
mander, Tajuddin Sanjr Kazlak Khan. Jiizjani found him surrounded by sol-
diers and a steward with a severe disposition but a dignified look (biz manzar
muhib o surat-e ba azmat). On seeing Jiizjani, Kazlak Khan rose from his
seat, took Jiizjani's hand, and led him to be seated at his own perch. After
honoring Jiizjani, Kazlak Khan presented a red apple to him, saying, "Mau-
lana, take this such that it makes a good omen, and may God's mercy shine
on us." There is undoubtedly a symbolic heft to the gift of the red apple-a
gesture both to the apple groves of Ghazni and to the orchards planned for
Delhi-being presented to Jiizjani in the alluvial plains of Sind. See Juzjani,
Tabaqat-i NasirI, ed. 'Abd Hayy Habibi (Quetta: Silsilah-i Asar-i Habibi,
1949), p. 282.
IO. See Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: San-
skrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2006), pp. 12-19.
- 'A.jam refers broadly to the nonethnically Arab world and more closely the
Persian-speaking world, while Hind is the earlier designation for Hindustan
or India. I do have concerns about hyphenated linkages between ethnicity
and geography {Inda-Aryan, Inda-European, Greco-Roman, etc.) which
emerge in the nineteenth century. An early example is in James B. Fraser's
The Persian Adventurer (1834), which offers this line set in Chandni Chowk
in Delhi: "I heard a voice at the door, inquiring in the Inda-Persian language
for Ismael Khan Bahadoor." James B. Fraser, The Persian Adventurer {London:
Henry Colburn and Richard Betley, 1830), p. 191; and Charles E. Trevelyan,
Charles E., James Prinsep, John Tytler, Alexander Duff, Henry Thoby
Prinsep, "rhe Application of the Roman Alphabet to All the Oriental Lan-
guages {Calcutta: Serampore Press, 1834). Hence, I remain skeptical about
"Inda-Persian" as a contemporary category for scholarship-though colleagues
in literary studies have adopted it as a designation for Persian/Persianate in the
Indian peninsula. However, from,the historian's perspective, and for the
