Note on Transliteration and Translation
THE PRIMARY TEXTUAL SOURCES under review in this book are
written in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and Sanskrit-with Arabic
words often appearing either in Persian texts or in Urdu texts. A further
complication to adopting a specific transliteration schema is the dif-
ferent vocal emphasis in pronouncing Persian and Arabic terms in
contemporary South Asia. To promote wider reception of this work, I
have removed all diacritical marks, indicating only the presence of the
letters hamza with an apostrophe (') and 'ayn with a reverse apos-
trophe ('). The Persian i~iifa is indicated as -i. The Arabic definite ar-
ticle is omitted from proper names (e.g., Baladhuri and not al-Baladhuri).
However, when citing sources, I have left the text unaltered. Place
names are specific to the historical period and reflect usage in primary
sources-most importantly, Sind rather than Sindh, Uch rather than
Uchch or Uch Sharif. All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are
mine. All dates are of the Common Era (CE) unless otherwise noted.
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