The linked article is however accurate in pointing out that the condition of the sub-alterns remained unchanged following conversion, it was primarily a numbers game (and still is). When it comes to burials the ghost of the caste(s) speaks with one voice- Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc.
…..
Chachnama, a Sindhi book published by the Sindhi Adabi Board
in 2008, speaks of Muhammad bin Qasim’s demise on page 242 to 243. I
will try to summarise it for you.
After Raja Dahar was killed, two
of his daughters were made captive, whom Muhammad Bin Qasim sent to the
capital Damascus. After a few days, the Caliph of the Muslims called
the two young women to his court. The name of the elder daughter of Raja
Dahar was Suryadevi, while the younger one’s name was Pirmaldevi.
Caliph
Waleed Bin Abdul Malik fell for Suryadevi’s extraordinary beauty. He
ordered for her younger sister to be taken away. The Caliph then began
to take liberties with Suryadevi, pulling her to himself.
It is
written that Suryadevi sprang up and said: “May the king live long: I, a
humble slave, am not fit for your Majesty’s bedroom, because Muhammad
Bin Qasim kept both of us sisters with him for three days, and then sent
us to the caliphate. Perhaps your custom is such, but this kind of
disgrace should not be permitted by kings.”
Hearing this, the Caliph’s blood boiled as heat from anger and desire both compounded within him.
Blinded
in the thirst of Suryadevi’s nearness and jealousy of Bin Qasim who had
robbed him of the purity he would otherwise have had, the Caliph [sic]
immediately sent for pen, ink and paper, and with his own hands wrote an
order, directing that, “Muhammad (Bin) Qasim should, wherever he may
be, put himself in raw leather and come back to the chief seat of the
caliphate.”
Muhammad Bin Qasim received the Caliph’s orders in the
city of Udhapur. He directed his own men to wrap him in raw leather and
lock him in a trunk before taking him to Damascus.
En route to
the capital, Muhammad Bin Qasim, conqueror to some, predator to others,
breathed his last and his soul departed to meet with the Creator in
whose name he claimed to crusade in Sindh.
When the trunk carrying
Muhammad Bin Qasim’s corpse wrapped in raw leather reached the Caliph’s
court, the Caliph called upon Dahar’s daughters, asking them to bear
witness to the spectacle of obedience of his men for the Caliph.
One
of Dahar’s daughter’s then spoke in return and said: “The fact is that
Muhammad Qasim was like a brother or a son to us; he never touched us,
your slaves, and our chastity was safe with him. But in as much as he
brought ruin on the king of Hind and Sind, desolated the kingdom of our
fathers and grandfathers, and degraded us from princely rank to slavery,
we have, with the intention of revenge and of bringing ruin and
degradation to him in return, misrepresented the matter and spoken a
false thing to your majesty against him.”
The author of the Chachnama
then writes that had Muhammad Bin Qasim not lost his senses in the
passion of obedience, he could have made the whole journey normally,
while wrapping himself in raw leather and locking himself in a trunk
only when a part of the journey remained to be covered.
He could have then proven himself innocent in the Caliph’s court and saved himself from such a fate.
….
regards
