Chach Nama

Chach Nama (Sindhi: چچ نامو; "Story of the Chach"), also known as the Fateh Nama Sindh (Sindhi: فتح نامه سنڌ; "Story of the Conquest of Sindh"), and as Tareekh al-Hind wa a's-Sind (Arabic: تاريخ الهند والسند; "History of Hind and Sind"), is a historical source for the history of Sindh. The text, which purports to be a Persian translation by `Ali Kufi (13th-century) of an undated, original Arabic text, has long been considered to be the story of the early 8th-century conquests by the Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim. The text is significant because it has been a source of colonial understanding of the origins of Islam and the Islamic conquests in the Indian subcontinent. It influenced the debate on the partition of British India and its narrative has been included in the state-sanctioned history textbooks of Pakistan. However, according to Manan Ahmed Asif, the text is in reality original, "not a work of translation". Asif asserts that the Chach Nama is a romantic work influenced by the 13th-century history, not a historical text of the 8th-century. Some Islamic scholars and modern historians question the credibility of some of the Chach Nama's reports.