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Art. XIII.—Ibnu Baṭūṭa in Sindh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

M. R. Haig
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Extract

The extract from the Narrative of his Travels by Ebu ‘Abdu-’llāh Muhammed of Tangier, commonly called Ibnu Baṭūṭa, an English translation of which appears below, relates to his experiences in the province of Sindh, and touches on matters of local history and geography which may interest some readers, and be thought deserving of such elucidation as may be possible. These matters are noticed in the remarks subjoined to the extract, a form of comment which I have thought preferable to the alternative of interrupting the narrative by frequent and copious footnotes.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1887 , pp. 393 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1887

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References

page 393 note 1 Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah. Texte Arabe, accompagné d'une traduction, par C. Defrémery et le Dr. B. R. Sanguinetti. Paris, 1877. Publié par La Société Asiatique.

page 393 note 2 Muhammed Shäh bin Tughlaq succeeded to the Delhi throne in 725 A.H. (1325 A.D.).

page 394 note 1 Barnī gives the title as ‘ Sartīz-i-Sulṭānī.’

page 394 note 2 That is, from the left, or eastern bank, to which the author had crossed. The crossing of the river is mentioned at the beginning of his account of the Rhinoceros.

page 394 note 3 The numerous eulogistic epithets applied to the Sheykh and his ancestors are omitted.

page 395 note 1 The author gives the details of spelling and pointing, so that ‘ Wunār ’ is what he intended, but it will hereafter be shown that the person referred to was named Unar.

page 395 note 2 In the detail of the pointing of the name it is said that the second sin is meksūr ; we should therefore transliterate Sīwasitān. At the present day many Sindhīs would follow this pointing in writing the name, as it is a common practice to point a consonant with kesra, which, in strictness, ought to be quiescent. In such cases, however, the pronunciation of the kesra is so faint as to be hardly perceptible to the ear. This old name of Sēwan is now obsolescent. I am uncertain whether Sīwastān or Sīwistān is the correct form.

page 395 note 3 comprising part of May, all June and July, and part of August.

page 396 note 1 This holy man flourished in the 13th century. His shrine, better known as that of L'al Shāh Bāz, is still of great celebrity.

page 396 note 2 The tragedy witnessed by the Sheykh occurred in 656 H. It does not follow that he must have been of an unprecedented age in 734 H., or 78 lunar years later.

page 397 note 1 By river. The distance exceeds 400 miles.

page 398 note 1 The word Baḥr being applicable both to the ocean and to a large river like the Indus, the author fancifully describes the junction of this stream with the sea as the meeting of two Baḥrs, or seas.

page 399 note 1 Melik Bahräm Abiya received the title of Kashlū Khān from Sulṭān Ghiyāsu'd-dīn on the accession of this sovereign in 720 H. (1320 A.D.) when the government of Sindh was conferred upon him. He had previously held some high post in that province. In the next reign he rebelled, and in an action with the royal troops was defeated and killed.

page 401 note 1 The Chach Nāma mentions the northern limit of the Samā lands. It says that Rāe Chach, when proceeding (circa 633 A.D.) to Būdhīya (N.W. Sindh) and Sīwastān, left Alor “ and crossed the Mihrān (Indus) at a place called Dahīāyat, which is on the border of the Samā and Alor (districts).” Dahīāyat may be identified with a township called Dēhāt, on the northern border of the Kandhīāro Pargana, by which the Indus once ran, as evidenced by its forsaken channel still quite distinct. This spot is about fifty miles south of Alor and Rohrī. The Indus now runs nine or ten miles to the west of the course here referred to.

page 402 note 1 Elliot's Historians of India, vol. i. p. 79.

page 403 note 1 The Aral is really the southern end of the stream called Nāro (“ Western Nāra ”) which leaves the west bank of the Indus near Lāḍkānā, and after a course considerably exceeding 100 miles, expands into the Manchur lake—or swamp—eight miles due west of Sēwaṅ. Thence it issues, and passing eastward, runs close under the walls of the fort of Sēwaṅ, rejoining the Indus near the town. It is the portion between Sewāṅ and the Manchur lake that bears the name of “ Aral. ” Though not mentioned by name, it is distinctly referred to in the “ Chach Nāma,” in the account of the siege of Sīwastān by the Arabs in 711 A.D. ; and it is most probably that which is alluded to by Belādhurī in the “ Futūḥu's-Sind,” when he speaks of Muhammed Qāsim's “ crossing a river on this (the west) side of the Mihrān” there being, indeed, no other which could be so described.

page 403 note 2 Within my own experience the Indus has at one time run close under the town, and at another three to four miles or more eastward of it.

page 404 note 1 See Elliot's Historians of India, vol. i. App. p. 483, “ The Sūmra, Dynasty.”

page 405 note 1 Elliot's Historians of India, vol. i. p. 485.

page 405 note 2 Ibid. p. 495.

page 405 note 3 See antè, p. 401, note.

page 406 note 1 Elliot's Historians of India, vol. i. p. 494.

page 407 note 1 Mr. Burgess' Report on Antiquities of Kāthiāwāḍ and Kachchh, p. 178. Archæological Survey of Western India.

page 407 note 2 This name is spelt by Sindhīs as variously as by Englishmen. The most usual form is —Sēwaņ—and, however written, it is invariably pronounced in accordance with this spelling.

page 408 note 1 See Ẓīā-Barnī's Tārīkh-i-Fīrozshāhī.

page 409 note 1 Elliot's Historians, vol. i. p. 61.

page 409 note 2 See Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i. pp. 495, 530, 531, and Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies, vol. i. p. 130.

page 410 note 1 As. Ann. Register, p. 70 of Chronicle for March, 1800. Karāchī was founded in 1725 by a body of traders who migrated from a small port at the mouth of the Haḅ river named Kharak, where the anchorage had silted up.

page 410 note 2 Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i. p. 495.

page 410 note 3 For fourteen years after the British conquest of Sindh the total sea-customs of Karāchī and the Delta ports did not amount to a lakh of rupees. Our tariff has of course always been much more liberal than that of the native rulers, but it is needless to say that trade has increased in a far more than corresponding degree. The highest known collections at Karāchī under the Ṭalpurs was 1½ lakh.

page 411 note 1 Ancient Geography of India, pp. 299, 300.

page 411 note 2 Sulṭān Jelālu'd-dīn Khwārazmī was at Dēwal in 1224 (see Major Raverty's translation of the Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirī, I. 295 n.). The place appears to have been the seat of a local ruler in 1228 (Ibid, p. 615).

page 412 note 1 The small island north of Bakhar, containing the shrine of Khwāja Khiẓr or Jind Pīr (Zinda Pir), has in its mesjid what is perhaps the oldest extant Muhammedan inscription in India, dating Hijra 341 (952 A.D.). See Mr. Eastwick's article in Journal Bombay R.A. S. vol. i. p. 203. Sādh-Bēlo, the nearest island on the south, was, according to Mīr M‘aṣūm, for a short time the residence of Prince Kāmrān, just after Humāyūn had at last quelled the restless and faithless spirit of his brother by causing him to be blinded.

page 412 note 2 Elliot's Historians, vol. iii. p. 476.