Page:HMElliotHistVol1.djvu/165



C HACH-NÁMA is the name now universally given to the work which details the usurpation of the Brahman Chach and the Arab conquest of Sind; but the history itself gives us no authority for this name, on the contrary it is spoken of in the preface and conclusion merely as Fath-náma, “a despatch announcing victory.“ It is sometimes styled, as by Elphinstone, Táríkh-i Hind o Sind. It is quoted by Núru-l Hakk in the Zubdatu-t Tawáríkh, and by Nízámu-d dín Ahmad in the Tabakát-i Akbarí, as the Minháju-l Masálik, which the latter tells us is more commonly known as the Chach-náma. This work was translated from the Arabic by Muhammad ’Alí bin Hámid bin Abú Bakr Kúfí, in the time of Násiru-d dín Kabácha, who is styled, amongst many other titles, Amíru-l Múminín Abú-l Fath Kabáchau-s Salátín, “the tents of whose glory were pitched with the ropes of his authority, and with the mallet of the strictness of his commands.” He is said to adorn the throne lately occupied by the blessed martyr Abú-l Muzaffar Muhammad bin Sám Nasir Amíru-l Múminín. The translator informs us that, after having spent much of his life in the enjoyment of great comfort and happiness, he was reduced to distress, and compelled by the vicissitudes of the time to leave his native land and take up his abode in U′ch. He says that