Chachnamah; the initial loop of Islamic historiography in India

Arrival of Islam in the Indian subcontinent and formation of Islamic and Persian governments in this land, in addition to social, political, and religious evolutions, led to deep cultural changes. One of the most important expressions of these upheavals is establishment of historiography tradition in India. Systematic historiography in India started with Conquest of this land by Muhammad bin al-Qasim (Hajjaj bin Yusuf groom) and the first work in this topic is Fathnama Sindh (Chachnama).  The original book has been written in third century A.H. It was translated into Persian by Ali bin Hamid Abu-Bakr Kofi in about 613 A.H. however the Arabic version is not existed today and only Persian translation is available. Chachnama is a key historical text about Islamic history in India. The main concern of this research is to find appropriate answers to such questions as: What are the most important components of historiography of Chachnama? And what contribution can be made to the Chachnama among historical researches in the field of introducing and explaining various aspects of Indian historiography?  Regarding study nature, search method is descriptive-analytic. This research tries to introduce, assess and study Fathnama Sindh and recognize the social, political, and religious aspects of that historical period through systematic and conceptual apprehension of its declared reports. Another goal of the research is to recognize the view points of the author and its reflection on the content if its book and the historiography method. The historiography of every people and nation reflects of the attitude and type of thinking of that people and nation to man and his peripheral society. In other words, historiography reflects the insight and social and cultural attitude of the society in which this knowledge is created. Historiography is a written form of interaction between the historian and historical events reports. Historiography is a discursive matter, and it has its own insights and attitudes of the current society and the special laws that it has been created with the various horizons of history (Fi, 2004: 214-217). India's historiography also follows this rule. One of the important reasons for the scholars' serious attention to historiography is the status of this topic in recognizing and studying the social, administrative and political history of India in the studied period. The entry of Islam into the Indian subcontinent, in addition to religious evolutions, led to the social, political and cultural changes and evolutions. One of the most important manifestations of these evolutions was the creation of the historiography tradition in this land. The first period of historiography in India coincided with the conquest of India by Mohammad Ibn Qassim, and the first work on this subject is book of Sind Claimed (Chachnamah). Therefore, the present study seeks to answer this question, what are the most important components of the Chachnamah historiography? And what is the role of the Chachnamah among the history researches about the introduction and explanation of various aspects of Indian historiography?
Researchers believe that historiography began in India with the arrival of Islam in the Indian subcontinent and the formation of Islamic governments. The first written Indian history after the entry of Islam into the land was a book of Sind Claimed (Chachnamah), which was translated into Persian in the 7th century AH with the establishment of the Islamic-Iranian government. This book is one of the primary circles of Islamic historiography in India, which, in terms of style and content, had an enormous impact on subsequent histories, and was the main source of the next historians in historiography. The author of the Chachnamah made a significant work in the historiography, although his work was not limited to history, but it is also considered an encyclopedia of literature, geography and history; because his historical dimension is more prominent, and in addition to all the subjects that he considers were historical subjects, his work is considered as a historiographical source. In this regard, the study of the historiographical components, his insight and method are of considerable significance. The authors of this study have tried to discuss the impact of the conditions of the time on his thinking and attitude, by studying and analyzing the political-cultural conditions of the era in which the author of the Chachnamah lived; Then, by evaluating the report of stated events, will examine his style and characteristics of his historiography and conclude from it. According to the nature of the research, the research method is descriptive-analytic. This paper tries by introduce, reiew, and study of the book of the Sind Claimed (Chachnamah) through its conceptual and methodological understanding of its reports, to identify the main aspects of the political, religious and social life of this period. Also interrogates the author views and its reflections on his historiography content and methodology. Chachnamah is the first Indian historiography after the arrival of Islam into this land, and Indian historiography was at the beginning of its way. The Muslim conquerors hired historians to record their most systematic and historically accounted reports to describe their military heroic reports (Mehta, 2002: 1). Historical compilation in ancient India was commonly more orally. Most of the remaining texts of that period are literary, religious, philosophical and ideological texts. The beginning of historiography in the Indian subcontinent began much later than other Islamic lands; and what can be called Indian historiography was influenced by Persian historiography and Persian language (Sajjadi, Sadeq and Hadi Almazadeh, 2010: 123). Chachnamah is the first work of Indian historiography that translated by Ali ibn Hamed Kofi from Arabic and Anonymous to Persian. The historiography tradition after that began in India with the overwhelming work of the Hassan Nezami Neyshaburi (death of 614 AH), Taj al-Maaser (Afif, 2006: 6).
The method of historiography in the Chachnamah is thematic in terms of the compilation method, not as yearbook; of course, the sequence of occurrence of events is also considered in this work. The use of coherence and its explanation in the continuity of text is another psychological indicator in the history of Chachnamah. The author pursues in conscious effort the continuity through structuring, creating the center of narration, words order, sentences, clauses and sequences between them in the text. He has used several methods to achieve this: one adopts a subject-writing events method.  When the author refers to a people or class, he describes their social characteristics and origins (Kofi, 1979: Introduction, Yah). Another is that the method of author's historiography in terms of compilation is descriptive, attention to political history, emphasis on the quoting and justification of events rather than its analysis, which is an obvious feature of traditional historiography, which is seen in this work, many times refers the reader to the content in the text, without mentioning the name of the work by the stated that the narrators of the hadiths, stated in the hadiths, the honors of history have stated that, the commentators of the time and the decorators of interpretation and expression said that (Kofi, 14,72,78,176,177,179,186,191,193,195) Many causes and factors led to the beginning of historiography in the Indian subcontinent. Part of these factors should be assessed in the role of Muslims and the nature of their presence in the Indian subcontinent. The Sind Claimed, known as Chachnamah, is the local history of Sind that translated from Arabic into Persian by Ali ibn Hamed Abu Bakr Kufi in 613 AH, Which includes authentic narratives of conquest of the Sind, by Muslim Arabs, and give the knowledge of the ruling dynasties in the area before the arrival of Islam to this region, which most of its narratives are based on the works of Abolhassan Ali ibn Muhammad Abi Saif Madayeni and of the most influential and most trusted source in India, to which subsequent historians were affected. Historiography was formed after the arrival of Islam into India, and the compilation of the Chachnamah can be called the beginning of historiography in India. In the period that started with the rule of Muslims over India, in spite of the political, economic and social conditions, a kind of continuity is felt in the cultural conditions of the society. This is especially perceptible about historiography more than any other part, as its continuity has led to evolution.
By reviewing the book of Sind Claimed (Chachnamah), several insights can be found in the writing of this work. The author of the Chachnamah in his historical work gives comprehensive information about the Sind conquest, which is in the form of an encyclopedia. Naturally, historiography in the India subcontinent after the Chachnamah is not something that existed before it. Although historiography in the India subcontinent still pass the transition period, and has a very long way to evolution, but works such as Chachnamah have facilitated this way.
In this book, the impact of Iranian and Islamic historiography on each other is well seen, the style of writing it, like the sixteenth-century Persian writers, is fluent and stable. Although the effect of the translation of Arabic into Persian is obvious in the book, but it has not been damaged in terms of its Persian writing style. In the book introduction, the translator has been used the Arabic words and combinations before the text, but in the text, his prose is simple and fluent with short and stable sentences. The main purpose of the Claimeds was to first formulate information about the quality of conquest of Abode of Disbelief and the success of the expansion of divine religion, but later the contained information in them was reflected the political, social and cultural situation. The author of the Chachnamah, has paid little attention to the causes of historical events and currents, this is due to the belief in a type of historical algebra. His insight and method in writing the major history of this period follows the dominant paradigm in the historiography of Islamic lands.