32 
E. Mockler— Origin of the Baloch. 
[No. 1, 
“ East of Kirman lies Makran and the deserts of that country and 
“Bahrain, on the borders of the Baluj. The mountains of Qufs 
u lie on the southern border (of Kirman) near the sea On the East 
“ is Khawds and the desert extending towards Qufs, 
4 ‘ and on the South is Baluj. The r-jB Baluj (this appears to be a 
^ • i, 
“ quotation) are in the desert of mount \joSa Qufs in the Persian 
“language Kuj or Koj, and they call the two peoples ^ Kuj 
“ or Koj and ^jB Baluj or Baloj. 
In the Tarikh i Guzlda,” A. H. 730, it is recorded that in the year 
A. H. 22, ‘Abdu-l-lah bin ‘Amar bin RabI invaded Kirman and took 
possession of its capital, Kuwashlr, so that the inhabitants solicited 
assistance of the men of “ Kuj and Baluj ” in vain He then after con¬ 
quering Sistan overran Makran and defeated the king of Sindah, who 
came to assist in opposing him. 
In the Rauzatu-s-safa the mountains of the “ Koc wa Baloc’’ 
are also mentioned; also very particularly by Abu-l-fida who gives the 
exact pronunciation of each name. These historians, or rather some 
of them, it is proper to mention, say that the <^ejB j Qufs and 
Balus or Kuj and Baluj claim to be of Arab descent, but 
it must be remembered that they all wrote several centuries after the 
commencement of the Muhammadan era, and that the claim so recorded 
by them, may be fairly considered as a traditional one put forward in 
their day as now, by, we will say, a majority of the inhabitants. 
It, however, appears from the few authorities quoted that the Baloch 
were established in Makran more than a century before the commence¬ 
ment of the Muhammadan era; certainly so if, as FirdusI relates, Nau* 
shir wan punished them in Makran, and still more certainly that they 
were located there within 22 years after its commencement; and that 
therefore if the Rinds left Aleppo in the time of Yazid I, say (A. H. 61), 
according to their tradition the Baloch were in Makran before that date. 
It appears to me doubtful that the Rinds ever came from Aleppo, 
or that they are Baloch at all. Had they come from Aleppo, some history 
of their journey thence, through Persia—some one incident, out of many 
which must have occurred to them on such a journey—the name of some 
one place, at least, at which they halted on that journey—would surely 
have been handed down to posterity. Who then are these Rinds from 
“ Alaf ” P Whence this tradition of theirs? And why has a con¬ 
nection with them been at any time considered honorific by the inhabi¬ 
tants of Makran ? 
I reply—that, as early as A. H. 15 at any rate, expeditions were 
inaugurated, and indeed despatched by the Arabs of ‘Uman (‘Oman) 
against the frontiers of India, and it is recorded by Tabari, that A1 
