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H. G. Raverty —The Mihran of Sind and its Tributaries. [No. 3, 
The geographers and geographical works I propose to quote are the 
following. Ahmad, son of Yahya, son of Jabir-al-Balaziri, who wrote his 
“ Futuh-al-Baladan ” about 270 H. (883-84 A. D.). 77 Abu-l-Kasim-i- 
’Ubaid-ullah, known as Ibn Kkurdad-bih, who wrote about 275 H. (888- 
89 A. D.), or, certainly, before 300 H. (912 A. D.). Abu-Zaid-al-Hasan, 
a native of Siraf, who appears to have written shortly after Ibn Kliurdad- 
bih ; for the writer who follows, met him at Basrah in 303 H. (916 A. B.), 
and seems to have compared notes with him. Abu-Hasan, surnamed Al- 
Mas’udi, who wrote his “ Muruj-uz-Zahab wa Ma’adin-ul- Jauahir ” in 332 
H. (943-44 A. D.) ; Abu-Ishak-al-Istakhari. 78 who wrote between 340 and 
350 H. (951-52 and 961 A. D.). The “ Kitab-ul-Masalik wa Mamalik,” 
written a few years after the preceding, and nearly about the time that 
Muhammad, Abu-l-Kasim, son of Haukal, hence, chiefly known as Ibn 
Haukal, wrote his u Aslikal-ul-Bilad,” whose work bears a considerable 
resemblance to the “ Masalik wa Mamalik ” in many places. Ibn Haukal 
completed his work in 366 H. (976 A. D.). He appears to have met 
Al-Istakhari in his travels somewhere in Sind, or in the Multan territory. 
The next in point of date is the celebrated Abu-Rihan, Muhammad, son 
of Ahmad, familiarly known as the TJstad or Master, Bu-Rihan, surnamed 
Al-Beruni, who wrote about the year 420 H. (1028 A. D.), 79 or soon 
77 He died in the year 279 H. (892-93 A. D.). 
73 He is not called “ Istakhri,” because he was a native of that famons Persian 
city called Istakliar or Persepolis. The word means a pond, lake, or sheet of water. 
’Arabs write the name Istakliar. 
79 He finished his work, the Tahkik (not “ Tarflch ,” as in Elliot and Sachan) -ul- 
Hind by the first day of the year 423 H., which commenced on the 18th of December, 
1031 A. D. In the year preceding, in several places in his work, he styles it “ our 
year,” because it was that in which his great patron, Sultan Mas’ud, obtained the 
restitution of his rights as the eldest son and heir of his father, and assumed the 
throne at Hirat in the fifth month of that year. He did not compose it in “ Afghan¬ 
istan” nor in “ the Afghan-Indian empire ,” as Prof. E. Sachau, the editor of the 
text and translator of the same, assumes, because Ghazni, or Ghaz-nin or coi'rectly, 
Ghaz-nih, but never “ Gliaz-na,” although included in the modern Afghan state, is 
not, and never was, included within “ the Afghanistan,” or native country of the 
Afghans. What that means and constitutes may be seen from my work entitled 
“ Notes on Afghanistan,” etc., page 453 to 470 ; and the world has not yet seen an 
“ Afghan-Indian Empire ,” and Sultan Mahmud was a Turk, not an Afghan. 
Some errors of a similar kind will be found in the English Preface to the ’Arabic 
text, and also in the Preface to its translation by the same learned Professor. 
Abu-Rihan was not brought to Ghaznih, under any compulsion, nor was he 
detained against his will by Sultan Mahmud in his dominions ; for his contemporary 
and admirer, Abu-l-Eazl-i-Baihaki, tells us, that he first came to the Sultan’s court, 
in the suite of the Khwarazmi ruler, the son-in-law of the Sultan, and that of his oxen 
accord he entered Sultan Mahmud’s service. It was in the train of that conqueror, 
and that of his chief patron, Sultan Mas’ud, that Bu-Rihan had the opportunity of 
