CHACH-NA′MA.
Hijáz, it had obtained no currency among the people, to whom that language was foreign.
When the translator read the book, he found it adorned with jewels of wisdom and pearls of precepts. It related various feats of chivalry and heroism on the part of the Arabs and Syrians. It treated of the capture of those forts which had never before been taken, and showed the morning of the night of infidelity and barbarism. It recounted what places in those days were honoured by the arrival of the Muhammadans, and having been conquered by them, were adorned by religious edifices, and exalted by being the residence of devotees and saints. Up to this day, the translator continues, the country is improving in Islám faith and knowledge, and at all periods since the conquest the throne of royalty has been occupied by one of the slaves of the house of Muhammad, who removed the rust of Paganism from the face of Islám.
He proceeds to tell us that he dedicates his translation to the minister of Násiru-d dín Kabácha, whom he designates among other titles, the Defender of the State and Religion, the greatest
of all Wazírs, the master of the sword and pen, Sadr-i Jahán Dastúr-i Sáhib-Kirán ’Ainu-l Mulk Husain bin Abí Bakr bin Muhammad al Asha’rí.
He states as his reason for the dedication, that not only might he advance his own interests by the minister’s favour and influence, but that the selection was peculiarly appropriate in consequence of the minister's ancestors, Abú Músá al Asha’rí, having obtained many victories in Khurásán and ’Ajam. To him therefore might be most fitly dedicated an account of the early conquest of Sind.
At the close of the work, he again says that as the work was written in the Hijází (Arabic) language, and was not clothed in a Pehlví garb, it was little known to the inhabitants of ’Ajam (foreign countries or Persia), and repeats the name of the person to whom it was dedicated, as ’Ainu-l Mulk.
