Thread by @cbkwgl

Abdur Rahman's The last two dynasties of the Sahis is considered to be the best book over Shahis. But, I am not getting any confidence over this. Compare these two sets.

I am interested to know how knowledged this gentleman is, on Sanskrit original of Rajatarangini and other Hindu/Buddhist books on the topic.

One should be realistic enough. Pakistan has fought three wars with India and no Indian will have access to Chhota Lahore or Hund. All they can quote is from some other reference or from historic memory.

Confirmed. He doesn't know Sanskirt.

How is this a benchmark when whole industry is destroyed and the people fled across Khyber? This is slowly becoming more of a study of Mahmud of Ghazni and Arabs in Sistan and the study of Shahis in that context.

Another royal mess up. Are Hepathlites Huns or Turks? Or are both same?

Main lesson: The Muslim chronicles didn't have an effing clue as to who is who and who is where. The less we rely them to glean information, the better. Use them only for cold facts.

Seriously? How many ethnographies do we have that say Rajputs(not as a whole but a tribe) fled the Gokturks in Central Asia? And how were they accepted as Kshatriyas? Or is this pure Pakology in it's full glory?

May be A=B. Hence, proved that A=B🤦‍♀️

Mayurasarma's son was Kangavarma🥱 And looks like our dearie, even after mentioning Chach of Sind didn't notice the similarities of the story between Chach and Kallar.

Ah!! The neutrality of a historian is for all to see.

Just notice the bigotry. The language for Uthman is not seen for Ali because Shias trace his origin to him.

The outrage and ululation of an invader defeating a native!! Will have to wait and see what he writes over Bhimapala's Rawalpindi stand against the invading Mahmud of Ghazni.

And when the invader breaks the pact, let's just brush it away.

And here ends the historic value of the book. Abu Ubaidah was under the command of his brother Yazid who invaded Kabul. The army was destroyed, Yazid was killed and Abu captured. The relief army was completely routed and the prisoners had to be ransomed off.

Today I learnt that the first Caliph was succeeded by Caliph II as Caliph of Islam.

AFAIK there is no proof that Abdurrahman Ibn al-Ash’ath was surrendered by the Zunbil. Either I need to check the originals or present my accolades for this fertile imagination.

Again, we side the invaders for their subterfuge 😎

Is the Shahi clever or are the Arabs stupid? What do you call a kingdom which falls to the same trick again and again and never learns?

So, Phrom Kesar(739-745) fought and imposed tribute on donkeys? Or was that monkeys?

When a Muslim makes such a mistake, the mistake becomes gospel😎

This time, let's assume A ≠ B. Hence A ≠ B.

Yes, we know of Arabs entering Wazirastan but there is no proof that they reached Indus. By the way, did they confuse Indus with some other like Kurram or Gomal?

So sad. We had to kill the Shahi before his time because we need to fit a new one into our chronology. And if you declared Lak is a tribe name and you have a Kamaluka-Toramana, what's the chance that Lak-Toramana is a name?

People complained to Kallar and Kallar arrested his master. And then, he got a change of mood and increased the sentence. What sort of tamasha is this🤦‍♀️

Pandeyji is wrong to count all names from coins but Al Beruni is wrong not to count all the names from coins.

Kalhana doesn't hint a change in dynasty but let's make Al Beruni's Kallar a beggar and then make him rich.

Ah!! The crooked Brahmin who toppled the king illegally and immorally. I am really surprised this Brahmin bashing came this late in the book - in page 90.

Now, because Kalhana is a Hindu, let's declare what he wrote is junk.

And the flowery imagination flies high

A coppersmith should be extolled for becoming a dacoit.

Yes. A band of 50 led by an ex-dacoit defeated an army of 40,000. We understand that is history.

Well, this book, Tarikh-i-Sistan is the main reference for Abdur Rahman 🤷‍♀️

How does it even matter? Is this a book on Shahis or is this an updated version of Tarikh-i-Sistan?

We don't know who he is. Let's make him a separate person and heap abuses on him.

A dacoit turned coppersmith is a legendary hero and a king in his own right is elevated from a joke to a legend.

An older tweet.
So, Phrom Kesar(739-745) fought and imposed tribute on donkeys? Or was that monkeys?

@khatvaanga - Check now. instead of screenshot, I selected the section and copied it. Anduke background transparent vachhindi.

Some issues with the thread and needed some cleaup. Anyways. Back to the game.
Next assumption game. Because we assumed Kallar's reign started in 843 and Lalliya's ended in 902, we can't say both are the same person.

We get that - we get your love for the dacoit.

I love these stories. All he need to do is to link Al Beruni's 60 generations with this and the Tochi Valley Inscriptions which he mentioned elsewhere. When Kuzala and Phromo can be used as titles, why not Toramana? Especially the last one, according to him is Lak-Toramana?

Let's assume Asata is Kamalavarman's brother. Now, let's invent a civil war between them.

Default assumption. Did anyone even think how Bhimadeva established a temple which gave Mahmud 3 crore Shahi Dirhams and the Shahi throne that distant from the core of Shahi territories? Being a Pakistani, he should have at least read some proper Pakistani research papers.

Last time, it was 50. This time it's 500.

I am sure this is one of the toughest pieces in the book easily. When Sabuktegin decides money is more important than Islam, what sort of monkey-balancing should our dearie indulge in?

Now, Abdur Rahman makes amends. 500 stays but 40000 becomes 100000

Again. 15000 with Mahmud and Jayapala with 45000 and he is still awaiting reinforcements. Can we safely assume Jayapala had no more than 4500? A parallel would be, can the British have Jhansi under siege and defeat 25000 troops led by Tatya Tope in less than a day with 1500 men?

Can the personal guard of the king be larger than that of the army? Mahmud sent 6000 and lost 6000, Trilochanapala sent 30000 and killed 5000, and Mahmud pushed back the 30000 and the main Shahi force with his personal guard? And in spite of that only 20000 died.

The title of the book should have been "How the Might of Islam crushed the Infidels of Afghanistan and Gandhara". This is more of a story of Sistan and Mahmud than that of Shahis. Shahis were just there to fill the gaps.

The puny infidel learns his lesson.

Just think about it. A Pakistani ululating at the defeats of the natives of Pakistan in the hands of an invader just because the invader has the same religion as his. When a highly educated scholar has his mindset, what mindset will an average Pakistani have?

See. How magnanimous the invader is. Why should a Pakistani be shameful when he gets such sort of a benefactor?

Another fantasy here. A temple is destroyed and Trilochanapala is in his rights to be angry. But no. He isn't. His ego is too much that he was offended by the criticism of the act and not the act. By the way, the stage is set to create a new villain here - Bhimapala.

And yes. Mahmud is bound to be angry because Trilochanapala is angry because of hurt ego.

How ashamed our dearie is, that an infidel stopped a Muslim, that too one as mighty as Mahmud for months, that too in Islamabad? No wonder he abhors the word Nidar Bhim and not once he used it.

Whoever this guy is, he is more considerate than Ussher who said Earth was formed in 4004 BC. This guy says earth formed in 6000 BC.

Another fantasy here. Notice, there are no references for this story.

We know Bhoja and Vidyadhara coordinated, but do we know whether they combined their armies? This is what happens when you blindly follow Muslim historians without doing a cross-check.

Again, there is no proof of this outside Muslim annals.

Why didn't the Shahis issue coins? Because they didn't understand the concept of sovereign currency 😎 And what proof have we got? Some usurers during Ghaznavid rule(not Shahi).

And guess what? Awfi was also writing stories. Because we can't accept he is writing stories, we need to attribute some sources to him.

And what justification does he give for that? Hindu hatred for Muslim iconography.

On the Shahi mint marks. Those careless and ignorant fools!! They don't even know how to cast a mark properly.

Circular logic. Let's assume A = B. Hence it is proven that B = A. All this monkey-balancing is because our invader lover can't digest the fact that a Hindu king can coronate himself in Kabul in 923.

All of this hinges on the point that Mahmud chased Anandapala till Sodra. Which fellow with common sense will take such a route to crush rebellion? All of this is due to Firishta's Lahore which people believe it to be on Indian border but is on the outskirts of Hund.

Recommendation: Don't read. Read some other book on this topic and have this as a gap filler. But, for a student of history, it's a must keep.
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