01The siege
The Chachnama says Chach fortified Brahmanabad and that it was the seat of a governor of the lower Indus. After Dahir fell near Rawar, his son Jaisiah went north to raise forces, and the garrison of Brahmanabad shut its gates. The Arabs sat before it for about six months before it was surrendered. The Chachnama then tells how Qasim, under instructions from al-Hajjaj, let the Brahmins and the people keep their temples and worship on payment of tax, and gave the Brahmins posts in the revenue: the arrangement later writers call the Brahmanabad settlement. The same chronicle says many of the fighting men were killed when the city fell.
02Brahmanabad and Mansura
Some two decades later the Arab governors built a new capital, al-Mansura, close by; it was the chief city of Arab Sindh for three centuries. The ruins of both lie among mounds near Shahdadpur, about 75 km north-east of Hyderabad in Sindh. A. F. Bellasis dug there in 1854 and Henry Cousens in the 1890s and 1900s, and they found a brick stupa tower, coins and a burnt city. Whether Mansura was built on top of Brahmanabad or beside it is still argued, so the exact line of Chach’s walls is not known.
The life of this place
- 712–713After Dahir’s death Brahmanabad holds out for about six months before surrendering to Muhammad bin Qasim.
- c. 730sThe Arab governors found al-Mansura beside the old city.
- 1854A. F. Bellasis makes the first excavations in the ruins.
