Nizámu-d dín Ahmad mentions no other event of Ibráhím's reign but the following: “The Sultán turned his face towards Hindú-stán, and conquered many towns and forts, and amongst them was a city exceedingly populous, inhabited by a tribe of Khurásání descent, whom Afrásiyáb had expelled from their native country. * * It was so completely reduced by the power and perseverance of the Sultán, that he took away no less than 100,000 captives.” Abú-l Fidá and the Tabakát-i Násirí are silent. The Táríkh-i Alfí says, “Ibráhím next marched against Derápúr in Hindústán, a place which many great emperors found it impracticable to conquer. Several histories state that this place was inhabited by the descendants of the people of Khurásán, who for their disloyal and rebellious conduct had been long before banished the country by Afrásiyáb, Emperor of Turán.” The Muntakhabu-t Tawáríkh has nothing more on the subject than is contained in the Tabakát-i Akbarí. The Rauzatu-s Safá is the same as the Táríkh-i Alfí, except that the former omits the name of the place. Firishta adds a few particulars not to be found in the others. He says:—“The King marched from thence to another town in the neighbourhood, called Derá, the inhabitants of which came originally from Khurásán, and were banished thither with their families by Afrásiyáb, for frequent rebellions. Here they had formed themselves into a small independent state, and, being cut off from intercourse with their neighbours by a belt of mountains nearly impassable, had preserved their ancient customs and rites by not intermarrying with any other people. The King, having with infinite labour cleared a road for his army over the mountains, advanced towards Derá, which was well fortified. This place was remarkable for a fine lake of water about one parasang and a half in circumference, the waters of which did not apparently diminish, either from the heat of the weather or from being used by the army. At this place the King was overtaken by the rainy season; and his army, though greatly distressed, was compelled to remain before it for three months. But as soon as the rains abated, he summoned the town to surrender and acknowledge the faith. Sultán Ibráhím's proposal being rejected, he renewed the siege, which continued some weeks, with great slaughter on both sides. The town, at length, was taken by assault, and the Muhammadans found in it much wealth, and 100,000 persons, whom they carried in bonds to Ghazní. Some time after, the King accidentally saw one of those unhappy men carrying a heavy stone, with great difficulty and labour, to a palace which he was then building. This exciting his pity, he commanded the prisoner to throw it down and leave it there, at the same time giving him his liberty. This stone happened to be on the public road, and proved troublesome to passengers, but as the King's rigid enforcement of his commands was universally known, no one attempted to touch it. A courtier one day having stumbled with his horse over the stone, took occasion to mention it to the King, intimating that he thought it would be advisable to have it removed. To which the King replied, ‘I commanded it to be thrown down and left there; and there it must remain as a monu­ment of the calamities of war, and to commemorate my sense of its evils. It is better for a king to be pertinacious in the support even of an inadvertent command than that he should depart from his royal word.’ The stone accordingly remained where it was; and was shown as a curiosity in the reign of Sultán Bairám several years afterwards.”

The position of this place is very difficult to fix. Firishta says that in the year 472 H. Ibráhím marched in person to India, and conquered portions of it never before visited by the Musulmáns. He extended his conquests to Ajodhan, now called Pattan Shaikh Faríd Shakr Ganj. He then went to Rúdpál, situated on the summit of a steep hill, which a river embraced on three sides, and which was protected by an impervious wood, infested by serpents. He then marched to Derá, which Briggs seems to place in the valley of the Indus, because he adds in a note, “Derá seems a common name in the vicinity of Multán for a town.” The reading of the Táríkh-i Alfí with respect to the two first places is much the most probable, —namely, a fort in the country of Júd* and Damál.

The Rauzatu-s Safá does not mention the first place, and speaks of the second as if it were on the sea-shore. The third place he does not name. In Firishta it is Derá, and in the Táríkh-i Alfí Derápúr. This would seem to be the place called Derabend, near Torbela, on the Upper Indus.* It is possible that the Dehrá of Dehrá Dún may be meant; but, though the belt of mountains, the inaccessible jungle, the seclusion of the inhabitants, and the identity of name, are in favour of this supposition, we are at a loss for the inex­haustible lake and the impregnability of the position.

All the authors, however, who mention the circumstance, whether they give the name or not, notice that the inhabitants were banished by Afrásiyáb; and this concurrent tradition respecting their expulsion from Khurásán seems to indicate the existence of a colony of fire-worshippers in these hills, who preserved their peculiar rites and customs, notwithstanding the time which had elapsed since their departure from their native country.

Putting aside the probability, which has frequently been specu­lated upon, of an original connexion between the Hindú religion and the worship of fire,* and the derivation of the name of Magadha from the Magi, there is much in the practical worship of the Hindús, such as the hom, the gáyatrí, the address to the sun* at the time of ablution, the prohibition against insulting that luminary by indecent gestures,* —all which would lead an inattentive observer to conclude the two religions to bear a very close resemblance to one another. It is this consideration which should make us very careful in receiving the statements of the early Muhammadan writers on this subject; and the use of the word Gabr, to signify not only, especially, a fire-worshipper, but, generally, an infidel of any denomination, adds to the probability of confusion and inaccuracy.*

Khusrú, in the Khazáinu-l Futúh (p. 76), calls the sun the kibla of the Hindús, and it is quite evident that throughout his works Gabr is used as equivalent to Hindú. In one passage he speaks of the Gabrs as worshippers both of stones and fire.

European scholars have not been sufficiently attentive to this double use of the word, and all those who have relied upon M. Petis de la Croix's translation of Sharafu-d dín, have considered that, at the period of Tímúr's invasion, fire-worship prevailed most exten­sively in Upper India, because Gabr is used throughout by the historians of that invasion to represent the holders of a creed opposed to his own, and against which his rancour and cruelty were unsparingly directed. There is distinct mention in the Matla'u-s Sa'dain of fire-worshippers, as distinct from the Hindús; and the Kashmirians, according to Firishta, were fire-worshippers at the time of the Muhammadan invasion.* The men of Deogír are called fire-worshippers in the Táríkh-i 'Aláí.

But though the word is used indiscriminately, there are certain passages in which it is impossible to consider that any other class but fire-worshippers is meant. Thus, it is distinctly stated in Tímúr's Memoirs, and by Sharafu-d dín, that the people of Tughlikpúr* believed in the two principles of good and evil in the universe, and acknowledged Ahrimán and Yezdan (Ormuzd). The captives mas­sacred at Loni* are said to have been Magians, as well as Hindús, and Sharafu-d dín states that the son of Safí the Gabr threw himself into the fire, which he worshipped.*

We cannot refuse our assent to this distinct evidence of the existence of fire-worshippers in Upper India as late as the invasion of Tímúr, A.D. 1398-9. There is, therefore, no improbability that the independent tribe which had been expelled by Afrásiyáb, and practised their own peculiar rites, and whom Ibráhím the Ghazni-vide attacked in A.D. 1079, were a colony of fire-worshippers from Írán, who, if the date assigned be true, must have left their native country before the reforms effected in the national creed by Zoroaster.

Indeed, when we consider the constant intercourse which had prevailed from the oldest time between Persia and India,* it is surprising that we do not find more unquestionable instances of the persecuted fire-worshippers seeking an asylum in Northern India as well as in Gujarát. The instances in which they are alluded to before this invasion of Tímúr are very rare, and almost always so obscurely mentioned as to leave some doubt in the mind whether foreign ignorance of native customs and religious rites may not have given a colour to the narrative.