The Alafis’ refuge

The Kech Bund (Hills) that never rise above 1200 metres stretch in a long east-west line north of Turbat in Makran. In a remote and dusty little ravine of this largely arid wilderness lie the mysterious hilltop ruins of Kussui Kalat — the Fort of Kussu, a Baloch elder of an unknown time. I heard a description of these ruins from a Baloch friend in Turbat back in 1999. The only archaeological investigation, he said, was a cursory visit by a French team and they had surmised that these were early Muslim period ruins.
Thought of the Alafis immediately sprang to my mind. Since 1985, when I first read the Chachnama, the 8th century record of the Arab conquest of Sindh, I had, in my own inexpert manner, sought to discover the safe haven of the Alafis. So who were the Alafis and why would they need a refuge in our part of the world?
The Chachnama tells us that long before Hujjaj bin Yusuf sent Mohammed bin Qasim on his Sindhi expedition, he deputed one Saeed Kilabi to the newly acquired province of Makran. Here Kilabi met Safahwi Hammami of the tribe Alafi and asked him to join his expedition. There is no detail as to who the Alafi was and what he was up to in Makran. From the Chachnama it comes across that he had some gripe against bin Yusuf and took offence at Kilabi’s pretentious invitation. An altercation appears to have followed in consequence of which Kilabi decapitated Safahwi Hammami and despatched the head to bin Yusuf.
Not long afterwards, as he went travelling through his domain, Saeed Kilabi came upon a group of Alafis who took it into their heads to avenge the murder of their kinsman. Kilabi was killed, his army routed and the Alafis took control of Makran. In Baghdad, bin Yusuf was incensed and authorised the murder of a local Alafi elder. But his ire not quite satisfied, his injunction, according to the Chachnama, was, ‘Find out the Alafis, and try your best to secure them, and exact the vengeance due to Saeed [Kilabi] from them.’
So great was the pressure on the Alafis that by the year 703 growing Arab influence in Makran had forced many of the Alafis to seek asylum with Raja Dahir of Sindh. Indeed, when Mohammed bin Qasim fought against the raja, there was a small Alafi army in the raja’s command fighting against their Arab brothers. Meanwhile, back in 704 the new governor of Makran was busily persecuting whatever Alafi that crossed his path. Seven years later (711) bin Qasim attacked and took Sindh and Makran fell squarely within the new Arab empire.
In the years before Makran came fully under Arab control and they were finally expelled, the Alafis lived here under constant threat to their very lives. And so they would naturally have sought a safe haven. That refuge of this tormented clan would have been isolated and difficult of approach; a hilltop fastness with perhaps one approach and that easily guarded by small parties of skirmishers would have been ideal.
Having motored out of Turbat on the highroad to Mand and the Iranian frontier, we had changed to motorcycle at the village of Shaikan. This was the timeless road connecting Mesopotamia with the Sindhu River valley by way of the ancient towns of Turbat and Punjgur. Deep inside the desiccated hills of Kech, my guide parked his bike and we walked into a narrow gorge nowhere wide enough to permit more than three men abreast. At irregular intervals the sides were peppered with ruined defensive turrets: it was easy to see the Alafi defenders waiting behind the breastworks to make short work of an advance guard.
Despite the losses to its front runners, the imperial army would have pushed on because of its greater resource of manpower. The Alafis would have withdrawn keeping up a running fight. But the defensive turrets line the narrow gorge all the way to its catchment. Such loss of soldiers would have forced the imperialists to withdraw only to return again.
The constricted gully ends in a dusty slope at the top of which is a large clump of ruined buildings now scarcely more than foundations and walls less than a metre in height. The area is liberally strewn with cut stone and bricks and scattered around the peak are the remnants of no fewer than fifteen buildings. The mosque is easily discernible by its mehrab; the chief’s house by its large size. Smack on the edge of the escarpment, overlooking a sheer fall into the valley below is another large house where the Chief of Security may have lived in order to maintain a lookout.
Water must always have been scarce because there is an arrangement to harness the run-off from the higher part of the hill: a serpentine brick-lined conduit that leads to a large tank. But what really grabs one’s attention is that here in this utterly tree-less and dry region the Alafis were able to prepare kiln-fired bricks in the thousands. Even in the beginning of the 8th century, this region was as barren as it is now. Surely when the Alafis first considered this refuge, they would have set up a kiln somewhere closer to an irrigated area with its supply of fuel wood.
Getting the bricks up to the hill would have been a pretty long haul. And the building no less, especially because of the dearth of water. But the Alafis were struggling to preserve themselves. From sometime towards the end of the 7th century the Alafis lived in this remote and cheerless region hard put to procure food and fodder. But they did persevere.
When the end came, it would not have been quick. Even a very powerful imperial army would have found it difficult to advance into the narrow, well-defended gorge leading up to the Alafi castle whose name we will never know. They may have had to make a number of sorties before getting anywhere near success. When the Alafis sensed the end nearing, they would have started to spirit away their women, children and what meagre treasure they possessed. The long trek across the inhospitable wastes of Makran to Raja Dahir’s capital city of Alor would have been difficult and wearisome. But there was nothing for it but to go.
Save the persecution of the Alafis, nothing else of the above is preserved in any history. But as one walks through the gorge and makes the hilltop fastness of Kussui Kalat, it is not difficult to imagine how it must have been. It is also not difficult to empathise with the hapless, persecuted Alafis who held out in this harsh land against great odds. But when the fight in distant Sindh was over and the country of Raja Dahir fell into Arab hands, history has nothing to record on the Alafis’ fate. That silence, to say the least, is mysterious.

Salman Rashid is a travel writer and knows Pakistan like the back of his hand. He can be reached at odysseus@beaconet.net