In this passage from his literary collection, Kūfī recounts an anecdote in which a translator comes to the rescue of a prison warden about to be executed. In the anecdote, the Muslim commander Muḥammad b. Qāsim has traveled to Daybul to save a few Muslim prisoners who had been captured by robbers. Upon breaking into the temple and rescuing the prisoners, Ibn Qāsim commands that the prison warden, Qubla, be brought before him and executed. However, Qubla pleads with Ibn Qāsim to spare his life on account of the kindness he has shown toward the prisoners. Ibn Qāsim verifies Qubla’s claim by employing a translator to inquire with the prisoners about their treatment. The translator conveys the prisoners’ affirmation of Qubla’s kind treatment of them. Ibn Qāsim consequently decides to spare Qubla’s life. In his chapter in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Mahmood Kooria uses this anecdote to show the critical role of translatorsin ensuring that justice was served and to illustrate the trust that that the Muslims of South Asia placed in the capacity of Islamic rulers to mediate between local and foreign languages in the seventh/thirteenth century. Notably, the text appeared after the second or third attack waged by Muslim rulers on the South Asian regions in which they subsequently established dominance.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of sources and other material used in and related to the book.