"Sufi s played a key role in the Islamization of what is now Pakistan, northern and central India, and Bangladesh, where they served as warriors, proselytizers, preachers, and spiritual advisors. It is therefore likely that Indo-Persian Sufi hagiographies portray Sufi s as taking part in Sultan Mahmud’s initial Indian campaign so as to connect them with the advent of Islam in India. In this, Sufi hagiographers resemble many premodern historians in that they would often rework a narrative regarding a given Sufi ’s role in an important historical event to express a meaningful ver- sion of that event, as they believed it ought to have happened. For the premodern historian, the meaning of an event was more important than mere facts. In other words, the story was “true” if it conveyed something essential regarding how a given culture viewed itself and made sense of its past in relation to its present. The fact that Sufi hagiographies frequently portray the early Muslim ascetic warriors as Sufi s and depict Sufi involvement in military campaigns such as Sultan Mahmud’s forays into India, shows this historiographical tendency on the part of premodern writers to interpret events and narrate stories in a way that enshrined the fundamental beliefs and practices of their societies."