with the Indus. Uch was once located on the banks of the Indus River, though the river has since shifted its course, and the confluence of the two rivers has shifted approximately 40 km (25 miles) southwest. Medieval In 712 CE, Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Uch. Few details exist of the city in the centuries prior to his invasion. Uch was probably the town recorded as Bhatia that was conquered in 1006 by Mahmud of Ghazni. Following the schism between the Nizari and Musta'li sects of Ismaili Shi'ism in 1094, Uch became a centre of Nizari missionary activity for several centuries, and today the town and surrounding region are littered with numerous tombs of prominent pīrs, as well as pious daughters and wives of those Sufi pirs. The region around Uch and Multan remained centre of Hindu Vaishnavite and Surya pilgrimage throughout the medieval era. Their interactions with Ismaili tradition resulted in the creation of the Satpanth tradition. Throughout this era, Uch was at the centre of a region that was steeped in both Vedic and Islamic traditions. The city would later become a centre of Suhrwadi Sufism, with the establishment of the order by Bahauddin Zakariya in nearby Multan in the early 1200s. Muhammad of Ghor conquered Uch and nearby Sultan in 1176 while it was still under the influence of the Ismaili Qarmatians. The town was likely captured from the Soomras based in Sindh. Sindh's various dynasties had for centuries attempted to keep Uch and Multan under their sway. Mamluk sultanate Soomra power was eroded by the advance of Nasir ad-Din Qabacha of what would later become the Mamluk dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. Qabacha was declared Governor of Uch in 1204. Under his rule, Uch became the principal city of Upper Sindh. Qabacha declared independence for his principality centred on Uch and Multan after the death of Sultan Aybak in 1211, before marching onwards to capture Lahore, thereby placing Qabacha's new Uch Sultanate in conflict with Sultan Iltutmish in Delhi. Qabacha briefly lost control of Uch to Taj al-Din Yildiz, though Uch was quickly returned to Qabacha's rule. While the power struggle ensued among Qabacha and Iltuthmish, Uch came under further pressure from the Khwarazmian dynasty based in Samarkand that had been displaced by the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan. Following the defeat of his father by the Mongols in the mid 1210s, the last Khwarazmian Sultan,