Sultan of the kingdom of Ghazna (998-1030), originally comprising modern Afghanistan and northeastern modern Iran but, through his conquests, eventually including northwestern India and most of Iran. He transformed his capital, Ghazna, into a cultural centre rivalling Baghdad.
Mahmud's Biography
Mahmud was the son of a Turkish slave, who in 977 became ruler of Ghazna. When Mahmud ascended the throne in 998 at the age of 27, he already showed remarkable administrative ability and statesmanship. At the time of his accession, Ghazna was a small kingdom. The young and ambitious Mahmud aspired to be a great monarch, and in more than 20 successful expeditions he amassed the wealth with which to lay the foundation of a vast empire that eventually included Kashmir, the Punjab, and a great part of Iran.
During the first two years of his reign Mahmud consolidated his position in Ghazna. Though an independent ruler, for political reasons he gave nominal allegiance to the 'Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, and the caliph, in return, recognized him as the legitimate ruler of the lands he occupied and encouraged him in his conquests.
Mahmud is said to have vowed to invade India once a year and, in fact, led about 17 such expeditions. The first large-scale campaign began in 1001 and the last ended in 1026. The first expeditions were aimed against the Punjab and northeastern India, while in his last campaign Mahmud reached Somnath on the southern coast of Gujarat.
His chief antagonist in northern India was Jaipal, the ruler of the Punjab. When, in 1001, Mahmud marched on India at the head of 15,000 horse troops, Jaipal met him with 12,000 horse troops, 30,000 foot soldiers, and 300 elephants. In a battle near Peshawar the Indians, though superior in numbers and equipment, fell back under the onslaught of the Muslim horse, leaving behind 15,000 dead. After falling into the hands of the victors, Jaipal, with 15 of his relatives and officers, was finally released. But the Raja could not bear his defeat, and after abdicating in favour of his son, Anandpal, he mounted his own funeral pyre and perished in the flames.
Anandpal appealed to the other Indian rajas for help. Some replied in person, others sent armies. The Indian women sold their jewels to finance a huge army. When, at last, in 1008, Mahmud met the formidable force thus raised, the two armies lay facing each other between Und and Peshawar for 40 days. The Sultan finally succeeded in enticing the Indians to attack him. A force of 30,000 Khokars, a fierce, primitive tribe, charged both flanks of the Sultan's army with such ferocity that Mahmud was about to call a retreat. But at this critical moment Anandpal's elephant, panic-stricken, took flight. The Indians, believing that their leader was turning tail, fled from the battlefield strewn with their dead and dying. This momentous victory facilitated Mahmud's advance into the heart of India.
After annexing the Punjab, and returning with immense booty, the Sultan set about to transform Ghazna into a great centre of art and culture. He patronized scholars, established colleges, laid out gardens, and built mosques, palaces, and caravansaries. Mahmud's example was followed by his nobles and courtiers, and Ghazna soon was transformed into the most brilliant cultural centre in Central Asia.
In 1024 the Sultan set out on his last famous expedition to the southern coast of Kathiawar along the Arabian Sea, where he sacked the city of Somnath and its renowned Hindu temple. Mahmud returned home in 1026. The last years of his life he spent in fighting the Central Asian tribes threatening his empire.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/mahmud_mughals.html
Few figures from the Indian past strike most Hindus with as much revulsion as the Turkish conqueror, Mahmud of Ghazni. Mahmud succeeded his father, a warlord who had carved out an empire in central Asia and had established his capital at Ghazni, south of Kabul, in 998 AD at the age of 27. He launched aggressive expansionist campaigns, and is said to have invaded India no less than 17 times between 1000 and 1025 AD. His campaigns invariably took place during the hot summer season, and on each occasion Mahmud left India before the onset of the monsoons, which would have flooded the rivers of the Punjab and possibly trapped his troops.
Mahmud’s invasions of India, which never extended to the central, south, and eastern portions of the country, were doubtless exceedingly bloody and ruthless affairs. He is said to have carried away huge amount of booty on each visit, and among other Indian dynasties, the Chandellas of Khujaraho, the Pratiharas of Kanauj, and the Rajputs of Gwalior all succumbed to his formidable military machine. Places such as Kanauj, Mathura, and Thaneshwar were laid to ruins, but it is the memory of his destruction of the Shiva temple at Somnath, on the southern coast of Kathiawar in Gujarat, which has earned him the undying hatred of many Hindus. Muslim chronicles suggest that 50,000 Hindu died in the battle for Somnath, and it is said that the Shiva lingam was destroyed by Mahmud himself; after the battle, Mahmud and his troops are described as having carried away across the desert the equivalent of 6.5 tons of gold. The famous, intricately carved, doors of the temple at Somnath were also carried away, and there is an interesting story to be told about Somnath [see entry].
There can be no doubt that Mahmud of Ghazni waged ruthless campaigns and terrorized the people who came in his way. The Arab geographer and scholar, Alberuni, who wrote an account of India and spent much time at Mahmud’s court, wrote of his raids that "the Hindus became like the atoms of dust scattered in all directions and like a tale of old in the mouths of people. Their scattered remains cherish of course the most inveterate aversion towards all Moslems." Nonetheless, the communalist interpretation of Mahmud, first initiated by British historians and then adopted by nationalist Hindu historians, is without merit and must be rejected. This interpretation represents Mahmud as someone who harbored a special hatred for Hindus, but in point of fact there is nothing he did to Hindus that he did not also do to Muslims, especially Muslims he considered to be heretical. The Muslim ruler of Multan, an Ismaili, and his subjects were dealt with just as ruthlessly. Though Mahmud destroyed Hindu temples and broke Hindu idols, he acted as any ruthless warrior bent on conquest and pillage might do; indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find other conquerors at that time who behaved any differently. Many of his deeds struck even later Muslim historians as indefensible, and they become comprehensible, though emphatically not justifiable, when one considers him within a framework which recognizes the ‘politics of conquest’. If Mahmud pillaged Hindu temples, he did so because wealth was hoarded in these temples; but there is little to suggest a particular animus towards Hinduism. Contemporary records suggest that one of his most notable generals was a Hindu by the name of Tilak.
Mahmud’s ferocity and barbarism scarcely prevented him from cultivating the great minds of the time. He was animated by an ambition to make turn his court at Ghazni into a haven for scholars and artists, and he turned Ghazni into one of the cosmopolitan cities of the world. The famous Persian poet, Firdausi, author of the national epic the Shahnamah, was enticed to make his home in Ghazni, as was the Arab geographer Alberuni. The more substantive questions pertain to why India fell so easily to Mahmud’s sword on so numerous occasions, though even here it is worthy of note that he met stiff opposition in Kashmir and could never establish his rule over that fabled land. He doubtless had a more efficient military than any Indian ruler could muster, and the most formidable of the Hindu kings, the Cholas, were too far removed from northern India to offer any resistance, or even to have any interest in the affairs of the north. Caste divisions in Hindu society also played their part in weakening the resistance of Hindu kings, and the professionalism and egalitarianism of Muslim armies, many of which allowed slaves to rise to the top, was nowhere to be seen among the Hindus. These are among the pertinent considerations raised by Mahmud’s raids into India, and scholarship would do much better in directing itself towards the ‘politics of conquest’ and the political structures of north India around 1000 AD than in being derailed by communalist readings of Indian history.
The fact that Muslim leaders during the last three hundred years, whether politicians or mullahs, have known no other psychology except the psychology of retreat, and that, thanks to them, all Muslim communities have been subject to recurrent waves of ever rising reactionary fanaticisms with the consequence that the Musalmans, unable to stand on their own feet and to adjust their ways of life and their institutions to the strenuous conditions of the modern world. . ., have been driven to seek the protection of some foreign imperialism or other -- all this should not blind us to the fact that
Somnath (1025-26)
Northern India had ceased to attract Mahmud, for the spoils of its most wealthy temples were already in his treasury. But the rich and prosperous province of Gujarat was still untouched, and on October 18, 1025, he started from Ghazni with his regular troops and thirty thousand volunteer-horsemen for the temple of Somnath, situated at the distance of a bow-shot from the mouth of the Saraswati, by the side of which the earthly body of Lord Krishna had breathed its last.
The temple of Somnath
"The people of Hind", says Ferishta (following Ibn-i Asir) "believed that souls after separating from their bodies came to Somnath, and the god assigned to each soul, by way of transmigration, such new body as it deserved. . . . Somnath was the king, while other idols were merely his door-keepers and chamberlains. A hundred thousand people used to collect together in the temple at the time of the solar and lunar eclipses. . . The princes of Hindustan had endowed it with about ten thousand villages. A thousand Brahmans worshipped the idol continuously. . ."
Battle of Somnath
. . . [After a fierce and close battle] Mahmud entered the temple and possessed himself of its fabulous wealth. `Not a hundredth part of the gold and precious stones he obtained from Somnath were to be found in the treasury of any king of Hindustan.' Later historians have related how Mahmud refused the enormous ransom offered by the Brahmans, and preferred the title of `Idol-breaker'(But-shikan) to that of `Idol-seller' (But-farosh). He struck the idol with his mace and his piety was instantly rewarded by the precious stones that came out of its belly. This is an impossible story. Apart from the fact that it lacks all contemporary confirmation, the Somnath idol was a solid unsculptured linga, not a statue, and stones could not have come out of its belly. That the idol was broken is unfortunately true enough, but the offer of the Brahmans, and Mahmud's rejection of the offer, is a fable of later days.
It is a situation to make one pause. With a new faith everything depends on the method of presentation. It will be welcomed if it appears as a message of hope, and hated if it wears the mask of a brutal terrorism. Islam as a world force is to be judged by the life of the Prophet and the policy of the Second Caliph. Its early successes were really due to its character as a revolutionary force against religions that had lost their hold on the minds of the people and against social and political systems that were grinding down the lower classes. . . Now Hinduism with its intense and living faith was something quite unlike the Zoroastrianism of Persia and the Christianity of Asia Minor, which had so easily succumbed before the invader; it suffered from no deep seated internal diseases and, a peculiarity of the national character of the Hindus,. . . was their intense satisfaction and pride in their customs. . . People with this insularity of outlook were not likely to lend their ears to a new message. But the policy of Mahmud secured the rejection of Islam without a hearing.
It was inevitable that the Hindus should consider Islam a deviation from the truth when its followers deviated so deplorably from the path of rectitude and justice. A people is not conciliated by being robbed of all that it holds most dear, nor will it love a faith that comes to it in the guise of plundering armies and leaves devastated fields and ruined cities as monuments of its victorious method for reforming the morals of a prosperous but erratic world.
`The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often buried with their bones!' Mahmud's work, whatever it might have been was swept off fifteen years after his death by the Hindu revival. . . East of Lahore no trace of the Musalmans remained; and Mahmud's victories, while they failed to shake the moral confidence of Hinduism, won an everlasting infamy for his faith. Two centuries later, men who differed from Mahmud as widely as two human beings can possibly differ, once more brought Islam into the land. . . With the proper history of our country Mahmud has nothing to do. But we have inherited from him the most bitter drop in our cup. To later generations Mahmud became the arch-fanatic he never was; and in that `incarnation' he is still worshipped by such Musalmans as have cast off the teachings of Lord Krishna in their devotion to minor gods. Islam's worst enemies have ever been its own fanatical followers.
Tilak, the Hindu
The career of Tilak, the Hindu, shows the rapidity with which Hindus and Musalmans were both forgetting their religious differences in the service of a common king and the superbly oriental feeling of loyalty to the salt. Though the son of a barber, he was of handsome appearance, had studied `dissimulation, amours and witchcraft' in Kashmir and wrote excellent Hindi and Persian. He had first entered the service of Qazi Shirazi but left it for the better prospects offered by the Khwaja, to whom he acted as secretary and interpreter and was entrusted by him with the most delicate affairs. Even the Khwaja's fall did him no harm, for Mahmud wanted clever and energetic young men and Tilak's fortune kept on improving. Soyand Rai, the general of the Indian troops, took the wrong side on the succession question, and when he was slain in the skirmish against Ayaz, Ma`sud appointed Tilak to the vacant post. `Thus he obtained the name of a man.' "Kettledrums were beaten in his quarters according to the custom of Hindu chiefs and banners with gilded tops were granted." He had an army under his command, the tent and the umbrella of a Ghaznavid general, and sat in the charmed circle of the sultan's confidential officers. "Wise men do not wonder at such facts," says the reflective Baihaqi,"because nobody is born great -- men become such. This Tilak had excellent qualities and all the time he lived he sustained no injury on account of being the son of a barber."
Tilak drew up the plan of his campaign [against the rebellious commander of Punjab, in 1033], and as soon as it was sanctioned by the sultan, hastened against the rebel. Niyaltigin was unable to hold Lahore and fled towards the desert, and Tilak followed close on his heels with an army consisting mostly of Hindus. . . Niyaltigin was defeated in battle and his Turkoman soldiers came over to Tilak in a body. . . [Niyaltigin] was ultimately slain by the Jats while attempting to cross the Indus.
Amber Habib / a_habib@yahoo.comIt lies beside the Ghazni River on a high plateau at an elevation of 2,225 meter. Afghanistan's only remaining walled town, it is dominated by a 45 metre high citadel built in the 13th century. Around the nearby village of Rowzeh-e Sultan, on the old road to Kabul, 130 km northeast), are the ruins of ancient Ghazna, including two 43-metre towers and the tomb of Mahmud of Ghazna (971-1030), the most powerful emir (or sultan) of the Ghaznavid dynasty.
Capital of Ghazni province with a population of 35,900 on the Lora River. Located on the Kabul-Kandahar trade route, Ghazni is a market for sheep, wool, camel hair cloth, corn, and fruit. The famed Afghan sheepskin coats are made in the city. The city, named Ghazna in ancient times, was flourishing by the 7th cent. but reached its peak (962&endash;c.1155) under the Turkish Ghaznavid dynasty. Mahmud of Ghazni built a magnificent mosque, the Celestial Bride, there. The kings of Ghor sacked Ghazni in 1149 but later (1173) made it their secondary capital. Mahmud's tomb and two high Ghazni victory columns outside the city escaped destruction. Ghazni's strong fortress was taken by the British in 1839 and 1842 during the Afghan Wars. The main city on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, it became a strategic military target during the Russian-Afghan War. The walled, old city of Ghazni, with its numerous bazaars, contains the ruins of ancient Ghazni. Ghazni is now a chief commercial and industrial centre of Afghanistan, dealing in livestock, furs, silk, and agricultural products.
Ghazni's early history is obscure; it has probably existed at least since the 7th century. Early in the 11th century, under Mahmud of Ghazna, the town became the capital of the vast empire of the Ghaznavids, Afghanistan's first Muslim dynasty. The dynasty lost much of its power later in the same century, and Ghazni was sacked in 1150-51 by the Ghurids. The town was fought over by various peoples before the Mongols secured it by 1221. They ruled the area until Timur (Tamerlane), the Turkic conqueror, arrived in the 14th century, and his descendants ruled it until 1504, when the Indian Mughals took Ghazni and Kabul. In 1747, under Ahmad Shah Durrani, Ghazni became part of the new Afghan kingdom.
