The Nāṣirī Generations 3: II. — Reign of the great King Yaminu-d daula Mahmud Nizamu-d din Abu-l Kasim Mahmud, son of Subuktigin.

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Sultan Mahmud was a great monarch. He was the first Muhammadan king who received the title of Sultan from the Khalif. He was born on the night of Thursday, the tenth of Muharram, a.h. 361 (2nd October, 971), in the seventh year after the time of Bilkatigin. A moment (sa'at) before his birth, Amir Subuktigin saw in a dream that a tree sprang up from the fire-place in the midst of his house, and grew so high that it covered the whole world with its shadow. Waking in alarm from his dream, he began to reflect upon the import of it. At that very moment a messenger came, bringing the tidings that the Almighty had given him a son. Subuktigin greatly rejoiced, and said, I name the child Mahmud. On the same night that he was born, an idol temple in India, in the vicinity of Parshawar, on the banks of the Sind, fell down.
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Mahmud was a man of great abilities, and is renowned as one of the greatest champions of Islam. He ascended the throne in Balkh, in the year 387 H. (997 A.D.), and received investiture by the Khalifa Al Kadir bi-llah. His influence upon Islam soon became widely known, for he converted as many as a thousand idol-temples into mosques, subdued the cities of Hindustan, and vanquished the Ráis of that country. He captured Jaipal, who was the greatest of them, kept him at Yazd (?), in Khurasan, and gave orders so that he was bought for eighty dirams. He led his armies to Nahrwala and Gujarat, carried off the idol (manát) from Somnat, and broke it into four parts. One part he deposited in the Jami' Masjid of Ghazni, one he placed at the entrance of the royal palace, the third he sent to Mecca, and the fourth to Medina. 'Unsuri composed a long Kasída on this victory. [The story of his return from Somnat through the desert of Sind follows (see supra, p. 191), and an account is given of the state and pomp of his Court.] He died in the year 421 H. (1030 A.D.), in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, and at sixty-one years of age.