The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.3

v3.c20.3

In the early part of the tenth century the descendants of Sāmān, a Persian chieftain of Balkh who had accepted Islam, extended their dominion over Transoxiana, Persia, and the greater part of the present kingdom of Afghānistān, but their great empire waned almost as rapidly as it had waxed and their power gradually passed into the hands of the Turkish slaves to whom they had been wont to entrust the principal offices in their court and kingdom. One of these, Alptigīn, rebelled and established himself at Ghaznī, where he reigned as an independent sovereign, though his successors found it convenient, when they were in difficulties, to acknowledge the Sāmānids, who now held their court at Bukhārā, and to court their favour. Alptigīn was succeeded in 963 by his own son Is-hāq, on whose death in 966 Mansūr I of Bukhārā acknowledged Balkātigīn, a former slave of Alptigīn. Pīrāi succeeded in 972, whose reign of five years is remarkable for the first conflict in this region between Hindus and Muslims, the former being the aggressors. The raja of the Punjab, whose dominions extended to the Hindu Kush and included Kābul, was alarmed by the establishment of a Muslim kingdom to the south of the great mountain barrier and invaded the dominion of Ghaznī, but was defeated.