The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c7.s2.17

c7.s2.17

In brief, Mahmud was a religious and political imperialist through and through.⁶⁶ It took him more than twenty years to extend his dominions into Punjab. But he was keenly interested in acquiring territory in India,⁶⁷ and he succeeded in his aim. It is another matter that the peace and prosperity of Punjab was gone as suggested by Alberunis encomiums of the Hindu Shahiya kings,⁶⁸ and it was superseded by despotism and exploitation.⁶⁹ Later chroniclers write with a tinge of pride that fourteen Ghaznavids ruled at Lahore and its environs for nearly two hundred years.⁷⁰ But there was progressive deterioration in their administration. However, the importance of his occupation of most part of the Punjab lies in the fact that Muslims had come to stay in India. And these Muslims helped in the third wave of Muslim onrush which swept northern India under Muhammad Ghauri.