The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c7.s3.1

c7.s3.1

Muhammad Ghauris invasion was mounted 150 years after the death of Mahmud Ghaznavi. How the Ghauris rose on the ashes of the Ghaznavids may be recapitulated very briefly. Sultan Mahmud died in Ghazni on 20 April 1030 at the age of sixty, leaving immense treasures and a vast empire. After his death his two sons Muhammad and Masud contested for the throne in which the latter was successful. Masud recalled Ariyaruk, the oppressive governor of Punjab, and in his place appointed Ahmad Niyaltigin. Niyaltigin marched to Benaras to which no Muslim army had gone before. The markets of the drapers, perfumers and jewellers were plundered and an immese booty in gold, silver, and jewels was seized. This success aroused the covetousness of Masud who decided to march to Hindustan in person for a holy war. He set out for India by way of Kabul in November 1037. Hansi was stormed and sacked in February the next year, but the Sultan on return realised that the campaign had been counterproductive. During his absence Tughril Beg, the Seljuq, had sacked a portion of Ghazni town and seized Nishapur in 1037. Khurasan was rapidly falling into the hands of the Seljuqs and western Persia was throwing off the yoke of Ghazni. On the Indian side an army of 80,000 Hindus under Mahipal seized Lahore in 1043, but hastily withdrew on the approach of forces from Ghazni. But curiously enough it was neither the Seljuq danger nor the threat from the Indian side that uprooted the Ghaznavids. The Seljuqs were not interested in the hilly terrain of what is now called Afghanistan, and were spreading westward to Damascus and the Mediterranean. The power that actually ousted the Ghaznavids comprised the almost insignificant tribesmen of the rugged hills of Ghaur lying between Ghazni and Herat, with their castle of Firoz Koh (Hill of Victory). They had submitted to Mahmud in 1010 C.E. and had joined his army on his Indian campaigns. But when the power of the Ghaznavids declined they raised their head. To take revenge of the death of two brothers at the hands of the Ghazni ruler, a third, Alauddin Husain, carried fire and sword throughout the kingdom. The new Ghazni which had been built by Sultan Mahmud at the cost of seven million gold coins was burnt down by Husain (1151), which earned him the title of Jahan-soz (world burner). The very graves of the hated dynasty were dug up and scattered, but even Afghan vengeance spared the tomb of Mahmud, the idol of Muslim soldiers. Near the modern town of Ghazni that tomb and two minarets (on one of which may still be read the lofty titles of the idol-breaker) alone stand to show where, but not what, the old Ghazni was.