History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s5.7

v3.c33.s5.7

It is curious to observe that human nature usually leads men to the same actions. Mahmud the breaker of idols and the plunderer of temples expended his acquisitions on the Juma mosque of Ghazni and used the gold, the rubies and the diamonds obtained from Hindu idols, in decorating its walls, by the same impulse of the human mind as had actuated the Hindus. He thus created the temptation which had impelled him, for others coming after him and history records that this mosque was probably plundered of its rich decorations by the idolators of Chin. Changiskhan whose desecration of the Jami Masjid of Bokhara is described at length in Jahan Kusha of Juwaini (Elliot II p. 388) and whose doings at Bokhara were described by a fugitive in one pithy sentence in Persian "The Moguls came, dug, burnt, slaughtered, plundered and departed ", came to Ghazni on his return from the pursuit of Jelalluddin in 618 H (1226 A. D.), ordered all the inhabitants to be brought out of the city and counted, and after selecting artizans from among them, directed all the rest to be slain. He also destroyed the city and Ogtai returned towards Herat after burying the slain" (Elliot II p. 390). Another extract states that Ogtai took Ghazni by assault after a siege of four months; it was burnt and destroyed to the very foundations, after about two hundred thousand persons had been inhumanly massacred (Elliot II p. 569).