Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them v2.c19.s3.29

v2.c19.s3.29

Mahmud of Ghazni had led twelve to seventeen expeditions to India, according to different accounts. He destroyed many temples and smashed or burnt numerous idols wherever he was victorious over Hindu resistance. But what made him into a myth was his expedition to Somnath. The destruction of the temple of Somnath, observes Muhammad Nazim, was looked upon as the crowning glory of Islam over idolatry, and Sultan Mahmud as the champion of the Faith, received the applause of all the Muslim world. Poets vied with each other in extolling the real or supposed virtues of the idol-breaker and the prose writers of later generations paid their tribute of praise to him by making him the hero of numerous ingenious stories.¹²