Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c3.5

c3.5

But Maḥmūd was much more than a ruthless buccaneer. He was a magnificent prince and a liberal patron of literature. He loved Afghanistan and his mountain-nest of Ghaznī, and adorned it with buildings and tanks, and made it a centre of light and leading. One would have thought that this would have appealed to the Emperor Bābur, who also loved Afghanistan and directed that he should be buried in Kabul. But he forgot what Ghaznī was before a brutal Afghan—’Alāu-d-dīn Ghorī, the World-Burner (Jahānsoz)—had destroyed it, and says in his *Memoirs*, “Ghaznī is but a poor, mean place, and I have always wondered how its princes, who possessed India and Persia could have chosen such a wretched country for the seat of their government.” The Troll-gardens of Agra and