The Ghaznavid/Turkish Invasion of India (Midieval Period)

The Ghaznavid/Turkish Invasion of India

Background

Towards the end of 9^th century, Trans-Oxiana, Khurasan and parts of Iran were being ruled by the Samanids who were Iranians by descent. They had a battle continually with the non-Muslim Turkish tribesmen on their northern and eastern frontiers. During this battle a new type of soldier, called ghazi, was born. Whose prime aim was to protect Islam and the boundaries of the empire. It is the efforts of the Ghazi that many Turks became Muslims, who later became great defenders and crusaders of Islam. But the ghazi continued battling with the rest of non-Muslim Turkish tribesmen. Among the Samanid governors was a Turkish slave, Alp-tigin, who in course of time, established an independent kingdom with its capital at Ghazni. Samanid kingdom soon ended and Ghaznavids took over the task of defending the Islamic land.

Condition of India on the eve of Mahmud Ghazni invasion

On the eve of the invasion, North India was divided into a number of independent states.

On the frontier of India, there existed the Hindushahi kingdom which extended from the Punjab to Kabul. Its capital was Waihind. Jayapala and his son Anandapala were the prominent rulers.
Kashmir was an independent state ruled over by the Lohara dynasty and it had family relations with the Hindushahis.
Kanuaj was ruled over by Rajyapala, the Gurjara Pratihara king.
There were independent kingdoms in Bengal (Pala dynasty), Gujarat (Solanki dynasty), Malwa (Paramara dynasty) and Bundhelkhand (Chandella dynasty).
In the south the later Chalukyas and Cholas have their powerful kingdoms.

Mahmud Ghazni invasions:

In pursuance of his vow, he invaded India many times.
His seventeen raids into India made during the period between 1000 and 1027 CE, is a significant event in the history.
Mahmud’s invasion of India was purely religious and economic and not political.
The initial raids were against the Hindu Shahi kingdom in which its king Jayapala was defeated in 1001.
After this defeat, Jayapala immolated himself because he thought that his defeat was a disgrace. His successor Anandapala fought against Mahmud but he was also defeated in the Battle of Waihind, the Hind Shahi capital near Peshawar in 1008.
In 1011, he raided Nagarkot in the Punjab hills and Thaneshwar near Delhi.
In 1018 Mahmud plundered the holy city of Mathura and also attacked Kanuaj. The ruler of Kanuaj, Rajyapala abandoned Kanuaj and later died. Mahmud returned via Kalinjar with fabulous richest.
In 1019 and 1029 he undertook two raids on Gangetic valley.
In 1025 he attacked on Somanath, the famous holy town on the coast of Kathiawar. It was a beautiful temple and possessed enormous wealth.

In this expedition he proceded through Multan defeated Bhimadeva of Anhilwad and reached Somanath Temple.
The Hindus fought very bravely and initially the enemies could not damage
the temple. However, after 3 days of fights, Mahmud Ghazni’s troops were
successful in plundering the Somanath temple, in which the sacred idol, Linga was destroyed. Ghazni looted all the treasures of the temple, which was at that time worth 20-million Dinars, more than eighty times of what he had collected in his first invasion.
Mahmud came back to India for the last time in 1027 to punish the Jats who had troubled him on his return journey from Somanath. The Jats were severely punished, looted property, enslaved their women and children.
Thus, Mahmud Ghazni successfully attempted seventeen invasions on Indian Territories and died in 1030 CE.

Estimate:

He built a wide empire from the Punjab in the east to the Caspian Sea on the west and from Samarkand in the north to Gujarat in the south. The Ghaznavid empire roughly included Persia, Trans-oxyana, Afghanistan and Punjab.
His conquest of Punjab and Multan completely changed the political situation in India. He paved the way for the Turks and Afghans for further conquests and make deeper incursions into the Gangetic valley at any time.
Mahmud was considered a hero of Islam by medieval historians,
He also patronized art and literature. Firdausi was the poet-laureate in the court of Mahmud. He was the author of Shah Namah.
Alberuni, the scholar of Turki, Sanskrit, Mathematics, Philosophy, Astrology and history stayed in Mahmud’s court and wrote the famous Kitab-ul-Hind, an account on India.