Mahmud of Ghazni
At the time of his death, his kingdom had been transformed into an extensive military empire, which extended from northwestern Iran proper to the Punjab in the Indian subcontinent, Khwarazm in Transoxiana, and Makran.He was the first ruler to hold the title Sultan ("authority"), signifying the extent of his power while at the same time preserving an ideological link to the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphs.During his rule, he invaded and plundered the richest cities and temple towns, such as Mathura and Somnath in medieval India seventeen times, and used the booty to build his capital in Ghazni.[10] Mahmud married the daughter of Abu'l Haret Ahmad,[11] and they had twin sons, Mohammad and Ma'sud, who succeeded him one after the other; his grandson by Mas'ud, Maw'dud Ghaznavi, also later became ruler of the empire.[9] Mahmud shortly revolted, and with the help of his other brother, Abu'l-Muzaffar, the governor of Bust, he defeated Ismail the following year at the battle of Ghazni and gained control over the Ghaznavid kingdom.[15] He then appointed Abu'l-Hasan Isfaraini as his vizier,[16] and then set out west from Ghazni to take the Kandahar region followed by Bost (Lashkar Gah), which he transformed to a militarised city.[19] Following the defeat of the Indian Confederacy, after deciding to retaliate for their combined resistance, Mahmud then set out on regular expeditions against them, leaving the conquered kingdoms in the hands of Hindu vassals and annexing only the Punjab region.[23] Mahmud's desecration of the Somnath temple in Gujarat in 1024 CE motivated Rajput king Bhoja to lead an army against him, however after Somnath raid, Mahmud Gazhnavi chose a more dangerous route via Sindh, to avoid facing the invading powerful armies of Bhoja, he passed through a desert, where the scarcity of food and water killed a large number of his soldiers and animals, Kitabh Zainu'l Akhbar (c. 1048 CE) by 'Abd al-Hayy Gardizi, Tabaqat-i-Akbari by Nizamuddin Ahmad and Firishta's writings also mention this incident.[33] The Indian kingdoms of Nagarkot, Thanesar, Kannauj, and Gwalior were all conquered and left in the hands of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist kings as vassal states and he was pragmatic enough not to neglect making alliances and enlisting local peoples into his armies at all ranks.Since Mahmud never kept a permanent presence in the northwestern subcontinent, he engaged in a policy of destroying Hindu temples and monuments to crush any move by the Hindus to attack the Empire; Nagarkot, Thanesar, Mathura, Kannauj, Kalinjar (1023)[34] and Somnath all submitted or were raided.[39] However, powerful legends with intricate detail had developed regarding Mahmud's raid in the Turko-Persian literature,[40] which "electrified" the Muslim world according to scholar Meenakshi Jain.Thapar quoted Majumdar (1956): But, as is well known, Hindu sources do not give any information regarding the raids of Sultan Mahmud, so that what follows is based solely on the testimony of Muslim authors.[57] Following his quest for Jihad in India, Mahmud Ghazni not only ruined the Somnath temple and plundered its treasures but also killed every devotee present in the town.The Indian soldiers, whom Romila Thapar presumed to be Hindus, were one of the components of the army with their commander called sipahsalar-i-Hinduwan and lived in their own quarter of Ghazna practicing their own religion.V. Williams Jackson, Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages in Columbia University has written in his book History of India, "Mahmud vowed that every year he would wage a Holy War against the infidels of Hindustan".Although his raids carried his forces across the Indian subcontinent, only a portion of the Punjab and of Sindh in modern-day Pakistan came under his semi-permanent rule; Kashmir, the Doab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat remained under the control of the local Hindu dynasties.The booty brought back to Ghazni was enormous, and contemporary historians (e.g. Abolfazl Beyhaghi, Ferdowsi) give descriptions of the magnificence of the capital, as well as of the conqueror's munificent support of literature.He transformed Ghazni, the first centre of Persian literature,[66] into one of the leading cities of Central Asia, patronizing scholars, establishing colleges, laying out gardens, and building mosques, palaces, and caravansaries.[72] Mahmud appointed all his ministers himself without advising his wazir (chief advisor) or diwan, though occasionally he had to, as his religion dictated that Muslims should consult each other on all issues.
Obverse in Arabic: la ilaha illa'llah muhammad rasulullah sal allahu alayhi wa sallam "There is no God except Allah, and Muhammad is the meassenger of Allah"
Reverse in Sanskrit ( Sharada script ): avyaktam eka muhammada avatāra nrpati mahamuda "There is one Invisible; Muhammad is the avatar ; the king is Mahmud". [ 51 ] [ 52 ] [ 53 ] [ 54 ]
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