Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi: A Champion of Islam or a Plunderer?

Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi: A Champion of Islam or a Plunderer?

Mahmood of Ghazni is surely one of the greatest militant and conqueror of the history of this world and Islam. From 1000 A.D. till 1026 A.D, Mahmood led as many as 17 expeditions in different parts of India and never tasted defeat once.

However, there is a huge difference of opinion among the historians about the motives of Mahmood’s invasions. According to one school through, Sultan was an ardent votary of Islam and the zeal of Jihad was behind his Indian expeditions.

As per the second school of thought, Mahmood came to India in search of wealth because he had built a huge empire back in Ghazni and Sultan needed a lot of finance to run the affairs of the state in a sound manner and the rich land of India
attracted him. At that moment of time, the sub-continent was considered among the wealthiest areas of this world and Mahmood came, plundered and left.

There is another school of thought as well, according to which, the real motive behind Sultan’s Indian invasions were the political disputes, which he had inherited from his father, Sabuktagin, who had fought battles with a couple of Hindu
Rajas in the 10^th century.

All these schools of thought have some logical arguments. At the time when Mahmood conquered Somnath, he was offered immense wealth by the Hindus, who requested him not to break their idles. However, Sultan refused by saying that,
“I am an idle-breaker and not an idle-seller.” Sultan was also in good terms with the Muslim Caliph, Al-Qadir Billah, who awarded Mahmood with the titles,
‘Yamin ud Daulah’ and ‘Ameen ul Millat’.

He was a practicing Muslim and used to pray hard before leaving for any battle.

However, there were a number of non-Muslims in his army and if it was all about Jihad, what were some Hindu Generals like Tillak Rai, Hazari Rai and Sonai doing in his army? They were facilitated to perform their religious duties as per
their wish.

There is no doubt that the basic purpose of Mahmood’s invasions was economic but directly or indirectly, he served the cause of Islam because a number of Saints and Sufis came to India along with Sultan and they spread the light of Islam
throughout India. Hence, we can say on the safer side that Mahmood’s motives behind the Indian expeditions were economic cum religious cum political.   

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Posted by Yasir Hashmi on Nov 5 2011. Filed under Pakistan, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry