The Ghaznavid Dynasty 977-1186
Nomads and Turks in Medieval Afghanistan, Iran and India
An introduction to the Ghaznavid Dynasty and its greatest rulers, Sebuktigin and Mahmud.
Throughout most of history, the region roughly comprising Iran, eastern Afghanistan and northern India has been a meeting place of eastern and western influences, as well as being home to indigenous influences and traditions.
From the west came, perhaps most importantly, Islam, spread by the Arabic armies that with such great energy carved out an enormous empire covering both land and sea. From the east came the nomadic peoples of the Steppes, searching for conquest or else displaced from their home lands by more vigorous enemies or by the unseen enemies of animal disease and climate change.
Where they met, cultures merged together to provide wholly new forms of expression and unique combinations of cultures. One such example of this is the Ghaznavid Dynasty, which flourished between 977-1186.
The Ghaznavid Dynasty receives its name from the city of Ghazni in modern Afghanistan, which is where the founder of the Dynasty, Sebuktigin, was freed from slavery to the Turks, married the governor’s daughter and then freed the people from (or destroyed the ruling) Samanid Dynasty.
The Turks were a confederation of nomadic tribes based in areas of Central Asia and Mongolia, depending on how the fortunes of individual tribes waxed and waned. As his name might suggest, Sebuktigin had a Turkic background and he fell foul of a tribal dispute as a child and was enslaved as a result.
Sold to the governor of Ghazni, Alpitigin (some say he was Lord Chamberlain), Sebuktigin clearly had some strong personal characteristics because he fought his way to the top of the pile, fending off raiders and court intrigues all the while. He also achieved glory by restaging the nomadic past and leading raids into northern India, capturing slaves, booty and elephants.
A Dynastic squabble gave Sebuktigin the chance to seize control: Ghazni had been willed to another former slave of Alpitigin who is said to have been so vile the people demanded he be driven out and the neghbouring Lawik people be brought in to rule – this does not seem terribly likely as there were significant religious differences between the two people but, in any case, Sebuktigin seized the moment and led his army to victory while being acclaimed a liberator.
He spent the twenty years of his reign extending the borders of his realm to the limits of modern Afghanistan and beyond, encompassing also parts of Iran and northern India, both of which were rich agricultural areas. He asked to be succeeded by his son Mahmud but his nobles demurred, preferring another son Ismail.
Mahmud seems to have taken after his father because, in 998, he defeated Ismail in battle and kept him subsequently in imprisonment until he died. It was under Mahmud that the Ghaznavid Dynasty achieved its greatest flowering.
Mahmud – or to give him his full name Yamin Al-Daula Abul-Qasim Mahmud Ibn Sebuktigin – presided over a court at which the great Persian poet Ferdowsi could complete his masterpiece the Shah-nameh, while also leading 17 individual campaigns against Indian states (he vowed to campaign once a year for the rest of his life).
Inevitably, this energy could not be sustained and subsequent rulers could not maintain the territory conquered by Mahmud and his father. Mahmud himself lost all the Iranian and central Asian lands as a result of the Battle of Dandanqan.
A century later, a terrible defeat in 1130 led to the loss of all Indian territories and, from then on, it was only a matter of time until the final extinction of the Ghaznavid Dynasty, which finally happened in 1186 when it was replaced by the Ghurids.
The Ghaznavid legacy was all but eradicated but traces can still be seen in the artistic development of neighbouring peoples and in surviving architecture, much of which was to act as inspiration to the powerful Seljuq Dynasty which was to bring Turkish rule directly to the region.
References and Further Reading
Bosworth, Clifford Edmund, Ghaznavids (South Asia Press, 1992).
Ferdowsi, Abdulqasem, The Persian Book of Kings (Mage Press, 2004), translated by Dick Davis.
Singh Sandhu, Major General Gurcharn, A Military History of Medieval India (New Delhi: Vision Books, 2003).
