mehmood ghaznavi..plz elaborate!!
 

hi dear brethren

i have a few jumbled thoughts regarding mehmud ghaznavi..am jotting them down so that those who know may shed some light on them and clarify it

a)it is clearly a historical fact that mehmud ghaznavi never intended to conquer india as his first ambition was to set a govt in central asian states including afghanistan till the margin of oxus river.
my confusion:
1) why did he then turned towards india? was it that the jai pal had been an agressor during subuktgin`s reign that incited mehmud?or he found india an easy target then the central asian states? more over i need to know what was the political demography of the area near ghazni and other central asia?i havent read bout the geography of that area but i have a deep insinuation that the territory along the oxus river was being ruled by muslims? if am correct by the sasanid persian kings,why on earth did mehmud had to fight against muslims?

2)second confusion:
if mehmud didnt fight indians for religious motives why did the caliphe presented him with honrary titles? and if he did had a religious motif behind his battles thn we do not see any scheme of consolidation and above all we donot find a hint of an invitation towards islamic faith sent by mehmud before waging war on the hindus? why

3rd confusion:

given the notion that many of us say that religious war was over and that was a time of expanding territories,on what grounds can we call him a muslim hero specially when he was ravaging territories that had no longlasting effect on islam`s image and its propagation? how can we justify his invasions on an islamic ground?

Brother, put aside the Islamic Brotherhood feelings and concept and consider Mahmud as a Sultan in an Age where Church was used as an instrument to provide a mere ethical/emotional base to the government. It did not mean that the laws were Islamic or the day to day Affairs were conducted with an Islamic Ideology.

Returning to your first point: Mahmud attacked Jaypal because it was the natural source to quick money, loot and slaves. Mahmud wanted a Central Asian empire, for which he needed resources, slaves and artisans, soldiers and mercenaries, etc. Considering the internal strife in the Subcontinent it was surely an easy prey.


Brother it was not a religiously motivated fight. Now why did the Caliph bestowed all the titles etc. Did you ever come across the saying “The Enemy of my Enemy is my friend”. Same happened to the Caliph. The Sassanid Ruler and the Caliph were at odds with each other. Therefore when Mahmud and the Sassanid Ruler resorted to force Caliph obviously sided with Mahmud. Mahmud from the battlefield wrote an emotional letter to the caliph where upon he was bestowed upon with titles. And the titles do not portray the intention because if it were so, the title of Bahadur Shah Zafar (the last Mogul King) pictures a grand Emperor which he was not.

able general. Although we cannot completely filter out the Islamic sentiments or the Religious element from his wars, yet they did not form the crux of his intentions. Remember he had Hindus in his army as well. As far as Islamic Hero is concerned, he is considered a Hero in the Subcontinent region and that is pretty natural too. The Muslims were in a minority and were rulers for the most part of India till the 19th Century. Therefore they had to add grandeur to their history and they needed people/generals like Mahmud to do that.

plz help
 

Its really confusing for me to answer this question.This question is in 2009 paper and it goes as,

Q 1.Ghaznavi's invasions of India are controversial while some consider him a mujhahid others consider him an aggressor which opinion do you support.support it with strong arguments.

Now what should be the answer i mean as muslims we consider him a hero,have missiles after his name.But when it comes to writting answer in css paper what should be our stance.
Arguments are strong on both sides.As some are pointed out by umarabbas too above.i just want to know what should be our position on this personality.
I need a clear cut and unambiguous answer to this question.

the straight forward answer is a big NO....there are many points to refer to in this case. Above all no where in CSS examinations, either in any optional or any compulsory subjects, should one pass on emotional judgments. the answer should be based upon strong reasoning..

Calling Mahmud a Warrior of Allah, would be a mistake. In the past many historians have made this blunder but as i explained earlier many of those historians were part of Mahmud's own court, or the court of some other Sultan of Delhi.

If anybody could come up with any reliable or concrete points, they are more than welcome to share them over here because as far as i have studied history i barely have come across a point which sounds reasonable or convicing to the mind.

loot or jihad
 

i think you are right because as far as reading books is concerned with un prejudiced mind then the most probable answer which we derive is that mahmood ghaznavi was not a mujhahid waging jihad of any sort.
if we strictly confine our thinking to this aspect then we find many clues which clearly show that this man was more interested in money then in jihad.
the following strong points which i could gather are these.

1.rajput has offered him a strong resistance,in retaliation mahmood decided to send regular expeditions against them.hence mahmood was on their gates every year.it was his revenge against them becaz they had offered him combined resistance.not jihad.becaz jihad is always pure with no other intentions other than fight in the way of Allah.

2.indian kingdoms of nagarkot,kanauj,thaneswar,gawalior,ujjain etc.were all conquered but if he had islamic motives he would not have handed them over to hindus or buddhists but he did this.he made alliances with hindus.
here too no islamic motive.

3.but after this he directed his attention to temples becaz they were the centre of wealth,and were also economic and ideological centres.
he wanted to loot them,destroy them politically.thats why he attacked thaneswar,mathura,kanauj,somnath etc.

these temples were the centres of brahmans who were quite influential caste of that period.destroying them was equal to destryoing the might of indian states.

the most haunting thing for hindus even to this date is mahmoods invasion of Somnath.it was a centre of Brahman religion.
as this centre needed money so they befooled the local villagers that this idol of somnath will transmigrate their soul into a better and richer man when they will come in another body.in this way they were able to collect income of ten thousand villages.its wealth was to much.and it was filled with jewels.

there was a chain of gold weighing 200 maunds.all this was too much to think of.sultan who had spent too much on these expeditions needed this wealth to finance the war.

so i think it is most probable that mahmood ghaznazi was just an ordinary conquerer who came looted and went away.he left no imprints just destroyed temples and that too not in love of islam but because of his craze for money.

and one thing which is realted to the concept of jihad is that in islam there is no concept of destroying the temples or churches or the religious centres of any religion.there are countless examples in islamic history when muslims didn't even touched the temples of idol worshipers.

so i think it is not justified to call his expeditions a jihad.But i will try to find other aspect of the story too.

Gul you are right. but keep in mind that every issue is multi-faceted. we cannot altogether ignore any aspect.

For example, even a bad Muslim (like me) today will Implore upon Allah in case he lands in to trouble. Mahmud did that too. He also motivated his soldiers through sermons about the cause that they were fighting. obviously they were mercenaries, but a mercenary never leaves behind his religion. so in a battle field obviously there would have been cries of Allah o Akbar and similar slogans from the Rajput sides. That does not make this whole scenario a religious fiasco.

As you rightly pointed out earlier, Economics did play a major role in his motivation for the repetitive and tireless attacks on the Subcontinent. the day to day example can be of a bully in school, who would find a weak guy/girl and tease him/her everyday or snatch away his/her lunch. Similarly Mahmud found out that the Subcontinent was comparatively an easy prey to get easy and dirty money.

however, there were political considerations as well. Subuktigin had already fought with Jaypal and they had continuous border issues. Therefore upon assumption of throne, Mahmud had to check this threat first (as it was a custom in those days that with a change in the Ruler, such issues would re-surface again). After wards with every victory he would go deeper and deeper in to the Subcontinent, sometimes to defend his allies, sometimes to defend his own territories. at times he would be there to extract revenge and sometimes he would be there to prove his worth/mettle. so there were political considerations as well!!!