**Until the rise of the west, India was possibly the richest country in the world. China was a rival in wealth, but we are not placed to compare the two nations. To the extent that India’s climate was more temperate than China’s, and the land probably more fertile, it is likely India was the richer.
****Such a country presented an irresistible target for the ravening Mongols and their descendents who settled in present day Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikstan, all within comparatively easy reach of northwestern India.
****The northwest was, at this time, a mish-mash of warring kingdoms, more interested in settling scores with their neighbors than in unifying against the Mongols. It is then unsurprising that Mahmud Ghaznavi’s armies so handily defeated those of the Indian kings.**Mahmud Ghanznavi (translated: Mahmud of Ghazni) was not, according to some, like future Muslim invaders of India, a religious proselytizer. Indeed, with the exception of Punjab, which he needed as his “forward operating base” for his Indian expeditions, he made no attempt to rule any of his conquests. His intent was economic and political. It has been said that the destruction of Somnath is mentioned only in Muslim texts, whose authors had the habit of exaggeration. This view goes as far as to say in the opinion of some, the Ghaznivad empire fell apart because of Mahmud’s excessive reliance on Hindu soldiers and generals.
Others, however, have argued the reverse: he may have wanted the money, but also wanted to spread Islam and did his best to destroy temples even when offered large sums to leave the temples alone.
The Indian historian Romila Thapar [2002] takes a middle view: Mahmud needed money for his wars; India’s temples were known to contain fabulous treasures; we need not look for more complicated explanations. Thapar said he was undoubtedly an iconoclast, and hardly averse to destroying temples to gain favor when he went to heaven. Nonetheless, he warred equally with other Islamic sects, because he was a Sunni. The secondary purpose of his raids may have been tied up with his need to convert Shias to Sunni beliefs. ( :eek: Aurangzeb Awwal)
Nonetheless, for our purposes, which are military history, Mahmud Ghaznavi’s motives and large aims are irrelevant, and we say without hesitation we have little idea of where the truth lies.
Understandably, Indians know Mahmud Ghaznavi because of his invasions of India. But he fought many wars to the west, and captured large parts of today’s Iran, and that was an entirely different part of his life. His father was a Turkish slave; this would be one reason he looked to the west.
While we have believed, as have most school and college students of Indian history, that there were 17 invasions, some say there were 14. We hope someone with the necessary scholarship can enlighten us on this.
Mahmud Ghaznavi’s 17 Invasions of India [Work in Progress]
So what do you think, was his raids on India for spreading Islam?