Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

The Arab power in India was thus mostly confined to Sind, but there it endured till the early eleventh century. And it was finally extinguished, ironically, not by any Indian king, but by another Muslim invader, Mahmud Ghazni. On the whole, the occupation of Sind by Arabs, though it is a fascinating story, was an event of little consequence in Indian history. It was an isolated, peripheral event, which had no connection at all with either the Indian raids of Mahmud Ghazni three centuries later, in the early eleventh century, or the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate yet another two centuries later, in the early thirteenth century, events which would radically transform the very texture and pattern of Indian history.

After the Arab conquest of Sind, India had a respite from invasions for nearly three centuries, till the Ghaznavid invasion in the early eleventh century. In the meantime, by the second decade of the ninth century, the far-flung Arab empire had begun to crack up like a clay field in high summer, and several of its provinces became virtually independent kingdoms, even though Muslim rulers everywhere generally acknowledged the nominal overlordship of the Caliph.

One of the major kingdoms that emerged out of the splintered Arab empire was the Samanid kingdom of Central Asia, spread over Khurasan and Transoxiana, and had Bukhara as its capital. In time the Samanid kingdom too splintered into several independent states. In 963 Alptigin, a Turkic slave who had risen to high office under the Samanids and served them as their governor in Khurasan, rebelled against his king, seized the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan, and established an independent kingdom there. Ghazni, states Mughal emperor Babur in his autobiography, was at that time ‘a very humble place’. But it had a grand historical destiny. And it would play a decisive role in the history of medieval India.

Alptigin died soon after founding the kingdom, and was succeeded by three rulers in quick succession: a son, a son-in-law, and a royal slave. The slave, Pirai — whom medieval chronicler Siraj describes as ‘a very depraved man’—was overthrown by the nobles of Ghazni in 977, and they raised Sabuktigin, a favourite slave and son-in-law of Alptigin, to the throne.

The nobles favoured Sabuktigin because he was a man of proven ability, and had also taken care to win their support. According to Khondamir, an early-sixteenth-century chronicler, ‘the chief men of Ghazni saw the signs of greatness and nobility, and the fires of felicity and prosperity on the forehead of Sabuktigin, who widely spread out the carpet of justice, and rooted out injury and oppression, and who, by conferring different favours on them, had made friends of the nobles, the soldiers, and the leading men of the state.’

Apart from having these laudable personal qualities, Sabuktigin also claimed royal pedigree — he traced his lineage to the last Persian monarch, whose descendants had, during the Arab invasion of Persia, fled to Turkistan, where they, having intermarried with the local people, eventually came to be considered as Turks. When Sabuktigin was around twelve years old, he was captured by a rival tribe, and was later taken to Bukhara by a slave trader. There he was bought by Alptigin, under whose favour he rapidly rose in rank, and in time achieved renown as a general.

Ghazni was a tiny kingdom at the time of Alptigin’s death, and was confined to just the city and its environs. Sabuktigin greatly expanded the kingdom, extending its frontiers up to the Amu Darya in the north, the Caspian Sea in the west, and eastward across the mountains up to the upper Indus Valley. According to Al-Biruni, Sabuktigin had chosen ‘the holy war as his calling,’ and this led him to launch several campaigns against King Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Punjab. There is however no evidence of any great religious zeal in the campaigns of the sultan. His invasion of Punjab was in any case inevitable, given his expansionist ambitions, and the normal hostile posture of kings against their immediate neighbours.

Jayapala ruled over an extensive kingdom stretching from western Punjab to eastern Afghanistan, but he, according to medieval Arab historian Al-Utbi, found ‘his land grow narrow under his feet’ because of Sabuktigin’s aggressions. Jayapala then, following the classic dictum that offence is the best form of defence, advanced against Sabuktigin with his army—‘he rose with his relations, generals and vassals, and hastened with his huge elephants to wreak his revenge upon Sabuktigin,’ states Al-Utbi.

THE ENSUING BATTLE went on for several days, but still remained inconclusive, and was not going too well for the Ghaznavids. What saved them was a miracle. There was, according to Al-Utbi, a ravine close to the Hindu camp, and in it a lake of absolute purity and miraculous properties. ‘If any filth was thrown into it, black clouds collected, whirlwinds arose, the summits of mountains became black, rain fell, and the neighbourhood was filled with cold blasts until red death supervened.’ Sabuktigin, baffled in the battlefield, decided to invoke the supernatural, and had some filth thrown into the lake. Suddenly, ‘the horrors of the day of resurrection rose up before wicked infidels, and fire fell from heaven on them.’ A fierce hailstorm accompanied by loud claps of thunder then swept through the valley, and ‘thick black vapours’ enveloped the Indian army, so they could not even ‘see the road by which they could flee.’ [1] Nine centuries later, an invading British Indian army was confounded by a similar snowstorm in Afghanistan.

Jayapala, faced with this strange adversity, then pleaded for peace. Sabuktigin was inclined to grant it, but his belligerent son Mahmud wanted total victory. Hearing of this, Jayapala warned Sabuktigin: ‘You have seen the impetuosity of Hindus and their indifference to death … If, therefore, you refuse to grant peace in the hope of obtaining plunder, tribute, elephants and prisoners, then there is no alternative for us but to mount the horse of stern determination, destroy our property, take out the eyes of our elephants, cast our children into fire, and rush on each other with sword and spear, so that all that will be left to you are stones and dirt, and dead bodies and scattered bones.’ Sabuktigin knew that this was not a hollow threat, so he granted peace to the raja on his promise of paying tribute and ceding some territories.

Jayapala reneged on that promise, and, according to Mughal chronicler Ferishta, organised a confederacy of several North Indian rajas against Sabuktigin. It was a matter of survival for him, as the very existence of his kingdom was being threatened by the rapidly expanding Ghaznavid sultanate. But the ensuing battle was once again won by Sabuktigin, despite the vast army that Jayapala deployed. This time his victory was due to the innovative battle tactic he adopted, after carefully reconnoitring the enemy deployment. Sabuktigin, according Al-Utbi, ‘ascended a lofty hill from which he could see the whole army of the infidels, which resembled scattered ants and locusts, and he felt like a wolf about to attack a flock of sheep.’ Returning to his camp, Sabuktigin divided his army into several contingents of 500 soldiers each and sent them in relays against the Indian army, to attack and retreat, attack and retreat, so that the Indian soldiers became utterly exhausted as the battle progressed while the bulk of the Turkish army remained fresh. At that stage Sabuktigin sent his entire army charging into battle in a fierce onslaught, and routed the Indian army, which ‘fled, leaving behind them their property, utensils, arms, provisions, elephants, and horses.’ Following the victory, Sabuktigin annexed the western part of the Hindu Shahi kingdom, up to Peshawar.