Ghaznavid guardsman

Early GHAZNAVID guardsman, 10th – 11th centuries. The Ghaznavids were a Sunni Muslim, culturally Persianate dynasty of Turkic origin, centred around their capital, Ghazni, in modern-day Afghanistan, from 977 to 1186. During their greatest extent under Sultan Mahmud in the early 11th century, the Ghaznavid Empire stretched from the Caspian coast of north-western Iran to the Gangetic Plain in north India, including tributary vassal states.

The Ghaznavid dynasty’s founder, Sabuktigin, was a Turkic slave soldier (a common thing in the early Islamic world) that was bought by the amir of Ghazni Alp-Tegin, also a Turkic slave soldier who was commander of the Samanid royal guard, when Ghazni was still part of the Persian Samanid Empire. Sabuktigin was appointed amir of Ghazni after Alp-Tegin’s death. As a vassal of the Samanids, Sabuktigin started invading territories further south into the Indian Subcontinent, which were still resisting the Islamic expansion. During those campaigns, Sabuktigin rivalled the Hindu Shahi dynasty (the last Hindu dynasty in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan). Towards the end of his life, Sabuktigin betrayed their Persian overlords and made an agreement with the fellow Turkic Kara-Khanid Khanate to divide the Samanid Empire between themselves, but Sabuktigin died and was succeeded by his youngest son Ismail, whose reign wouldn’t last. Mahmud launched a war of succession against his younger brother, from which he emerged victorious. The alliance between Mahmud and the Kara-Khanids finally brought the Samanid Empire to an end, and Mahmud of Ghazni would become history’s first Islamic independent ruler to adopt the title of sultan. Mahmud then continued the conquest of north-west India, and crushed the Hindu Shahis, paving the way for later Turco-Persian dynasties that would expand Islam into India even further.

Following Mahmud’s death in 1030, the Ghaznavids would suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of another Turkic dynasty from Central Asia that would dominate Iran and the Middle East: the Seljuks, whose conquest of Byzantine Anatolia and Jerusalem would provoke a military response from all Western Europe known as the First Crusade.