Study Guide · Chapter 3
Arab and Early Turkish Invasions
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- Muhammad bin Qasim led the first major Arab (Umayyad) expedition into Sindh in 712 CE, defeating King Dahir; this established a short-lived Arab foothold in Sindh but did not lead to further expansion into the Indian heartland, partly due to sustained Pratihara resistance.
- Mahmud of Ghazni (ruler of the Ghaznavid Turkic-Persian empire, based in Afghanistan) launched 17 raids into India between 1000 and 1027 CE, primarily for plunder rather than territorial annexation. His most infamous raid was the sacking of the Somnath Temple in Gujarat (1025 CE). Al-Biruni, the great Arab polymath, accompanied/followed his campaigns and wrote Tahqiq-i-Hind (Kitab-ul-Hind), an invaluable, relatively objective account of Indian society, science, and religion at the time.
- Muhammad Ghori (Muizzuddin Muhammad bin Sam), unlike Mahmud, pursued a deliberate policy of conquest and annexation. Defeated by Prithviraj Chauhan at the First Battle of Tarain (1191), he returned and decisively defeated and killed Prithviraj at the Second Battle of Tarain (1192) — traditionally regarded as the event that laid the foundation for permanent Muslim/Turkic rule in North India. His slave-general Qutbuddin Aibak later consolidated these gains and founded the Delhi Sultanate after Ghori's assassination in 1206.
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