The Ghaznavid Period (5th/11th century)

Abstract

The Samanid empire, outwardly so glorious, was inwardly however troubled by dissension and strife¹,and this accounted for its falling an easy prey to the rapacity of Sultān Mahmūd and the Iligh-Khāns (Karakhānids, Āl-i Afrāsyāb). Sultān Mahmūd too relied for support on a guard of slaves belonging to various tribes and on volunteers (ghāzī or mutatavvi‹). But whereas the Samanids had pursued a policy of peace, he kept his army engaged in a rapid succession of campaigns against India, not so much with a view to annexation or sincere propagation of the Islamic faith as in the first place for the sake of loot. It was on this that Mahmud himself lived and maintained his army and his court, and perhaps also the municipal guilds of artisans in as far as he employed part of the plundered goods for the embellishment of his residency. In this way he satisfied the ruling classes as well as the army, including the ghāzīs, who owing to the restlessness of the situation had no leisure in which to organise rebellions. Such was the nature of the Sultan’s political wisdom. While the peasants were subject to high duties to cover the costs of the annual military campaigns, the Iranian dihqāns were systematically driven out of the army and the civil posts by a new Turkish ‘nobility’, drawn in the first place from the military ranks. The differences became more sharply pronounced than before, but Mahmud managed to keep all his opponents in check with his regiments and his officials. Although he was more far- sighted than the Samanids, he was nevertheless only able to suppress the outbursts of dissatisfaction and in no sense to remove the cause. His foreign policy had various objects in view.