"In this year the Vizier al-Muhallabí arrested some persons who held the doctrine of metempsychosis (_tanásukh_). Among them were a youth who declared that the spirit of ‘Alí b. Abí Ṭálib had passed into his body, and a woman who claimed that the spirit of Fáṭima was dwelling in her; while another man pretended to be Gabriel. On being flogged, they excused themselves by alleging their relationship to the Family of the Prophet, whereupon Mu‘izzu ’l-Dawla ordered them to be set free. This he did because of his attachment to Shí‘ism. It is well known," says the author in conclusion, "that the Buwayhids were Shí‘ites and Ráfiḍites."[502] [Sidenote: The Ghaznevids (976-1186 A.D.).] Three dynasties contemporary with the Buwayhids have still to be mentioned: the Ghaznevids in Afghanistan, the Ḥamdánids in Syria, and the Fáṭimids in Egypt. Sabuktagín, the founder of the first-named dynasty, was a Turkish slave. His son, Maḥmúd, who succeeded to the throne of Ghazna in 998 A.D., made short work of the already tottering Sámánids, and then sweeping far and wide over Northern India, began a series of conquests which, before his death in 1030 A.D., reached from Lahore to Samarcand and Iṣfahán. Although the Persian and Transoxanian provinces of his huge empire were soon torn away by the Seljúqs, Maḥmúd's invasion of India, which was undertaken with the object of winning that country for Islam, permanently established Muḥammadan influence, at any rate in the Panjáb. As regards their religious views, the Turkish Ghaznevids stand in sharp contrast with the Persian houses of Sámán and Buwayh. It has been well said that the true genius of the Turks lies in action, not in speculation. When Islam came across their path, they saw that it was a simple and practical creed such as the soldier requires; so they accepted it without further parley. The Turks have always remained loyal to Islam, the Islam of Abú Bakr and ‘Umar, which is a very different thing from the Islam of Shí‘ite Persia. Maḥmúd proved his orthodoxy by banishing the Mu‘tazilites of Rayy and burning their books together with the philosophical and astronomical works that fell into his hands; but on the same occasion he carried off a hundred camel-loads of presumably harmless literature to his capital. That he had no deep enthusiasm for letters is shown, for example, by his shabby treatment of the poet Firdawsí. Nevertheless, he ardently desired the glory and prestige accruing to a sovereign whose court formed the rallying-point of all that was best in the literary and scientific culture of the day, and such was Ghazna in the eleventh century. Besides the brilliant group of Persian poets, with Firdawsí at their head, we may mention among the Arabic-writing authors who flourished under this dynasty the historians al-‘Utbí and al-Bírúní. [Sidenote: The Ḥamdánids (929-1003 A.D.).]