Samarkand, from the Caspian to the Ganges, his authority was
acknowledged. The wealth brought back to Ghazni was enormous, and
contemporary historians give glowing descriptions of the magnificence of
the capital, as well as of the conqueror's munificent support of
literature. Mahmud died in 1030, and some fourteen kings of his house
came after him; but though there was some revival of importance under
Ibrahim (1059-1099), the empire never reached anything like the same
splendour and power. It was overshadowed by the Seljuks of Persia, and
by the rising rivalry of Ghor (q.v.), the hostility of which it had
repeatedly provoked. Bahram Shah (1118-1152) put to death Kutbuddin, one
of the princes of Ghor, called king of the Jibal or Hill country, who
had withdrawn to Ghazni. This prince's brother, Saifuddin Suri, came to
take vengeance, and drove out Bahram. But the latter recapturing the
place (1149) paraded Saifuddin and his vizier ignominiously about the
city, and then hanged them on the bridge. Ala-uddin of Ghor, younger
brother of the two slain princes, then gathered a great host, and came
against Bahram, who met him on the Helmund. The Ghori prince, after
repeated victories, stormed Ghazni, and gave it over to fire and sword.
The dead kings of the house of Mahmud, except the conqueror himself and
two others, were torn from their graves and burnt, whilst the bodies of
the princes of Ghor were solemnly disinterred and carried to the distant
tombs of their ancestors. It seems certain that Ghazni never recovered
the splendour that perished then (1152). Ala-uddin, who from this deed
became known in history as _Jah[=an]-soz_ (_Brûlemonde_), returned to
Ghor, and Bahram reoccupied Ghazni; he died in 1157. In the time of his
son Khusru Shah, Ghazni was taken by the Turkish tribes called Ghuzz
(generally believed to have been what are now called Turkomans). The
king fled to Lahore, and the dynasty ended with his son. In 1173 the
Ghuzz were expelled by Ghiyasuddin sultan of Ghor (nephew of Ala-uddin
Jahansoz), who made Ghazni over to his brother Muizuddin. This famous
prince, whom the later historians call Mahommed Ghori, shortly
afterwards (1174-1175) invaded India, taking Multan and Uchh. This was
the first of many successive inroads on western and northern India, in
one of which Lahore was wrested from Khusru Malik, the last of Mahmud's
house, who died a captive in the hills of Ghor. In 1192 Prithvi Rai or
Pithora (as the Moslem writers call him), the Chauhan king of Ajmere,
being defeated and slain near Thanewar, the whole country from the
Himalaya to Ajmere became subject to the Ghori king of Ghazni. On the
death of his brother Ghiyasuddin, with whose power he had been
constantly associated, and of whose conquests he had been the chief
instrument, Muizuddin became sole sovereign over Ghor and Ghazni, and
the latter place was then again for a brief period the seat of an empire
nearly as extensive as that of Mahmud the son of Sabuktagin. Muizuddin
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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