Mahmud of Ghazni Raids India
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni launched seventeen devastating raids into India, plundering wealthy temple cities and beginning centuries of Turko-Afghan incursions into the subcontinent.
Between 1001 and 1027 CE, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni — ruler of a Turkic-Afghan empire based in modern Afghanistan — launched seventeen military expeditions into the Indian subcontinent. His raids targeted the fabulously wealthy Hindu temple cities of northern India, most infamously the Somnath temple in Gujarat (1025), where he is said to have personally destroyed the revered Shiva lingam. Mahmud carried back enormous plunder that funded Ghazni's transformation into a cultural capital. The raids had lasting consequences: they shattered the military confidence of India's fragmented Rajput kingdoms, introduced a pattern of Central Asian conquest that would recur for centuries, and left deep scars in Hindu-Muslim relations that persist in India's collective memory. Mahmud, however, did not seek to rule India — he raided and returned. Permanent Muslim rule would come later.
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