Talk:Muhammad of Ghor/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

F&f's evidence for edits in the lead

Please do not edit this section; you may respond in the subsection below, when the under-construction sign is removed.

Lead edits

• The Farsi/Pashto script has been in place in the article for upward of eight years. diff (Note the mention of "Ghor" as the Orientalist spelling, i.e. old, dated, Raj-era spelling.)
• "Muhammad of Ghur" brings up 2,880 books published during the last 30 years on Google Books. diff
• "Muhammad of Ghor" (the only current spelling in the lead sentence) brings up 2,540 books published during the last 30 years on Google books.diff
• "Muhammad of Ghaur" (offered by Packer&Tracker as an additional argument for doing away with the alternative spellings diff) brings up 109 books published during the last 30 years on Google books.
• 2,880 > 2,540 + 109, so clearly "Muhammad of Ghur" the modern spelling and the Farsi/Pashto script deserve a mention in the lead sentence. The consensus on the talk page, begun 18 September 2022, and completed 25 September 2022, was simply one about what short name to use for reference throughout the article. (diff)
• The sentence, "During his join (sic) reign with his brother Ghiyasuddin Ghori, the Ghurids emerged as one of the greatest power (sic) of the eastern Islamic world." is vague, incoherent, and full of puffery. What is the "eastern Islamic world?" when the Islamic borders were changing and the Ghurids themselves had converted a few decades earlier? "One of the greatest" implies an assessment over a substantial period of time. What time period was this? Unless it is made clear, the sentence is meaningless. Removing vague puffery in its entirety. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:59, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
• Gomal Pass. Modern sources such as Eaton, 2019, p. 2019 state the entry of Muhammad of Ghur in 1175 to have been through the Kurram Pass.
• The extent of the empire to the east up to the Ganges Delta can be seen in 1206 on the map (the empire of Muhammad of Ghur it says) at Center of Middle-Eastern studies at the University of Chicago That the Kurram pass was used to approach Multan can be seen in the paths of Timur's incursions of two centuries later in the same map.

Analysis

1. Packer&Tracker's first edit on this talk page was made on 5 June 2022. (diff)
2. Packer&Tracker's first edit on the Muhammad of Ghor page was made on

@Fowler&fowler: No, It won't go this way, any sensible editor who is even remotely aware about the subject will obviously found this lead not inaccurate at several points, but some unrelated pov pushing with gloss applied to it, there is no reason to be angry at Akshaypatill and giving WP:HOUNDING alerts.

→ You need to get a consensus and not just push for your preferred version which has large number of factual errors (Eaton 2019); along with unrelated verbiage listed below. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 10:49, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:44, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Please first discuss the changes here. It's a basic norm though again - lead is a summary of content cited in article body and lead don't need citations in it.

• Eaton 2019 work is full of basic factual errors (I can list them if you wish); and is not the last word to take whereas your self branded sub-standard/dated source of Satish Chandra (2007) work is largely coherent with a brief and accurate. Either way, as I said lead is brief summary of article body.
• The last accusation you can make on me is of not discussing - see long tedious threads where I even discussed for changing his running name i.e. Mu'izz al-Din to Md of Ghor, I don't have issue with your Persian replica of his name, though as I said the first para had all transliteraton of his name. (Its also Shihabuddin Ghuri)
• Please atleast know the milieu of the S.Asia and C.Asia before making vague claims - the Seljuks and Ghanzawids were already weakened post their long rivalry from the precedding century to which the Ghurids took advantage of and asserted their indepedence. The Ghurids were indeeed one of the great powers during their joint reign of Islamic world (more explictly of eastern Islamic world) along with Khawarezmians who anyway were under the supreamcy of infidel Qara Khitais till 1208 when Alauddin (Muhammad II) asserted indepedence. (Tekish also asserted indepedence from them and for a brief swept aside the Trans-Caspian belt) (this is as basic as it get and any editor who had decent knowledge about the same won't found it very hard to get)

PS:- Could you please again remove your uncivil and forged notice from your user page of leaving S. Asia article as I don't see it anything rather then a ploy to get a soft corner on your ANI since it didnt last for good 24 hours. Your last few lines there in any case is indirectly another personal attack on me. 14:36, 17 October 2022 (UTC) ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 14:36, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: The text where you as usual per your pov omitted his disastrous rout against the Solanki stripling Mularaja, the other part is anything but rational i.e. about their conquest till Gorgan which didn't last even for a year and possibly they couldn't establish a stabilized currency either.

• Your pushing for Kurram Pass over Gumal (do you even know the diff. in route via Multan from Ghazni ?) and why Muhammad preferred it before returning to the long rout through Khyber pass ?
• We are not saying that they controlled Khyber Pass it means that they controlled the norther belt (Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Panjan, U.P region) and Muhammad later took the long route of Khyber pass to move in their domain after sweeping aside the Ghaznawids.

Anyway, let it complete. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 15:21, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

→ What this amazing piece of information got to do with the lead - [1] ? ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 14:48, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Review of FA lead

• Exasperatingly, I have to point out more blatant factual errors which the author of "FA India" introduced, apart from expunging a miitary debacle of Kaydhara which made him (Md. Ghuri) to change his entire plan for the conquests of so called S.Asia".

→ It's not only a exaggerating one but highly misguiding as well that he secured Khyber pass by 1181, no he didn't unless they want to turn this article into a fancruft, it took him after multiple futile raids atleast till 1190 when he took over Indus plain (see Chandra 2007; pp:-67 cited later and Wink 1991; pp:-144 cited below for it)

Mu'izz ad-DIn in 1186 brought Ghaznavid rule to an end, and with his own governor installed at Lahore, he now found himself in possession of the Indus basin and in a strategic position to advance further into the fertile plains of India.l71 'Shahabuddin was vigorously trying to subjugate the earth', reports Nyacandra Suri in the HammIra Mahakavya,172 'Shahabuddin had arisen for the destruction of kings, and ... he had pillaged and burnt most of their cities, defiled their women, and reduced them altogether to a miserable plight ..It seems that, prior to 1191, a number of clashes occurred with the Cahamanas, whose leader, Prthiviraja, ruled the territory from Ajmer to Delhi and thus guarded the gate into Hindustan. On these occasions the Muslim invaders were repeatedly repulsed

→ It's not only impratical but also quite dangerous had Md. Ghuri crossed the Indus through Piewar Pass to march down into the Pakistan region:- (a) It would have made his premier base i.e. Ghazni extremely vulnerable to invasions and it didn't open into Rajasthan, Gujarat belt as easily as did the Gomal Pass (b) No one apart from Eaton (2019) - I guess had this and the book has I said has a few basic errors which didn't make it the last word on this part. (c) Had the invasion of 1178 yielded its fruit, then from Gumal route, not only Gujarat and southern Rajasthan would have fallen to the Muslims but it would have act as a base for him to uproot either the Ghaznawids or Chahamana Rajputs and more alarmingly, it would also have opened the gates to Peninsular India.

→ Not only, late Satish Chandra (2007), Bossworth 1977 (The Later Ghaznawids), Andre Wink (Al Hind-II; 1991 pp:-143 has it) pity though that these rich body of RS got no respect with reasonings of dated and sub-standard and a book full of James Tod- style (Eaton-2019) errors make it's way over them:-

Hoping to bypass the Ghaznavid dominion in the Panjab, he took off, in 1175, through the Gomal passage-not the Khyber-and captured Multan, delivering it once more from the hands of the Qaramita',and then Uch, in Upper Sind. Conferring these cities on a governor, he returned to Ghazna. A year later, he brought to terms the Ghuzz tribe of the Sanquran (al.tl-i-sanquriin, fii'ifa' sanquriinzyiin). Two years afterwards, in 1178, Mu'izz ad-Din returned, again via the Gomal Pass, to Multan and Uch but now, forgetting the experience of Mahmud and numerous small Turkish raiding parties (which, as Sanskrit inscriptions point out, for some time prior to this date had been attempting unsuccessfully to penetrate through western Rajasthan), continued his route through the sandy desert towards Nahrwala, in Gujarat. Acting against the

dictates of geography, the idea behind this expedition was still to outflank the Ghaznavids in the Panjab and to open up an alternative route into Hindustan, through the rich territories of the Caulukya Rajputs. 'The Turushkas', states the Prthiviriija-vijaya (S. VI),'came across the desert (marusthalZ); by the time they reached the Cahamana dominions they were so thirsty that according to jonaraja they had to drink the blood of their horses'. Exhausted and famished, the Turkish army was defeated with great slaughter by Mularaja II, the Caulukya king of Gujarat, at the foot of Mt. Abu, 'driving his elephant phalanx onto the battlefield in such a manner that all the horses of the army of Ghazna were scattered' This defeat appears to have induced the Ghurids not to persist with the southern route into Hindustan via the Gomal Pass. Gujarat as a whole remained exempted from any further serious

Muslim attack for more than a century, although Nahrwala was occupied twenty years later, and various other raids were undertaken in the intermediate time. (ii):-In 1197, Aybak plundered Nahrwala, in Gujarat, although the prOVInce was not subdued and Katahr, on the Upper Ganges (northern Doab), were conquered at this time (1197-8), and, in the words of juzjani, 'other territories of Hindustan, as far as the frontier of the country of Ujjayn'. Subsequent operations appear to have been directed at Kanauj again-which was not taken posssession of before 1198-9, and Rajasthan, perhaps as far as Malwa, and then, with the conquest of the northern Doab and the surrounding country completed, against the last major dynasty of Rajputs, the Candellas of jejakabhukti-to the south-east of the growing Turkish dominion-whose principal forts Kalanjar, Mahoba and Khajuraho were taken by Aybak in 1202-3

(Wink 1991; pp:-143-148) (It's way too a basic information for someone who even considered themselves as a history reader (Gomal route is way too shorter and safe), pity has to post extensively about this as well)

But the continued Ghanzawid possesion of Punjab, including Peshawar, and the lower reaches of Kabul Valley, led the Ghurid Sultan to direct his first expedition across the Gomal Pass and throught what was in later times to be country of Masud Pathans to the Indus at Dher Ismail Khan

(Bossworth 1977; pp:-129) see here

→ No, he did not captured Peshawar in 1176 - it was taken around 1179/1180 after the shorter rout to north was blocked from Gujarat post-1178 rout.

• In 1178-79, Shihabuddin marched from Multan through the desert of Sind to enter Gujarat. The rich temples of the Deccan beyond Gujarat had escaped the destruction of Sultan Mahmud. But Shihabuddin did not get sucess. King Bhim Deo of Gujarat put up a tough battle with the help of his Rajput troops and forced Shihabuddin to leave Gujarat. Most of his soldiers died. The defeated Shihabuddin, however did not leave efforts, although he had to modify his plan to some extant. This time instead of attacking Hindus he attacked the Muslims of Lahore. With this purpose he occupied Peshawar in 1179/80..

  (Aniruddha Ray 2019; pp:-around 30-40)

• The defeat of Nahrwala was a lesson in military Mu'izzuddin. If he thought of emulating Mahmud, he was mistaken. Resources, leadership and circumstances had made a tremendous difference in the situation. He revised his whole plan of operations in the light of experience. In 575/1179-80 he attacked Furshor (Peshawar), which was probably included in the Ghaznavid possessions of Hindustan at that time, and conquered it

  (Nizami 1970; pp:-157)

• Rai Bhim Deo of Gujarat collected his Rajput veterans and after a stiff battle, in which most of the invaders were slain drove Shihabuddun away from his kingdom. But it was not Sultan's habit to acknowledge defeat. His bull dog tenacity of purpose was remarkable. He may hace recognize that for him a second-rate officer, the military exploits of great Mahmud was not possible, in any case he took the line of least resistance and instead of fighting the infidels, began to attack the Muslim kingdom of Lahore with direct intention of annexing Punjab, his first step in the direction was that annexation of Peshawar in 1179-80. It provided hin with a base for his future operations

  (Habib 1981; pp:-111) see here

• In 1173, Shahabuddin, Muhammad (1173–1206 (also known as Muizzuddin Muhammad bin Sam) ascended the throne at Ghazni, while his elder brother was ruling at Ghur. Proceeding by way of the Gomal pass, Muizzuddin Muhammad conquered Multan and Uchch. In 1178, he attempted to penetrate into Gujarat by marching across the Rajputana desert. But the Gujarat ruler completely routed him in a battle near Mount Abu, and Muizzuddin Muhammad was lucky in escaping alive. He now realised the necessity of creating a suitable base in the Punjab before venturing upon the conquest of India. Accordingly he launched a campaign against the Ghaznavid possessions in the Punjab. By 1190, Muizzuddin Muhammad had conquered Peshawar, Lahore and Sialkot,and was poised fora thrust towards Delhi and the Gagentic doab

  (Chandra 2007; pp:-67)

• This defeat appears to have induced the Ghurids not to persist with the southern route into Hindustan via the Gomal Pass. Gujarat as a whole remained exempted from any further serious Muslim attack for more than a century, although Nahrwala was occupied twenty years later, and various other raids were undertaken in the intermediate time. After further campaigning during more than five years, in which he secured Sind as far as Debal and Makran, Peshawar, Sialkot, and finally, through strategem, Lahore

  (Wink 1991; pp:-143)

→ No, no..Ghazni was not take in 1148 (most likely 1169 per Mjnhaj al siraj) - the brothers were effectively still in their nappies (Md was 4 and Ghiyath was 8) - it was taken not after a long bloodbath from Oghuzz's (not Ghaznawids) who had taken it from either Khusrau Shah or Khusrau Malik (see Ibn al athir and Minhaj al Siraj for it a - footnote for expanded detail)

→ Their uncle took it in 1151 after leaving the city into ruins post his revenge raid after Baharam Shah executed one of his brother, but the Seljuks quickly defeated and imprisoned him and their vassals since 1117 - Ghazawids cashed on.

→ To say, that he was not successful against Khusrau Malik (1181) is equally faulty, Khusrau was in no position to offer him a resistance after "Rais of Ajmer were raiding his already truncated principality". He surrendered to Muhammad who allowed him to rule in exchange of tribute of a elephant and keeping his son as hostage, it was not a failure indeed. Lahore finally was taken in 1186 - even through a treason.

→ They finally got 1178 - Gujarat campaign, although with absurd compairson to Mahmud, who was not a raider either anyway. The sad state of Kiradu temples are still downplayed, not only the Siva temple was destroyed (and not merely plundered) but all the temples there were smashed along with destroying the Mahivra Jain idol, though they were soon repaired as soon as he was driven away. (still omitted shambolic Ghurid defeat)

→ "The Sultan suffered hia first defeat in Tarain-I" - let alone the numerous futile Ghurid raids post their occupation of Panjab (1186) which has been completely omitted by Persian writers - he suffered atleast one decisive defeat there in Kayadhara (1178) and the number of attempts and a decade of struggle with Oghuzz's (many were reversals as well) got supressed as well. (Sultan ? WP:HON ? Irony)

→ More ironical ? NPOV ?

Muhammad of Ghor was easily successful and, his opponent's slow-moving elephants being no match for his mounted archers shooting arrows at full gallop from both flanks. Prithviraj IIIwas captured and executed soon after. The sultan..

→ Indeed he was successful easily ? unfortunately, he still had to attack his enemy camp when they all were in asleep, after his deceptive letter of returning to Ghazna (same ploy was used by Sher Shah Suri as well in defeating Maldeo Rathore) (b):- the fact that Rajput army was elephant centric as late as 12th century is also misconception, they had cavalry centric forces as well (Marwar & Gujarat were among the finest horse breeding tracts); off-topic though Hindus in north also had access to gunpower (Mewar Sisodiyas) as well atleast from Rana Kumbha age and not that Babur brought it which is widely believed, read -
Iqtidar Alam Khan's excellent work on it regarding the gunpowder, OUP; 2004.

→ I won't talk about the needless verbiage in the lead that does not sit well with WP:DUE either - diff, diff, diff, (selective citing of Wink 2020; no mention Md. Ghuri either) which in any case looks pale in comparison to the obvious pov, factual inaccuracy which are pointed above.

→ More on factual errors apart from orignal research - Delhi did not emerged or was a political centre of Aybeg either, during his reign, their centre of power was still Lahore as it was defined as markaz-i-Islam-Hind (Tabaqt-i-Nasiri; pp:-140)

→ It's also unlikely and is inaccurate that Turks did allowed their defeated enemies to rule to minimize their carnage (another WP:OR apparently ? pity); they did so cos they were in no position to establish their own authority directly, so away from their base keeping in mind that around that time (1192-1193); Khwarezmians also were on uprise and they soon captured entire Transoxiana and asserted indepedence from the Western Liao as well. (re:- Govindraja never ruled from both Ajmer & Rathambore (another factual error; I am tired now pointing out your inadequate comprehension about polity of the age ) as a matter of fact, he moved to Ranthambore after his uncle deposed him from Ajmer for bowing down to the Turks and Aybeg recaptured Ajmer from him and placed it under a Muslim officer.

→ Satish Chandra on dated narrative of elephant vs cavalrymen, as elephants were not mainstay of Prithviraj/Rajput forces → Satish Chandra (1996). Historiography, Religion, and State in Medieval India. Har-Anand Publications. ISBN 978-81-241-0035-6. (pp:-180-181)

How far Rajput militory organization changed to adapt to new condition is obvious from the fact that the battle of Tarain between Prithvi Raj and Shihabuddin Ghori was mainly a fight of cavalryman armed with bows and spears. In the first battle of Tarain, Prithvi Raj, according to the later account had a force of 200,000 horses and 3,000 elephants and pursued Shihabuddin cavalry upto 40 miles. In the second battle, Prithvi raj had a large infantry of 300,000 horses as against Shihabuddin who had 120,000 armoured horsemens. It was the superior tactics of the Sultan and not the absence of mobile cavalry on the parts of Rajputs, that decided the day. Thus, the Turks triumphed because of superior generalship, better mounts and training, and because they were more skilled in the methods of warfare, which the Rajputs had tried to copy. This is not of course, they were the only causes of the failure of Rajputs... We have suggested above that contray to the general beliefs among the historians, the Rajput of the 12th century whom the Ghurids encountered were not armies mainly of infantry supported by the elephants. The change from infantry to cavalry was perhaps due to the influence of the Huns and later even more to that of Turks. It is significant that even as late as the Mughal times, the Rajputs dismounted from their horses when they were hard-pressed, and preferred to fight on the foot...

→Conclusion:- Apart from obvious factual errors, honey words to put him on the same league of conqueror as the Great Chingiz Khan, the lead is way way too big with vague proses, unrelated verbiages, insertion of misguiding S.Asia and crediting him for the success of the forerunners is anything but neutral lead (e.g - M. rule never spread across S.Asia bar two phases) ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 19:36, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

The article lead as it stands now (excluding gruesome factual errors to as it used to be the case here for many years) is full of irrelevant verbiage about certain pov pushing (Islamic conversion and temple raids, pity the ref to Wink who did not even mentioned Md. Ghuri in his whole 2020 book)

→ The editor who have it, has copy and pasted from Eaton-2019 which is full of factual inaccuracies which worried me to extent to take this reliable sources noticeboard in future, so the editors think twice before using it.

When I had edited the article in the past, I consulted atleast 5-7 reliable works about the subject apart from going through the contemporary Persian works -my standard protocole editing about something. Thus, I revamped the body and summarized it in the lead accordingly and not just irrational copy pasting from a work whose information as cross checked from other RS with one coat of puffery, even leaving aside S.Asianist bias. 00:38, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

→ ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 00:38, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I have restored the last good. Fowler please discuss before additions as you always say. There are multiple concerns with your additions. I will add mine soon. Akshaypatill (talk) 05:37, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

F&f's modern introductory broad-scale history books on South Asia and Islamic societies

• Please do not post in this section; I do not want my references be made less effective by interruptions.

When I am done, I will create a discussion section below.

• Please read WP:TERTIARY which states Wikipedia policy: Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other.

I have long advocated the view that there are some other tertiary sources; these are: (a) surveys of a field or reviews of the literature in journals, (b) recent Encyclopedia Britannica or specialized encyclopedias' articles with a byline (of an expert).

I have also long advocated the principle:

• Principle The baseline viewpoint of a vital article cannot venture beyond what exists in the modern tertiary sources. If these don't discuss a sub-topic, then the sub-topic does not have due weight in an article. It may be mentioned, but not emphasized. "Modern," typically means no more than 60 years old in the fast-changing South Asia context, with the first preference given to the even more recent references, especially ones no more than 25 years old. Once the baseline viewpoint is set, specific details may be filled with medium-scale history books. In my view, in addition to the broad-scale books mentioned above and listed below, there is nothing more needed for writing the leads of both this article and the Delhi sultanate page than a handful of medium-scale books with good detail on Muhammad of Ghur. I will list a number of those as well below. As in the case of the leads I have written of a large number of POV-ridden South Asia pages, the lead is an NPOV template for rewriting the rest of the article; they are not a summary of the article, which would be futile if the article itself has suspect POV and is unreliable reliable. It is of the utmost importance that vital articles which are linked in the India page history have NPOV leads. This is the main reason I shall be rewriting the leads of both this article and the Delhi sultanate page.

Presented below first are well-known modern tertiary sources, i.e. broad-scale history books of South Asia or Islamic societies, and brief excerpts from them on the legacy of Muhammad of Ghur or the early Sultanate, or conversions to Islam in South Asia. Again, the excerpts do not have to precisely coincide with Muhammad of Ghur's brief stay in India, but his legacy. Below them will be some medium-scale books.

Motivation

I am soon to revise the history sections of the FA India, Wikipedia's oldest country Featured Article, at 18 years of age. This will be its third Featured Arcticle review (FAR), the previous one being conducted in 2011. In preparation for it, many changes have already taken place both within the article and related vital articles that the article summarizes. Rjensen wrote the Education section and Johnbod the Visual arts section. In addition, I wrote the Cuisine and clothing sections for the page's second WP Front Page appearance for Gandhi's 150th birthday on October 2, 2019. Also, in coordination, I have during the last few years rewritten the leads of Indus Valley Civilisation, Sanskrit, Lion Capital of Ashoka, Brahmi script, Shalwar kameez, Mughal Empire, and a large number of other South Asia related articles. I had, however, not examined at Delhi sultanate, nor this page, and the POV around Muslim conversion, desecration, and massacres are similar on both (the same sources partial to the prevailing Hindu majoritarian view of history in India,) and WP:UNDUE. As explained above, I will be rewriting the leads of both articles to bring them in line with the NPOV sources. I could have made this post on the Delhi sultanate page, it being more vital, but this is where the dispute began, so I am posting it here. FARs take a long time: the 2011 FAR of India took over three months, and the recent FAR of Darjeeling took six months. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:53, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Broad-scale South Asian history books

All have been published after the FA India's last WP:FAR in 2011

• Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2022). India before Europe (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108591904. ISBN 978-1-108-42816-3.

• Asher, C. B.; Talbot, C. (2008), India Before Europe (1st ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-51750-8

• Fisher, Michael H. (2018). An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century. New Approaches to Asian History series. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107111622. LCCN 2018021693.
• Gilbert, Marc Jason (2017). South Asia in World History. New Oxford World History series. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517653-7.
• Kulke, H.; Rothermund, D. (2016). A History of India (6th ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-96114-2.

• Kulke, H.; Rothermund, D. (2004), A History of India, 4th, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-32920-0

• Ludden, D. (2014), India and South Asia: A Short History (2nd, revised ed.), Oneworld Publications, ISBN 978-1-85168-936-1
• Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2012), A Concise History of Modern India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0
• Robb, P. (2011), A History of India, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-230-34549-2

Asher and Talbot

• Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2022). India before Europe (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108591904. ISBN 978-1-108-42816-3.

Excerpts from Asher and Talbot on Muhammad of Ghur's military advantages

The sophisticated military system of their native Afghanistan was the principal reason for the success of the Ghurid armies in India. The ease of the Ghurid conquest has puzzled historians in the past, given the far greater agrarian wealth and population of the conquered Indian kingdoms that should have provided them with ample resources for military defense. Hence, early twentieth-century scholars often pointed to the lack of unity among Indians as the chief explanation for their defeat. Since the concept of India as a nation was still centuries away, Prithviraj Chauhan and Jaychand Gahadaval —- Muhammad Ghuri’s opponents — had no incentive to forge a united front and indeed are depicted as mortal enemies in a later ballad that champions Prithviraj. Similarly, there was no sense of a common religious identity among Indian warriors at the time, for the notion of a unified Hinduism is a modern one. In the premodern period a variety of distinct sects, many of them focusing on a single deity rather than multiple ones, comprised what we group together today under the rubric of Hinduism. Recent historical scholarship instead attributes the victory of the Ghurid armies to a number of concrete advantages that gave them a distinct military edge. The Ghurids were in a better position than Indian rulers in this age of cavalry warfare both in terms of the supply of horses and of trained manpower. Coming from Afghanistan, the Ghurids had easy access to the high-quality horses of Central Asia, Persia, and the Arabian Peninsula. The Indian subcontinent was, in contrast, ill-suited for the breeding of horses. Since indigenous horses were inferior, Indian rulers had long imported horses from the regions to its west by various overland and maritime routes. Imported horses soon deteriorated in quality, however, because most of the subcontinent lacked good fodder and pasture lands. The Ghurids (and the later sultans of Delhi) were highly skilled in deploying horses in warfare. Employing a classic nomadic tactic of the Central Asian steppes, their light cavalry could fan out and flank the enemy from all sides, but still retreat quickly out of range of the enemy’s heavy cavalry charge. The damage inflicted by the mounted archers of the Ghurid light cavalry was considerable, whereas Indian armies had few men accomplished enough to wield a bow while riding, according to the recent work of André Wink. Indian armies instead generally engaged in mass frontal attacks and employed rows of war elephants to break enemy lines. Slow and cumbersome, the elephant, if panicked, might also inflict serious damage on its own troops. (pages 31–32)

• Asher, C. B.; Talbot, C. (2008). India Before Europe (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51750-8. Google scholar citation index (308)

Excerpts from Asher and Talbot on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

Richard M. Eaton has recently argued that there are no more than eighty confirmed instances of temple desecration from the 500 plus years between 1192 and 1729. While his is a conservative estimate, it is likely to be far closer to the truth than the figure of thousands of destroyed temples that is sometimes claimed, without evidence, by today’s Hindu nationalists. Temple desecration was not a random act but typically occurred in the context of a moving frontier of military conflict. That is, temples that were damaged or destroyed by Muslim rulers were almost always situated within an enemy’s (or rebel’s) territory, had a strong connection with the enemy, and were attacked in the course of warfare. This was a practice known in the Indian subcontinent well before Islam became a political force, although it was never common. Desecrating a god and an institution associated with an enemy king was a serious blow to his claim to kingship and could also be very attractive for financial reasons – the motives for temple desecration were by no means restricted to Islamic hostility to idol worship. Once an area had been incorporated into Sultanate territory or had come to terms with it, its temples were rarely desecrated. Most of the Delhi sultans allowed new temples to be constructed and old ones to be renovated, although this was not permissible according to a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Aside from the loss of a certain amount of royal patronage, therefore, Indian religions do not appear to have suffered greatly from the rise to dominance of Muslim kings. pages 73-74

Fisher

• Fisher, Michael H. (2018). An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century. New Approaches to Asian History series. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107111622. LCCN 2018021693. Already cited 23 times on Google scholar.

Excerpts from Fisher on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

Quote: Sufi hospices became economic as well as social, cultural, and religious centers. In the upper Indus region (especially western Punjab, now the dominant and most populous province in Pakistan), much land was arid, unable to support settled agriculture through rainfall alone. So many people were herders, whose grazing animals required less surface water. Arriving Sufis taught those who settled around them hydraulic technologies, developed particularly in Iran, including and the “Persian waterwheel” (whose series of buckets driven by gears and powered by draft animals could raise large volumes of river or groundwater to the surface). Iranians had long used underground canals (qanat or karez) that channeled groundwater to wells and reservoirs (see Figure 5.1).1 According to Islamic doctrine, water was God’s gift to living creatures, not to be squandered but also not as a commodity to be taxed (although irrigated lands could be taxed at higher rates). These pious acts of supplying water by Muslim rulers and Sufis enabled pastoralists to settle as farmers around a Sufi hospice, adopt Islam, and prosper. Especially in eastern Bengal, much of the land was still heavily forested, so many people living there followed swidden agriculture. Sufis and their followers brought the technology of steel axes and plowshares that enabled cutting down and uprooting large trees. They guided the construction of seasonal inundation canals with earthen canal walls that could be breached as necessary, thus both controlling floods during the rains and providing irrigation during the dry season. Wet rice cultivation spread. So, former forest-dwellers prospered as settled farmers on Bengal’s rich deltaic soil, clustering around Sufi hospices and converting to Islam (Eaton 1993). As in Punjab, many converts preserved parts of their pre-Islamic culture, creating eclectic amalgamations of popular Hindu and Muslim customs and beliefs. (pages 92–93)

Gilbert

• Gilbert, Marc Jason (2017). South Asia in World History. New Oxford World History series. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517653-7. Already cited 12 times in Google scholar.

Excerpts from Gilbert on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

In 1192, one of Mahmud’s lieutenants and eventual successors, Muhammad of Ghur, defeated the chief opponent of the Muslim raiders, the Hindu Rajput Raja Prithvi Raj Chauhan, outside of his capital at Lolkat. By 1198, Turkic warriors had established their own capital there, which they named Delhi (“heart,” hence “capital”), and used it as a base to conquer most of the Indus Valley (which they called Hindustan) and the Gangetic Plain. From 1198 to 1240, conflict between Turkic clans over control of the sultanate commanded much of their attention. This competition briefly featured a female ruler, Sultana Razia (ruled about 1236-1240), whose life, like many of the sultans, was cut short as part of deadly endemic rivalry among the Turkic nobility. The early sultans (and sultana) were so busily engaged in conquest and elite competition that they had little interest in seeking the conversion of Hindus to Islam, or in interfering with those apolitical and mystically oriented members of Islam’s Sufi order who sought to build bridges with the local population. They did nothing to halt the spread of the “Islamic Tool Kit,” as there was no better means of generating agricultural prosperity and profitable trade and thereby enhancing their tax revenues. In 1258, a Mongol invasion of Islamic Persia severed the Delhi Sultanate from its Middle Eastern ties. Its sultans customarily offered prayers for the health of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. In an effort to preserve the illusion of the unity of the Islamic world, they continued to do so, even after it was known that the caliph had died at the hands of the Mongols without a successor. Another Turkic people, the Seljuks, stopped the Mongol conquest of the rest of the Middle East, but the Mongol destruction of Baghdad, the seat of Muslim arts, literature, science, and law, put an end to centuries of progress in those fields. The Mongol invasion and its turbulent aftermath drove many Muslim intellectuals to seek refuge in the Delhi Sultanate, whose culture they enriched. Further Mongol invasions, including drives into the subcontinent itself (1221-1327), directed Muslim flight, both Sunni and Shi’a, to the western and central portions of the Deccan, where they established rich sultanates of their own. In succession, the regimes of the Bahmanids, Bijapur, Golkunda, Ahmadnagar, and Berar offered a home to Persian and other displaced or mobile Muslims, particularly architects. (pages 66–67)

Kulke and Rothermund

• Kulke, H.; Rothermund, D. (2016). A History of India (6th ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-96114-2. Cited 873 times on Google Scholar.

Excerpts from Kulke and Rothermund on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

The Rajput cavalry consisted of freemen who would not take orders easily, whereas the cavalry of the central Asian invaders consisted of specially trained slaves who had practically grown up with their horses and were subjected to a constant drill. Rushing towards the enemy and turning their horses suddenly, they would then – unobstructed by the heads of the horses and at a moment when they had stopped dead in their tracks – shoot a volley of well-aimed arrows before disappearing as quickly as they had come. The performance would be repeated elsewhere, thus decimating and confusing the enemy without great losses on the Muslim side. But the Indians were not vanquished just by the superior strategy and tactics of the invaders; they were simply not in a position to organise a concerted defence effort. Caste distinctions and the general separation of the rulers from the rural folk prevented the kind of solidarity which would have been required for such a defence effort. Neither religious wars nor any other wars involving fundamental principles had ever been waged in India. War was a pastime of the rulers. The troops recruited for such wars were either kinsmen of the rulers – particularly so among the Rajputs – or mercenaries who hoped for their share of the loot which was usually the main aim of warfare. Fighting against the troops of the Muslim invaders was both dangerous and unprofitable, as their treasures were not within easy reach. The invading troops, on the other hand, could expect a good deal of loot in India and their imagination was also fired by the merit attached to waging a ‘holy war’ against the infidels. Moreover, Islamic society was much more open and egalitarian than Hindu society. Anybody who wanted to join an army and proved to be good at fighting could achieve rapid advancement. Indian armies were led by kings and princes whose military competence was not necessarily in keeping with their hereditary rank; by contrast, the Muslim generals whom they encountered almost invariably owed their position to their superior military merit. Even sultans would be quickly replaced by slaves-turned-generals if they did not know how to maintain their position. This military Darwinism was characteristic of early Islamic history. The Ghaznavids and the Ghurids and then the sultans of Delhi were all slaves to begin with. Such slaves would be bought in the slave markets of central Asia, would subsequently make a mark by their military prowess and their loyalty and obedience, and, once they had risen to a high position, often did not hesitate to murder their master in order to take his place. The immobile Hindu society and its hereditary rulers were no match for such people.

Ludden

• Ludden, D. (2014). India and South Asia: A Short History (2nd, revised ed.). Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-85168-936-1. Cited 102 times on Google scholar. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:14, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Excerpts from Ludden on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

The Delhi Sultanate became an epoch-making Indian dynasty by repelling the Mongols, who were unstoppable elsewhere in Asia. ... Central Asian warriors became supreme during South Asia’s medieval transition by deploying swift-horse cavalry skilled in firing arrows at full gallop, volley after volley; by raising vast armies dedicated to siege and open-field combat, undeterred by local alliance building; and by organizing cavalry well supplied with saddles, stirrups, and the latest weapons, running rapidly over long distances, staying on the move to subsist on the fruits of conquest. Turk and Afghan tribes supplied the best men for this kind of warfare, as well as ethnic solidarity for discipline and social support. Central Asian steppe grasslands and herds provided horses at low prices. Routes across Mongol domains provided superior military technology. In 1200, dynasties east and south of the Hindu Kush relied on horses that came from Afghanistan by land and from Arabia by sea; they rarely fought on horses; they rarely fought to the death; and they rarely built strong forts; all of this put them at a disadvantage.

Metcalf and Metcalf

• Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2012). A Concise History of Modern India. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0. Cited 888 times on Google scholar.

Excerpts from Metcalf and Metcalf on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

For the Sultanate rulers, as for the Mughals who succeeded them, Islamic ambitions focused on extending Muslim power, not on conversion. One clue to the lack of any systematic programme of conversion is that India's Muslim populations were not primarily found in the core areas of Muslim rule. Historians have long asserted that converts flocked to the sufi message of equality to escape the hierarchic discriminations of a Brahman-dominated ‘caste’ society. There is, however, no correlation between areas of Brahmanical influence and those of substantial conversion to Islam – and the extent of Brahmanical influence in the pre-colonial period, in any case, is increasingly contested. Nor, perhaps surprisingly, did the sufis themselves ever teach that Islam offered social equality. Indeed, however much they may have preached equality before Allah, Muslims have always lived in hierarchic societies. In areas undergoing agrarian settlement, sufis did nevertheless play a key role as agents of gradual incorporation into the larger cultural and civilizational structures of the day. They received grants of forested land whose clearing they oversaw, and they served as mediators to both worldly and divine powers. Richard Eaton has shown the importance of this process for the two main areas that were to emerge with largely Muslim populations, western Punjab and eastern Bengal. In other areas Hindu religious specialists performed much the same role. In the Telugu region of south-east India, for example, as Cynthia Talbot has shown, the establishment of new temples was associated with agricultural expansion in the contemporaneous Kakatiya kingdom (1175–1324). A second force driving conversion, for individuals or clusters of artisanal or other families, was, according to Susan Bayly, not a desire to escape hierarchy, but rather a desire to seize a strategic opportunity to move upwards within the existing social hierarchy. Intermarriage also contributed to the growth of the Muslim population, as did the choice of individuals or families to follow charismatic teachers. When the first censuses were taken in the late nineteenth century, the Muslim population of British India was roughly one-quarter of the whole Historians now discredit not only accounts of forced mass conversion, but also accounts of systematic destruction of temples and other non-Muslim holy places. As in the case of accounts of conversions, reading the Muslim court histories as matters of fact, rather than as literary convention, has misled many scholars. There was, to be sure, destruction of non-Muslim temples and places of worship under specific circumstances, for example while raiding areas outside one's own territories for plunder. The most famous of such forays, perhaps, are those of Mahmud Ghaznawi (d. 1030) into Sind and Gujarat. Mahmud was drawn to the riches of India to secure booty for his cosmopolitan court at Ghazna (in contemporary Afghanistan), in a manner not unlike the raids of Indic rulers who carried away vanquished idols as symbols of their victory along with their booty. The sultans who established permanent courts in north India also destroyed temples during the initial phase of conquest to mark their triumph. The complex of the early twelfth-century Quwwatu'l-Islam mosque, adjoining the great minaret of Delhi, the Qutb Minar, was built on the site of destroyed temples and utilized elements of the earlier structures. The use of ‘recycled’ elements from earlier structures – as true around the Mediterranean, for example, as for India – was sometimes a declaration of power, sometimes simply expedient use of abandoned debris. Firoz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351–88) chose to adorn his fort buil in the mid-fourteenth century, for example, with a column from a millennium and a half earlier, whose builder had long been forgotten, as a way perhaps to assert a link to some ill-defined earlier glory. pages 40 to 42

Robb

• Robb, P. (2011). A History of India. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-34549-2. Cited 179 times on Google scholar.

Excerpts from Robb on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy

Quote: Recent scholarship has reattached the history of the Delhi Sultanate to that of Afghanistan, where many of the protagonists’ main interests remained, but shown also how involvement in India developed in part through Iltutmish’s Turkish commanders, slaves or freed slaves dependent on the Sultan and employed in key roles in his army and administration. Balban, too, ruled through slaves as well as semi-autonomous princes. These cadres of commanders were personally loyal but also uprooted, and so they depended on the prosperity of the territories over which they were sent to rule. As a result core areas under Sultanate rule experienced deforestation, agrarian and commercial prosperity, and new technologies. These changes supported the military settlements and permitted the state to raise taxes. Thus the Delhi sultans introduced the new elements of Afghan and Turkish infighting, and certain Islamic ideas about modes of governance and the role of the state, notably the distinction between believers and infidels (as in the jiziya, a head-tax, theoretically only on non-Muslims). But of the other three types of revenue permitted by the sharia (Muslim law) — namely booty from conquests, special taxes for Muslim religious and charitable foundations, and a tax on agricultural production — it was the last, the land tax, that became the main-stay of the regime, rising at times to a notional half of the produce. Even had there been no other considerations, this would have implied that the Muslim states became ‘indigenized’, as they did from the time of Muhammad Ghuri.

Broad-scale Islamic history books

Lapidus

Lapidus, Ira M. (2014). A History of Islamic Societies (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51430-9. Cited 2,791 times on Google Scholar.

Excerpts from Lapidus on Muhammad of Ghur's legacy; there are also several pages on conversion in South Asia (unquoted)

In Anatolia, as in Inner Asia, India, and Africa, Sufi warriors and activist missionaries helped to establish Islam among a newly conquered peasant population. The assimilation of Anatolian peoples was facilitated on the cultural as well as the social level by the familiarity to Christians of Islamic religious concepts. In Anatolia, as in the rest of the Middle East, the conjunction of Muslim state power, the decline of organized Christian societies, and the social and cultural relevance of Islam facilitated mass conversions to the new religion. ... In the Balkans, however, the spread of Islam was limited by the vitality of the Christian churches. It came at a later stage of Turkish conquests, at a time when Ottoman policy favored Christian nobles and churches as vehicles of Ottoman administration and so maintained – and, indeed, reinforced – the social structure of Balkan communities. Most Balkan peoples, buttressed by the continuity of organized Christian community life, maintained their confessional affiliation. The history of Islam in India most closely resembles that of the Balkans. Islam was brought into India by a conquering Afghan and Turkish military elite that established the Delhi sultanate in the thirteenth century. Conversions occurred as a result of the political attraction of the dominant regime to both non-Muslim elites and dependent peasants and workers. Also, as in the Middle East, the construction of new cities favored the conversion of mobile peoples attracted to the centers of Muslim administration and trade. In most of India, however, as in the Balkans, the appeal of Islam was relatively restricted. Only in the Northwest Frontier, the Punjab, Sind, and Bengal were the populations converted en masse. In these regions the transition from hunter-gatherer and pastoral activities to settled agriculture was the occasion for a total reconstruction of society under Muslim leadership and for the development of new Islamic identifications. Conversion to Islam on a mass scale was most likely among populations lacking prior organized institutions. In general, however, the assimilative capacity of Islam in the subcontinent was limited by the relative thinness of the Muslim elite. Although Muslim rule in India attracted numerous warriors, administrators, and religious teachers, the Muslim conquest was not accompanied by massive migrations, as in the cases of the Arab conquest of the Middle East or the Turkish conquest of Anatolia. Furthermore, the social structure of conquered peoples remained intact. Hindu Rajputs, for example, maintained their authority under Muslim suzerainty; Brahmanic Hinduism and the caste system were not challenged by Muslim rule. Indeed, Hindu philosophy and popular religions were invigorated by Muslim competition. In the face of an ordered social and religious structure, conversions to Islam were inhibited. When conversions did occur, Sufism played a considerable part. Following the scent of battle, Sufis streamed into India from Afghanistan, Iran, and Inner Asia. Many came as warriors to establish Muslim supremacy and convert the infidels. Some tied their fortunes to the state. Others fanned out in North India, establishing their influence by personal merit. Here too, the adaptability of Sufis to traditional religious cultures was important in the transition from Hindu and Buddhist identities to Islam. In India, the boundary between Hindu and Muslim beliefs, ritual practices, and social loyalties was thin. As in the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire, Islam was established under the auspices both of a political elite and of independent religious teachers. ... In the Indian subcontinent, Islam was introduced into an already developed civilization defined by agriculture, urbanization, higher religions, and complex political regimes. India was defined by the caste system, by Brahmanic Hinduism and Buddhist religions, and by Rajput and other Hindu political elites. In the past, there had been great empires, but on the eve of the Muslim invasions India was divided into numerous small states. The Muslim conquests brought a new elite and a new level of political integration, beginning the process of generating a new culture blending universal Muslim concepts and symbols of statecraft, cosmopolitan artistic pursuits such as architecture and painting, and regional motifs. In India, Muslim religio-communal orientations encompassed all of the principal varieties of scholasticism, Sufi orthopraxy, shrine worship, and reformism. In India, as opposed to Iran or the Ottoman Empire, a pluralistic religious society escaped bureaucratization and state control. The special cultural qualities of Indian-Islamic civilization and the autonomy and plurality of religious tendencies made it a distinctive variant of Islamic societies. ... The conquests of India began in earnest with the Ghaznavids. Their regime in Afghanistan was based on Turkish military slaves. They captured Lahore in 1030 and plundered North India. In the late twelfth century, free Afghan mountain warlords, under the leadership of the Ghurid dynasty, began the systematic conquest of India. Between 1175 and 1192, the Ghurids occupied Uch, Multan, Peshawar, Lahore, and Delhi. In 1206, one of the Ghurid generals, Qutb al-Din Aybeg, the conqueror of Delhi (r. 1206–10) and his successor, Iltutmish (r. 1211–36), founded the first of a series of dynasties collectively known as the Delhi sultanates (1206–1526). Each dynasty represented a different segment of the Afghan Turkish Inner Asian military lords and their clients, the victors of the moment in the constant jockeying for power. The successive dynasties made repeated efforts to centralize state power, but each was merely senior in a political society composed of numerous local Muslim and Hindu lords. Each dealt with the problem of establishing an Islamic state in a region of profound Hindu and Buddhist culture. In succession, they made Delhi a refuge for Persian bureaucrats, Muslim scholars, and Sufis fleeing the Mongol invasions of the Turkic, Persian, and Afghan regions to the north. Out of their collective achievement emerged a distinct kind of Indian Muslim civilization.

Medium-scale history books with material on Muhammad of Ghur

Asher

• Asher, Frederick M. (2020). Sarnath: A critical history of the place where Buddhism began. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. pp. 2–3, 432–433. ISBN 9781606066164. LCCN 2019019885. Already cited 3 times in Google Scholar.

Eaton

• Eaton, Richard M. (2019). India in the Persianate Age: 1000–1765. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-32512-8. already cited 82 times on Google scholar, and also
  • His influential Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, University of California Press (1993) was cited 1,346 times on Google Scholar
  • He has been mentioned by name in the tertiary sources above: Metcalf and Metcalf, Asher and Talbot, among them.

Fogelin

• Fogelin, Lars (2015). An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1999-4821-5. Cited 50 times in Google scholar.

Flood

• Flood, Finbarr B. (2009). Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval "Hindu-Muslim" Encounter. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12594-7. Cited 452 times on Google Scholar.

Kumar

• Kumar, Sunil (2007). The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate: 1192–1286. Ranikhet: Permanent Black. ISBN 81-7824-147-1. Cited 121 times on Google Scholar.

Thomas

• Thomas, David C. (2018). The Ebb and Flow of the Ghurid Empire. Sydney University Press. ISBN 978-1-74332-543-8. Cited already 14 times on Google scholar. (Preliminary note, subject to revision: Thomas is an archaeologist, who did some very admirable fieldwork in the vicinity of Jam during very trying times in Afghanistan some eight or 10 years ago; however, the book's history sections are in the nature of rough and ready field notes which cite either manuscripts or dated secondary sources. For that reason, although it is a good source for geography and some ethnology (and, of course, archaeology) and it has some valuable nuggets of historical insight, it is probably not most appropriate for general history, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:09, 19 October 2022 (UTC) )

Excerpt from Thomas

... more campaigns also indicates in part their lack of success in subduing the northern Indian Rajputs, until victory in the second battle of Tara’in in Panjab in 588 AH / 1192 CE ‘opened the way to the conquest of northern India’, and the important role of revenue-gathering in the campaigns. Several scholars have noted the problematic nature of accounts that present the Ghurids’ campaigns as a, or even the, Muslim conquest of India. Neither ‘side’ was an impervious cultural, religious or political monolith — Mu‘izz al-Din’s first campaign in 571 AH / 1175 CE was against the Isma ili rulers of Multan. Like the Ghaznawids, the Ghurids made pragmatic accommodations with existing Indian polities: although the events of this decade [588-599 AH / 1192-1203 CE] are traditionally seen as figuring a radical rupture in the cultural fabric of northern India, in many ways the new political order instituted there in the wake of the conquest looked very much like the old.!” In Ajmér, Dilht (Delhi), Gwaliyar (Gwalior) and possibly Kanawj (Kanauj), for example, local rulers or their offspring accepted Ghurid suzerainty and remained in power, in exchange for sending tribute to Ghazna. The Chauhan prince of Ajmér even received a ‘robe of honour’ in recognition of his loyalty during his uncle’s revolt against the Ghurids. These accommodations are contrary to the norms of Turk-Persian kingship and classical Islamic theories of war, but fit within Buddhist and Hindu practices.! They indicate a blurring of boundaries, and the compromises required when expanding an empire rapidly, deep into foreign lands!

Wink

• Wink, André (2020). The Making of the Indo-Islamic World: c. 700–1800 CE. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-41774-7. Already cited 13 times on Google scholar.

Sources currently being used in the article

• Kishori Saran Lal's, Legacy of Muslim rule in India 1993. (cited 30 times on Google scholar. As his Wikipedia page states, he is associated with the Hindu right.
• Mohammad Habib (died 1971)'s two books:

• His edited book Politics and Society during the early medieval period volume 1, 1974 (reprinted in 1981) has been cited 2 times in Google Scholar.

• Please do not post in this section; I do not want my references be made less effective by interruptions. When I am done, I will create a discussion section below.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:55, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Religion

The earliest point of contention (correct me, if I am wrong) appears to be centered on the inclusion of this interesting section. Some comments:

• The destruction of Nalanda is out-of-place.
• Why does Hassan Nizami's very-obvious exaggeration find a place? Consult Desai, Truschke, Eaton et al.
• Ditto about Ferishta or Jujzani.
• Bosworth (1968) does not discuss our subject - ?

The section ought to stay out. Besides, the very inclusion of iconoclastic acts under the "religion" section is a POV. Further, I do think that a religion section will be UNDUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:33, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Interestingly, the things that should have been covered at the section do not find a place. Like the brothers' abrupt change of sect from the Karramiyya school to the orthodox Hanafi (and Shafi'i) school c. 1199 which was meant to embed themselves within cosmopolitan networks of piety and political authority (Ayyubids etc.), and shed off their backward origins. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:21, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Quoting from Flood:

With a typical rhetorical flourish, Hasan Nizami, our earliest source for the Ghurid conquest of northern India, informs his readers that after the conquest of Benares in 1193 temples were converted into mosques and khanqahs, the law of Islam was promoted [..]

The numismatic evidence is at odds with the uncompromisingly iconoclastic rhetoric of the Arabic and Persian sources for the conquest, in which the destruction of images of Hindu deities is repeatedly stressed. These texts were, however, intended to sell the virtues of the Ghurids to a wider Islamic world: in the subcontinent, the need to address their Indian subjects in an intelligible language (both textual and visual) evidently led Ghurid sultans to respect existing precedents even at the expense of orthodox practice. [..] The dissemination of coins bearing the names of the Ghurid sultans juxtaposed with Hindu iconography reflects a pragmatic attitude toward economic realities whose success can be measured by reports that during this period the Hindu traders of Paean in Gujarat, capital of the Chalukya rajas, were investing considerable amounts of their capital in Ghazni! [..]

The dialectical qualities of Ghurid engagements with northern India in the aftermath of the conquest are well represented by Sunil Kumar's observation that "plunder and trade, military engagements and negotiating alliances, iconoclasm and figural depiction on coinage were adroitly reconciled by the Mu'izzI governors [i.e., the Turks belonging to the sultan] in their efforts to expand and consolidate their territories."

TrangaBellam (talk) 14:19, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Btw, you are relying too much on Wink. He is notorious for placing an excessive reliance on secondary literature (a sin for academics unlike us, who edit Wikipedia) and an uncritical usage of anachronistic sources to portray a monolithic Islam. I do not advice you to discard him but Wink ought be used with caution. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:44, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Wink (Al-Hind vol II; p. 325) writes without citing any source that:

Similarly, the town of Ajmer, founded by Ajaipal, one of the Cauhan kings, was sacked in 1024 AD by Mahmud of Ghazna, and again by Muhammad Ghuri in 1193; it had a Jain college, built in 1153, which was turned into a mosque by putting a massive screen of seven arches in front of the pillared hall which was left standing: 'the hut of two-and-a- half days', built supernaturally, according to Muslim tradition, in two-and-a-half days.

However, the sole source he cites in the page (for another claim; K. C. Jain) does note in p. 62 that the mosque is said to be a Jaina temple which was destroyed by the ignorant bigotry and fanaticism of [Mahmud of Ghor]. The work of conversion lasted from 1199 to 1213 AD. Note how Wink removes Jain's (hardly sympathetic to our subject) doubts on the antecedents of the structure and makes it an established fact!

Luckily, Flood covers the mosque comprehensively. We come to know that the Arhai-din-ka-Jhompra Mosque was largely a product of Iltutmish's reign (though constructed c. Feb-March 1199, as obtainable from the mehrab inscription) and featured the reuse of radically aniconized temple (?) architecture. The "massive screen of seven arches" was installed by Iltutmish. He cautions against assigning any nefarious motive to the re-use given the continuities of the structure and esp. since the man at the helm was Govindaraja, a very fond vassal of our subject.

Now what does Flood comment about the Jain temple links?

That the materials reused in Ajmir were taken from a Jain temple that stood on the site is an idée reçue in writing on the mosque, but has a very slim evidential basis.

TrangaBellam (talk) 15:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Responses

@TrangaBellam: We are not mentioning about the destruction of Nalanda in any detail, but since the previous line states that - Muhammad of Ghor and his commanders destroyed several temples across the Gangetic Plain, then there can hardly be a issue with just a line on Bakhtiyar destruction in Ganges Delta as well?

I actually removed the quotebox which had Nizami's account on sacking of Ajmer let alone this - Which account you think was exaggerating one ? I guess - destroying a thousand temple in Benaras and building mosques over them ? I agree that the number is rhetorically claimed as 1000 (like in Mahmud case of destroying 10,000 temples in Mathura) but still removing it altogether is not justifiable either, perhaps best can be to add that Nizami rhetorically claimed the destruction of 1000 mosuqes and building mosques over them

Please explain how the large-scale conversion of Khokhars/Buddhists partially "through force & diplomacy" doesn't merit a inclusion ? It's backed up by secondary reliable source which is detailed work on the subject, though F&f brushed off any source which disagree with their pov as non-reliable/dated/sub-standard but guess that doesn't make them so?

Is Truschke reliable, like K.S. Lal in his later days it's contentious, I agree Eaton is a history scholar of top-tier and don't have issue in using him apart from his 2019 edition for reason explained above, do you something from his 2000 edition :- Essay on Islam and Indian history which state anything different then Wink, Chandra on large scale temple destruction?

You didn't commented upon Satish Chandra as well ? Even he had large scale temple destruction in Kashi ? He was major academic as well?

Lastly, I agree on Bossworth-1968 with you that was probably misinterpreted by me in light of "Ghazi tradition" of the Ghanzawids. I conceded on that. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 13:19, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I will post a draft, sometime soon. There is nothing wrong with your individual assertions in the religion section and it can be (argubaly) generalized. For example, Finbarr Barry Flood (2009; p. 106) writes:

The [Islamic] historians aggrandize Mu'izz al-Din's role as champion of the faith, identifying him as sultan-i ghazi (sultan of the holy warriors) and depicting the Indian campaigns of the sultan as a confrontation between the army of Islam (lashkar-i Islam) and the army of unbelief (lashkar-i kuffar).

However, Flood contextualizes these claims as does all prominent historians. Which you do not. To quote a historian:

Notably, history cannot be reducible to facts. If anything, the reigning consensus amongst professional historians is that history makes sense only when grasped as a relationship between fact and interpretation. That is, academic history always walks on two legs and does not aimlessly hop around between one fact-point to another fact-place.

Audrey Truschke is obviously reliable. More later. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:27, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: Let me be honest, despite my multiple researches on Muhammad and Ghurids, the conversion of Ghurids to Sunni orthodoxy remains somewhat uncertain and I am open to any suggestion on this part from you, though the cultural milieu of Ghurids in later twelfth century was definately inclined towards Sunni orthodoxy as is evident from their hostility with the Ismailis which increased drastically around the 1160's - see Alauddin Hussayn actually favoured them but his son Saifuddin reversed this policy immediately and persecuted them which was followed up by Ghiyassuddin and Shahbuddin as well, which suggests that Sunni orthodoxy taken over them prior to 1199, see the large scale land grants by the brothers to Sunni theologicians as well which is mentioned by Minhaj and is there (not sure) in Iqtidar's Alam Khan lates work as well

Md. Habib also mentioned this and so did K.A. Nizami in his UNESCO chapter on the Ghurids as well (Bosworth touched upon it as well):

The religious life of the people of Ghur passed through interesting phases: as noted above, the pietistic sect of the Karrämiyya was influential for many years. Initially, the followers of the Karrämiyya had received encouragement in Khurasan from Sebüktegin and Mahmüd of Ghazna. But contact with Ghazna, Herat and other centres of Muslim culture slowly changed the religious complexion of Ghur and its adjoining territories, and during the course of the twelfth century, the Shansabänis started to abandon their patronage of the Karrämiyya. There were a number of encounters with the Karrämiyya leaders, who were strongly opposed to Fakhr al-Din al-Räzi but who had a considerable popular following in Ghur. In the end, Ghiyäth al-Din adopted the Shäfici school of law, while Mucizz al-Din became a Hanafi.

∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 13:43, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I do not feel that anything about their change of schools is much disputed. Boswarth remarks:

They burst out of the confines of Ghur, where the Karami divines had had paramount authority in religion, into the wider world . They came into contact here with the two chief law-schools of Sunni Islam in the east, and they may have felt that the Karami tenets were intellectually somewhat disreputable and too closely linked with their backwoods origins.

Also, as Flood (p. 102) notes,

Karrami asceticism and material egalitarianism were [becoming increasingly] inappropriate to the burgeoning self-aggrandizement of the Ghurids.

TrangaBellam (talk) 13:51, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: I am going to post about religion section later, as I am going to be away apart from periodic appearance untill the busy festive season, till then I don't have any issue with not having the religion section, until then you can put up your draft and we can review it after a few days.

My brief personal opinion on your downgrading of Wink (iconoclasm part) is that everyone (it's quite normal); has a point of view regarding the shaping of historical events, I don't agree with you on this and Islamic iconoclasm was quite apparent and can't be always swept under the carpet on the pretex that it was just an attempt to give a blow by destroying temples associated with royality only - a cross-question I always have is why weren't mosques destroyed in the same fashion (same frequency and on same scale) and converted into paganic structures ? The counter argument which comes very quickly is that - Hindu rulers also destroyed temples at times to compensate the Turkic destruction, but the instances of those are vague (not even destruction) and can't be put on the par with much more widespread occurance which took place under the Turks.

Yes, Islamic sources are rhetorical (even boastful) but the frequent vandalism can be seen even in Non-Islamic sources i.e. - Maratha, Dutch, Rajput, Sikh etc sources as well, OFC - not all of them exaggerate.

Wink never said that Muslim ruler were inconoclasts all the time (not possible either) - but it was done quite a lot contray to academic consensus on it and some Muslim rulers were very serious about it namely Aurangzeb, Firuz Shah Tughlaq, Sikander Lodhi, Mahmud of Ghazna, Muhammad of Ghor, Qutb ud din Aybeg, Akbar during his early phase (see t The Nobility under Akbar and the Development of his Religious Policy, 1560–80 by Iqtidar Alam Khan for this) etc.

I don't agree with far right Hindu views as well which is simply to buzz off positive contributon of Muslim rulers and even naively appropriate their monumental legacy to the local Hindu rulers it's just baloney as well.

I have no stature to comment about Islamic teachings (on portrayal a monolithic Islam) and its doctrine and I prefer to keep it to myself whatever I feel about it.

Thanks∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 16:28, 18 October 2022 (UTC).

Please avoid digressions into irrelevant topics like far-right Hindutva, Akbar, Aurangzeb, why mosques were not destroyed (which btw is answered by Eaton) etc. Our personal interpretations of Ghori's actions are irrelevant and you appear to concede that Wink's view on this particular locus is contrary to the academic consensus.

I had premised Wink's (partial) unreliability upon specific causes — cited to reviews by leading scholars like Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Sunil Kumar) —, and shew how his categorical assertion about a Jain school being converted to a Ghurid mosque is not only a misrepresentation of the cited source but also opposite to the views of famed art historians (Flood, Asher) who have actually studied the structure in question.

To end with, the nuke-worthy religion section can't be restored. In the meanwhile, Fowler&fowler is writing an excellent lead borrowing from the afore-cited scholars and others. Though I have a few issues, the lead is undoubtedly better and I look forward to it being installed after the requisite consensus is obtained. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

And, P&t, if you have objections to F&F's lead (as and when they declare it open for review), please open a sub-page under your user-space and draft it as:

• The brothers belonged to a family of unenslaved, tribal chiefs, or warlords, in a culturally lesser-known region of the mountains of west-central Afghanistan

• Book XYZ Page 123 disputes that they were un-slaved: Quote 1
• Book ABC Page 789 describes the region to be in north Afghanistan: Quote 2

• Next line from F&F's draft that you object to

• ..
• ..

Please keep your personal commentary to a bare minimum and let the sources speak for themselves. Then, we can discuss at this talk-page. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: The excellent lead as it appears to you which they proposed, has all but basic factual errors (wrong date of Peshwar, Ghazni, wrong mention of failure in first Lahore raid where he still extracted a tribute etc to name a few) attributed to Eaton -2019, puffery (Sultan ? really ? first defeat in Tarain-I, really ? Kayadhara-1178 ? omitted) , unrelated verbiage (their religion, temple destruction and its motives in lead, conversion to Islam, the language they spoke), absurd citations of Kulke&Rothermund, Ludden, Asher etc which didn't even mention name of the subject, but talks about general success of Turks over their Rajput nemesis.

The lead is a summary of content in the body a brief one not bigger then the body itself - the current one summarizes the lead briefly and uneeded verbiage which is of no use for a normal reader won't merit a inclusion and should stay out of it, doesn't matter how much excellent you think it to be.

Finally on your remarks of personal commentary on my part (like branding other as Hindu nationalists is not ? huh) and not backing my words with actions - contrasting sources:- the section above with title of "Review of FA lead" already mentions the factual errors (largely Eaton-2019) and pov with contrasting sources, atleast go through it before making such remarks.

I already said, I have no interset in insertion of religion section either as of now and for few days (a week or so) not going to edit here either and consensus (especially for revamp of lead requires a broader consensus which mignt take a month and a random supportive comment won't be good enough. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 13:01, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment of the extent of errors. Yeah, the part. trivia of first defeat and fate of the first Lahore campaign (which I had overlooked) is incorrect; some reliance on Peter Jackson's The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History will come handy. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: Simply saying that I disagree with your assessment ain't enough, the extent is quite obviously true which I explained with atleast a couple of (RS) for each claim - Peshawar conquest dt. is wrong as well among many others, it was taken in 1179/80 and not 1176. Ghazni was not taken in 1148 (only sacked in 1151 by their uncle); which Eaton-2019 claimed - it was taken in 1170 or thereabouts and not from the Ghaznawids but from the Ghuzz/Oghuzz's who deposed the Ghaznawids from there already - see this footnote in the article I created in whole about his operations against the Ghaznawids.

Peter Jackson's core area of interest is actually around the Mongol warfares and not Medieval India despite a fine work on Sultanate, the sources of better medievalists about Indian past are more handy and already mentioned by me there likes of S. Chandra (possibly the finest), Nizami, Habib who wrote specifically about the Ghurids in some 20 odd pages before moving to Sultanate cruft. (especially later)

Lahore first raid was still a success as Khusrau already sent his son as a token of submission along with a fine elephant as Firishta called it, second one was a raid where Lahore was sacked and Sialkot taken which made Khusrau to act and besiege the Ghurid garrison there only to be replulsed by Hussain Kharmil, for good details regarding it see my Siege of Lahore (1186)

I suggests the reading of David Thomas regarding it over Jackson who is any case gave his life researching over the Ghurians or perhaps Bosworth - 1977 (Later Ghaznawids) for more light on Ghaznawids operations over Jackson or even Chandra, I had him in that article

I am not going to repost a long time consuming thread for you again coz I did it already with a majority of major RS above and your agreement or disagreement without a number of contrasting body of sources is irrelevant. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 16:54, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Has David Thomas got anything significant about our subject? His work, last I checked, was a survey of the Ghurid heartland borrowing from archaeology.

Your assertions about the Khyber Pass is strange and I do not know why you are throwing walls of text, which btw is the reason why neither the above thread nor the ANI discussion has attracted anybody else apart from the two of you. Coming back to the issue, the assertion is technically correct but the focus is quite misplaced given Ghazni's judicious choice of route and esp. his campaign against the Ghaznavids. Also, for someone who is so reliant on Bosworth, care to chime in at this t/p section on a relevant article?

I did go through your rebut (largely borrowed from Satish Chandra) against F&F's description of the cause behind the military reversals and I believe that while his view is significant enough to accord a mention in the body, they flout the current consensus among scholars. Sources, later. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: I've cited both Andre Wink (2020) and Asher and Talbot (2022) citing Andre Wink (not to mention Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, 2016, 6th edition) and David Ludden (2012, second edition)) that the current consensus is that it was the decisive technological advantage of the swift-horse cavalry, especially mounted archers and battle strategies, from the Central Asian plains, and which was to gradually change the prevailing reliance in South Asia on war elephants, that the 20th-century explanations rooted in Indian fragmentation explained away to lack of political and social unity, or caste-based disunity, in the armies of the Chahamana coalition (1192), are passé. The South Asian armies, essentially, were at a disadvantage technologically, even the better horses they did have imported from Central Asia or Arabia, had deteriorated in health and conditioning for the lack of pasture lands. I will shortly post reviews of Eaton's 2019 summation of his life's work, India in the Persianate Age, 2019, to counter Packer&Tracker's assertion that it is either error-ridden or unreliable. I've made a short note on David Thomas (2018) in his book's section above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:41, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is Katherine Schofield's is open access review of Eaton 2019 in History Today. I do think that one general sentence on the cultural legacy (as described in Eaton) is appropriate for the lead (for the Gharib Nawaz of Ajmer, goes back to the very beginnings of that period, and even Amir Khusrow's blending of Persian and Braj bhasa to only a couple of generations later, wherein lie the roots of both Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Posting a review of the work won't going to change obvious errors in it - especially in the brief mention about our subject, his first defeat was not in Tarain-1192 either obviously another error in Eaton-2019, it's at foot of Mount Abu-1178 which is way too notable to remove which left a lasting impression on him (never dared to turn to Gujarat in his life again, though Aybak caused the mayhem there in 1197 and compensated for humiliation of his mater, the Turks were driven away as soon as Aybak left the place) among all the needless verbiage for lead about their language, conversion, titular (He was Sultan already by 1173, from where the title of Shihabuddin got popular, before Mu'izz al-Din). Lastly, my review was not borrowed from Chandra largely (on fairly tedious narrative of war elephants and absence of mobile archers, that is, though there is not point mentioning about the composition of Rajput or Ghurid army in lead which Kulke and Ludden referred to apart from a brief mention that Muhammad came back with fully armoured forces of 120,000 and avenged his rout) I had my counter from others as well - Nizami, Habib, Ray, Wink etc and can list many more. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 23:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Do you have any 21st-century source? How many, and which are published by major university presses and used worldwide so as to constitute tertiary sources? I see nothing. It won't fly on Wikipedia for WP:DUE Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:23, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry - not falling for that again ! I already had posted a long and candid rebutt in my previous section with a number of prestigious academicians specifying basic factual inaccuracies in the lead largely copy-pasted from Eaton-2019 (excluding unrelated veribage, pov pushing etc.) - many of them (sources) were from last 30 years as well- there is no golden rule to use only so-called peer-reviewed work, those were published in decent presses as well and not some random self-published ones. (there are more inaccuracies in Eaton-2019, though it's not related to the subject on hand)

Tertiary sources are for dumies who just want to have a basic outlook about the subject and most didn't even mentioned him apart from a line or two, that too not without applying gloss to it. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 23:59, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

But the tertiary sources mention Eaton, which speaks to his WP:DUE status and his reliability. Only they can summarize the consensus, you cannot. That is WP policy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:04, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

The concept of Khokhar "Fidai" among historians

"Minhaj calls them "Malahida Fidais", Juwaini mentions "Hindu Fidai"; Kamil Bin Aser describes them as 'Hindu Khokhar Fidai"; Gakkhar or Khokhar and is , therefore , of opinion that the deed was a joint Qārāmitah ( Bātini )Khokar or Gakkhar affair". Hasan Nizami mentions the killers to be Khokhars, while at the same time describing them as "Malahida" belonging to the Ismaili sect, given the recent Khokhar conversion to Islam. "His last expedition of India mostly historians state , was assassinated in 1206 A.D. by a party of the heretic Khokhars but some stated to had been assassinated by Mulahidas ( i.e. heretics ) , on the banks of the river Jhelum". Translator of the Futuh-us-Salatin at Aligarh Muslim University, Mehdi Husain also asserts: "It is also said that the assassinators were Khokhars , for the Khokhars too might be called mulaḥid or malāḥida".

A wide number of sources show that instead of just Hindu Khokhar or Ismaili assasins, there are a large number of historians who use the term "Khokhar' anf "Fidai"(heretic) together. I am not saying this is the consensus among historians, but it is an opinion asserted by many including the translator of Futuh Salatin from Aligarh Mslim University, Patna_University_Journal, and so on. Therefore it should be added as one of the views among historians. This is the response to you continuing to remove my edits @User:Packer&Tracker.--Mydust (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Cheers to everyone here ! If you want a broader response, leave a note on the relevant noticeboards. The main issue is obviously with the sourcing, among all the cited sources, is any of these are from historians ? see - WP:HSC. I never came across a reliable source from a decent scholar which cites chronicler Hasan Nizami and states explicitly that Muhammad was asssasined by the Khokhars (will cite a source later) - most main stream scholars who wrote about his assassination only statez that assassins were either Khokhars - but didn't press upon the identity of those assassins. Habib 1981 (will cite later) added details and explained why writings of Ferishta which were written 500 years after Muhammad's assassination don't hold much water.

I earlier added that it's possible that Muhammad was assassinated jointly by Khokhars and Ismailis - Diff/1116356653, but it qas removed for some absurd reasons but of late my contribution towards the enclyopedia are not in same frequency as they used to be.

To cut a long story short, you yourself apparently conceded that this is not the mainstream consensus among scholars We don't promote fringe theories.

Habib 1981 (cited in article) see here as well

It is generally thought that Shihabuddin was assassinated by the Khokhars and a detail account of how they accomplished their purpose is given by Ferishta. Twenty Khokhar infidels he says whose sons and relations had fallen in the battle against the Sultan vowed revenge even at cost of their own lives...detail account of Ferishta writting... These are circumstantional details of later day story, Minhajus siraj juzjani who was fifteen aur sixteen year old at the time of sultan's death merely states that he was assassined by a heretic devotee (fida-i-mulhadia). I see no reason for distrusting Minhajus Siraj's contemporary account. He bore no love for the heretics and had no motive for misrepresenting a fact which everybody was aware

I am also pinging @पाटलिपुत्र and HistoryofIran: - both who are regular contributors in this topic to give their inputs. (quotes) Packer&Tracker (talk ♀) 16:13, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

My concern lies with certain sources used.

• Encyclopaedia of the World Muslims:Tribes, Castes and Communities · Volume 2, published by Global Vision, per WP:Mirrors and forks, books published by Global Vision should be avoided due to CIRCULAR referencing
• Muzaffar Husain Syed; Syed Saud Akhtar; B D Usmani (2011). Concise History of Islam. I thought I had read something regarding the authors of this book. Can you verify the authors of this book are academic historians? --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:32, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Infobox

Should we reconsider our subject's (Md. Ghuri) infobox portrait ?? Last year we ruled out his forged tomb created in Dumyak, Pakistan approximately 800 odd years after his assassination. My proposal here is that - Can we move artistic description of Md Ghuri's assassination to the infobox, albeit not exactly contemporary it it still directly related to our subject unlike the coins which are in Arabic script and to our wider audience it's futile. I am pinging involved editors for a response who made a few constructive contributions on these article in ths past few months.

@HistoryofIran, Kansas Bear, and पाटलिपुत्र: Thanks. Re Packer&Tracker (talk) 16:32, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Better not in the infobox in my opinion, as it is obviously an imaginary depiction. पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Not a fan of it being in the infobox either, especially as we can barely see Muhammad, as he is in the background. The art style of the image also looks rather off imo, looks like someone took a picture and painted over it. --HistoryofIran (talk) 18:08, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 April 2023

"change untill to until" Fix typo 176.222.59.21 (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Addressed. Thank you. --Kansas Bear (talk) 00:43, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Request for check year of death mohomad ghor is killed by our smrat prithviraj singh chauhan but prithvi is also died in 1192.

Request for check year of death mohomad ghor is killed by our smrat prithviraj singh chauhan but prithvi is also died in 1992. Vikaschauhanji (talk) 12:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Prithviraj led a coalition of several Rajput kings and defeated the Ghurid army led by Muhammad Ghori near Taraori in 1191 AD. 103.27.49.37 (talk) 16:40, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Making a quick prose check in the lead

Re:Packer and Tracker: I hope you don't mind, but I am making a quick prose and coherence check in the lead so that your passage through the GA will be smoother. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:57, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I've stopped after the first paragraph in the lead. I recommend that a WP:GOCE copy edit be requested before the GA submission. It will save a lot of time in the GA review. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:55, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation needed

I highly recommend anyone interested in this article to comment on Wikipedia talk:NCROY#Other pages for disambiguation. This ruler's predecessor is also a Muhammad and bears the same regnal name of another state. If that article is moved to something like "Muhammad of the Ghurids", then it will more or less the same as this article. My suggestion is to move this article to Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad, which already redirects here, and I guess there is no other ruler with that name. Aintabli (talk) 17:00, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

@Aintabli: We had a discussion last year on it and a consensus was established to use Muhammad of Ghor throughout the article instead of Muizz al-Din. Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 05:07, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

GA Review (Sangsangaplaz)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Muhammad of Ghor/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sangsangaplaz (talk · contribs) 14:04, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Redundant Section

In the 'Early Years' section there is a redundant subsection called 'Title' while the previous subsection is called 'Name and Title'. They should be combined. Sangsangaplaz (talk) 06:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Alternative

Or one or both of them should be renamed if appropriate. Sangsangaplaz (talk) 06:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Understandability

The article uses a lot of words which is hard for users to understand such as 'condominium' (which is modernly used for apartments) and use of words to watch which can ruin the encyclopedic feel of the article. I will try to fix as much as I can though I will not make any major edits and i will make only minor edits. Sangsangaplaz (talk) 06:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

On Hold

Since this article meets all the criteria, when the above problems are addressed I will pass this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sangsangaplaz (talk • contribs) 07:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Fixed

@Sangsangaplaz:The issues you pointed out above has been fixed now, could you please point out other minor issues ? Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 02:41, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

After subsection

@Re Packer: I recommend renaming the aforementioned section to something more appropriate. Then this article is a pass.

@Sangsangaplaz: I did renamed it to the best it suits the content in the section which includs his birth year and title, though could you suggest anything more "appropriate"? Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 19:12, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I renamed it to "Early life" now which probably is more nuanced then early career, isn't it more or less fine now ? Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 19:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh sorry for the mistake I meant the Later subsection Sangsangaplaz (talk) 02:37, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sangsangaplaz: Which section ? Please mention the name specifically. Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 13:58, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sangsangaplaz: I renamed "early carrer" sub section to "accession to the throne", think all these minor issues are resolved now and it should be pass. Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 03:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

GA Review (Trangabellam)

Sources Section (Missing)

Please create an overview section on Sources and their follies, biases, etc.; see Nezak_Huns#Sources for a guide.

Birth Section

• K. S. Lal needs to go; see Subrahmanyam (2023), et al.
• His name is variously transliterated as Muizuddin Sam, Shihabuddin Ghuri, Muhammad Ghori and Muhammad of Ghor.

• Such a framing is only used when dealing with some King X who was differently translated by historians writing in different languages - say, by Arabic and Chinese chroniclers. We don't have such a case here; hence, do away with the line.

• According to the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, his birth name was "Muhammad" which is vernacularly spelt as "Hamad" by the Ghurids.

• The italicized part is unencyclopedic trivia.

• During his childhood, his mother used to call him "Zangi" due to his dark skin tone.

• Perhaps introduce a link to Wikitionary's entry on زنگی.

• After the coronation in Ghazna, he styled himself as "Malik Shihabuddin" and after his occupation of Khurasan, he took the title of "Muizzuddin" or "Mu'izz al-Din".

• Shift this line to the relevant chronological sections. Boldface the stylized titles.

• The synchronous accounts ...

• What are these accounts? They have not been introduced before. Will probably be fulfilled by the proposed section on Sources.

Title Section

• Do away with this seperate section; these will be discussed within the article. "Sultan-i-Ghazi" is not really a title, etc.

Accession to the throne

• However, their efficient administration of the province, made him doubtful of their uprise and seeing a possible challenge to his own authority, he ordered his nephews to be imprisoned in the castle of Gharjistan.[8] Although, they were released from the captivity by his son Sayf al-Din Muhammad after the death of his father in 1161.

• You meant uprising? Although anticipates a contrast; we have none, here.
• Reframe it as, However, Ala al-Din soon grew wary of the brothers' increasing sway over the provinces and fearing an usurpation, had them imprisoned in the castle of Gharjistan. They would only be released ....

• Sayf al-Din, later died in a battle against the nomadic Oghuzs of Balkh.

• Why shall an average reader of our article care about how he died unless it involved our subject?

• After their release from the captivity, "Tarik-i-Firishtah" states that the Ghurid siblings were reinstated in Sanjah, although the earlier account of "Tabaqat-i-Nasiri" stated that the hardship continued due to their financial conditions. Muhammad thus, took shelter in the court of his uncle Fakhruddin Masud who held the principality of Bamiyan as vassal of their uncle Alauddin Husayn.

• Do we have conflicting sources? For example, TiF only has their reinstatement as governor while TiN only has them taking refuge? The situation is not clear from your construction.

• Later, Fakhr al-Din Masud laid his own claim for the succession after Sayf al-Din death as the elder member of the Ghurid family.

• This is horrible ungrammatical prose. Reframe as, After Sayf al-Din died, Fakhr al-Din Masud claimed the throne by virtue of being the eldest among the Ghurid clan.

• Muhammad helped his brother in suppressing the revolt of Fakhruddin ...

• Sorry, but two lines ago, you had the two being sheltered by Fakhr al-Din. So, rationally, they ought have helped him because it would have cemented their chance of succession upon his death? Or, did they take this power-vacuum to have a (succesful) shot at the throne?
• Also, Fakhruddin was revolting against whom? The identity is important because indirectly (if not directly), the brothers came to his aid! And, how did they negotiate with him after suppressing the revolt?

• his brother succeeded Sayf al-Din to the throne in 1163 and initially placed Muhammad as a minor officer in his court, which result in him retiring (unhappy with his position) to the court of Sistan where he spend a whole season.

• placed > appointed.
• unhappy with his position does not make much sense esp. as a bracketed appelation. Is it your aim to convey that Muhammad did migrate to the Court of Sistan but without resigning from his brother's Court? Such a conveyal seems anachronistic, though.
• Whole season - an year?

• However, later Ghiyath-al din sent an envoy to brought him back who subsequently placed him in charge of the southern part of the Ghurid domains which possibly included Istiyan and Kajuran.

• to brought > to bring
• I won't progress further; please get a GOCE copyedit done.

Overall

FAIL as of now. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:55, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

TrangaBellam, if you are failing this nomination, please complete the necessary steps at WP:GAN/I#FAIL. Certainly, if this needs a GOCE copyedit, this nomination should not remain open until the copyedit is done, as the backlog there is months long. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:09, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay. TrangaBellam (talk) 23:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

desecrated

The use of the word desecrated in the sentence "After a general massacre of the populace, the Ghurids desecrated the Hindu pilgrim centre of Benaras" seems bit out of place. I do realize that Benaras suffered destruction, but I understood that it was general destruction, looting, etc. The source cited says "In 1194, Muizzuddin returned to India. He crossed the Jamuna with 50,000 cavalry and moved towards Kanauj. A hotly contested battle between Muizzuddin and Jaichandra was fought at Chandawar near Kanauj. We are told that Jaichandra had almost carried the day when he was killed by an arrow, and his army was totally defeated. Muizzuddin now moved on to Banaras which was ravaged, a large number of temples there being destroyed ..." I think that the emphasis on desecration in the Wikipedia text is misplaced. It seems to me more appropriate to say, "Following the battle, the Ghurids took the fort at Asni, where they plundered the royal treasure of the Gahadavalas, and went on to take the pilgrimage city of Benaras, which was looted and a large number of its temples destroyed." The cited source does not mention a "general massacre". The chronology seems to be that the fort at Asni was taken and then Benaras was looted (sacked). (q.v. here and here) I have made this change based on the source in an effort to make the article more GA worthy. --Bejnar (talk) 21:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't have any obvious issues with your edits, although i beg to differ on the part of wholesale slaughter in Kashi, the same author (Satish Chandra) covered this bit in his different publication as follows..

As usual the contemporary literary works indulge in gross exaggerations. They place Jai Chand's army at 80,000 men in armour, 30,000 horses....... Jai Chand who is known to be a great warrior, suffered a disastrous defeat.
After great slaughter and plunder, the fort of Asni which contained the Gahadavala treasure-house was plundered...

(great slaughter literally means a massacre)

Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals-Delhi Sultanat (1206-1526) - Part One (2006)
(pp:-27) Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 02:02, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Looking at a variety of sources "the great slaughter" was of the troops of Jai Chand, not the citizens of towns. --Bejnar (talk) 16:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bejnar: Although I did not go through the rest of the article over the weekend, i.e. beyond the lead, your remarks show that it possibly continues to have neutrality issues that I had identified a year ago. Please see the last three paragraphs of Lion Capital of Ashoka's history section beginning with "Although Buddhism and Buddhist monasticism ..." for a more NPOV description. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:11, 1 August 2023 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:23, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that neutrality issues still exist. One of the problems is that modern Indian sources are often not NPOV. --Bejnar (talk) 16:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bejnar: Needless emphasis on Indian sources and further labelling them as POV sources is derogatory, more so in the case where the cited sources are from eminent historians of the modern era like as Sunil Kumar, Satish Chandra, K.A. Nizami, Md. Habib et al..

It's not only disparaging, but is off topic as well given that this article had glaring errors for a number of years like his forged tomb being in Pakistan, wrong birth year, not having any offspring though he had a daughter et al which were sorted out by me apart from creating several decent articles on the subject. Re Pa©ker&Tra©ker (♀) 16:54, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know about the other Indian historians mentioned above, but Sunil Kumar was a dear friend. I met him on the basketball courts at the University of Chicago. He was a pretty good player. I have three or four of his books here, somewhere. I have little interest in medieval history, but he was hardly of the POV that I had found in this article when I last examined the neutrality issue. He died unexpectedly a couple of years ago. I owe it to his memory to make sure he has been paraphrased accurately. When I'll get around to it, I don't know. Maybe this coming weekend, maybe next week. But I will. I had forgotten about all the sources I had collected upstairs. The glaring errors described above are errors of fact, not of neutrality. Pinging @TrangaBellam: who I think was also a discussant. I apologize for my fading memory. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:02, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I will take a look; didn't know it was being nom-ed for GA. Kumar was a man of many abilities - in his college days, he was a gifted track athlete, too! TrangaBellam (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)