Stories of individuals who went from rags
to riches throughout history and in our current age are some of the most inspiring and enthralling
tales we know. The lower the status of the eventually triumphant
figure, the more exciting the tale, and there is no status in the medieval world lower than
that of a slave. In this video, we will examine the origins
of the Ghaznavid Empire and the life of its progenitor - a slave who created a massive
empire that broke into India and fully exposed it to Islamic conquerors for the first time. And now a few words about the sponsor of this
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refill + 1 Clan Boss Key + 5 Mystery Shards + 1-day xp booster + 1 free champion - Executioner. The Abbasid Caliphate began to weaken as a
centralized political entity from the mid-ninth-century onwards, with the core of the empire in Baghdad
slowly losing its grip on the periphery. One of the local dynasties that rose to power
in this void was that of the Samanids. Supposedly descended from the great Sassanid
hero, Bahram Chobin, its first member was an eighth-century Persian noble called Saman
Khuda who converted from Zoroastrianism to Islam in the 720s. After helping Caliph al-Ma’mun’s governor
in Khurasan in quelling a rebellion in 819, Khuda’s four grandsons were each rewarded
with dominion over a city in Central Asia, a region which would serve as the Samanid
centre of power in the future. Nuh was granted the city of Samarkand, Yahya
was appointed to govern Tashkent, Ilyas was stationed in Herat and, perhaps most importantly,
Ahmad went to Ferghana. All four of these men ruled small, feudal-like
realms in the region until around 892, when Ahmad’s son, Isma’il ibn Ahmad, conquered
northern Iran, defeated the Afghirids and Saffarids, and unified the scattered Samanid
princedoms into a single emirate under nominal Abbasid suzerainty. Isma’il then shifted his capital to the
caravan city of Bukhara. Due to the proximity of the great steppe,
the Samanid rulers inherited the ancestral duty of keeping the nomads at bay by launching
military campaigns into the region and defending Islam’s frontiers. In 893 Isma’il launched a great expedition
to the north and conquered Talas - capital of the Karluk Turks - carrying off a grand
haul of loot and slaves in the process. This was supplemented by continuous smaller-scale
military activity on the Samanid frontier, as their warriors would go across the border
and raid the steppes. As a result of this, a steady trickle of Turkic
slaves from the nomadic tribes came into the Abbasid Caliphate. However, by the late 10th century, the Samanids
were already on the decline. To defend itself, armies of the Samanid realm
became increasingly reliant on Turkic slave soldiers. These former nomads had been used for civilian
and court roles such as pages and chamberlains during most of the emirate’s history, but
the phenomenon of Turkic slave soldiers - known otherwise as mamluks or ghulans - became vastly
more common as Samanid history progressed. This process of increasing reliance might
rightly be paralleled with the contemporary rise of mercenary use in the Byzantine Empire,
or the even earlier employment of Germanic auxiliaries in Imperial Roman armies. As in the case of notable Germanic generals
in the Roman army, such as Ricimer and Stilicho, Turkic slave soldiers could also become incredibly
prominent in the Islamic world, wielding enormous military and political power. With that said, we can introduce our main
character. Abu Mansur Sabüktegin was a boy born of Turkic
stock around 942, probably in the eastern regions of modern Kyrgyzstan. The ruler of his birthplace of Barskhan was
supposedly a Karluk Turk, so it is possible that Sabüktegin himself also had Karluk ancestry,
but this is far from certain. His enslavement as a youth was a textbook
example of how such things often happened on the Central Asian steppe during, before,
and after this time period; probably a microcosm of how the majority of slaves were sold into
the Caliphate. Constant warfare and smaller-scale marauding
were always ongoing between different nomadic tribes over land, women, and prestige, and
it was in one of these raids that a young Sabüktegin was captured by the rival Bakhtiyan
tribe and sent to a slave market in Tashkent. Whilst for sale in this silk road oasis town,
the boy was seen by an enterprising merchant called Nusr-Haji and purchased as a slave. Slavery is always a horrific practice, but
in the caliphate, it did not necessarily have identical connotations of unfair, back-breaking
labour and non-advancement that it does to us today. Instead, Sabüktegin was taken to a school
in the city of Nakhshab, probably with many others like him. There, he was trained extensively and groomed
to become an elite warrior. The curriculum was probably made up of military
tactics and equestrian arts, command, combat with different types of weaponry, cavalry
warfare, and many other necessary practices. After this period of intensive training, Sabüktegin
- now a warrior - was transported to the city of Nishapur. There, he managed to catch the eye of a fellow
Turkic slave soldier, but one who had risen to a far higher rank. This was a man named Alptigin, who subsequently
purchased Sabüktegin for service in his guard. As a ‘mere’ slave himself, Sabüktegin’s
new master was perhaps the best role model for a young ghulam - the perfect example of
what a successful slave soldier could become given time, skill and fierce loyalty. After being captured as a child, Alptigin
had risen through the ranks of Nuh I’s elite emir’s bodyguard, consisting of ghulam. For years of loyal service, he was then appointed
to administer the city of Balkh by Nuh’s successor Abd al-Malik I. This was perhaps the wealthiest silk road
trading city at the time, which demonstrates the extraordinary trust placed in him by the
emir. After his integration into Alptigin’s ghulam,
Sabüktegin showcased skill, prowess, and reliability in his master’s service, rising
more rapidly than was usual for Turks in the personal guard of Samanid governors. We don’t know, but it’s possible that
the governor saw something of himself in the younger man. By the age of 18, Sabüktegin was trusted
to command a unit of 200 other ghulam warriors. By 961, Alptigin had risen to the lofty status
of commander in chief of all Samanid armies in Khurasan, undoubtedly the emirate’s largest
and most crucial province. This also gave him unprecedented levels of
control over the Samanid government, as Abd al-Malik couldn’t even make decisions without
consent from the Turkic military establishment in Khurasan. However, Abd al-Malik’s untimely death at
the end of 961 flipped the table completely, and changed the future for Sabüktegin and
his powerful master. Alptigin attempted to play kingmaker, supporting
the late emir’s son in his attempt to inherit supreme power. However, a more influential political faction,
led by a courtier named Fa’iq, supported Abd al-Malik’s brother Mansur. It quickly became clear that Alptigin wouldn’t
be winning this round of political maneuvering, and, fearing that his dominant position in
the Samanid realm would be undermined by the potentially hostile successor, he escaped
east from Nishapur with a small army of ghulam, numbering a few thousand men. On his march, Alptigin subdued an Iranian
ruler in Bamiyan, and then defeated the army of a Hindu Shahi king in Kabul. He then pushed south, eventually arriving
at a relatively insignificant city known as Ghazna. After a grueling four-month siege, Alptigin
took possession of the city from the Samanid vassal Lawik, and set up there. If he had conquered a city in the Emirate’s
core, Alptigin would have been swiftly crushed, but Ghazna was a backwater settlement on the
very edge of Samanid authority. However, there is evidence that a military
expedition was sent against Alptigin then soundly defeated outside Ghazna’s gates,
possibly led or sent by Fa’iq. Alptigin finally passed away in 963 and was
succeeded by his own son, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, who also inherited his slaves. This short rule didn’t begin well, because
the previously deposed Lawik came and reconquered the city briefly. Ishaq and Sabüktegin then fled to Bukhara
and pledged allegiance to Mansur in return for aid. Sabüktegin supposedly impressed the Samanid
court with his intelligence, judgment, and piety. In 965, Ishaq returned to Ghazna with Samanid
military units at his back, and managed to reconquer the city, but then he died in 966. The now-free Turkic warriors in Ghazna chose
a chain of their ghulam commanders to rule the city for the next eleven years, during
which time Sabüktegin slowly gained more and more authority. It is said that he would win other army chiefs
to his side by hosting luxurious feasts for them twice a week. In 977, Sabüktegin managed to repel another
attempt by Lawik to return, and then used his victory to become governor of the city
himself. Seeking to use the legacy of Alptigin to gain
legitimacy and secure his position, Sabüktegin then married his former master’s daughter. The young Karluk boy who had been taken from
his home on the steppe as a child had now made a life for himself. Military expansion also began almost immediately
after Sabüktegin took power in 977. A dispute between two Saffarid ghulam leaders
- Toghan and Beytuz - gave him the pretext that he needed to intervene, capturing Kandahar
and the surrounding regions for his new Ghaznavid Empire. He undertook administrative reforms in order
to tune up the old system of military fiefs, which had been introduced to Ghazna by the
Turkic troops under Alptigin. The mixture of Persian bureaucrats and Indian
governmental techniques that had been previously used to run the region were kept in place. Despite essentially being an autonomous ruler,
detached from the central structure of Samanid power, Sabüktegin continued to present himself
as a governor for the emir in Bukhara. We can see this, because coins minted in the
rulership of Sabüktegin bear the name of the Samanid emir more prominently than his
own name. Taking his subordinate role seriously, the
faithful Ghaznavid governor and his eldest son - Mahmud of Ghazna - marched to help Emir
Nuh II put down a rebellion in Khurasan during 993. They succeeded by August of 994, managed to
execute the rebel ringleaders, and were rewarded appropriately. Sabüktegin was made the official governor
of Balkh, Tokharistan, Bamiyan, Ghor, and Gharchistan, and was given the prestigious
honorific Nasir al-Din - Defender of the Faith. Mahmud was given command of all the emir’s
armies in Khurasan - the richest of all Samanid provinces. Still the Samanids were now in terminal decline,
and began to lose vast amounts of territory, either seized outright in Transoxiana by the
encroaching nomadic Karakhanids, or annexed by their Ghaznavid ‘governors’ in Khurasan
and south of the Oxus river. Both Emir Nuh II and Sabüktegin passed away
in mid-997, the latter after falling gravely ill whilst campaigning near Balkh at the age
of 55. The inheritance of his realm was intended
to be split between many of the late ruler’s relatives, most prominently his son Mahmud
- who was in his provincial capital at Nishapur - and Isma’il - a younger son who was the
son of Sabüktegin with Alptigin’s daughter. This prestigious parentage led Sabüktegin
to appoint Isma’il as governor of Ghazna and Balkh upon his death. However, Isma’il was inexperienced when
compared to his elder brother, and it was clear that the arrangement could never last. In 998, Mahmud of Ghazna marched from Khurasan
to Ghazna, deposed his brother, and secured personal control over all his late father’s
lands. The rump Samanid attempted to send a governor
into Nishapur to take back control of Khurasan from Mahmud. The ambitious new ruler was furious at this
stab in the back, and, when he had finished mopping up his rivals, marched back into his
appointed province and seized it for the Ghaznavid Empire. Mahmud did not respect the Samanids’ symbolic
authority over him as much as Sabüktegin had done, but nevertheless used the pretext
of a palace coup in Bukhara to pose as an avenger of the final deposed emir, and crushed
his enemies. Representing the ailing dynasty in this self-interested
way led to an even greater honour when, in 999, Caliph al-Qadir granted Mahmud an illustrious
title which he is still known by today: Yamin al-Dawla, or the ‘Right Hand of the State’. He was now sultan - the caliph’s protector
and representative to whom the Ghaznavids owed symbolic fealty. Sultan Mahmud’s first concern was his affluent,
flourishing province of Khurasan. Its fertile agriculture, extensive trade connections,
and expert craft production would provide material for the campaigns Mahmud would embark
upon. Naturally, Mahmud had to protect his frontier
on the Oxus from the equally predatory Karakhanids. To do this, he initially entered a diplomatic
marriage with the daughter of Ilig Nasr - the chief who had conquered Samanid Transoxiana. However, the decentralised tribal Karakhanid
confederacy meant that little central authority existed, and the various Kara-khans continued
to hungrily eye Khurasan. They invaded the region twice, in 1006 and
1008. During the first war, two nomadic armies launched
a pincer maneuver on Ghaznavid territories and managed to capture Nishapur and Balkh,
but Mahmud managed to doggedly throw his enemy back across the Oxus. The invasion of 1008 came to an end with a
final victory for Ghaznavid arms outside Balkh, which finally ended the Karakhanids’ southern
ambitions. During this battle, a massed charge of the
sultan’s armoured Indian elephants demoralised and broke the nomadic forces. The Karakhanids subsequently entered a period
of internal strife, never to threaten Khurasan again. The Ghaznavids then asserted dominion over
the distant regions which had only been peripherally controlled by the Samanids, such as Sistan,
Gharchistan, Juzjan, Tokharistan, Khuttal, and especially Khwarezm. This strategically placed oasis was another
prospering nexus of trade and an agricultural paradise, located on the western flank of
the Karakhanid Khanate. In order to seize it, Mahmud used a shrewd
ploy: the sultan married his sister to a brother of the reigning Khwarezmian Emir, and then
demanded recognition of Ghaznavid sovereignty in the oasis realm. This deliberately provoked a violent local
reaction: Mahmud’s new brother-in-law was killed, giving the sultan a pretext to intervene
and annex the province. The most famous (or infamous) of Mahmud’s
military actions were the various expeditions he launched into India. Almost every single winter, the great conqueror
would gather armies of regular troops at the increasingly prosperous city of Ghazna, supplemented
by warriors who flocked from all corners of the Islamic world. All in all, Ghaznavid armies invaded Indian
lands seventeen times during Mahmud’s reign, carrying off loot and slaves, destroying Hindu
temples, and massacring populations. The climax of the campaigns was in 1025, when
Mahmud led his Muslim army across the barren, inhospitable Thar desert, and then onto the
Kathiawar peninsula, aiming straight for the grand temple complex at Somnath . Contained
within was a gilded statue of the Hindu mahadeva, or ‘great god’ Shiva, which was served
by 1,000 Brahmins, 350 entertainers, and the revenue from 10,000 villages. The Sultan plundered his way through Gujurat,
hacking his way through Somnath’s Hindu defenders, and the temple was seized. Precious stones and gems stored there were
looted, its worshippers were slaughtered, and the structure was torched. It is said that Mahmud of Ghazna personally
smashed the gilded statue of Shiva into pieces, and then carried the shards back to his capital,
where he incorporated the shattered fragments into the steps of Ghazna’s Friday mosque. For this, he was known forever after as Mahmud
- the ‘idol breaker’. Plunder from the raid exceeded a blistering
2 million dinars, while the number of slain supposedly exceeded 50,000. News of the sultan’s victory at Somnath
spread like wildfire through the Islamic world, and to reward him, more honorific titles were
sent from Baghdad by the caliph. However, other Turkic conquerors, the Seljuks
were just around the corner, and in the next episode we will talk about their clash with
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