Medieval Central Asia and the Persianate World by A.C.S. Peacock;D.G. Tor;

Author:A.C.S. Peacock;D.G. Tor; [Tor;, A.C.S. Peacock;D.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857729460
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2019-11-22T06:00:00+00:00

5

A VENTURE ON THE FRONTIER: ALPTEGIN’S CONQUEST OF GHAZNA AND ITS SEQUEL

Minoru Inaba

After the political break-up of the Abbasid caliphate in the first half of the ninth century, the history of Khurasan and Mā Warā’ al-Nahr (Transoxiana) is characterised by the further expansion of the Islamic world to the east. The period up to the thirteenth century witnessed a third wave of conquests, especially in Central Asia and South Asia, which were carried out by the non-Arab local Muslims. In Central Asia, the Saffarids and the Samanids played the leading roles in the initial stages of these advances. The former started to expand from Sistan, the southwestern part of present-day Afghanistan, and eventually incorporated Afghanistan and most of Khurasan under their rule. The latter expanded their realm in Mā Warā’ al-Nahr and, after emerging victorious from a decisive battle against the Saffarids in 287/900, secured their supremacy in the east. According to Jürgen Paul and Deborah Tor, both dynasties implemented a common policy of conducting vigorous jihād against non-Islamic lands to bolster their political legitimacy,1 and this policy of jihād is a distinct feature of expansion in the period in question.

It was, however, the Ghaznavids who continued this jihād policy and opened a new frontier in north-western India.2 The origin of the Ghaznavids lies in the military conquest of Ghazna, which had once been under the rule of the Saffarids, in the first half of the 350s/ 960s by Alptegin, a Samanid general of military slave origin. In this sense, the Ghaznavids inherited the legacy of these two earlier dynasties, and this paper outlines how these precedents were integrated within the process of Ghaznavid state formation, and how this was related to the frontier features of this region, thereby illustrating not only the economic aspects of the frontier but also the politico-military potential of this eastern frontier of the Islamic world in the period in question.

1. Alptegin

The well-known story of the conquest of the city Ghazna by Alptegin illustrates the characteristics of the Samanid military and jihād policy. Alptegin originally had been a Turkish ghulām of the Samanid Aḥmad b. Ismā‘īl (r. 295–301/907–914), and was gradually promoted until he became one of the most powerful figures in the army under Nūḥ b. Naṣr (r. 331–343/943–954). In the reign of ‘Abd al-Malik b. Nūḥ (r. 343–350/954–961), powerful local lords, such as Āl-i Muḥtāj of Chaghāniyān (the region along the Surkhāndaryā river, present-day Uzbekistan) and Turkish generals of slave origin were contending for effective control of the state.3 Alptegin, who was one of these Turkish generals, was most influential in the Samanid court as ḥājib-i buzurg (Chief Chamberlain). According to Gardīzī, he killed Bakr b. Mālik (d. 345/956), who was then serving as sipāhsālār (Commander-in-Chief) of Khurasan. Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥammad Sīmjūrī, who was also a Turkish general, was appointed as Bakr’s successor.4 After Abū l-Ḥasan was dismissed in 349/960–1 Alptegin managed to orchestrate the appointment of his successor, namely Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Razzāq. Moreover, at the same time, the post

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