Person · Ghurid sultan
Muhammad of Ghor
Also known as Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām, Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam, Muhammad Ghori, Muhammad Ghuri, Shihabuddin Ghuri, Muizuddin Sam
The Ghurid sultan who ruled from Ghazni from 1173, in a dyarchy with his elder brother Ghiyath al-Din at Firozkoh, until his assassination at Dhamiak in 1206. Routed near Mount Abu in 1178 and wounded at Tarain in 1191, he returned to Tarain in 1192, defeated and executed Prithviraj Chauhan, and left north India to slave commanders such as Qutb-ud-Din Aibak, whose rule became the Delhi Sultanate.
- Date
- 1144–1206
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Patron dynasty
- Ghurid
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
In north India his mints kept the conquered kingdoms' designs: coins with the goddess Lakshmi on one side and his name in Nagari on the other, and bull-and-horseman jitals reading Sri Muhamdada Same and Shri Hammirah, a Sanskritised form of amir.
His killers are disputed: chroniclers name the Khokhars, Isma'ili emissaries, or both together, and one account implicates the imam Fakhruddin who travelled with him. His birth year, 1144, comes from the infobox only.
Connections (5)
- CampaignTarain
In 1190 Muhammad's generals took Bathinda on Prithviraj Chauhan's north-western frontier, and the armies met at Tarain, about 24 km from Thanesar, in 1191; Muhammad wounded Prithviraj's vassal Govind Rai in single combat, was wounded himself, and his army fell back. He paraded the emirs who had fled through Ghazni with grain bags round their necks, drilled his men against mock elephants of mud and wood, and in 1192 won the second battle with a pre-dawn attack and ten thousand mounted archers.
- OpposedPrithviraja Chauhan
Prithviraj Chauhan's Rajput confederacy beat Muhammad at Tarain in 1191. A year later, by the accounts of Hasan Nizami and others, Muhammad answered Prithviraj's offer to let him withdraw by proposing that envoys be sent, then attacked before sunrise. Prithviraj was captured on the bank of the Saraswati, the present Sirsa, and executed. Muhammad sacked Ajmer, set up Prithviraj's minor son Govindaraja IV as a tributary ruler, and garrisoned Sirsa, Hansi, Samana and Kohram, opening the Delhi and Ajmer country to Ghurid rule.
- Power passed toQutb-ud-Din Aibak
After Tarain Muhammad made his slave Qutb-ud-Din Aibak administrator of the Ghurid domains in north India, and the two took Delhi in 1193 and besieged Thankar near Bayana around 1196. Muhammad raised his slaves as sons and successors and arranged marriages among their families; his only child, a daughter, died before him. After his assassination in 1206 his nephew Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud freed Aibak, who established himself at Lahore, declared independence in 1208, and so founded the Delhi Sultanate.
- Ruled fromGhazni
Muhammad's elder brother Ghiyath al-Din installed him at Ghazni as an independent sovereign once the Ghurids had taken it from the Oghuz Turks, and from Ghazni he crossed the Indus through the Gomal Pass in 1175 to take Multan and Uch. He ended the Ghaznavid line by taking Lahore, their last stronghold, in 1186 or 1187, and built in Ghazni with a distinctive kind of glazed tile. After his assassination at Dhamiak in 1206 his body was placed in his daughter's mausoleum at Ghazni.
- Associated withMinaret of Jam
The 65-metre Minaret of Jam probably stands at Firozkoh, capital of Muhammad's elder brother and co-ruler Ghiyath al-Din, with whom he shared the Ghurid realm until 1203, after which Muhammad took Firozkoh's throne as well. Its dating inscription is unclear and may read 1193 or 1194, or 1174 or 1175; the archaeologist Ralph Pinder-Wilson argued that it commemorates Muhammad's victory over Prithviraj Chauhan. It is also thought to have directly inspired the Qutb Minar at Delhi.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Muhammad of Ghor"; "Minaret of Jam". Peter Jackson, The Fall of the Ghurid Dynasty (2000); Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation (2009).
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