Ghurid Dynasty

Ghurid Sultanate
Shansabānī
←
 1148–1215 →
This map is showing the Ghurid Empire without their south-eastern territories of north-western India.
Capital Herat, Ghor, Ghazni, Lahore
Language(s) Persian (court poetry)[1]
Religion Sunni Islam
Government Sultanate
Sultan
 - 1148-1157 Ala-ud-din Jahan-Suz
 - 1157-1202 Ghiyasuddin Ghori
 - 1202-1206 Muhammad of Ghor
 - 1206-1210 Qutbuddin Aibak
History
 - Established 1148
 - Disestablished 1215

The Ghurids or Ghorids (Persian: سلسله غوریان; self-designation: Shansabānī) were a medieval Muslim dynasty of Iranian origin that ruled during the 12th and 13th centuries in Khorasan.[2] At its zenith, their empire, centred at Ghōr (now a province in Afghanistan), stretched over an area that included the whole of modern Afghanistan, the eastern parts of Iran and the northern section of the Indian subcontinent, as far as Delhi. The Ghurids were succeeded in Persia by the Khwārazm-Shāh dynasty and in North India by the Mamluk dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate.

Contents

Origins

In the 19th century, some European scholars, such as Mountstuart Elphinstone, favoured the idea that the Ghurid dynasty was Pashtun,[3][4][5] but this is generally rejected by modern scholarship, and, as explained by Morgenstierne in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, is for "various reasons very improbable".[6] Instead, the consensus in modern scholarship (incl. Morgenstierne, Bosworth, Dupree, Gibb, Ghirshman, Longworth Dames and others) holds that the dynasty was most likely of Tajik origin.[7][8][9] Bosworth further points out that the actual name of the Ghurid family, Āl-e Šansab (Persianized: Šansabānī), is the Arabic pronunciation of the originally Middle Persian name Wišnasp, perhaps hinting at a (Sassanian) Persian origin.[10]

Language

The language of the Ghurids is subject to some controversy. What is known with certainty is that it was considerably different from the New Persian literary language of the Ghaznavid court. Nevertheless, like the Samanids and Ghaznavids, the Ghurids were great patrons of New Persian literature, poetry, and culture, and promoted these in their courts as their own. There is nothing to confirm the recent surmise (as claimed in the Paṭa Khazāna) that the Ghurids were Pashto-speaking[11], and there is no evidence that the inhabitants of Ghor were originally Pashto-speaking.[7]

History

Before the mid-12th century, the Ghurids had been bound to the Ghaznavids and Seljuks for about 150 years. Beginning in the mid-12th century, Ghor expressed its independence from the Ghaznavid Empire. In 1149 the Ghaznavid ruler Bahram Shāh poisoned a local Ghūrid leader, Quṭb ud-Dīn, who had taken refuge in the city of Ghazna after a family quarrel. In revenge, the Ghūrid chief ʿAlāʾ-ud-Dīn Ḥusayn sacked and burned the city of Ghazna and put the city into fire for seven days and seven nights. It earned him the title of Jahānsūz, meaning "the world burner".[12] The Ghaznavids retook the city with Seljuk help, but lost it to Oghuz Turk freebooters.[12] In 1152, Ala ad-Din Jahan-Suz Husain refused to pay tribute to the Seljuks and instead marched an army from Firuzkuh but was defeat at Nab by Sultan Ahmed Sanjar.[13]

In 1173, Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghori reconquered the city of Ghazna and assisted his brother Ghiyasuddin—to whom he was a loyal subordinate—in his contest with Khwarezmid Empire for the lordship of Khorāsān. Shahabuddin Ghori captured Multan and Uch in 1175 and annexed the Ghaznavid principality of Lahore in 1186. After the death of his brother Ghiyas-ud-Din in 1202, he became the successor of his empire and ruled until his assassination in 1206 near Jhelum by Khokhar tribesmen (in modern-day Pakistan).[14] A confused struggle then ensued among the remaining Ghūrid leaders, and the Khwarezmids were able to take over the Ghūrids' empire in about 1215. Though the Ghūrids' empire was short-lived, Shahabuddin Ghori's conquests strengthened the foundations of Muslim rule in India. On his death, the importance of Ghazna and Ghur dissipated and they were replaced by Delhi as the centre of Islamic influence during the rule of his successor Sultans in India.[15]

Ghurid Dynasty

Titular Name(s) Personal Name Reign
Malik
ملک ‎		 Muhammad bin Shansabani
 ? - 1011
Malik
ملک ‎		 Abu Ali bin Muhammad
 1011 – 1030s?
Malik
ملک ‎		 Abbas bin Shith
 1030s? - 1059?
Malik
ملک ‎		 Muhammad bin Abbas
 1059 - ?
Malik
ملک ‎		 Qutb-ud-din Hasan bin Muhammad
Abul-Muluk
ابولملک		 Izz-ud-din Hussain bin Hasan
 1100 – 1146
Malik
ملک ‎		 Saif-ud-din Sām bin Hussain
 1146 – 1149
Malik
ملک ‎		 Baha-ud-din Sām bin Hussain
 ؟
Malik
ملک ‎
Jahan-Suz
جہان سوذ		 Ala-ud-din Hussain bin Hussain
Malik
ملک ‎		 Saif-ud-din Muhammad bin Hussain
 1161 – 1163
Sultan Abul-Fateh
سلطان ابوالفتح		 Ghiyāṣ-ud-din Muhammad bin Sām
 1163 – 1203
Sultan Shahāb-ud-din Muhammad Ghori
سلطان شہاب الدین محمد غوری		 Muizz-ud-din Muhammad bin Sām
 1203 – 1206
Break up of the Ghurid Empire under Turkic slaves: Qutb-ud-din Aibak becomes ruler of Delhi in 1206, establishing the Sultanate of Delhi; Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha became ruler of Multan in 1210; Tajuddin Yildoz became ruler of Ghazni; Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji became ruler of Bengal; the actual Ghurid dynasty divided into two groups, one under Mahmud bin Ghiyāṣ-ud-din Muhammad bin Sām who succeeded his uncle Muhammad of Ghor in possession of Ghor, Herat, Sistan and eastern Khurasan with his capital at Firuzkuh the other family group under Jalal-ud-din Ali bin Sām at Bamiyan with possession of Tukharistan, Badakhshan, Shughnan, Vakhsh and Chaghaniyan.


Ghor Branch

Titular Name(s) Personal Name Reign
Malik
 Mahmud bin Ghiyāṣ-ud-din Muhammad bin Sām
 1206 – 1212[16]
Malik
ملک ‎		 Baha-ud-din Sām bin Mahmud
 1212 – 1213
Malik
ملک ‎
Ala-ud-Daulah
علاء الدولہ‎		 Ala-ud-din Atsiz bin Hussain
 1213 – 1214
Khwārazm-Shāh dynasty replaces the Ghurids.


Bamiyan Branch

Titular Name(s) Personal Name Reign
Malik
ملک ‎		 Fakhr-ud-Din Masud bin Hussain
 1145 – 1163
Malik
ملک ‎		 Shams-ud-Din Muhammad bin Mas'ud
 1163 – 1192
Malik
ملک ‎
Abul-Mu'ayyid
 Baha-ud-din Sām bin Muhammad
 1192 – 1206
Malik
ملک ‎		 Jalal-ud-din Ali bin Sām
 1206 – 1215
Khwārazm-Shāh dynasty replaces the Ghurids.


Cultural influences

The Ghurids were great patrons of Persian culture and literature and lay the basis for a Persianized state in India.[17][18] They also transferred the Khurasanian architecture of their native lands to India, of which several great examples have been preserved to this date (see gallery). However, most of the literature produced during the Ghurid era has been lost.

Out of the Ghurid state grew the Delhi Sultanate which established the Persian language as the lingua franca of the region - a status it retained until the fall of the Mughal Empire in the 19th century.

History of Afghanistan
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See also

Notes

  1. ^ The Development of Persian Culture under the Early Ghaznavids, C.E. Bosworth, Iran, Vol. 6, (1968), 35.
  2. ^ Kingdoms of South Asia - Afghanistan in Far East Kingdoms: Persia and the East
  3. ^ Elphinstone, Mountstuart. The History of India. Vol. 1. J. Murray, 1841. Web. 29 Apr. 2010. Link: "...the prevalent and apparently the correct opinion is, that both they and their subjects were Afghans. " & "In the time of Sultan Mahmud it was held, as has been observed, by a prince whom Ferishta calls Mohammed Soory (or Sur) Afghan." p.598-599
  4. ^ A short history of India: and of the frontier states of Afghanistan, Nipal, and Burma, Wheeler, James Talboys, (LINK): "The next conqueror after Mahmud who made a name in India, was Muhammad Ghori, the Afghan."
  5. ^ Balfour, Edward. The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, Commercial Industrial, and Scientific: Products of the Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal Kingdoms, Useful Arts and Manufactures. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1885. Web. 29 Apr. 2010. Link: "IZ-ud-DIN Husain, the founder of the Ghori dynaasty, was a native of Afghansitan. The origin of the house of Ghor has, however, been much discussed, - the prevailing opinion being that both they and their subjects were an Afghan race. " p.392
  6. ^ G. Morgenstierne (1999). "AFGHĀN". Encyclopaedia of Islam (CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed.). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV. 
  7. ^ a b M. Longworth Dames, G. Morgenstierne, and R. Ghirshman (1999). "AFGHĀNISTĀN". Encyclopaedia of Islam (CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed.). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV. 
  8. ^ Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Ghurids", C.E. Bosworth, (LINK): ". . . The Ghurids came from the Šansabānī family. The name of the eponym Šansab/Šanasb probably derives from the Middle Persian name Wišnasp (Justi, Namenbuch, p. 282). . . . The chiefs of Ḡūr only achieve firm historical mention in the early 5th/11th century with the Ghaznavid raids into their land, when Ḡūr was still a pagan enclave. Nor do we know anything about the ethnic stock of the Ḡūrīs in general and the Šansabānīs in particular; we can only assume that they were eastern Iranian Tajiks. . . . The sultans were generous patrons of the Persian literary traditions of Khorasan, and latterly fulfilled a valuable role as transmitters of this heritage to the newly conquered lands of northern India, laying the foundations for the essentially Persian culture which was to prevail in Muslim India until the 19th century. . . ."
  9. ^ Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Ghurids", C.E. Bosworth, Online Edition, 2006: "... The Shansabānīs were, like the rest of the Ghūrīs, of eastern Iranian Tājik stock ..."
  10. ^ Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Ghurids", C.E. Bosworth, (LINK); with reference to Justi, "Namenbuch", p. 282
  11. ^ Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Ghurids", C.E. Bosworth, Online Edition, 2006: "... There is nothing to confirm the recent surmise that the Ghūids were Pashto-speaking [...] the Paṭa Khazāna “Treasury of secrets”, claims to include Pashto poetry from the Ghūid period, but the significance of this work has not yet been evaluated ..."
  12. ^ a b Encyclopedia Iranica, Ghaznavids, Edmund Bosworth, Online Edition 2007, (LINK)
  13. ^ Ghurids, C.E. Bosworth, Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol.2, Ed. Bernard Lewis, C. Pellat and J. Schacht, (E.J.Brill, 1991), 1100.
  14. ^ Balaji Sadasivan, The Dancing Girl: A History of Early India, (ISEAS Publishing, 2011), 147.
  15. ^ Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press 2002
  16. ^ The Seljuqs and the Khwarazm Shahs, A. Sevim and C.E. Bosworth, History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol.4, (UNESCO, ), 171; "The new sultan of Ghur, Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud, had to acknowledge the Khwarazm Shah as his suzerain....".
  17. ^ Ghurids, C.E.Bosworth, Encyclopaedia Iranica, (December 15, 2001);[1]
  18. ^ Persian Literature in the Safavid Period, Z. Safa, The Cambridge history of Iran: The Timurid and Safavid periods, Vol.6, Ed. Peter Jackson and Laurence Lockhart,(Cambridge University Press, 1986), 951;"...Ghurids and Ghurid mamluks, all of whom established centres in India where poets and writers received ample encouragement.".

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