Muhammad of Ghor

Title & tenure

Sultan of the Ghurid Empire; founder of lasting Muslim rule in Delhi

In office: 1173 – 1206

Predecessor:

Ghiyath al-Din (as co-ruler of the Ghurid Empire)

Successor:

Qutb-ud-din Aibak (as founder of the Delhi Sultanate)

Biography

Muizz ad-Din Muhammad, known as Muhammad of Ghor, ruled the Ghurid Empire from Afghanistan alongside his elder brother Ghiyath al-Din, and led the military campaigns into northern India that finally established lasting Muslim rule over Delhi, succeeding where Mahmud of Ghazni's earlier raids had not.

Achievements

• Decisively defeated the Rajput confederacy under Prithviraj Chauhan, breaking the strongest remaining Hindu resistance in northern India
• Established a permanent Ghurid military and administrative presence in Delhi and the Gangetic plain, governed through trusted slave-generals (mamluks)
• Laid the direct institutional foundation from which his general Qutb-ud-din Aibak founded the Delhi Sultanate after his death

Key events

• First Battle of Tarain (1191): defeated by Prithviraj Chauhan and forced to retreat
• Second Battle of Tarain (1192): returned and decisively defeated and killed Prithviraj Chauhan, opening the Gangetic plain to Ghurid conquest
• Expanded conquests into Bihar and Bengal through his general Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji

Legacy

Muhammad of Ghor is regarded as the founder of enduring Muslim political power in India; while he ruled from Afghanistan rather than Delhi itself, the Sultanate his generals founded there after his death would govern much of the subcontinent for the next three centuries.

How it ended

Assassinated in 1206, reportedly by rebels from a defeated tribe, while encamped on the Indus River; his Indian territories passed to his trusted general Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who proclaimed himself independent Sultan of Delhi.