Sabuktigin

Title & tenure

Founder of Ghaznavid power; ruler of Ghazni (977–997)

In office: 977 – 997

Predecessor:

Böritigin (in Ghazni)

Successor:

Ismail, then Mahmud of Ghazni (998)

Biography

Sabuktigin was a Turkic slave-soldier who rose in the service of the commanders of Ghazni, in present-day Afghanistan, then nominally under the Samanid Empire. Chosen as ruler of Ghazni in 977, he built a strong and practically independent state that became the base of the Ghaznavid Empire.

Achievements

• Turned Ghazni into a powerful, effectively independent kingdom, the foundation of the Ghaznavid Empire
• Extended his rule eastward towards the Indus, taking the region between Laghman and Peshawar from the Hindu Shahi kingdom
• Trained and prepared his son Mahmud, who built on his conquests

Key events

• Defeated the Hindu Shahi king Jayapala, who had attacked Ghazni, in battles in the late 980s and around 991
• Helped the Samanid ruler against rebels in Khorasan, for which his son Mahmud was given command there

Legacy

Sabuktigin laid the foundations of the Ghaznavid state that his son Mahmud of Ghazni turned into an empire stretching into Punjab, and began the eastward expansion that brought Muslim rule to the north-west of the subcontinent.

How it ended

Died in 997; his son Ismail briefly succeeded him before Mahmud took the throne in 998.