The son of a Turkic slave became the first ruler to call himself Sultan
Mahmud's father, Sabuktigin, began life as a Karluk Turkic slave before founding a dynasty at Ghazni. His son went further, ruling from 998 to 1030 and becoming the first monarch to carry the title Sultan, a word meaning authority, while still nodding to the Abbasid caliph's spiritual supremacy over the Islamic world.
Born in Ghazni on 2 October 971, Mahmud fought beside his father as a fifteen-year-old at the First Battle of Laghman in 988. Yet when Sabuktigin died in 997 the throne passed to a younger brother, Ismail, perhaps because Ismail's mother was the daughter of Sabuktigin's own former master. Mahmud rebelled and, helped by another brother, beat Ismail at Ghazni the next year, taking power at 27.
He soon broke free of the Samanids, his family's overlords. After defeating their army near Merv on 16 May 999, he watched their dynasty collapse, and the Oxus River became the frontier with the Kara-Khanids to the north. From then on his coins hailed him as Friend of the Commander of the Faithful. Over 32 years he led 35 major and 11 minor campaigns, reputedly without a single defeat, and by his death his realm reached from northwestern Iran to the Punjab and Khwarazm.
Although of Turkic stock, Mahmud governed in a thoroughly Persian style, keeping the court and administrative habits of the Samanids. He took Lahore, laying groundwork for later Persian-influenced rule in the Punjab, and his capital grew into a centre of learning and trade that almost rivalled Baghdad, drawing the scholar al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi. He knew the Quran by heart and enforced strict Sunni orthodoxy, suppressing sects he considered heretical.
One story shows a softer side. Riding home one night, he noticed a poor student reading by the light of a shop and ordered his own golden lamp handed over. That night, the tale goes, the Prophet appeared in a dream and praised him, dispelling doubts the sultan had privately harboured, including a suspicion that Sabuktigin was not his real father.
Source: Mahmud of Ghazni
