Notes The Ghaznavids: An Overview

Abstract

The emergence of the Ghaznavid principality took place within the framework of the disintegration of the Abbasid caliphate. A modern interpretation by M.A. Shaban II1 gives the specifics. According to him two factors superimposed themselves. Firstly in eastern Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, trade had become as important as agriculture. When the Buyids captured Rayy (near modern Tehran) they gained a control over the foreign trade route. With the bottling up of this route the finances of the Samanid kingdom suffered a set back. To overcome this loss of income, the Samanids took recourse to taxing the trading class even more stringently, causing large scale migrations to the west. The Buyids did offer generous peace terms to the Samanids including a 10 year truce, but they were not prepared to give up Rayy. Local overlords were reluctant to give battle to the Buyids and the Samanid kingdom burst at the seams. Local overlords tried to capture as much territory as possible, and it was in this situation that the Ghaznavid amirs could assert their independence from the Samanids. In the wider context the following observation of Andre Wink needs to be taken into account: To all appearances this was an age when linkages between the nomadic steppe populations of Central Asia and the sedentary civilizations of the Middle East, China and India crossed a critical threshold whereby a series of conquests was set off which climaxed with the ‘Mongol Storm’ in the thirteenth century.