Reasons behind Muhammad Ghori’s Invasion of India

Many reasons have been given for the invasion of India by Muhammad Ghori. It is pointed out that he was a very ambitious and enterprising prince. He considered himself to be the heir to the Panjab which belonged to the Empire of Ghazni. Reasons of security also demanded that he must defeat Khusrau Malik, the Ruler of the Punjab and the Karmathians of Multan.

His was an age of military glory and Muhammad Ghori was fired with the love of conquest and power. He would like to have prestige and wealth. Being a Muslim, he would like to conquer the Hindus of India and spread Islam in that country.

Dr. Tarachand says that Ghurid conquest was not impelled by religious zeal. It was the consequence of political developments in the Islamic World. From Central Asia to Mesopotamia, the newly formed Muslim-States were locked in mortal combat against one another-the Buwaihids against the Saljuqs, the Saljuqs against the Khwarizamians, the Ghaznavids, Ghuzz and Ghurids were involved in this maelstrom and all were trembling for their very existence from the threat gathering in the East from the Qara Khatais and the Mangols who soon erupted into Central Asia and swept all of them away. Religion had failed to bind the Muslim Sultanates together.

The Ghurids under Ala-ud-Din seized Ghazni and sacked it. They killed all the Muslims and burned the city of Mahmud. Occupation of territory in the North-West made the Ghurids turn to India where the Punjab was under Ghaznavids and Multan under the Carmathians. They attacked them both and took possession of the Punjab and then only turned their attention to their Rajput neighbours whose mutual jealousies opened the gates wide in front of them.

Neither the Ghurids, nor their successors, the Mamluk Sultans, paid much attention to theological principles or legal codes of Islam in extending their dominion into India, or in organising their system of administration. Not the propagation of faith, but vaulting ambition, hunger for land, riches and power were the motives which actuated them.