The following is a set of pictures from Major Amin (a well known military history specialist in Pakistan) that give the flavor of the 200 year run of loot, plunder and internecine warfare that characterized the Ghaznavid dynasty (including alliances with Indian rulers and officials who were willing to work with them). These are just headlines, interested readers will have to look up more detail in other articles and books (or in wikipedia, which is always helpful). There is a volume 1 that I will post when i get some more time.
By the way, this topic reminded me of a little episode from our school days. We had a Christian history teacher (a Mr Lawrence) who had written a kind of guidebook that all of the students used to study 8th grade history. In the chapter on Mahmood Ghaznavi, he had listed the reasons for his attacks on India. The list included items like spreading Islam and putting down miscreants and point number X was “loot and plunder”. Our Islamic studies teacher found out and started a campaign against Mr Lawrence for bringing Islamic heroes into disrepute. This led to the inevitable excision of this chapter from the book, but students had copies that had already been printed; they had to have the offending passages either torn out or crossed out. So it goes..
