The Ghurid advance: Peshawar, Lahore and Sialkot

01Step by step

Minhaj-i-Siraj’s Tabaqat-i-Nasiri lists the stages. Peshawar fell in 1179. In 1181 Muizz al-Din appeared before Lahore, and Khusrau Malik bought him off by sending his son as hostage. In 1185 the Ghurids built a fort at Sialkot and left a garrison; Khusrau Malik, with the Khokhar clans of the Salt Range, besieged it and failed. In 1186 Muizz al-Din returned, lured Khusrau Malik out with a promise of safety, took Lahore, and sent the last Ghaznavid prisoner to Ghur, where he was later killed.

02The door opens

With Lahore in his hands, Muizz al-Din bordered the Chahamana kingdom directly. He had already been beaten once by Indian arms, at Kasahrada in 1178, when the Chaulukya army of Gujarat under the regency of Naikidevi routed him near Mount Abu; after that he chose the Punjab route. Five years after taking Lahore he seized Bhatinda, and Prithviraj Chauhan marched out to meet him at Tarain.

Person · Regent of Gujarat, 1175–1178 CENaiki DeviNaiki Devi, a Kadamba princess from Goa and widow of the Chaulukya king Ajayapala, governed Gujarat for her small son Mularaja II. In 1178 the army of Gujarat, led in his name, routed Muhammad of Ghor below Mount Abu at Kasahrada, and the Sultan never tried the Gujarat road again.Read →