Afghanistan
The first Muslim dynasties.
Islamic
armies defeated the Sasanians
in AD 642 at Nahavand (near modern Hamadan, Iran)
and moved on to the Afghan area, but they were unable to hold
the territory; cities submitted, only to rise in revolt, and
the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the
armies had passed. The 9th and 10th centuries witnessed the
rise of numerous local Islamic dynasties. One of the
earliest was the
Tahirids
of Khorasan, whose kingdom included Balkh and
Herat; they established virtual independence from the
'Abbasid caliphate in AD 820. The Tahirids
were succeeded in 867-869 by a native dynasty from Seistan,
the Saffarids. Local princes in the
north soon became feudatories of the powerful Samanids,
who ruled from Bukhara. From 872 to 999 Bukhara, Samarkand,
and Balkh enjoyed a golden age under Samanid rule.
(L.Du./N.H.D.)
The Ghaznavids.
In the middle of the 10th century a former Turkish
slave named Alptegin seized
Ghazna (Ghazni).
He was succeeded by another former slave, Subüktigin, who
extended the conquests to Kabul and the Indus. His son was the
great Mahmud of Ghazna, who came to
the throne in 998. Mahmud conquered the Punjab
and Multan and carried his raids into the heart of India. The
hitherto obscure town of Ghazna became a splendid city, as did
the second capital at Bust (Lashkar Gah).
The Ghurids.
Mahmud's
descendants continued
to rule over a gradually diminishing empire until 1150, when
'Ala`-ud-Din Husayn of
Ghur, a mountain-locked region in central Afghanistan,
sacked Ghazna and drove the last Ghaznavid out to India. 'Ala`-ud-Din's
nephew, Mu'izz-ud-Din Muhammad, known
as Muhammad of Ghur, first invaded India in 1175.
After his death in 1206, his general, Qutb-ud-Din
Aybak, became the sultan of Delhi.
The Khwarezm-Shahs.
Shortly after Muhammad of Ghur's death,
the Ghurid Empire fell apart, and Afghanistan was occupied
by Sultan 'Ala` ad-Din Muhammad,
the Khwarezm-Shah. The territories of the Khwarezm-Shah
dynasty extended from Chinese Turkistan in the east to the borders
of Iraq in the west.
(F.R.Al.)
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