James Baquet

Every now and then, an obscure battle bears such great importance that one wonders why it is not better known. Such is the case with the Second Battle of Tarain, in 1192.

The situation was this: The Indian continent was a hodgepodge of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of various sizes. Islam was largely a Middle Eastern phenomenon, though it had made inroads in India’s northeast, today’s Afghanistan and Pakistan (majority Muslim countries to this day).

If the Muslims had anything at all to do with “greater India,” it was as a target for raids to acquire loot. All that changed with the coming of one Muhammad of Ghor, Sultan (or sometimes co-Sultan, with his brother) of the Ghurid Empire, a Persian-speaking dynasty that at one time had been Buddhist, but converted to Islam in 1101.

Muhammad of Ghor (more formally called Mu’izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori) was ambitious, and ruled a territory that included parts of today’s Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, north India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. His first invasion of Indian territory failed at the First Battle of Tarain (about 150 kilometers north of Delhi), in 1191. A year later he was back, and better than ever.

The chronicles say Muhammad of Ghorhad had around 120,000 men, and the opposing Rajput army had 300,000 men and 3,000 elephants. All of these numbers are almost certainly exaggerated. Muhammad surprised them by attacking before dawn (custom was to fight sun-up to sun-down) and by charging his cavalry directly at the elephants, panicking them and setting them to flight.

This success led to others; it is no exaggeration to say that the disappearance of Buddhism in India before modern times, and the spread of Islam as far as Indonesia (the world’s most populous Muslim country) resulted directly from this one victory.

Muhammad of Ghor died without a male heir. He always said that his Turkish slaves were his “sons.” And true enough, after his death his empire was divided amongst his high-ranking slaves, including one who ruled the Sultanate of Delhi, another who ruled parts of Bengal, and several more.

Vocabulary:

1. goods gained after a battle

2. wanting advancement

3. the moment the sun rises

4. running away

5. terrifying, causing to lose self-control

6. not well-known

7. historical documents

8. jumble, disorganized mixture

9. occasionally

10. overstated, said to be larger than they actually were