Ghurids in the context of "Islamization"

The spread of Islam spans almost 1,400 years. The early Muslim conquests that occurred following the death of Muhammad in 632 CE led to the creation of the caliphates, expanding over a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted by Arab Muslim forces expanding over vast territories and building imperial structures over time. Most of the significant expansion occurred during the reign of the rāshidūn ("rightly-guided") caliphs from 632 to 661 CE, which were the first four successors of Muhammad. These early caliphates, coupled with Muslim economics and trading, the Islamic Golden Age, and the age of the Islamic gunpowder empires, resulted in Islam's spread outwards from Mecca towards the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans and the creation of the Muslim world. The Islamic conquests, which culminated in the Arab empire being established across three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe), enriched the Muslim world, achieving the economic preconditions for the emergence of this institution owing to the emphasis attached to Islamic teachings. Trade played an important role in the spread of Islam in some parts of the world, such as Indonesia. During the early centuries of Islamic rule, conversions in the Middle East were mainly individual or small-scale. While mass conversions were favored for spreading Islam beyond Muslim lands, policies within Muslim territories typically aimed for individual conversions to weaken non-Muslim communities. However, there were exceptions, like the forced mass conversion of the Samaritans.

Muslim dynasties were soon established and subsequent empires such as those of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Mamluks, Seljukids, and the Ayyubids were among some of the largest and most powerful in the world. The Ajuran and Adal Sultanates, and the wealthy Mali Empire, in North Africa, the Delhi, Deccan, and Bengal Sultanates, and Mughal and Durrani Empires, and Kingdom of Mysore and Nizam of Hyderabad in the Indian subcontinent, the Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Samanids in Persia, Timurids, and the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia significantly changed the course of history. The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers, all contributing to the Islamic Golden Age. The Timurid Renaissance and the Islamic expansion in South and East Asia fostered cosmopolitan and eclectic Muslim cultures in the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia and China. The Ottoman Empire, which controlled much of the Middle East and North Africa in the early modern period, also did not officially endorse mass conversions, but evidence suggests they occurred, particularly in the Balkans, often to evade the jizya tax. Similarly, Christian sources mention requests for mass conversions to Islam, such as in Cyprus, where Ottoman authorities refused, fearing economic repercussions.

The Mamluk dynasty (lit. 'Slave dynasty'), or the Mamluk Sultanate, is the historiographical name or umbrella term used to refer to the three dynasties of Mamluk origin who ruled the Ghurid territories in India and subsequently, the Sultanate of Delhi, from 1206 to 1290 — the Qutbi dynasty (1206–1211), the first Ilbari or Shamsi dynasty (1211–1266) and the second Ilbari dynasty (1266–1290).

Before the establishment of the Mamluk dynasty, Qutb al-Din Aibak's tenure as a Ghurid dynasty administrator lasted from 1192 to 1206, a period during which he led forays into the Gangetic plain and established control over some of the new areas. The last ruler, Shamsuddin Kayumars, an infant, was murdered by Jalal-ud-Din Khalji, a nobleman who then established the Khalji dynasty.

Malik Bahauddin Tughril (r. 1195–1210), commonly known as Bahauddin Tughril or Baha al-Din Tughril was a senior Turkic slave of the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor who was in charge of the Bayana region in the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan. He was admitted into the slave-household of the Ghurids during early reign of Muhammad of Ghor and gradually emerged as one of his eminent slave lieutenant along with Qutb al-Din Aibak, playing a significant role in the Ghurid conquest of northern Indian plain.

After Muhammad of Ghor seized Bayana in 1195–96 to guard the southern flank of Delhi, he made Tughril the viceroy of Bayana. Under his administration, the region of Bayana briefly emerged as a cosmopolitan centre, encouraging considerable Muslim settlements from all over Khurasan. After Muhammad of Ghor's assassination on 15 March 1206, Tughril like other Ghurid mamluks was manumitted, thereby he announced himself as the "Sultan". He died in 1210, and afterwards, the territory was soon brought under by Illtutmish, although Tughril's family continued to exercise influence over the region of Bayana even half a century after his death.

The Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent or Indo-Muslim period is conventionally said to have started in 640 with the conquest of Makran by the Rashidun Caliphate and was continued in 712–714, after the conquest of Sindh and Multan by the Umayyad Caliphate under the military command of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim. It began in the Indian subcontinent in the course of a gradual conquest. The perfunctory rule by the Ghaznavids in Punjab was followed by Ghurids, and Sultan Muhammad of Ghor (r. 1173–1206) is generally credited with laying the foundation of Muslim rule in Northern India. Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent also led to major developments in architecture, including the introduction of Persian-influenced designs, arches, domes, and decorative calligraphy. These styles shaped many of the region’s most iconic structures and contributed to the formation of Indo-Islamic architecture.

From the late 12th century onwards, Muslim empires dominated the subcontinent, most notably the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. Various other Muslim kingdoms ruled most of South Asia from the mid-14th to late 18th centuries, including the Bahmani, Bengal, Gujarat, Malwa, Kashmir, Multan, Mysore, Carnatic and Deccan Sultanates. Though the Muslim dynasties in India were diverse in origin, they were linked together by the Persianate culture and Islam.

The siege of Lahore (1186) was part of the military expedition of Ghurids during which the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor annexed the principality of the Ghaznavids in Lahore after overthrowing the last Ghaznavid ruler Khusrau Malik.

Muhammad of Ghor made two brief incursions into the Ghaznavid domains earlier in the course of which he plundered Lahore and extracted some ransom from Khusrau Malik, along with capturing some of his territories before the third successive invasion in which Khusrau Malik surrendered after a short siege and was assured of safety to present himself to Muhammad of Ghor. However, both Khusrau Malik and his son were imprisoned and sent to Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad in Firuzkuh where they both were executed in 1191, extinguishing the Ghaznavid lineage.

Khuttal, frequently also in the plural form Khuttalan (and variants such as Khutlan, Khatlan, in Chinese sources K'o-tut-lo) was a medieval region and principality on the north bank of the river Oxus (modern Amu Darya), lying between its tributaries Vakhsh and Panj. It corresponds roughly to the modern Khatlon Province of Tajikistan.

The pre-Islamic Principality of Khuttal played an active role, sometimes as an ally, sometimes as an enemy, of the Umayyads during the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, and it was not until 750/1 that the Abbasids finally established direct control over it. A branch of the Banijurids of Tokharistan ruled over the area under the Abbasids, and acknowledged the suzerainty of the Samanids in the 10th century. The area apparently retained an autonomous line of rulers in the 11th–12th centuries, when it came first under the loose control of the Ghaznavids, and after the middle of the 11th century of the Seljuq Empire. With the decline of Seljuq power, Khuttal passed to the control of the Ghurids and the Khwarazmshahs, under whom no native princely line is known. In the 13th century Khuttal became a part of the Mongol Empire and of its successor, the Chagatai Khanate, emerging once again as an autonomous principality following the latter's disintegration in the mid-14th century. In the 16th century, the Shaybanids took over Khuttal, and the name itself ceases to be used, being replaced by Kulob.