Siege of Lahore (1186) in the context of "Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent"

The Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent mainly took place between the 13th and the 18th centuries, establishing the Indo-Muslim period. Earlier Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent include the invasions which started in the northwestern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Pakistan), especially the Umayyad campaigns in India. Later during the 8th century, Mahmud of Ghazni, sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, invaded vast parts of Punjab and Gujarat during the 11th century. After the capture of Lahore and the end of the Ghaznavids, the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor laid the foundation of Muslim rule in India in 1192. In 1202, Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji led the Muslim conquest of Bengal, marking the easternmost expansion of Islam at the time.

The Ghurid Empire soon evolved into the Delhi Sultanate in 1206, ruled by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the founder of the Mamluk dynasty. With the Delhi Sultanate established, Islam was spread across most parts of the Indian subcontinent. In the 14th century, the Khalji dynasty under Alauddin Khalji, extended Muslim rule southwards to Gujarat, Rajasthan, and the Deccan. The successor Tughlaq dynasty temporarily expanded its territorial reach to Tamil Nadu. The disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate, capped by Timur's invasion in 1398, caused several Muslim sultanates and dynasties to emerge across the Indian subcontinent, such as the Gujarat Sultanate, Malwa Sultanate, Bahmani Sultanate, Jaunpur Sultanate, Madurai Sultanate, and the Bengal Sultanate. Some of these, however, were followed by Hindu reconquests and resistance from the native powers and states, such as the Telugu Nayakas, Vijayanagara, and Rajput states under the Kingdom of Mewar.

The Ghurid dynasty (also spelled Ghorids; Persian: دودمان غوریان, romanized: Dudmân-e Ğurīyân; self-designation: شنسبانی, Šansabānī) was a culturally Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian Tajik origin, which ruled from the 8th-century in the region of Ghor, and became an Empire from 1175 to 1215. The Ghurids were centered in the hills of the Ghor region in the present-day central Afghanistan, where they initially started out as local chiefs. They gradually converted to Sunni Islam after the conquest of Ghor by the Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud of Ghazni in 1011. The Ghurids eventually overran the Ghaznavids when Muhammad of Ghor seized Lahore and expelled the Ghaznavids from their last stronghold.

The Ghurids initially ruled as vassals of the Ghaznavids and later of the Seljuks. However, during the early 12th-century the long-standing rivalry between the Seljuks and Ghaznavids created a power vacuum in eastern Afghanistan and Panjab which the Ghurids took advantage of and began their territorial expansion. Ala al-Din Husayn ended the Ghurid subordination to the Ghaznavids, ruthlessly sacking their capital, although he was soon defeated by the Seljuks after he stopped paying tribute to them. The Seljuk imperial power, however, was itself swept away in eastern Iran with the contemporaneous advent of the Khwarazmian Empire.

Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam (Persian: معز الدین محمد بن سام, romanized: Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām; c. 1144 – 15 March 1206), also known as Muhammad of Ghor or Muhammad Ghori, was a ruler from the Ghurid dynasty based in the Ghor region of what is today central Afghanistan who ruled from 1173 to 1206. Muhammad and his elder brother Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad ruled in a dyarchy until the latter's death in 1203. Ghiyath al-Din, the senior partner, governed the western Ghurid regions from his capital at Firozkoh whereas Muhammad extended Ghurid rule eastwards into South Asia, laying the foundation of Islamic rule in South Asia, which lasted after him for nearly half a millennium under evolving Muslim dynasties.

During his early career as governor of the southern tract of Ghurid Empire, Muhammad subjugated the Oghuz Turks after a series of forays and annexed Ghazni where he was installed by Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad as an independent sovereign. Expanding the Ghurid dominion east of the Indus Delta from his base in Ghazni, Muhammad crossed the river Indus in 1175, approaching it through the Gomal Pass and captured Multan and Uch from the Carmathians within a year. Afterwards, Muhammad took his army by the way of lower Sindh, endeavouring to penetrate into present-day Gujarat through the Thar Desert. However, he was wounded and his forces were routed near Mount Abu at Kasahrada by a coalition of Rajput chiefs led by the Chaulukya king Mularaja. This setback forced him to change his route for future inroads into the Indian Plains. Hence, Muhammad pressed his forces against the Ghaznavids and uprooted them by 1186, conquering the upper Indus Plain along with most of the Punjab. After expelling the Ghaznavids from their last bastion, Muhammad secured the Khyber Pass, the traditional route of entry for invading armies into northern India.