Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/88

 60 GHAZNI AND GHOR of the Oxus and the rich cities and luxury of Persia. The wealth of India could not satisfy these hungry hillmen. Mohammad Ghori must needs invade Khwa- rizm, the modern Khiva, where his momentary success was followed by such disastrous defeat that he burned his baggage, barely purchased his life, and fled (1203). Such an overthrow means anarchy in an Oriental state. Everywhere the tribes and governors rose in revolt. Ghazni shut its gates in its Sultan's face, Multan pro- claimed a new king, the Gakkars seized Lahore and laid waste the Panjab; the wide dominion of the house of Ghor was shattered. The recovery of his disrupted kingdom was Mohammad's greatest feat. Kutb-ad-din remained true to him, and so did several cities held by the Sultan's kindred. Mohammad swept down upon Multan and regained it; Ghazni repented; the Gakkars were subdued and even nominally converted. Conver- sion did not wipe out the blood-feud, however, and when the Sultan set out once more to gather forces for an- other effort to realize his useless dream of western empire, he was murdered in his tent on the banks of the Indus by a band of Gakkars who had the deaths of their kinsfolk to avenge (1206). Compared with Mahmud, the name of Mohammad Ghori has remained almost obscure. He was no patron of letters, and no poets or historians vied with one an- other to praise his munificence and power. Yet his conquests in Hindustan were wider and far more per- manent than Mahmud 's. A large part of these con- quests were of course partial, and there were still revolts