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18 MAHMUD OF GHAZNI i a couple of thousand followers in the fortress of Ghazni in the heart of the Afghan mountains (A. D. 962). Here, in a kind of no-man's-land, secure from interference, he made his little kingdom, and here after an interval his slave Sabuktagin reigned in his stead (976). The new ruler was not content with the original stronghold of his master. He gathered under his banner the neigh- bouring Afghan tribes, added whole provinces to his dominions Laghman to the east in the Kabul valley and Sistan on the Persian side and, when called to support the tottering Samanid prince of Bokhara against the encroaching Turks, he turned the occasion to his own advantage and placed his son Mahmud in command of the rich province of Khorasan. Sabuktagin was the first Moslem who attempted the invasion of India from the northwest. He went but a little way, it is true; his repeated defeat of Jaipal, the Brahman raja of the Pan jab, in the Kabul valley, ended only in the temporary submission of the Indian king and the payment of tribute; but it pointed the way to Hin- dustan. Sabuktagin died in 997 before he could accomplish any larger scheme, but his son more than realized his most daring dreams. Mahmud had all his father's sol- dierly energy and spirit of command, joined to a rest- less activity, a devouring ambition, and the temper of a zealot. Zeal for Islam was the dominant note of the tenth-century Turks, as of most new converts. The great missionary creed of Mohammed, which to the Arabs and Persians had become a familiar matter of