People or land · The Ghurid sultanate · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Khokhars

A warlike people of the hills and plains between the Jhelum and the Indus (the Salt Range, the Potohar plateau and the Jud hills), who fought for the last Ghaznavid against Mu'izz al-Din at Sialkot (1185-86).

They sit across the road from Peshawar to Lahore. After the Ghurid defeat at Andkhud (1204) their chiefs Rai Sal, Bakan and Sarkha will rise, cut the road and plunder round Lahore, and Mu'izz al-Din will crush them in 1205-06 before he is murdered at Damyak. On 1 January 1200 they are quiet but unsubdued; no raiding is recorded that winter.

Who holds it

Name
Not pinned for 1200 (the chiefs who revolt in 1204-05 are Rai Sal, Bakan and Sarkha)
Title
Clan chiefs
Since
not pinned
Confidence
low

Overlord

The Ghurid sultan of Ghazni, in name.

What it holds

  • The Salt Range, the Potohar and the Jud hills, with the plains along the Jhelum

How things stand that morning

Self-governing under nominal Ghurid rule; quiet.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Juzjani and Ibn al-Athir describe their revolt of 1204-06; nothing pins their position in 1200.

On the map: Approximate.

Primary sources for Ghurids

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
  • The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
  • The History of the World Conqueror, Ata-Malik Juvayni (1252 to 1260). Written for the Mongols but with a long retrospective on the powers they destroyed. Read online
  • The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
  • The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
  • The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns. Read online
  • The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
  • The Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.

3 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia, 'Muhammad of Ghor'
  2. Minhaj al-Din Juzjani, Tabaqat-i Nasiri, tr. H. G. Raverty, vol. 1 (searched on archive.org)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.