Ajmer's governor

Who he is

Name

not known: Wikipedia calls him an unnamed Muslim governor

Title

Muslim governor of Ajmer (the title is as Wikipedia gives it)

Since

1194 (after Hariraja's fall)

Born

not pinned

Family

not known

Confidence

low

Wikipedia's Muhammad of Ghor article says the Ghurids reoccupied Ajmer after Hariraja's revolt was crushed and placed it under an unnamed Muslim governor. The Taragarh page names Sayyid Husain (Miran Saheb) as a Muslim figure of the fort whose death in a Rajput attack it dates to a later year (see likely_course_1200), and says his shrine is in the fort; it does not call him governor. Abu Bakr ibn Ahmad Khalu al-Hirawi is a master of works for the Ajmer mosque, not a governor.

Overlord

Qutb al-Din Aibak

What it holds

• Ajmer and the Taragarh fort
• The Adhai-din-ka-Jhonpra mosque (mihrab inscription Jumada II 595 AH, April 1199)
• Pushkar, eleven kilometres away, as a pilgrim place that pays and is not protected (see the town record)

How it was acquired

Reoccupation after Hariraja's end, 1194.

Allies and rivals

Subordinate to Aibak (who once fell back on Ajmer during a Mer rising, Nizami, undated). Govindaraja at Ranthambore is a tenant of the sultan and the Chahamana kin left in the hinterland are tolerated (a board claim). The Chaulukya king of Gujarat is the nearest independent power to the south-west.

How things stand that morning

A garrison in a conquered capital. Nothing in the sources we reached names the governor or records a campaign in 1199 to 1200. The Mers of the Aravalli are a standing threat; the rising during which Aibak retreated to Ajmer is undated in Nizami.

Wealth

The Sambhar and Didwana salt, passing through Naraina; Pushkar pilgrim dues; the road tolls.

Military

A Turkish garrison in Taragarh; no counts.

Threats

• Mers and Minas of the Aravalli
• Chahamana loyalists and the Guhilas and Chaulukyas to the south
• Distance from Delhi

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1202Sayyid Husain (Miran Saheb) is said to die in a Rajput attack at Taragarh; his shrine is in the fort (Wikipedia, Taragarh Fort, giving the year as fact and citing a travel guide)Depends on: Rajput pressure on Ajmer Stopped by: A stronger garrison or a settlement with the Chahamana kin

Places of note

• Taragarh: The hill fort (Ajayameru Durg) above the town

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry ajmer-taragarh says Hariraja retook Ajmer in 1193; Wikipedia's Shakambhari page gives Hariraja's reign as 1193 to 1194 and the defeat in 1194. Same thing, a year apart.
• The campaign board entry pushkar says the lake is 'eleven kilometres from a fort now held by the Ghurids'; the figure is the straight-line distance.

Evidence: Two lines in Wikipedia on the governor; the mosque inscriptions via Wikipedia; the Taragarh page.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: The garrison holds the town and the ridge; the country round it answers to it only as far as the nearest grants and wells.

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.