Muhammad of Ghor
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Muhammad of Ghor (Persian:محمد شہاب الدین غوری) also Muhammad Ghori,Mohammad Ghauri, etc., originally named Mu'izz-ad-din, b.1162 - d.1206, was the governor of Ghazni from 1173 to 1206.
Muhammad was the brother of the Sultan of Ghor, a region of what is now central Afghanistan. Ghor lay on the western boundary of the Ghaznevid empire. Before 1160, the Ghaznevid empire covered an area running from central Afghanistan to the Punjab, with capitals at Ghazni and Lahore.
In 1160, the Ghorids conquered Ghazni from the Ghaznevids, and in 1173 Muhammad was made governor of Ghazni. In 1186-7 he conquered Lahore, ending the Ghaznevid empire and bringing the last of Ghaznevid territory under his control.
Muhammad attacked the north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent many times. The first time he was routed in present-day Gujarat by Rajputs. The mother of the child-king Mularaja-II organized the defences of Patan, and a battle was fought at Kayadara near Mount Abu, where Muhammad was defeated. Gujarat later fell to Muhammad's armies in 1197.
In the First Battle of Taraori in 1191 Prithvi Raj Chauhan captured Muhammad, who sued for his life. Prithviraj allowed him to go despite opposition from his generals. The following year Muhammad returned. Prithvi Raj Chauhan advanced with his army and sent a letter to Muhammad, asking Muhammad to decamp – noting that he captured Muhammad the previous year, and that his life had been spared. Muhammad replied that he could only retreat upon word from his brother, who had order him to India; he then withdrew his camp a few kilometers.
On receiving the response and seeing Muhammad move his camp , Prithviraj assumed that Muhammad was not interested in a fight. Muhammad, however, began his assault the next morning, and was victorious at the Second Battle of Taraori.
Within a few years Muhammad controlled northern Rajasthan and the northern part of the Ganges-Yamuna Doab. Muhammad returned east to Ghazni to deal with the threat to his western frontiers from the Turks and Mongols, but his armies, mostly under Turkish generals, continued to advance through northern India, raiding as far east as Bengal.
Muhammad returned to Lahore after 1200 to deal with a revolt of the Gakhar tribe in the Punjab. He suppressed the revolt, but was killed during a Gakhar raid on his camp on the Jhelum River in 1206.
Legacy
Upon his death, Qutb-ud-din Aybak, Muhammad's most capable general, took control of Muhammad's Indian conquests and declared himself the first Sultan of Delhi. Muhammad's former territory in Afghanistan was conquered by the Mongols.
The tomb of Pir Sultan Muhammad Ghori is located at Dera Ghazi Khan, currently a part of Pakistan.
Pakistan considers Sultan Muhammad Ghori as a hero, and has named its intermediate-range ballistic missile the Ghauri missile in his honor.fr:Muhammad Ghûrî