Chapter 3
The Raids Documented
Detailed accounts of the most devastating raids — Somnath, Mathura, Thanesar, Kannauj, Nagarkot — with evidence from primary sources.
Detailed accounts of the most devastating raids — Somnath, Mathura, Thanesar, Kannauj, Nagarkot — with evidence from primary sources.
The raid on Somnath is the most notorious and well-documented of all Mahmud's campaigns. The Somnath Temple in Gujarat was one of the most revered Hindu temples in India — a site of pilgrimage for millions, housing one of the twelve sacred Jyotirlingas of Lord Shiva.
Multiple sources describe the extraordinary wealth and beauty of Somnath before its destruction. The temple maintained 2,000 Brahmin priests, had 300 musicians and dancers, and was served by 300 barbers who shaved the heads of pilgrims. Its income came from the revenues of 10,000 villages endowed to it. The temple's inner sanctum was adorned with gold, precious stones, and elaborate carvings that had been accumulated over centuries.
Mahmud marched across the Thar Desert with an army of approximately 30,000 cavalry to reach Somnath. According to Al-Utbi and Ferishta, Hindu defenders numbering over 50,000 gathered to defend the temple. The battle raged for two days. The defenders fought with extraordinary courage — many choosing death over surrender — but were ultimately overwhelmed by Mahmud's disciplined Central Asian cavalry.
The plunder from Somnath was staggering. According to various sources, Mahmud extracted:
Beyond the material plunder, the human cost was devastating. Over 50,000 defenders were killed. Thousands of survivors were enslaved. The nearby port town was sacked. The destruction sent shockwaves across India and has remained a defining trauma in the collective memory of Hindu civilization for a millennium.
The Somnath temple was destroyed and rebuilt six times across history. The current temple was rebuilt under the initiative of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1947–1951, shortly after Indian independence. It stands today as one of India's most visited pilgrimage sites — a monument to both civilizational resilience and the scale of destruction that preceded it. Read more about Somnath's legacy on our Legacy & Modern Impact page.
Mathura — the birthplace of Lord Krishna and one of the holiest cities in Hinduism — was a primary target of Mahmud's 12th raid in 1018 CE.
Even Mahmud's own court historian Al-Utbi recorded the sultan's reaction upon seeing Mathura for the first time:
Despite this admiration, Mahmud ordered every temple in Mathura destroyed. The magnificent Krishna Janmasthan complex, adorned with gold and precious stones accumulated over centuries, was stripped bare and demolished. The idols were smashed and the gold melted down.
Thanesar (Sthaneshwar, modern Kurukshetra region) was one of the holiest Hindu pilgrimage centres, associated with the sacred Saraswati river and the Mahabharata. It housed the famous Chakraswamin temple.
According to Al-Utbi, when Mahmud's army arrived, the people of Thanesar initially offered to pay a large ransom to save their temple. Mahmud refused, declaring that he was a "breaker of idols, not a seller of idols."
The Chakraswamin idol was broken and its pieces carried to Ghazni. The temple was razed. The treasury yielded millions of dirhams. Thousands were enslaved. Thanesar's religious significance was deliberately targeted — this was not mere plunder but ideological warfare against Hindu civilization itself.
Kannauj, the ancient capital of the Gurjara-Pratihara Empire and one of India's greatest cities, was attacked as part of the same 1018 CE campaign as Mathura. The ruler Rajyapala fled without offering resistance, and Mahmud plundered the city's seven major temples without a fight. Al-Utbi records that the loot from Kannauj and Mathura together was so vast that it required "thousands of camels" to transport.
The fortress of Nagarkot (Kangra) in the Himalayan foothills was targeted for its famous temple treasures. According to Ferishta, the loot included 700,000 gold dinars, 700 maunds of gold and silver, 200 maunds of pearls, and countless gems. The temple had accumulated this wealth over centuries of pilgrim donations — all swept away in a single raid.
For more on how these raids fit into the broader pattern of Islamic invasions and their impact on Indian civilization, explore the following sister projects from the Bharat Files Initiative: