Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin: A Study, from which the following column is extracted, is a 1927 publication brought out by the Aligarh Muslim University, where Mohammad Habib was Professor of History and Politics. Habib´s book deals with the Muslim world of the tenth century and the career of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. I am not aware that I have been inspired by any sympathy or antipathy towards the great conqueror, Prof Habib wrote in his preface.
No honest historian should seek to hide, and no Mussalman acquainted with his faith will try to justify, the wanton destruction of temples that followed in the wake of the Ghaznavide army. Contemporary as well as later historians do not attempt to veil the nefarious acts but relate them with pride. It is easy to twist one´s conscience; and we know only too well how easy it is to find a religious justification for what people wish to do from worldly motives.
Islam sanctioned neither the vandalism nor the plundering motives of the invader; no principle known to the Shariat justified the uncalled-for attack on Hindu princes who had done Mahmud and his subjects no harm; the shameless destruction of places of worship is condemned by the law of every creed. And yet Islam, though it was not an inspiring motive, could be utilised as a posteriori justification of what had been done.
It was not difficult to mistake the spoliation of non-Muslim populations for a service to Islam, and persons to whom the argument was addressed found it too much in consonance with the promptings of their own passions to examine it critically. So the precepts of the Quran were misinterpreted or ignored and the tolerant policy of the Second Caliph was cast aside, in order that Mahmud and his myrmidons might be able to plunder Hindu temples with a clear and untroubled conscience.