Mahmud of Ghazni was the son of a Turkish slave, he was born in 971 C.E. and died in 1030 C.E. Mahmud became the ruler of Ghazni in 977, but at the age of 27 Mahmud ascended the throne in 998. Mahmud came to be a great monarch and in more than 20 expeditions that were successful he amassed the wealth with which he would lay the foundation of a very vast empire that included Kashmir, the Punjab, and a great part of Iran. Mahmud vowed to invade India once every year. The first invasion began in 1001 and the last ended in 1026. The first expeditions were against the Punjab and northeastern India, while in the last invasion Mahmud reached Somnath on the southern coast of Gujarat. In 1001, Mahmud marched into India with 15,000 horse troops, Jayapala, the ruler of the Punjab, met him with 12,000 horse troops, 30,000 foot soldiers, and 300 elephants. In this invasion Mahmud was victorious. With this victory Mahmud advanced into the heart of India.

In 1024 Mahmud set out on his last famous invasion to the southern coast of Kathiawar along the Arabian Sea, where he destroyed the city of Somnath and its Hindu temple. Mahmud returned home in 1026, the last years of his life were spent fighting the Central Asian tribes that were threatening his empire. Mahmud died in 1030 C.E.

He was the third ruler of the Turkish Slave Dynasty, he led to a series of expeditions that started nearly two centuries of Muslim raiding and conquest in northern India. Drawn by the legendary wealth of the subcontinent and a zeal to spread the Muslim faith, Mahmud repeatedly raided northwest India in the first decades of the 11th century. He defeated one confederation of Hindu princes after another, and he drove deeper and deeper into the subcontinent in the quest of ever richer temples to loot.