under the leadership of Tughril Beg and his brother Dāwud, who routed him, seized his treasuries, and he escaped by mounting a specially trained, swift war-elephant he kept for such occasions. He fled on it with only a handful of pages; the beast was so massive that scarcely any horse could overtake it.
He then stayed on in Ghazna, giving himself over to pleasure, and Khurasan slipped from his grasp. Determined to take up residence in India with his household and troops, he set the plan in motion in the winter of 432 AH, driven by the bitter cold of Ghazna. He also took with him his brother Muḥammad, whose eyes had been put out.
When he reached the Indus, he made camp on its banks, persisted in drunkenness, and settled in a fortress nearby. Some elements of the army seized him, humiliated him, deposed him, and proclaimed the blinded Muḥammad sultan.
Muḥammad arrested him and said, “I shall repay you for what you did to me; choose a place where you and your retinue would like to stay.” He chose a fortress, and Muḥammad sent him there with every outward mark of honor.
Yet Muḥammad’s own son, together with a group of followers, conspired against Masʿūd. They surprised him at night and killed him in fury, then brought his head to the newly enthroned, blinded sultan. Muḥammad wept, became enraged with his son, and invoked a curse upon him.
Maudūd ibn Masʿūd was then in Ghazna, ten days’ march away. He hurried forth with five thousand men, attacked Muḥammad by night, killed several commanders, apprehended his uncle Muḥammad, and executed the twelve men who had murdered his father. He then put his uncle Muḥammad to death as well (1).
- Ibn al-Tubbayz ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ḥalabī
The shaykh, long-lived and authoritative transmitter, Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥalabī, also known as al-Sarrāj (“the lamp-maker”) and al-Rāmī (“the archer”), commonly called Ibn al-Tubbayz; he was a resident of Damascus.