- Asad al-Dawlah (1) Abū ʿAlī Ṣāliḥ ibn Mirdās ibn Idrīs al-Kilābī.
He was the first of the Mirdasid rulers in Aleppo; he wrested the city from the deputy of al-Ẓāhir ibn al-Ḥākim al-ʿUbaydī in Dhu al-Ḥijjah 417 AH. A large army later marched up from Egypt, battle was joined, and Asad al-Dawlah was killed in 419 AH, whereupon his grandson Naṣr assumed power.
Then the year 421 AH began.
In that year the great king—[the striving warrior and conqueror of the lands of India] Maḥmūd ibn Subuktikīn, may Allah have mercy on him—died. In Rabīʿ al-Awwal of this year the just and militant king, [the frontier defender, the aided and victorious, the “Right Hand of the State,” Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn Subuktikīn], lord of Ghazna, master of those vast dominions, conqueror of most of India by force, breaker of their idols, images and statues (2), vanquisher of their armies and of their supreme ruler single-handedly, passed away.
He had been ill for about two years, during which he never lay upon a bed nor rested his head upon a pillow; rather, he slept sitting up until he died in that very posture—such was his mettle, sternness and resolute will. He was sixty years old. He had appointed his son Muḥammad to succeed him, but the matter did not come to fruition before his brother Masʿūd ibn Maḥmūd pounced upon him (3) and seized their father’s kingdoms, together with all the territories already under his own control and the districts, great and small, that he had himself wrested from the lands of the unbelievers. By the end of this year mastery of those regions, east and west, was firmly in his hands, and envoys arrived to him from every direction and from every gallant monarch bearing greetings, honour, [and complete submission]. Maḥmūd’s full biography will appear later under the obituaries.
That same year the raiding column King Maḥmūd had dispatched to India captured their largest city, called Narsā. Some one hundred thousand cavalry and infantry entered it and looted its perfume-and-jewellery market for an entire day, [yet they could not carry away all it contained of fragrances, musk, gems, pearls and rubies]. Most of the populace remained unaware of anything, so vast was the city: its length equalled a full day’s march on an Indian route, and its breadth was the same. They seized from it wealth, gifts [and furnishings] beyond all reckoning or description, until it was said they divided the gold and silver by the measure. No Muslim army had ever reached this city—neither before that year nor after. [It is one of the richest places in India for prosperity and money; indeed, it is said that no city surpasses it in wealth and provision, despite the unbelief of its people and their worship of idols. So let the believer renounce this world.]