For this reason, O my friend, I said to pleasures, “Vanish!” (1)
I have taken care and sorrow as my share of this world.
O my life and my death, my illness and my healer (2),
Be bountiful to a lover aflame, and grant him of Your vast, boundless grace (3).
His passing was recorded as having occurred when ten days of Jumada I remained in this same year, and he was buried in the Mosque of al-Qadam.
al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Khalīʿ, the poet (4), left behind an elegant and pleasing dīwān of verse. He lived to a great age, and in this year he died, advanced in years.
The great king, the just martyr, Maḥmūd ibn Subuktikīn, Abū al-Qāsim—styled Yamīn al-Dawlah and Amīn al-Millah—lord of Ghaznah and its environs (5). His troops were known as “the Sāmānīs.” His father had ruled them and, upon his death in 387 AH, this Maḥmūd succeeded him. He governed his subjects with equity, bore the burdens of Islam to perfection, and opened many lands in India and beyond. His stature grew throughout the world; his dominion widened, his subjects increased, and his days were lengthened—thanks to his justice, his striving, and the favor Allah granted him. Throughout all his territories the Friday sermon was delivered in the name of the Abbasid caliph al-Qādir bi’Llāh. Envoys of the Fāṭimids from Egypt would come to him with letters, gifts, and precious offerings, seeking his allegiance, but he would tear up their letters, reject their presents, and burn their robes.
In India he achieved conquests of astounding magnitude such as no king before or after him attained. He captured spoils beyond count—gold, pearls, and captives in numbers beyond reckoning. He smashed their idols, images, and statues in vast quantities, even taking the ornaments that adorned them—may Allah brighten his face. We have set out the details of these feats earlier, year by year. Among the idols he broke was a colossal deity of the Indians called Somnath, from which he obtained twenty million dinars’ worth of gold. He also broke the power of the great Indian king named Jibyāl (6), subdued the supreme Turkic ruler known as Ilig Khān, and annihilated the Sāmānid kingdom, though they had reigned in Khurasan for a full century.