High Middle Ages · Central Asia · Politics

1139

Ghurid dynasty consolidates in Afghanistan

1139

In the rugged mountain valleys of Ghor in central Afghanistan, the chieftains of the Shansabani clan consolidated a growing kingdom wedged between the declining Ghaznavids to the east and the fragmenting Seljuk periphery to the west. Their remote highland capital at Firuzkuh, the Turquoise Mountain, would soon launch the devastating campaigns that brought Islam to the Gangetic plain and effectively ended Buddhist civilization in India.