Chapter 3
Invasions & Conquests
City by city, temple by temple — the documented march of destruction across northern India.
City by city, temple by temple — the documented march of destruction across northern India.
Qutbuddin Aibak's military campaigns were not random acts of war. They followed a consistent, deliberately ideological pattern: capture a city, demolish its temples and centers of learning, enslave the population, transport loot to the treasury, and build a mosque on the ruins of the most sacred site.
This pattern is documented not once but repeatedly across dozens of cities and campaigns, always by the same court historians celebrating the same "achievements." What follows are detailed accounts of each major campaign.
After capturing Delhi in 1192–1193 CE, Aibak ordered the demolition of 27 Hindu and Jain temples. Their carved stone pillars, walls, and materials were directly incorporated into the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque — the first mosque built in India.
The mosque's own Arabic foundational inscription, still legible at the Qutb Complex in Delhi, records: "This mosque was built after demolition of idol-houses, and on the foundations of demolished temples of the Hindus."
Ajmer, the sacred center of Rajput civilization and home to the famous Saraswati Kantha Abharana Sanskrit college — one of India's great centers of learning — was sacked in 1193 CE.
The mosque built on the ruins of the Sanskrit college still stands in Ajmer today. Visitors can see original Sanskrit inscriptions on its interior walls — inscriptions from the original Sanskrit college, incorporated into and still visible within the mosque that replaced it. This is among the most visible physical evidence of Aibak's cultural destruction.
Varanasi (Banaras/Kashi), the oldest inhabited city in the world and the most sacred city in Hinduism, was sacked following the Battle of Chandawar in 1194 CE. What followed was among the most devastating cultural destructions in Indian history.
Nizami here is celebrating these acts as religious victories. Yet these words — "a thousand temples emptied" — appear in the primary source text of Aibak's own court historian. This is not interpretation or speculation. It is the documented, celebrated reality.
Varanasi was not just any city. It was the spiritual heart of Hinduism — the city of Lord Shiva, home to thousands of temples built over millennia, the center of Sanskrit scholarship, philosophy, and religious practice for all of Hindu India. Its sacking was not a military tactic — it was a deliberate strike at the civilizational soul of India.
In 1195–1197 CE, Aibak led campaigns into Gujarat — then one of India's wealthiest and most culturally advanced regions. The primary target was Anhilwara (modern Patan), the capital of the Solanki Rajputs.
Ferishta records that the Gujarat campaigns yielded an "immense quantity" of gold and silver treasures which were transported back. Gujarat, which had become one of the world's great centers of commerce and culture under the Solanki dynasty, was devastated.
The destruction of Nalanda University in 1193 CE is arguably the single greatest act of cultural destruction in South Asian history. While Bakhtiyar Khilji physically led the attack, he operated entirely under Qutbuddin Aibak's authority as viceroy.
Before Aibak's campaigns, Buddhism had thrived in India for 1,700 years — producing Nalanda, Vikramashila, and the Ajanta-Ellora traditions. Within decades of his campaigns' destruction of Buddhist monasteries, universities, and communities, Buddhism had effectively vanished from the land of its birth. Today, India has among the lowest Buddhist populations despite being Buddhism's birthplace — a direct consequence of Aibak's campaigns.