Explanation:
Invasions from Ghazni
The first inroad into the heart of the area which is now Afghanistan was made by Yaqub ibn Lais, the Saffarid, who captured Kabul in 870 and founded Ghazni at about the same time. Kabul was, however, lost by his successor to Hindu rulers known as the Hindu Shahis, whose capital was at Waihind (Ohind), near modern Peshawar, and whose rule extended to Kabul in the west and the Bias River in the east.
In the meanlime the Samanids (874-999) had established themselves [[23]] at Bukhara and gradually brought the greater part of the territory to the east of Baghdad under their sway. Persian in origin, they favored the Persian language. Rudaki, the Chaucer of Persian poetry, flourished at the Samanid court, and Persian replaced Arabic as the official language.
Under the Samanids Turkish slaves gained political and military importance. One of these, Alptigin, rebelled against his Samanid masters and established himself at Ghazni in 962. In 977, Subuktigin, a Turkish slave upon whom Alptigin had bestowed the hand of his daughter, ascended the throne of Ghazni and proceeded to expand his kingdom by annexing adjacent areas in Khurasan, Seistan, and Lamghan. Alarmed at the rising power of the new Turkish principality, Jaipal, Shahi raja of Waihind, took the offensive and advanced toward Subuktigin's capital. The two armies met between Lamghan (modem Jalalabad) and Ghazni. Jaipal was defeated, and was forced to agree to pay a large indemnity to the Turkish ruler. He defaulted and tried to avenge his loss, but he was again decisively defeated, and Subuktigin followed up his success by forcing Jaipal to cede the territory between Lamghan and Peshawar .
Later Muslim historians often represent Subuktigin as a champion of the faith, whose "chief occupation was the propagation of Islam with fire and sword among the idolators of India," but, in fact, he never crossed the Indus, and the only two expeditions in which he took the initiative "were undertaken rather as measures of reprisal and for the purpose of securing his dominion than with any intention of propagating his faith."/1/ Subuktigin, however, paved the way for the more active efforts of his son Mahmud by occupying the key city of Peshawar and building roads leading to the Indian frontiers along which his son marched during his numerous expeditions.
