History is infinitely elastic. The actions of one person in any age cause ripples that affect the lives of thousands who live downstream. Mahmud of Ghazna is important in Islamic history because his actions set the tone for the interaction between the world of Islam and the world of the Hindus. The tone of that interaction created a bitterness that has been exploited by extremists in the...

Summary: History needs men and women of thought and those of action. In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Arabs, Persians, Spaniards and Africans had laid the intellectual foundation of Islam. In the 10th century, the Turks provided the primal energy to renew Islamic civilization and supplied the men and women of action who propelled it for over a thousand years. The Turks tower over the...

A divided Islamic world offered feeble resistance to the Crusaders who consolidated their hold on the eastern Mediterranean and imposed their fiefdoms on the region. The Seljuks, preoccupied with defending their eastern flank against the Afghan Ghaznavids, had thinned out their western defenses. The pagan Turkish tribes across the Amu Darya on the northeastern frontiers were a constant menace....