Inhumane Islamic Economy

The Inhumane Islamic Economic Model of Prophet Muhammad – The Ghaznavid Empire

The Ghaznavid Empire is particularly relevant as a case study of the inhumane Islamic economic model of Prophet Muhammad. Mahmud of Ghazni conducted 17 invasions of India. Each invasion was primarily plunder‑driven.

Historian Al‑Utbi (who was a contemporary of Mahmud) wrote in his Tarikh‑i‑Yamini that after the Peshawar campaign of 1001–1002 CE, about 500,000 (five hundred thousand) Indians were taken to Ghazni as slaves. The supply of slaves in the Ghazni market became so high that the price of a common laborer fell to just a few dirhams.

When prisoners from India were forced to walk on foot across Afghanistan’s severe winter and mountainous terrain, thousands of captives died on the way due to extreme cold, malnutrition, and exhaustion. Many believe that the name of Afghanistan’s “Hindukush” mountain range is tied to this history of slave deaths, meaning “the land of Hindu death.”

Male slaves were used in mining, fort construction, or directly as “military slaves” (Ghilman/Mamluk) on the battlefield. Because of these dangerous tasks, their average lifespan was very short, and many never had the opportunity to build families.

The fate of the thousands of Indian women taken captive was different. Young and beautiful women were kept in the harems of wealthy individuals and rulers of the Middle East and Central Asia as concubines.

Some modern anthropological and historical research (such as genetic studies or DNA analysis) suggests a theory: during the medieval period (especially in the Ghaznavid and Ghurid eras), the massive number of artisans, musicians, and common people captured or displaced from North India and taken toward Central Asia and Europe later adopted a nomadic lifestyle. Today, the “Roma” or “Gypsy” populations living in Europe and the Middle East show deep genetic and linguistic similarities with the people of North India (Punjab and Rajasthan).

After the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, when the invasions stopped, Ghazni quickly turned into a third‑rate kingdom — because the state had never developed any productive economic structure of its own.

In the picture you see two Roma women; are they the present‑day descendants of those Indian slaves and sex‑slaves who were taken away?