Muhammad of Ghor

Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam ruled the eastern half of the Ghurid empire from 1173, governing from Ghazni while his elder brother held the western lands from Firozkoh. He pushed east of the Indus in 1175, taking Multan and Uch within a year, then was routed near Mount Abu by a Rajput coalition led by Mularaja and forced to rethink his approach. By 1186 he had uprooted the Ghaznavids and secured the Khyber Pass. In 1191 Prithviraj Chauhan wounded him and turned back his forces at Tarain; Muhammad returned a year later with mounted archers, won decisively on the same ground, and executed Prithviraj. He delegated expansion to slave commanders who carried Ghurid influence to Bengal, then inherited the whole empire in 1203 when his brother died. A crushing defeat by the Khwarazmians at Andkhud cost him most of Khurasan; he was preparing a counteroffensive across the Oxus when a Khokhar revolt pulled him back to the Salt Range. On 15 March 1206, riding home along the Indus, he was assassinated by Ismaili agents while praying - his empire west of the river collapsed within a decade, but Qutbuddin Aibak held the east and founded the Delhi Sultanate.