Around AD 1000 Mahmud Ghaznavi invaded India and plundered Thanesar. That tempted other invading armies to march on its soil in the following centuries. The last hundred miles of the Royal road to Delhi, the key to the control of India, lay through Haryana.
It was at Taraoti, near Karnal, in 1192, that Prithviraj Chauhan was defeated and slainy Muhammad Ghori. Babar fought his decisive battle at Panipat in 1526. Thirty years late Akbar fought the second Battle of Panipat. In 1761 the Marathas lost their final bid to control Delha when they were defeated by Ahmed Shah Abdali. A few meters off the national highway lies the tomb of Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi, the only Delhi ruler to have died in battle.
The runs of the Mukhlisgrah fort in the foothills of the Siwalik bear witness to the dirst Sikh republic of Banda Bahadur Bauragi. A few miles away, at Sadhaura, is the mizar of the Musilm Sufi saint who fought on the side of the Tenth Sikh Guru in the latter’s war against the Mughals.
At Agroha, in Hissar, reigned the progenitor of Agrawal Banias of Maharaja Agrasen. In Gurgaon’s Mewat are still found some of those Muslims of India who take as much pride in their pre-Islamic culture as in their Islamic faith. Bhiwani has given India some of itiggesous Marwaris. Haryana was also the birthplace of Sri Ram who created one of the biggest industrial empires of India.