ABSTRACT
The prospect of the world's population passing seven billion has refocused attention on the issues of food supply, finite resources and sustainable population levels (see, for example, Brown 2005: 22–39). This chapter explores similar issues in the context of the so-called ‘Ghūrid interlude’ in Afghanistan (1148–1215 CE; Bosworth 1965: 1103). This period was characterised by the rapid, short-lived expansion of several empires, defined as “any large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign” (Taagepera 1978: 113), involving large-scale population movements and associated socioeconomic upheavals. One example of this is the rapid expansion of the Ghūrids (a term used loosely here to include the pre-eminent Shansabānīd dynasty and their rivals), who emerged as a major military power campaigning as far west as Nīshpur in Iran and as far east as Bengal. The nature of Ghūrid society, its interrelationship with the environment, and how that society and environment were transformed by their imperial experiment provide the focus of this chapter. Multidisciplinary research in the tradition of the Annales School, drawing on archaeological fieldwork, the historical sources and human geography, is ideally suited to investigating the initial success and ultimate failure of the Ghūrid polity to establish a lasting empire.
