Maḥmud Ibn Sebuktegin or Mahmud of Ghazni (Persian: محمود غزنوی‎; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030) or Mahmud Ghaznavi was the first independent ruler of the Turkic dynasty of Ghaznavids, ruling from 999 to 1030. At the time of his death, his kingdom had been transformed into an extensive military empire, which extended from northwestern Iran proper to the Punjab in the Indian subcontinent, Khwarazm in Transoxiana, and Makran.

Mahmud was born in the town of Ghazni in the region of Zabulistan (now present-day Afghanistan) on 2 November 971. His father, Sebuktegin, was a Turkic slave commander who laid foundations to the Ghaznavid dynasty in Ghazni in 977, which he ruled as a subordinate of the Samanids, who ruled Khorasan and Transoxiana. Mahmud’s mother was the daughter of an Iranian aristocrat from Zabulistan, and is therefore known in some sources as Mahmud-i Zavuli (“Mahmud from Zabulistan”). Not much about Mahmud’s early life is known, other than that he was a school-fellow of Ahmad Maymandi, a Persian native of Zabulistan and foster brother of his.