of a true Muslim... [he] returned to Ghazna laden with costly spoils from the Hindu temples." Al-Biruni obliquely criticizes these raids for "ruining the prosperity" of India, creating antagonism among the Hindus for "all foreigners", and triggering an exodus of scholars of Hindu sciences far away from regions "conquered by us". Mahmud launched many plunder campaigns into India, including one that included the sack of Somnath temple. According to Jamal Malik – a South Asian history and Islamic Studies scholar, "the destruction of Somnath temple, a well known place of pilgrimage in Gujarat in 1026, played a major role in creating Mahmud as an "icon of Islam", the sack of this temple became "a crucial topic in Persian stories of Islamic iconoclasm". Many Muslim historians and scholars in and after the 11th-century included the destruction of Somnath as a righteous exemplary deed in their publications. It inspired the Persian side with a cultural memory of Somnath's destruction through "epics of conquest", while to the Hindu side, Somnath inspired tales of recovery, rebuilding and "epics of resistance". These tales and chronicles in Persia elevated Mahmud as "the exemplary hero and Islamic warrior for the Muslims", states Malik, while in India Mahmud emerged as the exemplary "arch-enemy". Powerful legends with intricate detail developed in the Turko-Persian literature regarding Mahmud's raid, which "electrified" the Muslim world according to scholar Meenakshi Jain. According to historian Cynthia Talbot, a later tradition states that "50,000 devotees lost their lives in trying to stop Mahmud" during his sack of Somnath temple. According to Thapar, the "50000 killed" is a boastful claim that is "constantly reiterated" in Muslim texts, and becomes a "formulaic" figure of deaths to help highlight "Mahmud’s legitimacy in the eyes of established Islam". Kumarapala (r. 1143–72) rebuilt the Somnath temple in "excellent stone and studded it with jewels," according to an inscription in 1169. He replaced a decaying wooden temple. During its 1299 invasion of Gujarat, Alauddin Khalji's army, led by Ulugh Khan, defeated the Vaghela king Karna, and sacked the Somnath temple. Legends in the later texts Kanhadade Prabandha (15th century) and Nainsi ri Khyat (17th century) state that the Jalore ruler Kanhadadeva later recovered the Somnath idol and freed the Hindu prisoners, after an attack on the Delhi army near Jalore. However, other sources state that the idol was taken to Delhi, where it was thrown to be trampled under the feet