Three kilometres north of Ghazni at the village of Rauza stands the tomb of Sultan Mahmud, the most powerful ruler of the Ghaznavid Empire and the man who turned Ghazni from a frontier garrison into one of the cultural capitals of the Islamic world. The original mausoleum was built shortly after his death in 1030; the current low-domed structure incorporates surviving 11th-century carved marble panels and a famous inscribed cenotaph.
Around the tomb stand smaller shrines to Mahmud's relatives and to his court poets, including a tradition that Ferdowsi, author of the Persian Shahnameh, came here and was disappointed by the sultan's meanness with payment. The site is a place of local pilgrimage. The British 1842 looting of the gates is still remembered locally.