The Berzin archives are quite interesting and it seems to show the overall Islam-Buddhist interactions in positive light written by a Buddhist scholar. Thanks to Justin Joseph for linking this site.
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The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire ? 18 The Ghaznavids and Seljuqs
Al-Biruni, the Persian historian who accompanied Mahmud’s invasion of the Indian subcontinent, spoke favorably of Buddhism and wrote that Indians referred to Buddha as a “Prophet.” Perhaps this indicates his familiarity with the Middle Persian term burxan, meaning prophet, used for “Buddha” in Sogdian and Uighur Buddhist texts, and earlier in Manichaean texts for all prophets. It may also indicate, however, that the Buddhists were accepted as “people of the Book” and, along with the Hindus and Jains, afforded protected subject dhimmi status after the initial destruction.
Further evidence to support this second conclusion is that the Ghaznavids did not persecute Buddhism in their earlier holdings in Sogdia, Bactria, or Kabul. In 982, Buddhist frescoes were still visible in Nava Vihara and the colossal Buddha figures carved in the cliffs of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan were still undamaged. Al-Biruni reported many Buddhist monasteries still functioning on the southern borders of Sogdia at the turn of the millennium.
Like the Samanids before them, the Ghaznavids promoted Persian culture.
Both Persian and Arabic literature, from the ninth through the twelfth centuries, abounded with references to the beauty of the Buddhist monuments, indicating that monasteries and mosques functioned peacefully, side by side. For example, Asadi Tusi described the splendor of Subahar Monastery of Kabul in his 1048 work, Garshasp Name. Persian poetry often used the simile for palaces that they were as beautiful as a “Nawbahar” (Nava Vihara).
Buddha images, particularly of Maitreya, the future Buddha, were depicted at Nava Vihara and Bamiyan with moon discs behind their heads. This led to the poetic depiction of pure beauty as someone having “the moon-shaped face of a Buddha.” Thus in eleventh century Persian poems, such as Varqe and Golshah by Ayyuqi, the Pahlavi word bot, deriving from the earlier Sogdian term purt, is used with a positive connotation for “Buddha,” not with its second, derogatory meaning as “idol.” It implies the ideal of asexual beauty, and is applied equally to both men and women.
It is unclear whether the Arabic word al-budd derives from the Persian or was coined directly at the time of the Umayyad conquest of Sindh. Originally, the Umayyads used the term for both Buddhist and Hindu images, as well as the temples that contained them. Occasionally, they used it as well for any non-Muslim temple, including Zoroastrian, Christian, and Jewish. Later, however, it too came to have both a positive and a negative meaning as “Buddha” and “idol.”
All these references indicate that either Buddhist monasteries and images were present in these Iranian cultural areas at least through the early Mongol period in the thirteenth century or, at minimum, that a strong Buddhist legacy remained for centuries among the Buddhist converts there to Islam. If the Ghaznavids tolerated Buddhism in their non-Indian lands and even patronized literary works extolling its art, it seems unlikely, then, that their long-term policy on the subcontinent was one of conversion by the sword. As with the Umayyads, the Ghaznavid manner of conquest was not the same as their manner of rule.
As per Indian members these are only source of your worship to god. It helps you imagine the god in mind and you offer your prayers accordingly
