Malik Ahmed Ayāz bin Aymāq Abu'n-Najm (Persian: ملک احمد ایاز بن ایماق ابن نجم; d. 1041), was a slave from Georgia[1][2] who rose to the rank of officer and general in the army of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.

He also added many important features, such as a masonry fort, which he built in the period of 1037–1040 on the ruins of the previous one, demolished in the fighting, and city gates (as recorded by Munshi Sujan Rae Bhandari, author of the Khulasatut Tawarikh (1596 C.E.).

[6] However, contemporary Ghaznavid authors like Al Biruni, Gardizi, Farrukhi and Bayhaqi make no mention of a romantic relationship between Mahmud and Ayaz,[7] rather describing Ayaz as either a commander, a noble or a close associate of Sultan Mahmud.

Aruzi tells a highly dramatized story in which Mahmud, due to being a pious Muslim, suppresses his feelings and refuses to act upon them, resulting in an incident in which Mahmud orders Ayaz to cut off his tresses, so that he would less attracted to him thus be able to better restrain himself from committing a sin.

[8] Amjad Farid Sabri, the slain Qawwal of Pakistan performed a song dedicated to Malik Ayaz, which praises the man for his feudalistic loyalty to Mahmud of Ghazni, the song also mentions Ajmer Sharif Dargah and how it attracts female devotees with the same devotion.