The first battle of Tarain was fought between __________ and __________.

The Battles of Tarain were two decisive clashes fought near Tarain (present-day Taraori, Haryana) between the Chahamana (Chauhan) ruler of Ajmer-Delhi and the Ghurid invader from Afghanistan, in 1191 and 1192; together they mark the turning point that opened northern India to Ghurid, and later Turkic Sultanate, rule.

In the First Battle of Tarain (1191), Prithviraj Chauhan defeated the forces of Muhammad of Ghor and forced him to retreat; the two rulers involved in this encounter were therefore Prithviraj Chauhan and Muhammad of Ghor.

This is corroborated by what followed: Muhammad of Ghor returned the very next year and defeated Prithviraj Chauhan at the Second Battle of Tarain (1192) — the same two adversaries met in both encounters, confirming that Prithviraj Chauhan and Muhammad of Ghor were the two sides at Tarain in 1191.

• Iltutmish and Muhammad of Ghor: Iltutmish was a former slave-commander of Qutub-ud-din Aibak who became the third Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate's Slave dynasty only in 1211, two decades after the 1191 battle; he was not a participant in it.

• Qutub-ud-din Aibak and Iltutmish: both were Turkic slave-generals who later became Sultans of Delhi (Aibak founded the Slave dynasty in 1206, Iltutmish succeeded him in 1211); neither commanded at the 1191 battle, which predates the Sultanate's founding.

• Iltutmish and Prithviraj Chauhan: Prithviraj Chauhan did fight at Tarain, but his opponent there was Muhammad of Ghor, not Iltutmish, who rose to power only after Ghor's death in 1206.