Mongol invasion and accession

Genghis Khan had chosen to ignore a skirmish between the Mongol general Jochi and the Shah, in which Jalal al-Din's military acumen had saved the Shah from a humiliating defeat.^[5]: 255 However, he could not ignore the seizure of a trade caravan in Otrar and subsequent execution of Mongol envoys in Gurganj.^[6] War between the two new neighbours was inevitable.^[7]: 111 The Khan commanded a skilled and disciplined army: the precise size of it is heavily disputed, but most agree on around 75,000 to 200,000 soldiers.^[8]: 404 The Khwarazmshah, meanwhile, faced many problems.^{[lower-alpha 1]} His empire was vast and newly formed, with a still-developing administration.^[8]: 404 In addition, his mother Terken Khatun still wielded substantial power in the realm – one historian termed the relationship between the Shah and his mother as 'an uneasy diarchy', which often acted to Muhammad's disadvantage.^{[10]: 14–15} The Shah also distrusted most of his commanders, with the only exception being Jalal al-Din. If he had sought open battle, as many of his commanders wished, he would certainly have been greatly outmatched in quantity of troops, let alone quality.^[11] The Shah thus made the decision to distribute his forces as garrison troops inside his most important towns, such as Samarkand, Merv and Nishapur.^{[6][12]: 238} Meanwhile, the Shah raised taxes to raise a field army, with whom he would harass the besieging Mongol forces.^[7]: 113

However, through a combination of excellent manoeuvering and planning, the Mongols managed to carve a path of destruction through Khwarazmia. Otrar fell, and Bukhara was taken, as was Samarkand. Genghis Khan then sent an army under his elite generals Jebe and Subutai specifically to pursue the Shah; although Muhammad, accompanied by Jalal-al Din and two other sons, managed to escape, he was prevented from gathering any forces as his empire collapsed around him.^[7]: 120 Fleeing to the loyal region of Khorasan, the Shah died destitute on an island in the Caspian Sea.^[8]: 419 Jalal al-Din would later claim that his father had appointed him as his successor on his deathbed. Meanwhile, the Mongols had occupied all of Transoxania, and had invaded Tocharistan, Guzgan and Gharchistan during the latter half of 1220.

Jalal ad-Din rode to Gurganj, a city reportedly housing 90,000 soldiers, and found the city in turmoil.^[8]: 432 The city's nobility, like Terken Khatun, were not prepared to accept Jalal ad-Din as Shah, preferring the more malleable Uzlaq, and planned a coup against al-Din.^[7]: 123 Al-Din left the capital after being warned of the coup, accompanied by Timur Malik and 300 cavalry.^[8]: 432 Crossing the Karakum desert, he attacked the garrison of a Mongol detachment at Nesa, killing most of the force including two brothers of Toghachar, son in law of Genghis Khan.^[5]: 295 The Mongols pursued, past Nishapur and Herat, but lost the trail before Ghazni, where al-Din found 50,000 loyalists waiting for him. After a few days, he was joined by his maternal uncle Temur Malik, who brought an additional 30,000 veterans – al-Din now had a sizeable force with which to strike back at the Mongols.^{[5]: 303–4} Meanwhile, back in Khwarazm, Gurganj, Merv, Balkh, and Nishapur had all been taken by the Mongol forces.^{[9]: 150–2}

Battles at Parwan and the Indus

Battle of the Indus: Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah crossing the rapid Indus River on horseback, escaping Genghis Khan and the Mongol army.

Jalal al-Din, who had just married Temur Malik's daughter to solidify ties, marched towards Kandahar which was under siege by a Mongol army and defeated them after a two-day battle.^[7]: 127 In autumn 1221, he then moved north to Parwan and attacked a besieging army north of Charikar; the numerically inferior Mongols lost 1,000 and retreated across the river, destroying the bridge.^[8]: 442 Genghis sent an army numbering between thirty and forty-five thousand under Shigi Qutuqu to confront the Shah. The Battle of Parwan was fought on a rock-strewn, narrow valley which was unsuitable for the Mongol cavalry, and the Muslims fought dismounted until the final charge led by Jalal ad-Din, who personally commanded the center, resulting in the repulsion of the Mongols.^[13] This battle made Jalal al-Din's reputation; however, he soon lost half of his army through infighting: the sources report a dispute over booty between Temur Malik and Ighrak, commander of the right flank.^[2]

Jalal al-Din had won several victories against the Mongols in 1221, and after the Battle of Parwan, independent insurgency groups emerged in multiple cities inspired by his deeds. Kushteghin Pahlawan launched a revolt in Merv and ousted the Mongol administration; he then made a successful attack on Bukhara, while Herat also rebelled. These revolts would be crushed by the Mongols, and many atrocities perpetuated as retribution.

Genghis Khan, now at Bamiyan, did not take this defeat lightly. After executing that fortress, he made his way eastwards to confront Jalal al-Din, using his powers of organisation to send detachments out to prevent the disparate Khwarazmid factions from uniting, one of whom al-Din managed to isolate and defeat.^{[9]: 132 [7]: 128} Al-Din knew he had no chance of winning against Genghis in a pitched battle with his diminished army and after attempts to win back Ighrak and his men failed, he marched towards India.^{[8]: 445 [5]: 307} The Khan's army managed to surround al-Din's army on the banks of the River Indus and crushed them in the ensuing battle in November 1221.^[8]: 446 The Shah escaped the battle by jumping into the river fully armed, and reaching the other shore.^[5]: 309 This act of desperation is said to have drawn the admiration of Genghis Khan, who forbade Mongols to pursue the Shah or shoot him with arrows. The Shah's surviving troops were however slaughtered, along with his harem and children.^{[9]: 133–4}

Indian subcontinent

After the battle of Indus, Jalal al-Din crossed the Indus and settled in India. A local prince, who had six thousand men attacked Jalal al-Din's makeshift forces of no more than four thousand, but al-Din still triumphed, greatly enhancing his Indian appeal.^{[4]: chapter 38 [14]} He then sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi but Iltutmish denied this to him because of al-Din's poor relationship with the Abbasid caliphs; he did however give one of his daughters to al-Din as a peace offering.^[5]: 310 The Khan sent Dorbei Doqshin with two tumens to pursue al-Din, whom he still regarded as a threat, in early 1222; one account has Doqshin fail to secure al-Din, and return to the Khan in Samarkand, who was so infuriated Doqshin was sent out at once on the same task.^[9]: 141 Meanwhile, al-Din was quarrelling with local princes, but was mostly victorious when it came to battle.^[14]

Under Doqshin's leadership, the Mongol army took Nandana from one of the lieutenants of Jalal ad-Din, sacked it, then proceeded to besiege the larger Multan. The Mongol army managed to breach the wall but the city was defended successfully by the Khwarezmians; due to the hot weather, the Mongols were forced to retreat after 42 days. Peter Jackson suggests that Doqshin, having been instructed not to return unsuccessfully, eventually converted to Islam and joined al-Din.^[14] The rest of al-Din's three years in exile in India were spent in taking large parts of Lahore and the Punjab; he returned to Persia at the behest of his brother Ghiyath al-Din Pirshah, who still controlled parts of Persia, in late 1223.^[14]

Persia and Georgia

Having gathered an army and entered Persia, Jalal ad-Din sought to re-establish the Khwarazm kingdom, but he never fully consolidated his power. In 1224, he confirmed Burak Hadjib, ruler of the Qara Khitai, in Kerman, and received the submission of his brother Ghiyath, who had established himself in Hamadan and Isfahan, and the province of Fars, and clashed with the Caliph An Nasser in Khuzestan, from whom he captured parts of Western Iran. The next year, he dethroned the Uzbek Muzaffar al-Din, ruler of the Eldiguzids, and set himself up in their capital of Tabriz on 25 July 1225. That same year, he attacked Georgia, defeating its forces in the battle of Garni, and conquered Tbilisi,^[12]: 260 after which a hundred thousand citizens were allegedly put to death for not renouncing Christianity.

Jalal ad-Din spent the rest of his days struggling against the Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuqs of Rûm. His dominance in the region required year-after-year campaigning. In 1226, Burak Hadjib, the governor of Kerman and al-Din's father-in-law, rebelled against him, but after al-Din marched against him he was subdued. Jalal ad-Din then had a brief victory over the Seljuqs and captured the town of Akhlat in Turkey from the Ayyubids. In 1227, after the death of Genghis Khan, a new Mongol army commanded by Chormagan was sent to invade al Din's lands; they were met near Dameghan and defeated.^[15] In August 1228, a new Mongol army under the leadership of Taymas Noyan invaded the re-established kingdom. Jalal al-Din met them near Isfahan and the two armies battled. The Mongols scored a pyrrhic victory in this battle, unable to exploit their victory as they had no power left to advance.^[15] The same year, his brother Ghiyath al-Din rebelled but was defeated. Ghiyath al-Din fled to Kerman where he and his mother were killed. The revived Khwarazmshah by this time controlled Kerman, Tabriz, Isfahan and Fars. Jalal ad-Din moved against Ahlat again in 1229. However, he was defeated in this campaign by Sultan Kayqubad I at the Battle of Yassıçemen in 1230, from whence he escaped to Diyarbakır.^[16]

Death

Through the ruler of Alamut, the Mongols learned that Jalal ad-Din had recently been defeated; the Nizari Ismaili Assassins sent a letter to Ögedei Khan, proposing joint operation against Jalal al-Din.^{[5]: 392–3} Ögedei Khan sent a new army of 30,000 – 50,000 men under the command of Chormagan and the remaining Khwarazmians, whose numbers were in hundreds, were swept away by the new Mongol army, which occupied Northern Iran.^[17] Jalal ad-Din took refuge in the Silvan mountains and there in August he was killed by a Kurd who claimed that he was avenging his brother, who had been killed in Ahlat.^[18]

Jalal al-Din's kingdom swiftly collapsed after his death; his nobles squabbled over territory and would be overcome easily by the Mongols. Several thousand, however, took up service with the princes of Anatolia and Syria to escape the Mongols. They continued to be a force in Syrian politics until their destruction in 1246.^[14] His daughter, Turkan, would grow up in the court of Ögedei Khan and then Hulagu Khan, who married her to the governor of Mosul.

Some pretenders to the name of Jalal al-Din arose after his death. In 1236, the founder and the leader of an insurgency in Mazandaran claimed he was Jalal al-Din. After he was defeated, the Mongols verified that his claim was false, and he was executed. In the year 1254, a leader of a merchant group claimed he was Jalal al-Din; detained and tortured, he asserted he was truthful until his death.^[19]

Cultural influence

Jalal al-Din was the subject of the Uzbek-Turkish TV series Mendirman Jaloliddin, created by Mehmet Bozdağ in collaboration with the Uzbek Ministry of Culture and Sports, where he was played by Emre Kıvılcım.^[24] A sculpture of him by Saragt Babaýew won a national competition in 2015, receiving a prize from the president of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.^[25]

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Barthold W. (1968). Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (third ed.). Messers. Luzac and Company Ltd.
• J. A. Boyle, ed. (1968). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-06936-6.
• Bregel, Yuri (2003). A Historical Atlas of Central Asia. Brill, Boston. OCLC 938109618.
• Buniyatov, Z.M. (2015). A History of The Khorezmian State under the Anushteginids 1097 – 1231. IICAS Samarkand. ISBN 978-9943-357-21-1.
• Cahen, Claude (1971). "ʿAbdallaṭīf al-Baghdādī et les Khwārizmiens". In Clifford Edmund Bosworth (ed.). Iran and Islam: In Memory of the Late Vladimir Minorsky. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 149–166. ISBN 9780852242001.
• Grousset, Rene (2005). The Empire of The Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-0627-1.
• Jackson, Peter (2017). The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300227284. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1n2tvq0. (registration required)
• Juvaini, Ala-ad-Din Ata-Malik (1997). Genghis Khan History of the World Conqurer. Translated by Boyle, J.A. (third ed.). Mancherter University Press. ISBN 0-7190-5144-4.
• Bosworth, C. Edmund (2008). "Jalāl-al-Din Mengübirni". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume XIV/4: Jade III–Jamalzadeh, Mohammad-Ali II. Work. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 404–405. ISBN 978-1-934283-04-2.
• Lane, George E. (2012). "The Mongols in Iran". In Daryaee, Touraj (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–432. ISBN 978-0-19-987575-7.
• Mclynn, Frank (2015). Genghis Khan His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy. DA Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-82396-1.
• Paul, Jürgen (2017). "Jalāl al-Dīn Mangburnī". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
• Tanner, Stephen (2002). Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander The Great to the Fall of The Taliban. DA CAPO Press. ISBN 0-306-81233-9.