“Uh yes, I thought the fleeing refugees I sent your way made that perfectly clear.”
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The Khwarazmian Empire ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran from 1077 to 1231. It eventually became “the most powerful and aggressively expansionist empire in the Persian lands”, defeating the Seljuk Empire and the Ghurid Empire, even threatening the Abbasid caliphate.
After his father Tekish died, Muhammad II succeeded him. Muhammad led the maximum expansion of the Khwarazmian Empire, extinguishing the Western Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1213, and sweeping aside the Ghurids in 1215 whom they vassalized after the assassination of Muhammad Ghuri.
In 1218, a small contingent of Mongols crossed borders in pursuit of an escaped enemy general. Upon successfully retrieving him, Genghis Khan made contact with the Shah. Genghis was looking to open trade relations, but having heard exaggerated reports of the Mongols, the Shah believed this gesture was only a ploy to invade Khwarazm.
Genghis sent emissaries to Khwarazm to emphasize his hope for a trade road. Muhammad II, in turn, had one of his governors (Inalchuq, his uncle) openly accuse the party of spying, seizing their rich goods and arresting the party.
Trying to maintain diplomacy, Genghis sent an envoy of three men to the shah, to give him a chance to disclaim all knowledge of the governor’s actions and hand him over to the Mongols for punishment. The shah executed the envoy (again, some sources claim one man was executed, some claim all three were), and then immediately had the Mongol merchant party (Muslim and Mongol alike) put to death and their goods seized. These events led Genghis to retaliate with a force of 100,000 to 150,000 men that crossed the Jaxartes in 1219 and sacked the cities of Samarqand, Bukhara, Otrar, and others. Muhammad’s capital city, Gurganj, followed soon after. The Shah Muhammad II of Khwarazm fled and died some weeks later on an island in the Caspian Sea. After conquering the city of Gurganj, the artisans were sent back to Mongolia, young women and children were given to the Mongol soldiers as slaves, and the rest of the population was massacred.
As the Mongols battered their way into Gurganj, Genghis dispatched his youngest son Tolui, at the head of an army, into the western Khwarazmian province of Khorasan. Tolui’s army consisted of somewhere around 50,000 men, which was composed of a core of Mongol soldiers (some estimates place it at 7,000), supplemented by a large body of foreign soldiers, such as Turks and previously conquered peoples in China and Mongolia. The major city to fall to Tolui’s army was the city of Merv. The city held out for 8, but then the city’s governor surrendered the city on Tolui’s promise that the lives of the citizens would be spared. As soon as the city was handed over, however, Tolui slaughtered almost every person who surrendered, in a massacre possibly on a greater scale than that at Gurganj. By spring 1221, the province of Khorasan was under complete Mongol rule.
By 1231, the Mongols had annihilated the entire Khwarazmian Empire. Estimates put Khwarazmian casualties as high as 10–15 million people.
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“Uh yes, I thought the fleeing refugees I sent your way made that perfectly clear.”
The Khwarazmian Empire ruled large parts of present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran from 1077 to 1231. It eventually became “the most powerful and aggressively expansionist empire in the Persian lands”, defeating the Seljuk Empire and the Ghurid Empire, even threatening the Abbasid caliphate.
After his father Tekish died, Muhammad II succeeded him. Muhammad led the maximum expansion of the Khwarazmian Empire, extinguishing the Western Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1213, and sweeping aside the Ghurids in 1215 whom they vassalized after the assassination of Muhammad Ghuri.
In 1218, a small contingent of Mongols crossed borders in pursuit of an escaped enemy general. Upon successfully retrieving him, Genghis Khan made contact with the Shah. Genghis was looking to open trade relations, but having heard exaggerated reports of the Mongols, the Shah believed this gesture was only a ploy to invade Khwarazm.
Genghis sent emissaries to Khwarazm to emphasize his hope for a trade road. Muhammad II, in turn, had one of his governors (Inalchuq, his uncle) openly accuse the party of spying, seizing their rich goods and arresting the party.
Trying to maintain diplomacy, Genghis sent an envoy of three men to the shah, to give him a chance to disclaim all knowledge of the governor’s actions and hand him over to the Mongols for punishment. The shah executed the envoy (again, some sources claim one man was executed, some claim all three were), and then immediately had the Mongol merchant party (Muslim and Mongol alike) put to death and their goods seized. These events led Genghis to retaliate with a force of 100,000 to 150,000 men that crossed the Jaxartes in 1219 and sacked the cities of Samarqand, Bukhara, Otrar, and others. Muhammad’s capital city, Gurganj, followed soon after. The Shah Muhammad II of Khwarazm fled and died some weeks later on an island in the Caspian Sea. After conquering the city of Gurganj, the artisans were sent back to Mongolia, young women and children were given to the Mongol soldiers as slaves, and the rest of the population was massacred.
As the Mongols battered their way into Gurganj, Genghis dispatched his youngest son Tolui, at the head of an army, into the western Khwarazmian province of Khorasan. Tolui’s army consisted of somewhere around 50,000 men, which was composed of a core of Mongol soldiers (some estimates place it at 7,000), supplemented by a large body of foreign soldiers, such as Turks and previously conquered peoples in China and Mongolia. The major city to fall to Tolui’s army was the city of Merv. The city held out for 8, but then the city’s governor surrendered the city on Tolui’s promise that the lives of the citizens would be spared. As soon as the city was handed over, however, Tolui slaughtered almost every person who surrendered, in a massacre possibly on a greater scale than that at Gurganj. By spring 1221, the province of Khorasan was under complete Mongol rule.
By 1231, the Mongols had annihilated the entire Khwarazmian Empire. Estimates put Khwarazmian casualties as high as 10–15 million people.
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